Second Time Round

Yo, the name is ProFool, the logic is erratic. . .

Disclaimer: Gravity works.

First off I apologize for being such a hoser head and not updating in like forever. I started college and even though its not all that difficult it has been rather time consuming and then I got on a drawing kick so that takes up a lot of my spare time. Anyway me bad no writy on the walk walk , but I am taking a script writing class so maybe I'll start writing more frequently! One can only hope.

Note: I wanted to put a training session for Dan in this chapter, but then I decided it would work better in one of the next chapters. I actually like writing training sessions and battles and well just anything that would make Sabretooth actually want to read, but I thought if I put one in every chapter it might get kinda old. So, assume they train in the time between chapters and I'll continue to throw in sessions from time to time especially if I'm prompted. For now you'll just have to drown your sorrows in a little X-Men scrap. On another note one of the other Anti-XYo writers just begged me to keep Rogue with the brotherhood and I have noticed concerns for the poor girl in reviews. Wether she'll stay or not I'm still not sure, but I have been thinking about it.

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(Forge's ex-lab)

"Did you find anything yet!?" Pietro called out for the umpteenth time.

"No! Will you just shut up and watch the door already?" Lance growled as he started sifting through another box of lightly toasted papers.

"Why did we bring him again?" Todd asked annoyed.

"He followed us." Lance sighed.

"Oh yeah." Todd muttered as he went back to fiddling with the only computer that was still giving off sparks.

Pietro of course was officially bored with looking out for faculty on a freakin' Saturday and it had been an hour since Todd had last managed to give himself a sizable shock from any of the electronics. This brought the amusement level down to zero. "Bor-red," he sighed rather loudly.

"Then go ho-ome." Lance responded.

"This-is-stupid!" Pietro complained as he sped down into the fairly torched lab, "We-don't-even-
know-what-this-thingamajigger-does-yet!" He added picking up Forge's zappy thing and looking down it nozzle to see if anything was inside.

"Well if you don't know what it does maybe you shouldn't be messing around with it." Todd sneered.

"This coming from the frog-boy who's been electrocuted how many times today?" Pietro quipped.

"Put it down." Lance demanded coldly.

"Make me." Pietro retorted. Making Lance angry was fun for two reasons: One he could never do any serious harm to the speedster and two Mystique always ended up blaming Lance, due to his destructive nature.

"The guy rigged his own lab with explosives, and you think pushing random buttons on one of his machines is a good thing?" Todd asked, slightly amazed at Pietro's stupidity.

"Who said anything about pushing buttons?" Pietro asked with irritating smirk as he traced the edge of one of the buttons with his finger. Pietro had no real intention of hitting any of the buttons of course, he simply found teasing his 'brothers' highly amusing.

"Stop messing around Pietro!" Lance's voice rose with his concern that the idiot might actually end up zapping himself into another dimension.

Pietro rolled his eyes, "Relax Lance, this things probably some stupid 70's food processor or something. I'm just saying maybe we should test it out on like a rutabaga or a tree-"

"Or we could just put the zappy thing down and get back to work." Todd suggested.

"Zappy thing? Don't-tell-me-you-tested-it-without-me!? How does it work!?" He asked looking it over with renewed interest.

"Just shoot me now!" Lance moaned realizing that now they'd never get Pietro to leave it alone.

"Okay!" Pietro laughed pointing it at the wall next to Lance intent on giving him a scare, he hit one of the buttons, and disappeared.

"Maybe we should told him he was holding it backwards. . ." Todd muttered in disbelief.

Lance was already panicked, "Oh no! No, no, no! How do we get him out?" He asked grabbing the zappy thing and shaking it.

"That was the point of this little escapade wasn't it?" Todd asked taking the zappy thing away from Lance. "Come in here find out how to get Forge out of the zappy thing and leave, right?"

"Yeah, but Forge can stay in there for three more months and no one will care! How are we going to explain to Magneto that we zapped his only son into another dimension!?" Lance asked anxiously.

