And such emotion filled reviews at that. I suppose I must explain myself a bit.
In fanfiction I tend to stay away from religion, minus the one part with the mistletoes and 'it's what Jesus would have wanted.' Anyway, Christmas has nothing to do with religion. Not anymore, anyway. It's all about 'gimme gimme gimme' and 'lookit me, I'm so generous.' And to the point where I don't really care what religious preferences any of the characters have. Sorry if I offended anyone. I don't know anything about Chanukah anyway so I better not touch it.
Second order of business is Pietro's extra-jerk attitude. He's always been a jerk in the show, and that's why he's the best. The most fun types of characters to write about are jerks and idiots. While there are no indicated idiots in the show, they supplied me with a character who completely disregards other's feelings for his own well-being. And that is the greatest thing ever. Also, I was going to have a special side plot line in here, using Pietro, but seeing as how I'm taking long enough with this, I'm afraid I'll have to skip it. Anyway, it was just an overdone parody of a christmas carol, and that might be taking this a little too far. Right? Well, enough from me. Nobody cares what I think.
-Hizzy (your beloved author, whom you love to give reviews to please and thank you)
By the next day, most of the Brotherhood had managed to get into the holiday spirit. Fred was making a gingerbread house, Todd was watching a Rudolph movie, Lance was making a scarf for Kitty, and Pietro was making fun of Lance for making a scarf for Kitty. In fact, Wanda was the only one not in the holiday spirit, but she never got in the spirit of anything, so it's not important. At that very moment, she was sitting alone thinking about how much she hated the holidays.
Toad noticed how angry Wanda looked, and decided to cheer her up.
"Hey, Wanda," he said as seductively possible for him to be (which was actually very unseductive), "I couldn't help but notice that you're under this mistletoe that I'm holding over your head."
Wanda looked at him with an expression that can only be defined as 'suppressed urge to kill.' After a moment she realized that, not only was he completely serious, but he was also planning to make his move. Instead, she made a move of her own.
Toad watched as Wanda reached over and grabbed the mistletoe from him and slowly crushed it in her hand until it crumbled to the floor. "Do you honestly think that ever works for anybody?"
Just then, Scott and Jean walked into the room. Scott pointed to the remains of the mistletoe on the floor. "Look, Jean, we're next to a mistletoe! You know what that means." He leaned over and kissed Jean, who started giggling.
"Scott, that is SO romantic!" she sighed dreamily.
"What are you doing in our house!?" Lance demanded.
"We're collecting canned goods for the orphanage," Scott explained.
"Yeah," Jean nodded, "They didn't collect nearly enough themselves. And a couple of them got emotionally traumatized in the process."
At that moment, everyone glared at Pietro, who only groaned in annoyance, "It's not like I was the ONLY one who did that!"
Indeed, he wasn't. In fact, the same two children who had visited the Brotherhood boarding house, also visited the Acolyte's headquarters.
flashback
"I hope these people are nicer than that last guy," the little boy said as he rang the doorbell. The door opened, and Pyro peered out at them from the other side.
"Hello, sir!" said the little girl nicely, "Can you spare some canned food for our orphanage?"
Pyro turned and shouted, "Sabertooth, have we got any food for some kids?"
Suddenly, Sabertooth leapt out the door and started snarling at the children, "You kids look tasty!"
The children clung to each other and screamed.
"Sabertooth!" Pyro scolded, "That's no way to treat orphans!"
"You're the one starting them on fire," Sabertooth pointed out.
Pyro laughed, "Why would I be-" He looked over and saw that he actually was setting them on fire, "Blimey! I've got to stop doing things like this!"
"Than can you please stop shooting flames at us?" the little girl asked politely.
"I guess I should," Pyro said, but made no attempt to stop.
end flashback
"And those two children were never seen again," Scott finished.
"Well, than there's no reason to donate any food," Pietro shrugged and walked away.
"You'll have to forgive Pietro," Lance muttered, "He's a jerk. He doesn't know any better."
"Would any of you like to donate?" Jean asked.
"Pfft, no!" Lance rolled his eyes.
"Okay, than we better get going," Jean said, annoyed, "We're going to be late for hot cocoa and carol singing. Come on, Scott." That said, she dragged Scott out the door with the brotherhood glaring at them.
"It's not fair," Todd exclaimed, "They all go around doing nice things and get hot cocoa and a million presents. We do no good and get nothing! It doesn't make any sense!"
"I bet if they didn't have all those presents they wouldn't act so nice," Fred said wistfully.
Suddenly, Lance jumped out of his seat, "That's it! If they got their presents stolen it'd knock them all down a peg or two."
"Yeah," Todd sighed, "But what are the odds that would happen?"
Lance frowned, "No, I mean we should steal their presents."
"Then we would have all their presents!" Fred said excitedly.
And so the devious plan began to unfold before them. It was a wonderful, awful idea. They would wait for nightfall, after all the X-Men were asleep, then they would send Pietro in to steal the presents so fast that they wouldn't even know what happened. It was flawless.
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"I won't do it," Pietro snapped.
"Why not!?" Lance scowled, "You want presents more than any of us, so go out there and earn them!"
"I am earning them," explained Pietro, "By being good so Santa will reward me."
"For the last time," Wanda snarled, "Santa. Isn't. REAL!"
Pietro snorted, "You're only saying that because you want all the presents for yourself. But you're not going to get ANY because you got greedy and had to go steal the X-Men's presents, which are probably just stupid sweaters and fruitcakes. Meanwhile, I'll get what I want because I was good."
Todd thought for a moment, "What about ten minutes ago when you-"
"THAT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Pietro shouted, then ran up to his room and slammed the door.
"Now what?" Fred asked sadly.
"Plan B," Wanda said calmly, having expected Pietro to not cooperate, "First, we'll make sure they're asleep. Then we'll sneak in and kill all of them."
Lance, Todd, and Fred all stared at her in horror. Then, for a moment, they considered it. Then they went back to being horrified. With that, they moved on to plan C. Lance, Fred, and Wanda would all distract the X-Men, while Toad snuck in and stole the presents. It was more work than Plan A, and less fun that Plan B, but it was they best they could come up with that didn't involve Pietro or killing.
to be continued