Catching Up

Meanwhile at the Xavier Institute Evan was catching up on the lives of both X-Men and Misfits. "Wait are you seriously telling me that Auntie O had a date with Dracula?" He blinked. "The Dracula?"

"Oh yeah," Rogue nodded. "Even worse it turned out he was married."

"Married?" Evan blinked. "Dracula is married?"

"And had a couple of psychos on his tail," Kurt chuckled. "That was a fun night!"

"Not as much fun as when those movie people moved in for about a month," Rogue told him. "But I'm glad the film was never released!"

"Well since Kitty managed to get Dylan Hunter arrested for decking Senator Kelly and another Senator as well as destroying a restaurant…" Kurt shrugged.

"You mean that really happened?" Evan asked. "I read it in the papers. They fall down the sewers a lot. I thought that the Enquirer made all that junk up!"

"No that really happened," Kurt told him. "But it wasn't half as weird as that island that nearly ate us alive!"

"Do I even want to know?" Evan asked.

"It's a long story," Rogue sighed.

"Man this place is even crazier than when I left," Evan shook his head. "Makes the tunnels look peaceful. Well before…"

"Are you sure you're okay?" Rogue asked him. "I mean with Spears…"

"I wasn't near the tunnels when the poison first came out," Evan growled. "Luckily Cybelle was able to make enough potion in time to help the others. She's good at that, makes a lot of our medicines. But the stuff she makes is only a temporary solution. Sooner or later that stuff is gonna kill everyone down there if Spears isn't stopped."

A loud crash was in the kitchen. "It sounds like Lance and Peter are gonna kill each other if we don't stop them," Rogue rolled her eyes.

"Is that still going on?" Evan asked as he and Kurt followed her.

"You have no idea," Kurt groaned. "And with the Misfits coming over here nearly every day…"

"Wait you never explained how they're able to come here every day," Evan said.

"It's kind of complicated," Kurt told him.

"What's complicated about Trinity making a teleportation device and those yahoos using it to drive us bananas?" Rogue snapped as she opened the door to the kitchen. She barely dodged a flying plate. "WILL YOU IDIOTS CUT IT OUT?"

Both Lance and Peter were throwing food and anything else they could get their hands on at each other, much to the amusement of several X-Men. Kitty was trying to stop them. "Stop it!" She shouted.

"Not until he leaves you alone!" Peter shouted.

"ME?" Lance shouted. "You're the one who needs to back off or I'll rock you!" The ground started to shake.

"Here goes the dishes…" Kurt groaned as they started to fall out of the shelves. "Again!"

"Avalanche! Colossus!" Scott yelled. "Knock it off!" Then he got hit in the face with a piece of cake. "Oh that is it! You are going down!" He grabbed some food and started tossing it at them.

"Food fight!" Kurt shouted. Soon everyone was throwing food at each other. Even Evan got into it. Soon the kitchen was covered in food. Kitty was not happy. "You guys are like so immature wasting food like this!" She screamed. She was plastered with food from all around her. "PROFESSOR!" She ran out.

"Kitty wait!" Lance ran after her.

"Kitty!" Peter shouted as he ran after them. "Stay away from her!"

"MAKE ME!" Lance shouted back.

"Oh man I'd forgotten how much fun that was!" Evan laughed. He licked some cake off his chest. "Chocolate and…Pepperoni?"

"One of Kitty's concoctions," Kurt snickered. "Trust me this isn't exactly wasting good food by any stretch of the imagination."

"I'm just glad it wasn't any of her muffins," Evan groaned. "They could have killed us all!"

"She's been banned from making those for life," Ray laughed.

"Yeah ever since Logan bent one of his claws trying to cut one," Scott snickered at the memory. "It took Forge three hours to get it back into shape!"

"You're joking?" Evan laughed. "Man that is totally mental!"

Thornn walked into the room. "What's all the…?" She saw Evan and visibly tensed. "Hello," She said quickly and left the room.

"What was that all about?" Kurt asked.

"Guess she feels guilty about leaving her sister behind," Evan shrugged.

"I wouldn't," Ray told him. "She's a psycho."

"She has her moments," Evan grinned. "So what else is new around here?"

"Oh so many things!" Pietro whisked in. "But the top thing is that I have grown more wonderful!"

"Here we go…" Evan groaned. "I didn't think it was possible but your ego has inflated to even greater proportions than when I left!"

"Nothing's bigger than his ego except maybe the Grand Canyon," Angelica said when she and the other Misfits walked in.

"And that's a big maybe," Lina smirked.

"Who are you?" Evan looked at the new Misfits.

"I'm Spyder," Spyder piped up. "This is Angelica and Lina."

"Also known as Firestar and Dragonfly," Lance explained. "We got some new members too. And you also know…"

"Arcade?" Evan looked at him. "Since when were you a mutant?"

"Since never," Arcade explained. "I'm still human."

"You mean you have a human in your team?" Evan's jaw dropped.

"You're human?" Todd made a mock show of surprise. "My goodness I had no idea! I am shocked! Shocked!" All the Misfits laughed.

