Drei
Part 7
By Mieren
One rumpled, messy and severely pissed Tabitha Smith set off a charge to open the front door to the mansion, stalking in as though she owned the place. Jamie and Evan, who had been watching TV prior to her abrupt entrance, turned to look at her. She was red with anger. Or red, anyways. Someone had apparently taken it upon himself set off a paint bomb in her room.
"Where are they?" she demanded.
"What happened to you?" Evan asked.
"Someone threw a gallon of paint containing a lit cherry bomb through the window," Boom Boom hissed. "Someone that had a fuzzy blue hand." Jamie snickered and Evan grinned.
"So you've seen them?"
"I know there are three of him!" she snapped. "Now where are they?" Evan grinned, looking forward to seeing the look on her face when she saw the fluffy five-year-olds.
"I'll show you," Evan said, getting up. "Just don't blow the lab up. Otherwise we'll be stuck with three of them." He shuddered at the thought. "Jamie, you coming? Forge is about to zap them again."
Jamie nodded and followed them through the mansion towards the lab, Tabby leaving red footprints as she went. The pint size versions of the blue mutant had been so unbelievably hyper that no one really wanted to wait for Forge to beta test his machine. It wasn't safe to wait. They had so much energy that they didn't sleep. Ever. After two days of constantly fearing for their safety and sanity, the mansion at large demanded that Forge do something. Now. Or else.
Tabby stopped short upon entering the lab, jaw dropped. Only coming up to her hips, three fuzzy blue children looked up at her.
"Oops," Kurt said.
"Sorry, Boom Boom," Nightcrawler seconded.
"We thought that was Toad's room," Wagner finished off.
"Actually, it was Pietro's," Tabby managed, dazed by the sight of miniature blue elves. They were so cute that she could almost forget she was angry with them. "He managed to outrun the blast."
"And what were you doing in his room?" Nightcrawler asked slyly. The leer he attempted looked kind of creepy on his youthful face. Tabby's blush was hidden by the paint.
"Is that thing ready yet?" she asked Forge.
"Yes," he said. He had hurried to finish it after being regaled with the ballad of 'Big-Ass Lil and Yukon Pete' at three in the morning. Until then, he hadn't believed that anyone could actually get a nosebleed from sheer depravity. "I just have to finish the final wiring between the three of them."
"Already done," Beast said. He too was fairly eager to get the teleporting mutant back down to one sane person. He had been subjected to a rendition of 'Robocock and Neutron Nelly.' His blush had been so fierce that it was visible through his fur.
"Let's get going," Storm said brightly, ushering the mini mutants to the designated porting area. She had returned from Germany on her trip to retrieve Ray and Sam to find something hidden among her plants that caused her to shriek. Scott and Jean had learned a little later that she had found a fully-grown and fuzzy Chia Dick. Naturally, Scott told everyone. Upon finding Berserker, he ceased the Chia Dick story and proceeded to tell the mansion that Ray now had fluorescent pink hair.
"I say we leave them like that," Jamie said, grinning. "I'm tired of being the youngest."
"Do you really think that's safe?" Jean asked him. "Were you not here yesterday? Do you remember the slugs? I remember the slugs."
"They were snails!" Nightcrawler protested.
"And it's called escargot," Kurt groused.
"Escargot isn't breaded and deep fried to look like shrimp!" Jean said shrilly.
"The snails used for escargot aren't plucked from my personal garden either," Storm managed icily.
"It was better than the soapy frog incident," Evan muttered. Four hundred and seventeen frogs slicked with liquid soap had been released in his room for unknown reasons. It had taken him a full day with the help of about a dozen Jamie clones to get them all out.
"Or the Vaseline on the toilets," Kitty griped.
"Or the dye in the toothpaste," Rogue hissed. Her teeth were still purple.
"Or the bleach in the shampoo," Scott said drolly. He was now blond.
"Or the two thousand fleas he released in my office," Beast growled, twisting one arm around to scratch his back.
"Or the Jello," Kitty said, her voice slowly rising to a shriek. "How did you manage to fill my room with lime Jello?"
"Why am I glad that I no longer live here?" Tabby said under her breath.
"Because you're sane," Jean responded.
"Enough," Xavier interrupted. "Kurt. Wagner. Nightcrawler. Get ready to teleport."
"We're afraid to," Nightcrawler answered honestly.
"Why?" Forge asked. "I've altered the settings so you'll revert to the proper age and to a single person."
"We'll be under two years old and there will be nine of us," Kurt retorted.
"Wrong," Evan countered, grinning merrily. "You'll be a two-year-old with six arms and three heads."
"It will be fine," Xavier soothed, throwing Spyke a dirty look.
"Nein!" Wagner cried out.
"We have a bad feeling about this, Professor," Kurt said. "We don't want to do this."
"Don't make us," Nightcrawler pleaded.
Xavier almost relented, sensing the intense fear emanating from their minds. He reminded himself that the first two experiments had gone wrong and decided that they were panicking needlessly.
"It will be fine," he reiterated. "Don't worry."
The blue mutants looked horrified and betrayed, but they allowed Forge to make a few minor adjustments to the equipment strapped to them.
"Okay," Forge said, stepping back. "Go for it. It's ready."
"Keep in mind that if… when this goes wrong, we're coming after you first," Kurt muttered in Forge's direction, reaching out to grab his duplicates' shoulders. He squirmed slightly under his oversized clothes, hoping that they would fit properly when he reached the other side of his hop. Closing his eyes, he imagined the other side of the room. He teleported.
Sulfurous smoke filled the room upon reentry. Jean and Storm worked together to clear the foul smoke as quickly as they could. After a few seconds, they uncovered a fuzzy blue form crouched into a ball, panting heavily, golden eyes wild. The room calmed remarkably upon noticing that he was once again his proper age.
Hearing movement in the smoldering mass behind the visible fuzzball, Storm sent a plume of air to clear up the mess. The room went horribly still. It turned out that both the fuzzballs and Forge were partially correct. As Forge had said, they were the correct age. But as Kurt had said, there were nine of them.
In a puff of dust and a myriad of cursing, both Forge and Tabitha were gone.
"Professor," one of the blue mutants managed weakly. "Too many…"
They all collapsed, the mental stress rendering them unconscious.
To Be Continued…
Sorry. Couldn't keep them at five years old. I'm not very good at writing children into stories.
Note. The title 'Drei' does mean 'three' but I was not referring to the number of Kurts. I was referring to the constant numeral factor of the devices that Forge was playing with.
The mentioned songs 'Big-Ass Lil and Yukon Pete' and 'Robocock and Neutron Nelly' are by John Valby. They actually exist, as scary as that is. As far as the Chia Dick, I don't know if such a thing exists or not. I was just messing around. If it really does exist, I'm calling a therapist.
And finally, R&R!!!