Lucky Me

Chapter 065


"Want to tell me again what we're doing in the sewer?" I asked as I picked my booted feet (Yes! I got boots! No more fairy-booties) from the muck and back into it again. My wings were green (not literally) because even they were so disgusted!

"You took over as team captain for your group; your training is field ready," Cyclops pointed out as he swiftly made his way through the dark sludge. "Didn't Flex brief you on this mission? He knew about it in advance."

Naturally, I jumped to conclusions. "That jerk! He probably didn't want to give up the leadership position; he just didn't want to go sashaying through the sewer." I felt something bump my leg and my stomach lurch. The smell was permanently in my hair, feathers and mouth, or so it seemed.

"Focus on the mission at hand or you're going to give Scottie an ulcer." Bobby-Jerk-Iceboy mentioned. Easy for him to say, he was 'icing' himself over the mysterious brown/green goop I had to walk through.

Good thing it wasn't Super Bowl Sunday, we might have to have swimin this-this-well, you know.

"Why are we down here anyway?"

"To make sure you never have another date until your thirty," Iceman popped off.

"This coming from Mr. Eternally Single, oh, I'm hurt." He stuck his tongue out, I would have done the same but I was afraid that there would be a splash and I'd end up eating it. Then, then I would just want to die (by cutting off my tongue off).

"Kids," Gambit teased as he walked past me. Why was I the only female with a bunch of hyper active males that liked to blow things up? Wait, I knew! I was their babysitter, yeah, that's it. And I didn't get paid by the hour for it! "You behave now, non?"

"He started it," I grumbled.

"Mature move."

"Iceman, Blyt, keep it down." Cyclops' voice told us he wasn't in the mood for humor. "And we are here to rendezvous with Cable about a certain situation which is occurring in Genosha and also because there have been reports of mutants, again, living in the sewers. It's too close to the mansion for my ease."

"Who are we meeting?" And was he part alligator or something? The name rang some bells in the back of my mind, but no clear picture was developing.

"Your big brother, chere." The guy with white hair from Christmas? Oh man. "Tall, white hair, carries a gun-"

"Not to mention a serious bad attitude. Sort of like Scott, but ten times as serious."

"Why all of us?"

"Just in case we ran into trouble and for you to get accustomed to the conditions we sometimes have to work in."

As long as the guy wasn't around, "What kind of regular person makes a meeting in the sewer? The Ace Plumbing guy?"

"A person who has no desire to be spied on while conveying important information."

My luck was holding steady at bad. I jumped (creating a splash which ended up on my upper legs-ugh) and the guy in blue stepped from the shadows. Cyclops turned and walked to him (and got in front of me) Gambit and Iceman followed. "Nice to see you all again, I wish it could be under better circumstances."

"Or in a better location," I grumbled under my breath. Four pair of eyes turned to me. I laughed nervously. "Nothing."

I reallytried to pay attention but the Cable guy started to talk in another language known was 'techno babble', popular with computer geeks, agents of mass destruction, and digital media majors. My job (self-employed of course) was trying to prevent my mind from wondering exactly what was passing by my feet and why I didn't demand full, rubber body armor.

"…they have a precog, so it won't be easy." Cable went on to explain. A precog? What was that? The time before the toilet got clogged, clogging?

/It's someone who sees into the future./I froze as my iced over blood withered in my veins. It was 'big brother's' voice in my head-he was a telepath? Glancing up at him, he didn't even cast me a confirming eye. I thought I was going nuts for a while before the mind voice popped in once again.

/You're tired and your guard is down, you better fix these problems, Blyt, before you go back in the field again./

Oh yeah, he was definitelya Summers. I wondered if I was going to become super cynical?

That caught his attention enough to look up at me.

/Those things that keep bumping into your legs?/ I cringed at the question, /Water snakes./

I freaked.

"What!" I screamed and poor Mr. Remy never had a chance to blink as I jumped on his back. He lost his balance and we both went down (completely) into the green bubbly slime.

Worst of all, we both went down with our mouths open.


I had been in the shower for a good forty minutes. My shampoo and conditioner were both emptied and I still wanted more. I couldn't believe I fell in sewage, ugh, maybe I should join my other team member when they leave. Ick. Before we left the nasty place I had shed my skin three times and then once more when we got out, all in an attempt to try to get the rank off of me.

Mr. Remy was not a happy guy and as punishment hegot to shower before me. There was no way the female wing was going to allow me to get this junk off in their showers. I had emptied two bottles of soap and scrubbed my normal skin raw with a bar of soap.

