DAY "0"
Elisa stepped into the mansion, carefully cleaning her wet shoes on the doormat. She had her eyes locked upon Wolverine's terrified ones all that time.
"Want me to carry your stuff...?" he proposed, being a gentleman as he had promised to his wife.
"No. I can handle." Brief, effective and harsh words were escaping her lips, probably carefully prepared before each sentence.
Logan almost whimpered at the sound of her voice. He was scared up to one point, scared of screwing up. He could already barely control his urge to put his claws in good use and rip out the lungs of a woman he had known for 2 minutes. I guess it was love in first sight.
At the adjacent room, Storm abruptly stopped singing, probably sensing even in her drunken stupor that this wasn't the right time for joyful singing.
As the Italian grumpy witch walked a little further inside, admiring the classy furniture, she cocked her head towards her son-in-law.
"Is this a border school for rich kids?" Logan could see a gleam of greed in her eyes.
"You could say that..." He could remember at least one rich kid studying in these halls...Warren.
Intense stomping was heard from the stairs. Jean must have 'sensed' the presence of their visitor and have come to welcome her...with some company of course.
Rogue and Betsy came down the stairs along with Jean and they all half-run to the short woman.
They all abruptly stopped dead on their tracks when they noticed the snobbish, unfriendly shadow in front of her eyes.
Elisa left her suitcases on the floor and walked slowly around the three women, eyeing their clothing. Jean had on one of her usual ultra-mini skirts, along with a tight t-shirt. Rogue had on some skimpy hotpants and some even skimpier bra-like thing to 'cover' her breasts. She had her gloves on-but why bother wearing gloves when everything else is uncovered? As for Betsy...she somehow had been wearing her 'costume'. The one which resembled a one piece bath suit, with the scarf-like ninja thingies bent around her feet and arms.
"What the hell is this place...a border school or a WHOREHOUSE?!?!" Elisa finally snapped at them, obviously indicating that the poor girls looked like whores in their most desperate working days.
All the gals had their eyes grown in shock and embarrassment. Well, not all three of them.
"Let me gut her, Logan..." Betsy whispered a bit too loud for it to actually be considered a whisper.
"What? What did she say?" It seemed that the old hag's hearing system was perfectly well-functioning for her age...
"Eeer, she said: Let me greet her!" Logan tried to pick up the pieces while shooting a scolding look at Psylocke, then pleading with his eyes for Jean to do something.
Jean and Rogue instantly greeted the old woman by picking her hands and shaking them, one each. Elisa tried to hide her icky expression after they let go, looking at her 'contaminated' hands which had been touched by whores.
At last, Gina walked in, saw that her mother had arrived and saved the day, causing a distraction for the other girls to go upstairs and change into something LESS comfortable. The funny thing was that Gina herself was now wearing something really conservative, nothing close to the sort-of-skimpy clothing she was used to wear and tease everyone around...
As his mother-in-law bent over to pick up her stuff, Logan took the chance to whisper into Gina's ear. "Why didn't you warn us about the clothing, you sneaky little..."
Logan had guessed her answer before listening to it: "I forgot"
Between quick kisses and compliments for each other, Gina introduced her husband to her mother. She actually said something like 'I guess you already met Logan' and then went on to 'how are things back home?', thus taking Logan out of the picture for the time being. Logan silently thanked her for giving him some minutes of release by any kind of Elisa-related pressure, and then he walked to the room where Storm had been previously using her voice to make the flies drop dead on the floor, their tiny ears bleeding.
It seemed that as soon as Elisa had stepped in, Bobby and Remy had muffled Ororo, picked her up and taken her upstairs to avoid making a scene. Bless those boys...
**************************************************************
MINUTES LATER
Logan walked to Xavier's office where the Professor was supposed to greet Elisa. He had to warn the Professor to give the woman a room at the other side of the mansion (as far away from his bedroom as possible). The last thing he wanted was his mother-in-law barging in Gina's and his bedroom anytime she felt like it.
But as he walked in, he realised he was too late; everyone was already there, as Xavier was sitting at his wheelchair and Gina and her mother were standing by his office.
"Mrs. Maledetto, I want to ensure you that you are most welcomed here and you can stay as long as you want and relish your reunion with your daughter, whom you haven't seen for a long, long time." Chuck was very sleek with her, that made Logan wonder if he had sneaked into the witch's mind to see what would comfort her...ease her...make her shut up!
"Good." was all that she said at first. "Because I don't intend to spend just a weekend here, you know, not after such a long, difficult-and expensive- trip."
"Oh shit," Logan thought, "I will have to go check the cellar's capacity."
Then he smelled something unusual.
Something...alive was in one of Elisa's suitcases.
As he approached the suitcase and sniffed right at it, he realised he could smell the presence of a small animal in it.
