Misfits On Film
"They want to what?" Lance looked at Roadblock incredulously two days later.
"They want to send a news crew to film you guys for a day," Roadblock said. "Don't look at me it was the Pentagon's idea. It's the best way to dispel all these myths about us."
"I'm not so sure we want to show them the truth," Althea groaned.
"Well we get a bonus," Shipwreck grinned. "Three guesses who they're gonna send?"
"Rameriez?" Daria asked. "This will be fun!"
"And a great opportunity!" Pietro said.
"Opportunity?" Lance asked.
"Think about it, the X-Men have got to be totally hating this!" Pietro grinned. "We've been wanting to show them up for years! Now is our chance to do so!"
"Yeah but no X-Men bashing, got it?" Roadblock said.
"No problem," Pietro waved. "I've got to coordinate my wardrobe!"
"I'm a little scared," Spyder said nervously. "I want to be on TV but…I'm afraid my dad will see me and…"
"Don't worry little one," Spirit put his hand on her shoulder. "I have made arrangements so that I have been formally named your guardian."
"Yeah and if your old man is stupid enough to try and claim you we got a warrant ready to toss his butt in jail and beat the crap out of him," Shipwreck said. "Although not necessarily in that order."
"You can play up the sick little abandoned mutant act," Pietro said. "That'll leave people crying in the aisles! You can be like a mutant Olsen twin only there's one of you and not as annoying!"
"Cool. I'm in," Spyder nodded.
"Now I want all of you to be on your best behavior," Roadblock warned. "Or as close as it as some of you can get."
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Two weeks later on the popular news program Twenty Questions. "Good evening, I'm Charles Bunkley," The announcer spoke. "Tonight Hector Rameriez goes where few humans have gone before. The GI Joe secret mutant training base of the Misfits."
"Oh this I have got to see," Scott groaned as he and the rest of the X-Men watched on television.
"Yeah I wonder how bad they're gonna trash us?" Rogue muttered. For once she and Kurt were in the same room, yet on opposite sides.
"They said they didn't," Xavier said. "Roadblock assures me that didn't happen."
"Yeah they were probably too busy trashing the reputations of mutants everywhere," Jean huffed.
"Quiet!" Kurt said. "It's starting!"
"Six A.M.," Rameriez spoke into the camera. "I suspect I have been given this assignment because my producer covets my parking space. Behind me is a large unusual looking house. Aside from the boat and broken tank in the front yard it looks like a normal house in America. But behind these walls are America's newest secret weapon: The Misfits."
The next few shots were pretty standard. Scenes of the Misfits training, eating breakfast, having a playful food fight, Rameriez getting splattered with an omelet. "I always said that guy had egg on his face," Bobby grinned.
"This isn't funny Drake," Scott said. "What the Misfits do on TV is going to reflect on all mutants. This has got disaster written all over it."
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Rameriez screamed as Barney bonked him repeatedly on the head with his bat.
"Okay I admit that's funny," Scott said.
Then there was a scene where Rameriez was interviewing Pietro and Wanda. "Your father experimented on you, abandoned you, used you for his own selfish ends," Rameriez asked. "How does that make you feel?"
Wanda shot him a look. "Like doing the conga. How do you think that makes us feel?"
"Yeah that's gotta be the stupidest question I've ever heard," Pietro said. "I mean how would you feel if your father ripped out your heart several times and stomped on it? Let me tell you something, that battle with Apocalypse a ways back? He did the world a favor!"
"Who?" Rameriez asked.
"That other mutant that was fighting," Pietro said. "You remember, big glowing Egyptian guy?"
"That was the other mutant's name?" The reporter asked.
"Yeah turns out he's a mutant from ancient times who's got a huge grudge against the world," Pietro waved. "But that's not important. Let me tell you a few things about Magneto…"
"Well this is going to take a few hours," Logan sighed and looked at his watch.
Twenty minutes later…
"That's so horrible," Rameriez was clearly swayed by Pietro's story. "You both have been through such horrors. How did you survive?"
"How is that moron actually buying this?" Bobby asked. "Pietro's portraying himself like a saint!"
"Well it helps to have a twin like Pietro," Wanda said. "That would toughen anyone up!"
"Yes we may have our differences," Pietro said in his most charming way. "But we're brother and sister and we love each other. No matter what our father did to us."
"Okay that was a crack!" Kurt shouted standing up.
"I am going to kill Pietro!" Rogue shouted.
"Already planning for your next victim I see?" Kurt said sarcastically. "Well this time take a number! I got dibs on this one!"
"Will you two chill out!" Kitty snapped. "They may not have been talking about you ya know?"
"Oh please!" Rogue snapped. "That was a hidden dig and everybody knows it!"
"You're being paranoid," Jean said.
After the commercial break it was Todd and Althea's turn. Todd turned out to be better at schmoozing to the camera than Pietro. "Look at the little reptile!" Rogue snapped. "He's got Rameriez eating out of his hands!"
"Well we have to be fair," Ororo said. "Todd did have a very hard life."
"Yeah but he's playing it up for the cameras!" Ray said. "I mean do you believe this guy?"
"I realize that I've strayed from being good from time to time," Todd said sweetly. "But you just have to keep remembering to stay good and not to stray from the path."
"This from the kid who used to steal wallets in the bleachers!" Kurt groaned.
"So you two are very close?" Rameriez asked.
"Oh yes," Todd held Althea's hand. "We're engaged to be engaged. I'm a firm believer in being faithful to one person. Unlike some people who like to string two dates along and going back and forth between them."
"Yeah can you imagine there are girls who go back and forth between two guys and can't make up their minds on who they love?" Althea asked.
"HEY!" Both Jean and Kitty stood up.
"Why those creepy little…" Kitty fumed.
"I'm gonna tie that lying tongue of his in knots!" Jean shouted.
"Now who's being paranoid?" Rogue asked.
Then the show started to show some of the other Misfits. Working. Then they showed Fred playing with Spyder. She was in a hospital bed. "Hi there!" Spyder charmed the camera. "Wow I can't wait until I get well so I can be big and strong like Freddy!"
"Spyder was abandoned by her family and left for dead," Fred sniffed. "She nearly died out there in the cold. Luckily we found her in time."
"What a brave sweet child," Rameriez spoke to the camera.
"GIVE ME A BREAK!" Kitty snapped. "That little maniac nearly fried me to death!"
"Oh I wish they were trashing us!" Scott said. "I think my stomach could handle that better than this garbage!"
Then they showed Lance. "I'd like to dedicate this song to my girl Kitty!" He started to play a song on his guitar.
"Okay it's official I am going to be violently ill!" Peter shouted.
"Those Misfits are really putting on a snow job!" Scott shut off the TV. "I can't believe those losers are making us look bad!"
"Oh come on Scott," Jean said. "Who's going to be dumb enough to believe those jokers?"
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"I don't believe this…" Kurt read the paper the following day.
"This is awful!" Scott groaned.
"What?" Jean asked.
"Read this!" Kurt thrust the paper at her.
Jean read "Last night's program on the Misfits was one of the most heart wrenching and intriguing pieces of television in years. Hector Rameriez's brilliant expose on the lives of mutants in the military…OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!"
"They love them…" Bobby's jaw dropped. "They really love them!"
"Apparently Jean a lot of people are dumb enough to believe them!" Kurt groaned.
"I can't stand it!" Scott shouted as he banged his head against the wall. "I can't stand it!"
