Disclaimer: I don't own x-men evolution.
"Starting now I'm the king of New York!" Jamie sang at the top of his lungs while he danced around the living room.
"We need to start hiding the pixie sticks Chuck" Logan said as Bobby and Amara joined in with Jamie.
"I believe you are right Logan." Professor X said sagely as he rolled past the room with Logan.
"Holy cow it's a miracle" they sang.
"What is wrong with you guys?" Roberto asked as he came in the room with Tabitha.
"It's Newsies." Bobby answered.
"Alright Newsies!" Tabitha shouted as she jumped on the coach and started dancing with one of the many Jamies.
"The what?"
"Newsies Roberto, it's like the greatest movie ever. They all have these cute little accents and they sing and they dance and Spot is sooo cute" Amara gushed.
"Oh yeah, gotta love Brooklyn!" Tabby shouted as she gave Amara a high-five.
"You're all crazy" he said with a sigh as he went to leave.
"Was ist all this noise?" Kurt said teleporting in front of Roberto.
"Agh! Don't do that!" Roberto cried as he attempted to leave again.
"What is with this racket?" Rouge cried as she appeared in the doorway nearly hitting Roberto.
"Watch it Rouge!"
"You watch it sunshine." She snapped back. "Hey is this Newsies, I love this movie." She walked over to join the other dancing mutants while Kurt tried to make them all hush so he could hear the movie.
Roberto sighed as he tried once again to leave the living room.
"Where the hell were you guys?" Scott yelled right in Roberto's face as he rounded the corner.
"Chill Scott, we're watching a movie." One of the new mutants replied.
"I was stuck in school for nine hours without my shades and not a single one of you came looking for me!"
"Hey Scott, we said shut-up! Newsies is on." Tabby shouted. Scott just stood there in quiet anger.
"I had to wait for the janitors to find me so they could call the institute to take me home." He said in a cold even tone causing Roberto to back even more from the door in fear.
"Oh hey Scott when did you get here?" Sam asked as he came up behind Scott. Scott just turned and gave Sam the 'look-of-death'. "Never mind." Sam said nervously as he started backing away "hey is this Newsies? Cool." He said as he pushed past Scott, all fear of being blasted away quickly forgotten.
"I just can't win." Scott said with a sigh as he hung his head in defeat and headed up to his room.
"I just want to get out of this room." Roberto said to himself, afraid to approach the doorway because he didn't know who else would pop out in front of him.
* * *
"So what is this genius plan of yours Pietro?" Lance asked as he scowled at the other mutant. The Brotherhood, minus Todd, was sitting around the kitchen table looking extremely bored.
"Patience, patience, I'll tell you shortly."
"Did I just hear the word 'patience' come out of Pietro?" Freddy asked in disbelief. Pietro just shot him a mock-hurt look.
"What are we waiting for again?" Wanda asked yawning.
"Some important people now hush." Pietro said with annoyance, the B-Hood had been asking questions for the past hour.
"Whoa, it's not Todd is it?" Lance asked in disbelief.
"No" Pietro responded with a laugh. Just then the doorbell rang. "Got it" he yelled as ran to the front door. The others remained waiting for their 'mystery' guests to show up. Pietro zipped back and plopped into his seat followed by Ray and Kitty.
"What are they doing here?" Lance asked jumping to his feet.
"Nice to see you too, Lance." Kitty said with a wry smile.
"Ray here is in charge or our next Mutant Pride rally and Kitty, well Kitty is here just to sneak Ray in and out of the mansion." Pietro explained.
"Thanks Pietro, I feel so special." Kitty replied sarcastically as she sat down next to Lance.
"So what does Ray have to do with the 'no mutants' announcement?" Wanda asked.
"Because we are going to throw a bigger and better rally." Pietro explained giving them his best politician smile.
"And that does…" Lance prompted.
"Sigh, I'm surrounded by morons" Pietro said dramatically "except you Wanda" he added quickly.
"Look" Ray cut in "we're gonna have a huge pro-mutant rally anyways, with the Brotherhood and the X-men, so why not do it at the same time as the pep rally that excludes us?"
"So basically it's going to be us mutants protesting." Wanda said with a look that clearly indicated she wasn't interested.
"Uh-uh." Pietro rose shaking his head "this boy doesn't play second fiddle and neither do his events. We have our rally and we make it so big and so grand that not a single soul, except Kelly, will show up at the other one. In fact it will be so big that even people who don't go to our school will show."
"And the real beauty is that it will be billed as a pro-mutant rally, so when the press hear about it they'll see hundreds of people at a Mutant Pride rally supporting us." Ray finished giving the assembled Brotherhood knowing looks.
"Why tell us?" Lance asked "this sounds like your guy's brain child."
"It's my brain child." Pietro said in his usual egotistical manner. "But we need a support network, some ideas, advertisement, and a useful allocation of powers."
"I have a number of x-men who are already committed to the Mutant Pride movement and others who won't rat on us to Scott and Jean." Ray added. "But a meeting between all of us is too dangerous, so I am acting liaison between our groups."
"So, let's get down to the serious planning." Pietro said rubbing his hands together in a sinister way.
* * *
Todd looked around trying to find a familiar landmark. He had hoped on what he thought was the bus back to the house but instead he ended up in a completely unknown area.
"Man this is not cool" he said to himself as he walked down another strange street. "I have to get back and warn Pietro and Wanda about what those two are up to and I'm in the wrong part of town." He looked up seeing a sign and his face fell. "Baltimore…how the hell did I wind up in Baltimore?" Todd looked around in disbelief; he not only got on the wrong bus but fell asleep and was now hours away from home. "Crap."