"What is HE doing?" said Elisa, grabbing away her suitcase, shooting a Gollum look at Logan, almost saying "Miiineee. Miiiiine!"
"There's something in there!" Logan protested, hurt at the mistrust in his "mom's" eyes.
"Oh, what a smart son-in-law I have! It's a *suitcase* there's always something supposed to be in there!" Elisa snapped at him without actually intending that wisecrack.
"I meant something *alive*." he tried to answer at the same manner as her, but his wife shot him a pleading look and his words came out totally flat.
"Hey-how are *you* supposed to know what's in my suitcase?" Elisa rumbled on.
"I can sme- Ow!" Gina had kicked him right at the ankle, reminding him that her mother wasn't supposed to find out about anybody's mutant abilities. She hadn't forgotten *that* one, apparently.
"I could hear it scratching the insides of the suitcase." he finally said.
"But you are wrong, because my-" she began to talk back, but the intense scratching noise timely coming from the bag interrupted her.
"Uh-oh, busted", Bobby intervened, chuckling. The evil look he received from the -trembling in frustration- eyes of Elisa made the chuckling stop, and Bobby swiftly disappeared behind the crowd of the other present X-Men, who were now keeping themselves from chuckling at him.
"Mom, don't tell me you brought Cornutino with you."
Who was Cornutino?
"I did", the old grump said, but there was no sign of guilt or remorse in her eyes. Just pride.
She opened the bag and a frustrated plain brown cat jumped out.
A low rumbling noise raised through the room as everyone started whispering comments at each other.
"Why did you put him in a *suitcase*, mom? There are special boxes with holes for him to breath, you know. Only that way you can bring him into an airplane." Gina's voice sounded concerned, even scolding.
"Do you know how much they charge for animal packages? He did just fine in the suitcase, next to Mommy." Elisa said, picking up the cat and cooing to it.
Logan's nose had the little twitch it made every time he felt disgusted. Every friend of the enemy is *also* an enemy, he thought, looking the cat straight into the eyes, as the evil thing's head looked up from the back of Elisa's shoulder.
"How could I live without my baby? After all, I can't feel safe without my little Cornutino? Who would track and hunt down the bad, bad mutants for me?"
Everyone started looking each other at the eyes upon hearing these words. What did she mean?
The cat shot an evil look back at Logan.
"Uh, mom, I have told you, like, a million times that a cat cannot scout mutants."
"My Cornutino can tell. I have trained him goood." the Italian widow answered back. "You do remember our neighbour, Mr.Pondi, don't you, Gina?"
"Yeah. He was the one who was letting me ride his back when I was a little girl."
"Well, Cornutino never liked Mr.Pondi. And a month ago, we found out that the bastard was a mutant. He threw up mud right on Miss Carla's laundry clothes. He's still there, but as soon as I get back home I'll find a way to get him evicted."
"Mom..."
"I'm telling you, I'm right! I can show you! Come on, Cornutino, find a nasty nasty mutant for Mommy!" she said, letting the cat on the floor. "If there is a mutant in this room, Cornutino will attack him."
Electrified silence fell on the room as everyone remained still, not knowing whether to laugh at the old woman's naivety or worry about the possible supernatural abilities of the cat.
Cornutino jumped on the desk and looked Xavier straight at the eyes, an evil catlike look on its two big shiny disks. Xavier managed to remain calm and tried to soothe the animal's mind. But he then realised that somehow the damn cat was immune to his powers.
[Everybody calm down and remain still, somehow I think our visitor is right. There is something unnatural with this cat. It might be able to tell if we're mutants.] The Professor sent a mental warning into everyone's mind except for Elisa's of course. Everyone winced at the news and tried to seem unsuspicious, Bobby even held his breath. Well, not for more than 8 seconds, that is.
Thankfully the cat got off the desk and strolled towards the big bunch of mutants standing close to each other behind its Mommy, Gina and the stupid looking hairy man.
It kept going, all the time giving inquisitive looks in every single person in the room, making Jubilee wince and Bobby almost cry. Then, Inspector Paws went on to Wolverine, cocking its head up in order to have eye contact with him. Total silence enveloping them, both Logan and Cornutino struggled to prevail in the evil looking contest. The cat had an advantage because it possessed evil cat-like eyes, being a cat and all that.
But Logan somehow managed to bring the game to a draw.
The cat withdrawed its eyes from Logan and gave a knowing look to Gina, then went back to the middle of the room. Analysing the facts from its research, Cornutino came to the conclusion that everyone in the room but Mommy was a bad mutant. Realising that it couldn't possibly attack everyone in the room, the cat screeched and bolted out of the open door in panic.
Everyone sighed in relief; Jubilee even scooped some sweat from her forehead. Xavier made a mental note never to welcome cats in the mansion again.
"Ohhh, poor baby..." Elisa exclaimed. "It must be the jetlag", she explained, before going after the cat.
