Disclaimer: I'm so sorry that I haven't posted a new chapter for a while. Not that it matters much cause no one's reading it!!!!! But I'm not mad. Oh, by the way I must recognize my only two reviewers. Pyrotic and BobbyD12! Yes! That's right! Only two reviewers. Really makes you want to read it, huh? Anyway, I'm rambling so if someone's actually reading this, enjoy this amazing chapter. Ha.
Everyone who had been found in the damaged hallway had been given an extreme amount of extra homework. Travis, Allen, Bobby, Kitty, Sarah and Kyle were getting the homework too, although a little unfairly because they hadn't done anything during the fight. Allen and Kitty were the only ones who complained, though.
"I, like, didn't do anything wrong," she was saying as they ate dinner, "I totally shouldn't have to do this extra work."
"Dude, you're totally right," Allen agreed, "I'm getting work because I almost got deep fried."
Shawn and Aaron joined the large group halfway through dinner.
"Hi guys," said Aaron as he sat down next to Ray, "We hear that you got extra work, you violent brutes, you."
"The truth is," said Shawn, "Dr. Grey read our minds and found out that we were responsible for the food fiasco in their room."
"Yeah," said Aaron, "They gave us extra work, too."
Since it was a Friday, the students had the entire Saturday to finish their homework. They had no idea that the Blackbird had left again that night to find another mutant.
"So," said Logan from behind the pilot's seat of the Blackbird, "Do we have the right mutant this time?"
"Shut up, Logan," said Cyclops.
"I believe the mutant we are looking for is actually one of Magneto's targets," said Xavier.
"We're almost there," announced Storm.
They landed the plane in a clearing surrounded by large piles of rock and lowered the ramp. Once again, Logan, Cyclops, Storm, and Jean walked down the ramp.
"Wait," said Xavier, "Scott, open the storage area."
Cyclops did as he was told, although he was rather confused.
"What are you doing in here?!" he yelled as he opened the storage area door.
Packrat smiled.
"Brine couldn't leave his precious treasures," he said.
"Wait a minute," said Cyclops as he noticed a butterfly on Packrat's tail, "AARON!"
The butterfly's wings disappeared as it turned into Aaron.
"Hi," he said cheerfully, "You know, we, I mean, I decided to take Brine with us, I mean, me. It wasn't his fault."
"Let me guess," said Cyclops, "Shawn is blending in with Packrat's junk, isn't he?"
"Not junk," said Packrat while Shawn came into view.
"Take them with you," said Xavier.
"But," started Cyclops.
"They will be useful, Scott," assured Xavier.
"Fine," said Cyclops, irritated, "Follow me."
They moved through the forest of rocks with Cyclops in the lead and Logan at the rear.
"Stay quiet," said Jean, "I think we're getting close."
"Close what?" asked Packrat.
"Stop," said Cyclops very quietly, "We found him."
A man was crouching next to one of the large piles of rock. Something unseen was making a high-pitched buzzing noise.
"Careful," said Cyclops, "He may be armed."
"Ha!" said Packrat loudly, "He do have arms!"
The sudden outburst took the man by surprise and he jumped. The man spun around as Cyclops attempted to hide everyone. Where the man's left hand should have been, there was a small, electric drill.
"Who goes there?!" the man shouted, "Answer me!"
Cyclops stood up. The man faced him and his drill spun ominously.
"Who are you?" the man asked, suspiciously, "What do you want?"
"Let me explain," Cyclops began, "I have been sent from Professor Xavier's school for the gifted. A very powerful mutant is coming to try to recruit you to his mutant force called the Brotherhood. We have come to see that you don't give in to his offer."
The man looked to his right. Cyclops looked to where he was staring. The man called Tom, who had been Xavier's bodyguard the previous night, was approaching the man with the drill.
"Wait," called Cyclops, "Piledriver, don't do anything."