"First you explain how you found out Pietro is his son and in the meantime I'm gonna go zap the Nightcreeper." Todd growled, he would be worried, but at the moment he was a bit to angry at Pietro to care.

Lance just looked at Todd wide eyed. "You are crazy, I don't like the little creep that much either but-"

"But, the X-men got Forge out last time, so if we want to get Pietro out before Mystique hands us our heads on a platter we better hope they can do it again." Todd finished by hopping out of the lab.

"Todd, wait!" Lance called out.

Todd paused for a moment a few feet away from the labs entrance and waited for Lance to catch up.

"We need Mystiques car for that plan." Lance stated as he caught up.

Todd's face fell a bit, "Right. . . You zap it and I'll find the Nightcreeper."

"What!?" Lance exclaimed as Todd handed him the zappy thing and pointed out which button to use.

"Good luck with that!" Todd said cheerily and then hopped away like his life depended on it.

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(Middleverse)

Pietro stood stock still, "Am I dead?", he asked the empty space around him.

No one answered.

So, Pietro set off in search of answers at his usual whirlwind speed, "Hello! Hello! Hellooo!"

"Whoa where'd you come from?" Forge asked as Pietro came inches away from crashing into him.

"The land of the living." Pietro answered testily, while trying to pin down where he'd seen the guys face before. "WAIT! You're the guy who made the food processor that killed me!"

"What?" Forge half laughed in a confused manor.

"Yes, you killed me and now I'm going to haunt you! Booooooooooo!" Pietro wailed.

"But, you're not really dead, you must have gotten caught in the ray of my trans-dimensional projector." Forge explained as Pietro made odd faces at him and continued booing.

Pietro stopped his nonsense for a second, "If I'm not dead then where the heck are we?"

"In a pocket dimension my machine created, I call it middleverse." Forge explained as he headed back to his work table.

"So, basically we're stuck in some sort of limbo and all you do is sit around and invent more deadly food processing devices." Pietro asked.

Forge nodded an affirmative.

Pietro continued, "Well if I'm not dead then I'm probably going to die of boredom, so BOOOOOOOO!"

Forge was about to go back to work when suddenly a car dropped out of no where. "Far out man!" Forge exclaimed as his arm transformed into the ultimate power tool and he started dissecting the vehicle.

"They are testing the food processor without me! AND they're destroying Mystique's stuff without me! There just asking to be haunted!" Pietro

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"An angel is like you Kate, and you are like an ang-" Scott stopped abruptly as Todd landed on the table he and Rogue were sitting at.

"Hey, Summers you have any idea where Nightcreeper is?" Todd asked.

Scott ignored him for a moment and leaned over slightly to get a better look at Rogue. "And you think Kurt acts like an annoying little brother?" He asked her rhetorically.

Rogue took this as her cue to get rid of her 'annoying little brother.' "We're trying tah rehearse here, Toad."

Todd glanced over at her, "I'll leave as soon as he tells me where Nightcreeper is."

"Why do you want to know?" Scott asked annoyed.

Todd paused and looked very thoughtful. Then just as Scott was wondering if the Toad was actually so stupid that he'd forgotten why he was looking for Kurt in the first place Todd answered coyly, "I intend to zap him into another dimension with a piece of machinery that I barely know how to operate."

Scott just stared at him vacantly.

"Oh, just tell him where he is already." Rogue sighed.

"I don't know where Kurt is," Scott responded, "and frankly I'm glad."

Todd looked cheated then hopped away with a short "Goodbye, Rogue."

"Why do you hang out with that guy?" Scott asked as he watched Todd hop away.

"Read your lines." Rogue growled.

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Lance was sitting outside of the Institute in his jeep when Todd hopped up. "You haven't found Nightcrawler yet, huh?" Lance asked.

"No, you zapped the car?" Todd asked.