Elisa stepped into the mansion, carefully cleaning her wet shoes on the doormat. She had her eyes locked upon Wolverine's terrified ones all that time.
"Want me to carry your stuff...?" he proposed, being a gentleman as he had promised to his wife.
"No. I can handle." Brief, effective and harsh words were escaping her lips, probably carefully prepared before each sentence.
Logan almost whimpered at the sound of her voice. He was scared up to one point, scared of screwing up. He could already barely control his urge to put his claws in good use and rip out the lungs of a woman he had known for 2 minutes. I guess it was love in first sight.
At the adjacent room, Storm abruptly stopped singing, probably sensing even in her drunken stupor that this wasn't the right time for joyful singing.
As the Italian grumpy witch walked a little further inside, admiring the classy furniture, she cocked her head towards her son-in-law.
"Is this a border school for rich kids?" Logan could see a gleam of greed in her eyes.
"You could say that..." He could remember at least one rich kid studying in these halls...Warren.
Intense stomping was heard from the stairs. Jean must have 'sensed' the presence of their visitor and have come to welcome her...with some company of course.
Rogue and Betsy came down the stairs along with Jean and they all half-run to the short woman.
They all abruptly stopped dead on their tracks when they noticed the snobbish, unfriendly shadow in front of her eyes.
Elisa left her suitcases on the floor and walked slowly around the three women, eyeing their clothing. Jean had on one of her usual ultra-mini skirts, along with a tight t-shirt. Rogue had on some skimpy hotpants and some even skimpier bra-like thing to 'cover' her breasts. She had her gloves on-but why bother wearing gloves when everything else is uncovered? As for Betsy...she somehow had been wearing her 'costume'. The one which resembled a one piece bath suit, with the scarf-like ninja thingies bent around her feet and arms.
"What the hell is this place...a border school or a WHOREHOUSE?!?!" Elisa finally snapped at them, obviously indicating that the poor girls looked like whores in their most desperate working days.
All the gals had their eyes grown in shock and embarrassment. Well, not all three of them.
"Let me gut her, Logan..." Betsy whispered a bit too loud for it to actually be considered a whisper.
"What? What did she say?" It seemed that the old hag's hearing system was perfectly well-functioning for her age...
"Eeer, she said: Let me greet her!" Logan tried to pick up the pieces while shooting a scolding look at Psylocke, then pleading with his eyes for Jean to do something.
Jean and Rogue instantly greeted the old woman by picking her hands and shaking them, one each. Elisa tried to hide her icky expression after they let go, looking at her 'contaminated' hands which had been touched by whores.
At last, Gina walked in, saw that her mother had arrived and saved the day, causing a distraction for the other girls to go upstairs and change into something LESS comfortable. The funny thing was that Gina herself was now wearing something really conservative, nothing close to the sort-of-skimpy clothing she was used to wear and tease everyone around...
As his mother-in-law bent over to pick up her stuff, Logan took the chance to whisper into Gina's ear. "Why didn't you warn us about the clothing, you sneaky little..."
Logan had guessed her answer before listening to it: "I forgot"
Between quick kisses and compliments for each other, Gina introduced her husband to her mother. She actually said something like 'I guess you already met Logan' and then went on to 'how are things back home?', thus taking Logan out of the picture for the time being. Logan silently thanked her for giving him some minutes of release by any kind of Elisa-related pressure, and then he walked to the room where Storm had been previously using her voice to make the flies drop dead on the floor, their tiny ears bleeding.
It seemed that as soon as Elisa had stepped in, Bobby and Remy had muffled Ororo, picked her up and taken her upstairs to avoid making a scene. Bless those boys...
**************************************************************
MINUTES LATER
Logan walked to Xavier's office where the Professor was supposed to greet Elisa. He had to warn the Professor to give the woman a room at the other side of the mansion (as far away from his bedroom as possible). The last thing he wanted was his mother-in-law barging in Gina's and his bedroom anytime she felt like it.
But as he walked in, he realised he was too late; everyone was already there, as Xavier was sitting at his wheelchair and Gina and her mother were standing by his office.
"Mrs. Maledetto, I want to ensure you that you are most welcomed here and you can stay as long as you want and relish your reunion with your daughter, whom you haven't seen for a long, long time." Chuck was very sleek with her, that made Logan wonder if he had sneaked into the witch's mind to see what would comfort her...ease her...make her shut up!
"Good." was all that she said at first. "Because I don't intend to spend just a weekend here, you know, not after such a long, difficult-and expensive- trip."
"Oh shit," Logan thought, "I will have to go check the cellar's capacity."
Then he smelled something unusual.
Something...alive was in one of Elisa's suitcases.
As he approached the suitcase and sniffed right at it, he realised he could smell the presence of a small animal in it.