"But what can you do?" Evan asked. "I mean you're human for crying out loud! What good are you on a mutant team?"

"I was good enough to beat the X-Men all on my own and kick them out of their own mansion," Arcade huffed.

"You didn't beat us!" Kurt snapped. "You surprised us! And we won in the end!"

"Yeah by having Bedlam kill off Cerebro!" Arcade snapped.

"Kill Cerebro?" Evan blinked.

"It's a long story…" Scott groaned.

"You bet it's a long story…" Arcade's eye began to twitch.

"Uh hey Evan why don't we go take a walk or something?" Kurt said quickly. He grabbed Evan's arm and teleported him outside. "Phew! That was close!"

"What was all that about?" Evan asked. "And who's Bedlam?"

"Well its kind of complicated," Kurt remarked.

"Not really," Pietro zipped over to them. "Short version, Arcade fell in love with Cerebro via e-mail and was convinced the X-Men were mistreating 'her'. Beat 'em up and kicked 'em out of the mansion and would have downloaded his brain into Cerebro so he could always be together with his 'lady love' if Paige and Jesse didn't show up and throw a monkey wrench in his plans."

"O-kay," Evan nodded. "And Paige and Jesse are…?"

"Paige is Sam's little sister," Kurt told him. "You know the blonde girl you saw earlier heading towards Danger Room practice? We call her Husk 'cause she changes her skin."

"Oh yeah," Evan nodded. "And Jesse is this Bedlam guy?"

"Bingo," Pietro folded his arms. "Causes machinery to go nuts. Kind of blew up Cerebro."

"It took the Professor and Forge weeks to build a new one!" Kurt groaned.

"Speaking of building what's this about a teleportation device Trinity built?" Evan asked.

"I'll show you," Pietro showed him the watch. "A must have for any Misfit! It can take us anywhere we want at any time. Unless the girls are playing with it. We've had a lot of fun adventures with it."

"Like the time on Fire Island when we nearly got roasted alive!" Kurt moaned.

"Well technically it was Lockheed and the others who set it on fire," Pietro remarked.

"Lockheed? Who's…" Evan's eyes widened as he saw a little purple dragon fly by and start eating some flowers. "Guys I think Kitty's food did something to me."

"No that's Lockheed," Kurt snickered. "Kitty's pet dragon."

"A DRAGON?" Evan yelped. "You serious?"

"Well if you don't believe me…" Kurt pointed to Lockheed who hiccuped and spurted out a small flame.

"Between her driving, her cooking, her love life and the lizard it's a wonder she hasn't become public enemy number one!" Pietro laughed.

"Man I knew K-Girl is a bit of a flake but still…" Evan shook his head. He then pointed to Pietro's watch. "You can really teleport anywhere with this thing?"

"Sure," Pietro grinned. "I'll prove it." He took Evan's arm. "Hang on Blue Boy if you want a ride! Just press this button…" Kurt grabbed onto Pietro just as he pushed the button. They appeared in the Misfit kitchen. "Voila!"

"Holy…" Evan looked around. "How did you do that?"

"Oh it's simple," Pietro showed him. "Press this button here to where you want to go and that button there to set the distance and presto!"

"Wow," Evan whistled. "That is pretty cool."

"Yes all the convenience of teleportation without that annoying smell of brimstone," Pietro cackled.

"No just an annoying ego," Kurt frowned and folded his arms.

"Oh learn to take a joke, little bro," Pietro grinned.

"We are not brothers!" Kurt snapped. "You're my half sister's half brother. Which makes us…Oh god!" He groaned slapping his head.

"You two and Rogue and Wanda all related," Evan shook his head. "I still can't get over that!"

"You can't get over it?" Kurt moaned. "Try living it sometime!"

"It gets better! Magneto has another daughter too. She can bend metal just like Daddy," Pietro remarked sarcastically. "And here's the kicker, last we heard she was dating Xavier's evil insane son."

"The Professor has a son?" Evan gasped.

"Came as a shock to him too," Pietro told him as they reached Trinity's room. "Here we are!" He opened the door quickly and ducked. "Hmmm… I guess they forgot to set up the…" He was nearly hit with a pie in the face. "Booby trap."

"Thanks a lot Pietro…" Kurt growled as he wiped the pie from his face.

"Oh stop complaining," Pietro remarked. "Yellow looks good on you. Come on." They went in.

"Looks like Barbie's Mad Scientist lab," Evan looked around and saw several devices as well as watches on the table. "What are they doing? Mass producing them?"

"With those girls you never know," Kurt sighed as he wiped off the last of the pie with a pink shirt lying on the dresser. He looked at Pietro. "What are you doing?"

"Just picking up a few supplies," Pietro was grabbing a few other things.

"What are you up to?" Kurt asked. "You shouldn't take things that don't belong to you!"

"Somebody should tell the Triplets that," Pietro quipped as he picked something up. "Isn't this your underwear? It's got a hole in it."

"Give me that!" Kurt snapped grabbing it.