Piledriver paid no attention to Cyclops and walked up to the man who stared up into Piledriver's gray eyes. Piledriver's huge hand reached out and grabbed the man by the back of his coat.
"Liar!" the man yelled, "Assassins!"
The man swung his drill extremely close to Piledriver's face making the huge hand drop the man to the ground. Cyclops watched as Piledriver backed away into the shadows. He seemed to be shrinking. His skin turned blue.
"Hey!" shouted Cyclops as the shadowed form of Mystique ran from where Piledriver had been moments before.
"Scott, look out!" yelled Jean from behind him.
Cyclops looked back towards the other man. The man's hands were spinning around at a tremendous speed so that they looked like blurs. The blurs got larger. Suddenly they stopped. The man's hands had become large triple-barrel firearms. As if this wasn't enough the rest of the mans body became a blur and stopped. The X-Men stared horrified at the robotic artillery system that the man had become. This had happened in less than twenty seconds.
"You will pay for your filthy lies," the man said in a robotic voice and began shooting glowing, green balls of light at them from the triple-barrel guns.
"Split up!" yelled Cyclops as he dodged one of the flying, green balls. It hit the large rock behind him, destroying most of it. Instead of avoiding them, Packrat scuttled around trying to catch the "pretty lights." Cyclops turned as he saw more shadowy figures appear on the rocks. Apparently the man saw them too, because he turned to look at them.
"It's Magneto!" shouted Storm.
Sure enough, the center figure stepped out into the moonlight. The other four figures also stepped into where they could be seen. One had long hair and claws. The one next to him wore a long trench coat and carried a long pole. On Magneto's other side a shady looking guy stood clutching one of the many daggers in his belt. Mystique stood next to him with a cruel smile on her face.
"Photon!" Magneto said loudly, "Stop firing! I have an offer for you."
"How do I know you're not lying like everyone else?" the man with guns said.
"Listen to me, Photon," said Magneto, "Join me and you will be able to destroy all the liars in this world."
"That's a lie!" Shawn shouted at Magneto, "If he were to destroy all the liars, he would have killed your whole team!"
"That's a very good point!" agreed Aaron.
"If you join me," continued Magneto, "You will be joining one of the most powerful mutant organizations there is."
Suddenly, Packrat let out a terribly high-pitched screech of anger. Packrat had just noticed the guy with the belt of daggers. Before anyone could do anything Packrat had leapt from the ground. He slammed into the man with the daggers.
"Do what you must, Massacre," Magneto told the man, "Just get rid of him."
Massacre had landed on his back and the dagger he had been holding slid into the darkness. Packrat flipped him over and pounded his face into the dirt. The X-Men watched as Massacre's arm moved out from under him and his fingers grabbed Packrat by the throat. Massacre's arm was in a now in a contorted position, but he didn't seem to be feeling any pain. As if he wasn't contorted enough, he let go of Packrat's neck while at the same time bending his legs backward so that they rested between himself and Packrat. Suddenly, his legs shot upward kicking Packrat with a terrible impact which launched him back towards Logan. Logan caught him, but immediately put him down on the ground. Cyclops looked over at Photon to see a strange looking weapon swing out from his back. Before the artillery could be used, however, Cyclops fired an optic blast which caught Photon in the chest, knocking him backward into a large pile of loose rocks. The rocks crumbled over Photon's head and buried him in rubble.
"Gambit," said Magneto, "Keep them busy,"
The man with the trench coat jumped down from the rocks, drawing a deck of cards from an inside pocket. He drew an ace of hearts from the top of the deck as Sabretooth went to uncover the unconscious Photon. The ace of hearts began to glow.
"Let me express my love for you, mes amis," Gambit said as he threw the glowing ace of hearts at them.
"Get out of here!" Cyclops yelled to the rest of his team.
No sooner had they scattered when the ace of hearts was enveloped in the flame of its own explosion. The X-Men ran towards the Blackbird at full speed followed by the explosions of flying playing cards. They rushed up the ramp and entered the jet as they heard Gambit's voice in the distance yelling, "Wait, let me deal you another hand!"