"What is HE doing?" said Elisa, grabbing away her suitcase, shooting a Gollum look at Logan, almost saying "Miiineee. Miiiiine!"
"There's something in there!" Logan protested, hurt at the mistrust in his "mom's" eyes.
"Oh, what a smart son-in-law I have! It's a *suitcase* there's always something supposed to be in there!" Elisa snapped at him without actually intending that wisecrack.
"I meant something *alive*." he tried to answer at the same manner as her, but his wife shot him a pleading look and his words came out totally flat.
"Hey-how are *you* supposed to know what's in my suitcase?" Elisa rumbled on.
"I can sme- Ow!" Gina had kicked him right at the ankle, reminding him that her mother wasn't supposed to find out about anybody's mutant abilities. She hadn't forgotten *that* one, apparently.
"I could hear it scratching the insides of the suitcase." he finally said.
"But you are wrong, because my-" she began to talk back, but the intense scratching noise timely coming from the bag interrupted her.
"Uh-oh, busted", Bobby intervened, chuckling. The evil look he received from the -trembling in frustration- eyes of Elisa made the chuckling stop, and Bobby swiftly disappeared behind the crowd of the other present X-Men, who were now keeping themselves from chuckling at him.
"Mom, don't tell me you brought Cornutino with you."
Who was Cornutino?
"I did", the old grump said, but there was no sign of guilt or remorse in her eyes. Just pride.
She opened the bag and a frustrated plain brown cat jumped out.
A low rumbling noise raised through the room as everyone started whispering comments at each other.
"Why did you put him in a *suitcase*, mom? There are special boxes with holes for him to breath, you know. Only that way you can bring him into an airplane." Gina's voice sounded concerned, even scolding.
"Do you know how much they charge for animal packages? He did just fine in the suitcase, next to Mommy." Elisa said, picking up the cat and cooing to it.
Logan's nose had the little twitch it made every time he felt disgusted. Every friend of the enemy is *also* an enemy, he thought, looking the cat straight into the eyes, as the evil thing's head looked up from the back of Elisa's shoulder.
"How could I live without my baby? After all, I can't feel safe without my little Cornutino? Who would track and hunt down the bad, bad mutants for me?"
Everyone started looking each other at the eyes upon hearing these words. What did she mean?
The cat shot an evil look back at Logan.
"Uh, mom, I have told you, like, a million times that a cat cannot scout mutants."
"My Cornutino can tell. I have trained him goood." the Italian widow answered back. "You do remember our neighbour, Mr.Pondi, don't you, Gina?"
"Yeah. He was the one who was letting me ride his back when I was a little girl."
"Well, Cornutino never liked Mr.Pondi. And a month ago, we found out that the bastard was a mutant. He threw up mud right on Miss Carla's laundry clothes. He's still there, but as soon as I get back home I'll find a way to get him evicted."
"Mom..."
"I'm telling you, I'm right! I can show you! Come on, Cornutino, find a nasty nasty mutant for Mommy!" she said, letting the cat on the floor. "If there is a mutant in this room, Cornutino will attack him."
Electrified silence fell on the room as everyone remained still, not knowing whether to laugh at the old woman's naivety or worry about the possible supernatural abilities of the cat.
Cornutino jumped on the desk and looked Xavier straight at the eyes, an evil catlike look on its two big shiny disks. Xavier managed to remain calm and tried to soothe the animal's mind. But he then realised that somehow the damn cat was immune to his powers.
[Everybody calm down and remain still, somehow I think our visitor is right. There is something unnatural with this cat. It might be able to tell if we're mutants.] The Professor sent a mental warning into everyone's mind except for Elisa's of course. Everyone winced at the news and tried to seem unsuspicious, Bobby even held his breath. Well, not for more than 8 seconds, that is.
Thankfully the cat got off the desk and strolled towards the big bunch of mutants standing close to each other behind its Mommy, Gina and the stupid looking hairy man.
It kept going, all the time giving inquisitive looks in every single person in the room, making Jubilee wince and Bobby almost cry. Then, Inspector Paws went on to Wolverine, cocking its head up in order to have eye contact with him. Total silence enveloping them, both Logan and Cornutino struggled to prevail in the evil looking contest. The cat had an advantage because it possessed evil cat-like eyes, being a cat and all that.
But Logan somehow managed to bring the game to a draw.
The cat withdrawed its eyes from Logan and gave a knowing look to Gina, then went back to the middle of the room. Analysing the facts from its research, Cornutino came to the conclusion that everyone in the room but Mommy was a bad mutant. Realising that it couldn't possibly attack everyone in the room, the cat screeched and bolted out of the open door in panic.
Everyone sighed in relief; Jubilee even scooped some sweat from her forehead. Xavier made a mental note never to welcome cats in the mansion again.
"Ohhh, poor baby..." Elisa exclaimed. "It must be the jetlag", she explained, before going after the cat.