"Come on," Pietro grinned. "Let's go decorate Beach Head's office!"

"What?" Kurt yelled. "No way!"

"Aw come on Kurt," Evan grinned. "Sounds like fun to me!"

"Well it seems you have loosened up a bit," Pietro grinned. "Welcome to the dark side my friend!"

"Are you crazy?" Kurt asked.

"Better here than at the mansion," Evan shrugged.

"You have a point," Kurt remarked.

"Good," Pietro grinned. "So grab those glue guns and follow me!"

####################################################################

"I can't wait until tomorrow morning when Beach sees his office and all his furniture's covered with tin foil!" Pietro laughed when they teleported back to the mansion.

"That was funny," Kurt admitted. "But did you really have to glue all those feathers to the ceiling?"

"Hey it went with the new pink shag carpeting on the floor," Pietro grinned. "Although I must admit Evan I loved what you did with the seashells on the wall. Nice touch."

"Thank you," Evan chuckled. "I can't believe how much I missed pulling pranks like that!"

"We never pulled pranks like that," Kurt said.

"Well actually when we were kids Daniels and I used to do stuff like that a lot," Pietro grinned. "Remember the time we painted our homeroom teacher purple?"

"Do I? You got me in trouble big time!" Evan told him. "I was grounded for three weeks because of that stunt!"

"Hey it's not my fault you blabbed," Pietro remarked. "You never could keep a secret."

"I think I've gotten better at it over time," Evan said. Then he noticed they were upstairs. "Hey I just wanna check out my old room a second."

"Well Jesse's in it now…" Kurt began as Evan opened the door.

Evan couldn't believe that his room had been redecorated. Jesse was lying on the bed. "Uh hi? Can I help you?" Jesse asked.

"Well this used to be my room," Evan looked around. "I guess with all you new guys it was a little silly of me to think it would stay empty. I can't believe how many new people are here."

"I heard the Professor's looking for even more to join us," Jesse told him.

"Well that doesn't surprise me," Evan said a little bitterly.

"Evan?" Ororo walked up to him with Xavier and Roadblock. "There you are! We've been looking all over for you."

"Just been hanging out," Evan told her. "So did you convince Spears to stop poisoning us?"

"I'm afraid not," Xavier sighed. "In fact considering his attitude it looks like he is not bothered by the fact that he is harming mutants."

"He nearly splashed Storm with that stuff," Roadblock growled.

"HE WHAT?" Evan popped out a spike from his arm.

"It's all right," Ororo waved. "I'm fine. Thanks to Shipwreck."

"If he'd hurt you…" Evan snarled. "He's gone too far this time!"

"I agree," Xavier said. "Fortunately due to the…incident we were able to obtain a sample of the formula. We might be able to produce an antidote."

"You know Professor if you had made sure Spears had been shut down for good the first time this happened maybe we wouldn't be in this situation," Evan glared at him.

"I assumed that he would have stopped production once he knew what he was doing," Xavier sighed. "But it appears that he prefers money more."

"Just like a damn drug dealer," Evan snarled. "Doesn't care who he hurts as long as he makes his money!"

"Evan!" Ororo admonished him. "Watch your language!"

"Spears is gonna worry about a lot more than my language when I get my hands on him!" Evan snapped.

"Hold on," Roadblock said. "It may not come to that. There may be a legal way. Let's hear what the lawyers have to say."

"I agree," Xavier told him. "The last thing we need is to start a fight that could get out of control. I think I will start to see if Hank has anything to report yet."

"Good idea," Roadblock nodded. "Hey guys why don't you go help out in the kitchen or something?"

"Why?" Pietro asked.

"You are so dense it's scary," Jesse stood up. "Come on guys. You two can talk in here as long as you want."

"Thank you Jesse," Ororo told him as he and the others left.

"Are you okay?" Evan asked.

"I'm fine," Ororo told him. "I've been through a lot worse."

"So I've heard. Man I can't believe some of this stuff I'm hearing," Evan shook his head. "You guys have really been through a lot since I've left."

"It hasn't been easy I agree," Ororo said. "It's even harder not knowing what was going on with you."

"Things have been kind of busy," Evan shrugged.

"Too busy to let me know how you're doing?" Ororo asked. "You know I had to lie to your mother and tell her you were in Colorado? Why can't you come back home?"

"We've been over this Auntie O," Evan sighed. "The Morlocks need me. Now more than ever."

"I know," Ororo sighed. "I just wish things were different."

"Look I don't want to fight over this," Evan said. "We hardly see each other enough as it is. I admit a lot of it is my fault…"

"A lot of it?"

"Okay all of it," Evan agreed. "But I have a job to do, like you do. It's just in a different location that's all."

"Well I may not have to like it but I do understand," Ororo said. "And I'm proud of you for doing so."

"Thanks Auntie O," Evan grinned. "You want to talk about something else?"

"Sure," Ororo agreed. "Anything you want." She sat on the bed.

"So," Evan folded his arms. "What's this I hear about you going on a date with Dracula?"

"Anything but that…" Ororo groaned.