"Take off!" yelled Cyclops as Xavier and the real Piledriver turned to look at them. Everyone quickly buckled their seatbelts while the jet began to rise.
"Well," said Logan, "It looks like we failed again."
"The first time wasn't a failure, Logan," Xavier reminded him.
"Yeah, whatever," said Logan, "If we keep this up, fighting Magneto will be like having carrots attack polar bears in the winter."
"That's a good expression," said Aaron as Packrat looked up at the sound of the word 'carrots'.
"Yeah," agreed Shawn, "We'll have to remember that one."
They were soon landing at the Institute.
"Hey, you two," Cyclops grabbed the twins' shoulders, "no one else hears about this, right?"
"Uh, right," they said in unison. Cyclops gave them a suspicious look and continued inside the Institute.
When everyone, but Packrat was out of earshot Shawn said, "Like we're really going to keep tonight a secret."
"I'm surprised Summers believed us," said Aaron.
"We'll tell everyone in the morning," said Shawn, "Let's get to bed."
"We'll need all the energy possible for the homework," Aaron nodded.
The next morning, Shawn and Aaron gathered all their fellow classmates for breakfast.
"I know something you don't know," Aaron taunted, dancing around Bobby.
"So what?" said Ray.
"Dude, you always know something we don't know," Allen said.
"Speak for yourself," muttered Roberto.
"Well," Shawn said in mock sadness, "I guess we'll have to keep our little secret to ourselves."
"Dude, no, tell us!" Allen pleaded.
"Ok!" said Aaron happily and immediately squeezed in between Bobby and Sam.
Shawn pushed in between Amara and the tall boy called Kyle.
"Where shall I begin?" said Shawn.
"Get to the point," said Ray, grumpily.
"Aww, didn't Zeus get enough sleep?" asked Aaron mockingly.
"Well, last night, while you were all doing your homework," Shawn began as Ray glared at Aaron, "Aaron and yours truly took that crazy new guy, Brine, or whatever his name is, into the cargo area of the Blackbird."
"We flew somewhere and I guess the Professor knew we were there and Summers opened the door," continued Aaron, "They took us along and we got to this place where some guy was drilling rocks."
"Brine said something real loud and the guy turned around," Shawn picked up from where Aaron left off. "Summers tried to tell the guy why we were there, but Mr. Fulke came out of nowhere and picked the guy up. The guy's hand was a drill, so he swung it in Mr. Fulke's face. Mr. Fulke dropped him and turned into some blue lady."
"Mystique!" Bobby exclaimed loudly. Everyone stared at him.
"Who's telling this story you or me?" said Shawn.
"Mystique, blue lady, same thing," Aaron began again, "Anyway, the drill guy turned into some robot with big guns on his hands. He started shooting lasers or something at us until Magneto appeared on a rock with some other people."
"Some hairy guy, some guy with a big coat and exploding cards, nice trick I thought, some contortionist with daggers, and the blue lady," explained Shawn.
"Sabretooth, Gambit, and Mystique!" shouted Bobby. Everyone stared at him again.
"What about the dagger guy?" Ray asked Bobby sarcastically, "Don't you know his name?"
"Where was I?" said Aaron, "Oh yeah, Magneto told the robot guy to join him and Shawn made a pretty good comment, something about the guy killing liars, I don't remember,"
"Brine got mad at the contortionist for some reason and jumped on him," Shawn said quickly to keep the story moving, "Brine had him until the dagger man contorted and kicked Brine away. Then I guess Summers lost his temper and shot the robot guy, I think Magneto called him Photoman or something, well, anyway, Photoman flew into a rock wall and all these rocks fell on him."
"Right," said Aaron, "Then, Gambino did you call him? Yeah, Gambino came after us saying he loved us or something while he threw cards that blew up. We ran for it and got on the plane."