"Yeah, and I think Nightcrawler's in there." Lance said motioning to the Institute.

"Fun," Todd sighed sarcastically, "so all I have to do is get in there without being seen in broad daylight zap Nightcreeper and get out again without getting skewered by Wolverine or something."

"Or we could just break in there, attract as much attention as necessary, zap Nightcrawler, get caught, and then lead them back to the lab." Lance stated as he got out of the jeep and passed off the 'zappy thing' to Todd.

"Right, or we could do that. . ." Todd muttered as Lance used his powers to knock down the gate. ". . .without getting skewered. . ."

Lance strolled onto the grounds as if he owned them, ripping up large portions of the landscaping where the defense system activated.

The X-men would think he was just being destructive, but to Todd it was a sharp reminder of how little control Avalanche actually had over his powers. "I'm surprised we never died from your avalanching everything."

"It gave you faster reflexes in the end." Lance half laughed.

"It gave me a limp." Todd quipped as Storm, Spyke, Wolverine and Nightcrawler rushed out to meet their attackers.

"Why are you attacking us?" Storm asked trying to win the battle through reason before blows were exchanged.

"Who said anything about an attack? I'm just here to do a little redecorating." Lance stated simply as he took out another gun turret in front of Spyke and Wolverine forcing them both to jump aside.

Wolverine took offense at this and launched a counter attack closely followed by Spyke and Nightcrawler.

Lance made a pathetic attempt at forming a quick rock shield. The actual result was more of a bulge in the earth's surface that Wolverine crashed head long into.

Spyke had enough time to poll vault on top of the mound before it crashed back down sending smaller earth waves out around it and sending the young mutant to his knees.

Nightcrawler made the most sensible choice of all, he ported just behind Avalanche. Sadly it was the wrong choice because Toad had been behind Avalanche all along and he was waiting for the little Nightcreeper to pop up.

Toad smirked and zapped Nightcrawler before he had time to say, "Vha?"

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(Meanwhile wasting away in Middleverse)

Pietro had finally gotten Forge's goat by 'poltergeisting' away some of his inventions. . .

"I'm telling you this isn't limbo! You arn't even dead, man!" Forge shouted.

"Vha?" Kurt exclaimed as he landed right in front of Forge. "Vhere am I?" he asked disoriented.

Pietro zipped over to Forge, "You're right it's not limbo." Pietro took Kurt's hand and shook it, "Welcome to Hell." He said with a smile.

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Scott ran up to the institute with Jean in tow. Xavier had contacted the two of them telepathically after Storm had shot out a couple of lightning bolts and forced 'the brotherhood' to surrender.

"What'd you do to Kurt?" Scott asked the second he spotted the two boys that Wolverine was currently interrogating.

Wolverine answered for them, "These morons keep saying the sent him to a different dimension under the school."

"No," Todd corrected, "We morons keep saying we sent zapped him into a different dimension with the zappy thing we found in a lab under the school."

"We'll show you where it is." Lance added.

Scott thought on it for a moment, if it hadn't been for what Todd had said in the park earlier he would have sworn they were making it up, but now he wasn't so sure. "Alright, take us to the lab and then we'll talk." Of course the main question in Scott's mind at the moment was 'why Kurt?' but that question would have to wait until after they'd made sure Kurt wasn't in any immediate danger.

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"Why in the land of the living would they zap him in here?" Pietro asked again.

"You're not dead." Forge responded again as he continued to work on yet another new invention. "Heh, done!"

Pietro continued on as if Forge had said nothing, "Why would they force me to spend all eternity with one of the X-geeks? Why?"

"Vhat is it?" Kurt asked trying to ignore Pietro's little rant.

"This should alter the phase-shift frequency of your teleport power, allowing you to teleport back to the real world." Forge explained.

"Well it's not like its gonna kill you or nothin'" Pietro chimed in.

"You're not dead." Forge growled then carried on conversation with Kurt. "The only problem is we need to get someone from the outside to hit the reset button on my machine."