As for that supposed mutant sitting stuff in the sewer, it was a bogus lead. Scott was upset and I and Mr. Remy were busy trying to not die and I thought Bobby-Jerk was going to laugh himself into a coma.

I couldn't wait to get a toothbrush and every available tube of toothpaste into my mouth. After that, I was going to gargle about ten gallons of mouth wash.


My first final was the next day and graduation was Wednesday (not mine, but Chris'). I was not looking forward to that week. Sure it was only four more days until summer freedom, but it also meant I was going to lose a team member.

I was wiped out because I had been studying so hard. There was a lot more than numbers and past participles to think about (and the F I got on my project by the devil spawn, Mr. Poovey because I made fun of him). So I decided to take over the Rec. Room TV for a while. Not to mention the dumb cat kept walking all over my books and plopping its self right in the middle of what I was reading. Dang creature.

Some news channel was on, and because the remote had walked off somewhere and everyone knew that actually getting up and manually changing the channel was so retro, I just watched.

It was mostly blah blah blahing, but then something interesting did come on. "Das, the teen pop superstar has been reported missing. Her record company says they have been searching for their number one hit maker for close to three months…"

Das? Oh man! I loved her and they tookher? Whoever the heck 'they' were. Then the anchorperson went on to talk about mundane things, I was upset. One of my favorite singers missing!

Oh well, at least she didn't end up in the X-Men.

That would have been creepy.

"Hey." I craned my neck toward the door to see Julie coming in; D-M was hot on her heels. "I wanted to talk to you."

"Why?" I asked, D-M flopped down on the couch and seemed absorbed in the nightly news. "I thought I scared you."

Julie rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. That's the first time I can remember noticing her red leather fingerless gloves. Taking a quick mental stroll down my memories, it occurred to me that she always wore them. Wonder why?

"I'm not scared of you. You're not trying to strangle me at the moment, so-"

"So?" I asked coldly. She asked if I could follow her out to the hall, I sighed in annoyance but went. "Make this quick." It was so Cyclops of me, but oh well.

She twisted her mouth into an ugly frown, "I'm notapologizing." And that required me coming out here? "But-I did 'flame' you without-"

"Thinking? Consideration? Realizing you'd die for it?" I finished for her in a clipped voice. She cringed, but her back bone was strong and she cocked her head to the side.

"Wotever. I just wanted to clarify something with you, is all. When I said that I couldn't manipulate something that wasn't there-I was telling the truth. But I didn't tell you everything, I don't know why I am now, maybe because I don't like to be around depressing people when their bad 'vibes' can seep into me." I hiked an eyebrow up at this. She was being little Miss Open all of a sudden. My Kookie-Sense was on red (high) alert.

"Why tell me this?"

"Because I've been told I'm going to 'ave to work under you, and I'd rather not die." I smirked, Julie waslearning. "Your 'affections' could have been toward anyone, just to let you know. 'opefully that will be enough information to keep you from-"

Whatever she was going to say was cut off by a shrill scream and D-M storming out of the Rec. Room. Julie rolled her eyes and scampered back upstairs.

I looked back into the room; the TV had a clip of some news about France playing. Did Daisy have something against the French?

To chew over the rest of the information given to me by my new 'team member' I flopped back down on the couch and flipped the channel after Trish Tilby (yes, manually) started to blab about the weather forecast or something (maybe they should call here first to see what kind of mood Miss Ororo was in).

I found an interesting movie, 'Bridget Jones' Diary' and ended up vegging out in front of the TV until the end.


It was Wednesday and I groggily looked up from where my face was plastered on my Western Civ. textbook. I knew I had to be like, spectacular on this test or I was going to be in some spectacular trouble. I already had an unstable grade with Mr. Poovey since he flunked me on the project.

Wednesday, fateful Wednesday.

When my eyes met the clock face, my feet met the floor as I sprung up to them.

"No!" It was eleven-o-eight, and I was late! In fact, I missed my test in Western Civ.! Oh man!

I ran around as quickly as I could and when I fumbled my way downstairs, I bumped into Cyclops on my way to the door.

"What are you doing here? I thought you'd be in school."

"Drive." I breathed out, "Need drive, now."

Well, it took him three seconds to grumble out a complaint and head toward the garage. On the trip up to the school, the lecture began.

"I can't believe you would miss one of your finals, Kookie. What were you doing that you overslept?"

"Studying," I replied with a yawn.

"Why didn't you do that earlier? You don't need to be playing around when you're still in school. Especially during your finals. Got it?" I wanted to fight back, but I was tired. It had been three weeks since I got more than five complete hours of sleep in day. The reason I was tired was because I was pushing myself in school and with my training.

I only overslept once! Sheesh!