"We flew away and got back here," finished Shawn proudly.
"How late did you stay up last night to think that one up?" asked Ray rudely.
"We wouldn't waste our time making up silly stories in the middle of the night," Aaron said, "How dumb do think we are?"
Ray started to say something, but Amara spoke first.
"Have we saved any mutants from Magneto yet?" she said, disgusted.
"They saved Brine!" said Shawn.
"They call him Packrat," corrected Aaron.
"I like Brine better," said Shawn.
"According to your story," said Evan, "Packrat sounds like he's completely useless."
"Dude, he totally busted the contorter," said Allen apparently impressed by Packrat's attack.
"Still," said Amara seriously, "I think we need to get with the program if we're going to beat Magneto."
"We should all sneak in the cargo area," suggested Melanie.
"I like your thinking," Shawn complemented her, amazed, "If we took out all Brine's stuff, we could probably fit everyone."
"We can keep his stuff in our room," volunteered Aaron.
"No way!" said Roberto, "I want to sleep on a bed tonight, not a bunch of trash."
Aaron's eyes widened. Packrat had just popped up behind Roberto.
"Trash?!" he said furiously.
Shawn covered his ears. Bobby covered his eyes. Ruben chuckled and covered his mouth. Kitty giggled. Amara looked at Packrat with disgust. Aaron turned into a baboon and held his nose.
"You're the trash!!!" Packrat screamed, pointing a skinny, clawed finger at Roberto.
Packrat scuttled away making angry rat noises. Roberto didn't look insulted at all. Shawn, Bobby, and Ruben uncovered their faces. Aaron transformed back into himself.
"I don't like him," said Rahne.
"What's not to like?" asked Shawn, "Just because he likes to collect things doesn't mean you should hate him."
Aaron rolled his eyes. "Shawn, follow me. There's something you need to know about this whole situation that you don't have a clue about."
"They're talking about you," said Ray to Roberto and Rahne nastily as Aaron escorted Shawn to another table.
"I, like, can't believe Shawn doesn't know that you two go out," said Kitty.
"He's a Kerr," said Bobby, "What do you expect?"
"Aaron knew about it," said Ruben, once again making everything more complicated.
"Dude, maybe animals understand humans better than humans understand themselves," Allen said.
"Allen, that sounded really intelligent, but it was really stupid," said Jubilee.
While Jubilee's comment sunk in, Aaron and Shawn returned, Shawn with an amazed look on his face.
"I never would have figured it out," said Shawn to himself.
"So," said Aaron, apparently glad that his talk with Shawn was over, "Why don't we meet at the Blackbird tomorrow to unpack,"
"We can't get in there," said Ray, "In case you haven't noticed, every room of importance is locked in this place."
"You forget who you're talking to," said Aaron, "There's no door Shawn and I can't get through, uh, well, besides the fact that Shawn seems to have lost his mind, poor fellow."
Shawn was still standing there muttering to himself, "How could I not have seen it before?"
"Um, right," said Aaron quickly, "I'd better get my unfortunate brother outside for some fresh air,"
The twins departed and everyone else got up to prepare for their classes. Later that night, Roberto followed Kyle into their room. The twins were already in bed. They hadn't heard them come in and were deep in discussion.
"What was that with Melanie Seaton this morning?" asked Aaron.
"Huh?" said Shawn rather quickly, "What are you talking about?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Camoman!" said Aaron, "You were drooling all over her!"
"I wasn't drooling! I was giving her a compliment!" Shawn protested, "I didn't see you making any moves! You were too busy staring at Bobby's lunch!"
Aaron didn't say anything. Shawn smiled triumphantly and drifted off to sleep. Aaron fell asleep too, but not as quickly.
"I wonder if they knew we were here," said Kyle, letting his dark hair down.
"Who cares," said Roberto, "I have something for blackmail if I need it."
Eventually Roberto and Kyle fell asleep along with the twins, Roberto smiling to himself.