"If de Brotherhood haven't destroyed it yet." Kurt sighed.

"They wouldn't do that," Pietro said finally taking on a more serious tone, "they've wasted too much time and effort trying to get me out of here."

"How so?" Forge asked.

"Oh yeah, don't you think it's a might bit convenient that they've only zapped two things and they're the exact two things you needed to get us all out of here." Pietro pointed out.

"But how would they know?" Forge asked.

"Duh, they must have finally found the instruction manual to your little food processor." Pietro explained in a rather exasperated tone.

"Hey look it's Scott and he's got de zappy thing!" Kurt said as the entire X-men team filed into Forge's ex-lab followed by Todd and Lance.

Forge looked over at Pietro who simply flashed him an 'I told you so' smile. Forge also remained silent and deep in thought.

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"Alright, were here so what now?" Scott asked Todd and Lance.

Todd shrugged. "We're morons remember." Lance answered.

"Maybe we should blow it up." Evan suggested.

"That might just work." Scott stated thoughtfully.

Both Lance and Todd were stunned by this conclusion. "What if that doesn't work?" Todd asked at length.

Scott looked perturbed for a moment, he really wanted to blow the thing up, then suddenly Kurt appeared for a split second. All he managed to get out was, "Reset, don't d-" and he was gone again.

"Uh, you guys saw that, right? " Scott asked the group in general.

"See he's still alive." Lance said in self defense of any thoughts the X-men might have held against them.

Jean ignored both of them and tried to grasp what was really important. "What was he saying?"

"He said, 'Reset. Don't.' Y'know, don't reset it. He wants you to blow it up. Do it!" Evan answered quickly.

"It sounded more like a warning to me. I think he want us to reset the thing." Scott stated as he looked the 'zappy thing' over and found the button. "There reset!"

In a heartbeat Forge, Kurt and Pietro appeared in front of them.

"Pietro!" Evan exclaimed, "Man, we should have blown it up."

"Should-'ave-could-'ave-would-'ave,-but-didn't," Pietro laughed, "better-luck-next-time-X-Geeks." Pietro zoomed out of the lab, it was the first time anyone noticed that Lance and Todd had also long departed.

Pietro jumped in the back of Lance's jeep. "What took you guys, so long I almost went nuts in there!" Pietro yelled in mock anger.

"In all fairness we told you not to mess around with the zappy thing." Todd pointed out.

Pietro just rolled his eyes, and decided to change the subject. "Where are we going now? The Boardinghouse is that way remember."

"Where gonna make sure Forge doesn't join the X-Geeks." Lance stated as he pulled up to a random apartment building.

"How'd you know his name was Forge?" Pietro asked skeptically.

"His notes." Todd covered almost too quickly.

"Oh," Pietro responded not seeming to take notice.

After a short wait the boys saw Forge walk up to his old home. First he tried the key in the lock, but that didn't work, so he knocked on the door. An older man answered and they exchanged words, but eventually the door shut and Forge was left out in the cold.

Lance pulled up next to Forge, "Your family moved out to California ages ago. If you want we can give you a lift back to the Boardinghouse and you can give them a call."

"We looked up the number." Todd added.

Pietro had a million and a half questions as to when they had found time to make these preparations, but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut at the moment.

Forge considered the offer for a minute, part of him had a feeling he'd be safer with the X-Men, but his curiosity always won out over such feelings. He agreed, just like a much older version of him had told Todd and Lance he would. Forge would contact his parents that night and they would believe it was him, that was one bit of history that was destined to repeat itself.

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Look at that I went and put Scott and Rogue in close proximity again for a very short amount of time just to torment you all. The next chapter is going to be the Turn of the Rogue! Gasp! Will she stay with the Brotherhood or will she go with the X-Men! I don't even know! for! sure! yet!!!EXCLAMATION POINT!!!!!!! Reviews might make me type faster. . . !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!