After running through the usual late-check-in procedures with the office, I took off toward Mr. Poovey's class. It was around lunch, so I knew he wasn't doing anything important. Busting through his door while I was out of breath would have been a bad idea, so I caught my breath before I busted through his door.

"Mr. Poovey?"

He glared at me over his sandwich; I guessed he still remembered my little remark about the guillotine.

"Miss Summers. It's lunch. I don't take visitors during lunch."

"I know, sir," boy did that sound funny, "But I had to tell you that I missed-"

"Your final. I know, but I am not going to give it again," Mr. Poovey stated firmly. I should have figured the big beast wouldn't allow any pity. "You missed it. Too bad for you. You can leave now."

I gritted my teeth, turned on my heel, and stomped away down the hall toward the cafeteria. I so did not like that guy!


Back at the mansion that afternoon, Chris and the others were blasting his type of music. Mr. Logan made himself scarce saying he wasn't thrilled about a constant ringing in his ears.

Chris, of course, was graduating today and they were going all out for him. There was a huge cake bought, several gifts, and more stuff. I was happy for him but sad because I was going to lose someone else pretty soon.

Adam's room was completely silent, which was a pleasant relief from the blasting voices and banging. I walked in, since he wouldn't be able to hear me even if I knocked.

"Hey," he said peeking over several large boxes. His stuff was almost all packed up. I dropped down to where he was sitting on the floor. "Whatcha doing?" I asked, poking at the silver crown looking thing.

"Working on something D-M wanted." He picked up a screw driver and started to stab the little thing again.

"Did you get the image inducer finished?"

His grin grew as he looked up at me. Reaching to the nightstand behind him, Adam opened the drawer and produced my spare image inducer.

"All finished," he announced proudly, dropping the little stick device in my hand, "Popping puss pimples and all."

I smirked and tucked it into my jeans pocket. The pleasantries were over.

"Why do you have to leave?"

Adam stopped his tinkering, looked up at me and gave a weak smile, "Because I can't do this. I wasn't meant to."

I felt tears starting to form behind my eyes.

"But you don't know that for certain. You don't have to leave."

The eternal sweetheart Adam was, smiled.

"If I'm wrong, I'll come back, promise. I just—don't think I can handle this lifestyle. It's so wicked you can." I cringed, "But after the Sabertooth ordeal, I realized it wasn't just some high tech video game, it was real, and people die. I got scared."

Trying to not let him see what was behind my fake smile, I said an 'okay' that came out weaker and more broken then I would have liked.

"Besides, you're not rid of me until after the F. M. R. fundraiser."

"The what?" Something rung a bell.

"Foundation of Mutant Research, it's a charity party Dr. McCoy invited Daisy and I to. Surely she told you about it."

"Yeah," I replied flippantly, "but-ah, never mind." I was sure I had heard that before-but where? Probably wasn't important, my memory rarely was.


It was time for Chris' graduation.

The whole 'X' family took up two bleachers (though Mr. Remy offered, quite nicely, to let Miss Rogue sit on his lap, she called him 'Sewer Rat'). I was like the great divide between the X-Men and the X-Citers. He was sitting beside me and I didn't know whether to feel a small relief, or weird about it. Jean, though, felt enough for the both of us as she shot us a warning glare.

The graduation wasn't anything spectacular just a bunch of speeches by the smart kids and oh, the one funny thing was that when they went to play the graduating class' song, someone switched 'Letting Go' with 'Another One Bites the Dust' and got the whole class laughing. And then the principal went into his 'threaten everything' mode about how irresponsible it was and boring stuff.

I was still tired (exhausted really) and without thinking of anything in particular, I leaned my head on his shoulder. If I had been anywhere near well rested I wouldn't have dreamt of doing something like this, but not even Jean seemed to notice (I barely registered it).

When Jean didnotice, she made a face and sent my weary mind a thought.

/A bird and fish can fall in love, but where will they make a home?/

My reply was automatic, meaning I didn't think about it.

/On the grill at the local restaurant or in the mansion with the rest of the freaks and weirdos./ And, hello! Whoever said the 'l' word? We weren't even a couple!

She rolled her eyes, and I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up, lost my balance, and ended up looking up at Mr. Jean-Paul whose lap I landed in, needless to say, he was far from amused. When we were walking down the bleachers, I almost tripped, but this time I bumped into Scott whose ever elevating eyebrow rose as he helped me to my feet.

"Are you okay?" Jean asked, I nodded my head 'yes' and went to met Chris. Then we went back to the mansion, I couldn't even celebrate with them, I was too afraid I'd flunk my last final which happened to be English. I fell asleep in my books again.