* * *
"So you then the grams cross out. Got it?" Justin smiled up at Wanda as they both sat over her homework.
"Yeah, I don't know why the teacher can't just explain it that way?"
"Because that would be logic, and we can't have logic in public schools." Justin explained with a smile while he put his hands behind his head.
"So what's up with Justin and Wanda?" Lance asked Pietro who was watching the two of them from the other room.
"Don't know and why should I care?" Pietro rattled off while still watching the couple out of the corner of his eye.
"Um…maybe because she's your sister. I do know that you care jack about the rest of us but you could at least watch out for her." Lance snapped at him and started to storm out of the room.
"Listen here rock boy" Pietro stepped in front of Lance stopping him in his tracks "Don't tell me how to treat my sister, she's my sister not yours. Secondly Wanda could take us and the all the X-Geeks out on a bad day so she doesn't need me to baby-sit her. Furthermore, how I feel about you losers is up to me cause I'm the leader and you are just lackey number 153 so what you think, feel, or care about means jack to begin with. I'm sick of your attitude and I'm sick of you acting like I don't know how to treat my own sister. Now hopefully I didn't say that to fast for you I know how slow you can be." With that Pietro patted Lance on the head and then zipped back to his spot on the sofa.
"So what we-" Lance started turning around in fury.
"Hey lackey 153" Pietro ran up and smacked Lance upside the head "I didn't say you could speak yet!" Lance stood there his eyes wide with rage. "What, you got a problem with that?" Pietro asked crossing his arms and giving Lance his best sneer.
"You're the one with the problem." Lance said in an even tone "I'm outta here." With that he turned and headed out the front door.
"Who needs you anyway" Pietro said quietly as Lance slammed the door behind him, he then went and resumed his channel surfing.
"Hey Pietro, where's Lance going?" Wanda called from the kitchen.
"Who knows and I don't care." Pietro shouted back. He then slammed the remote down and ran out of the house.
"Pietro!" Wanda called in shock as the door slammed in the house once again.
"What's all the racket?" Fred asked as he entered the kitchen.
* * *
Whoosh, another perfect shot. Pietro sighed as he caught up the basketball in his arms; he was hitting every shot so why did he still feel down. "It's not like I give a damn what Lance thinks." He stated to himself as he took another shot, another perfect basket. "So why the hell did he tick me off so much?" That was what was bugging the speedster, he really didn't care what the others said, and yet he completely went off on Lance for no real reason.
"Life sucks." He stated with finality as his next shot hit the rim and bounced off. "Lance sucks, the x-geeks suck, the brotherhood sucks, dad sucks, TV sucks, basketball sucks, the World Series sucks, movies suck…"
"Do I suck?" Pietro turned around in surprise to see Adriana walking across the basketball court. "What up?"
"Life sucks." Pietro answered with a smile as he took another shot. Whoosh, another perfect basket.
"Man, why aren't' you on the basketball team?"
"Cause basketball sucks, or weren't you here for that part?" Pietro caught the ball and turned to her. "So what do you want?"
"Hmmm, let me think, maybe just to say 'hi'." She responded with a wry smile.
"Well you said it." Pietro replied snippily.
"What's wrong?" Adriana's eyes narrowed in concern as she looked at the usually confident and happy mutant.
"Life. It sucks." Pietro proclaimed in exasperation.
"I gathered" Adriana placed her hands on her hips in slight annoyance "any particular reason why?"
"You know Lance right?"
"The guy with the ripped jeans and shaggy hair?" Adriana clarified causing Pietro to smile at her description.
"Yeah, well he said something stupid to me today and I totally blew up at him" Pietro began while he spun the ball on his index finger "and I mean really blew up at him. So he leaves the house all pissed and then, and this is what bugs me, I'm all pissed and I can't figure out why his being pissed should piss me off."
"Wow, sounds like a lot of pissing." Adriana quipped.
"I'm not going to dignify that remark with a comment." Pietro stated as he turned back to the basket to make another shot.
"Hey I got it" Pietro stopped to see what Adriana was going to say "maybe it's because you like Lance." She said with a laugh.
"Funny. Real funny." Pietro responded and lightly bounced the basketball off her head.
"Ok, so that's not it." She put up her hands in mock defense "maybe because what he said hit a sore spot or something?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Well you know how sometimes when you're having a bad day it's just because everything is off. Like if someone was going to ask you why your day sucks you wouldn't be able to pick anything major out, it's just all the little things that are pissing you off."
"Ok, I've had days like that." Pietro went back to spinning the ball on his index finger.
"Well maybe whatever he said just hit the nail on the head, like if he says something about your dog and you realize that everything that's been pissing you off is because of your dog. Or something like that." Adriana finished with a shrug "I know that wasn't completely coherent but, whatever." She finished.
"Yeah whatever." Pietro echoed his head bowed in thought. "You know something" he said after a few seconds "I think you're right. Lance said that I didn't care about my sister, and well…I've been thinking about that a lot." Pietro finished, not willing to share anything else.
"So he rubbed you in the wrong way about the wrong thing?" Adriana grabbed the ball from Pietro and took a shot.
"Wow, you do suck." Pietro said as he watched the ball bounce off the rim.
"Hey I'm rusty." Adriana shot back.
"Here, let the master show you how it's done." Pietro said as he zipped under the basket catching the ball before it hit the ground.
"Master my @$$!" Adriana shouted as she ran towards Pietro and the game of one-on-one was started.
* * *
A/N Well here's another chapter, sorry if it's not too great. And don't worry angel-a, I do plan to finish this story now, I know where I'm going and have a general idea how to get there. Thanks for you all who reviewed (all four of you) and feel free to review some more and I will try to finish this story soon.