Lucky Me

Chapter 101


The explanation took longer than I thought. Dad (who was called the instant the spaceship landed) was somewhat happy to see his Dad (which was just weird, I mean who really wants to see a sixty something year old strutting around in tights? -this excluded Wolverine for obvious reasons). So we all trooped back to the boathouse (after the spaceship had taken off) and there was a round of 'hellos' and 'how are yous'. Jean saw my blank expression and promised to explain everything in the morning.

So, after Professor Cheapo paid for the electrician and Chris got about ten years hard time scrubbing the Locker Room floors (both male and female), Jean (Mom) sat me down and tried to explain the somewhat chaotic family tree.

Two hours later I was beginning to get a grasp on it yet again.

"So this, er, space guy is Scott's and this guy named Alex's real father." Mom nodded slowly. "And when they were young, the plane was going down and both were pushed from the plane and at that moment the parents, er, Christopher and Katherine were sucked up into an alien spaceship." Tell me if this wasn't something snapped out of B-rated sci-fi script.

"Yes. Scott and Alex thought that both their parents died in the crash…" This was when I developed a monster of a headache. She went into Cable and his clone, and then this woman named Madelyn and how it was Jean's clone and oh brother (which there might be a third Summers' brother, but they're not sure). Oh! And just to throw in some fresh blood, there was also a Rachel and a Nate Grey.

"Okay, just so I have this straight." I cleared my throat, "this old guy, no offense, instead of being like most retired, over the hill or whatever type grandfather figure and buying an RV and puttering from coast to coast or even getting a backpack and trekking all over Europe owns his own spaceship, complete with crew, and is a pirate to the Shiatsu?"

I had no idea what a 'Shiatsu' was but my brain had reached full compactly.

She chewed it over in her mind and slowly began to nod. "Yes, that is about right. Except it's the Shi'ar." Mom gave an encouraging smile. "Any more questions?"

"No, no. I think that covers it." Okay, I could never again make fun of rednecks or Southerners because of their 'inbreeding'. My new 'family' stole all the genetics and moral writings from the way it should be and ripped them to shreds.

I gave her a blank stare and felt like crying. I joined a freaking soap opera!

No wait, this family didn't have anything close to the melodrama of a soap.

"Wait, I do have a question." I paused, looked her dead in the eyes and asked, "Am I now my own aunt?"

Needless to explain, she gave me a withering look. Guess she's touchy about her family unit. And yet, she never did give me an answer. Hmmm…


"…so then, just when I thought we were going to get our tails fried, bam! Our guns got a life of their own and started firing at random!" Christopher laughed it up as Dad forced a smile and Jean laughed politely. Apparently he had wanted to stop by for Christmas but some things had come up and he couldn't make it until now.

This was some type of warped family lunch thing. Jean-Mom wanted me to feel like 'more of the family' I guess since I only have died once I was still a novice to the Summers saga. The man who was talking kept shooting off these 'sectors' and 'gama' names like they were common as grass.

I was a good kid and kept my lips busy with the rim of my cup.

As long as I didn't talk I didn't have to exist. I was more of a suggestion of a person at the table than an actual entity. Jean smiled encouragingly at me as she started to clear the table. Scott excused himself to go to the bathroom and then there were two.

My cup had become a part of my mouth because it was not going to be moving anytime soon.

"So," he started, crossing his arms over his chest and smiling limply in my direction. Thankfully he was no longer in the spandex (complete with bandanna thing) but was dressed in Dad's clothes. Talk about a freaky look into the future. "You're now a Summers."

"Heh." Was my reply with cup muffling most of it.

He leaned forward on the table, leaning on his arms now. "Tell me a little bit about yourself. I don't get to see many of my own grandchildren though I've been told I have one or two running around from different dimensions and such." And he said all this with a straight face. Only in the X-Men could one say that they have a time displaced or dimension hopping relative and be taken at face value.

The cup and I had to break up. "I, uh, don't know what you want to know."

He looked thoughtful for a split second. "Anything. I'm not picky."

"Uh, I'm-a girl?" I couldn't believe I said that like I wasn't sure! The Cossiar-character laughed.

"I hope so because you are too pretty to be a boy."

He just complimented me. I sat there with my eyes big and my mouth opened. Then I blushed.

"Tell me something else." Not if you were going to cause me to light up like a Christmas tree every time I open my mouth. "What do you think about camping?"

When I was being hunted by Wolverine and half the senior staff for 'practice'? I hated it. It was like being a tourist on a cannibal's island.

"It's okay I guess."

"Good." Christopher got up with a huge smile and shouted to Dad. "Scott! Kookie agreed!"

Huh? Agreed with what?

"Agrees with what?" came Dad's voice. Suspiciously enough, it wasn't from the area of the bathroom but the living room.

"She thinks we all need to go camping together!"

What the heck got lost in the translation? I was sputtering and about to protest when he winked at me and I was struck silent by Jean who waltzed in with a plate full of cookies. Oh sure, let that be a distraction but I couldn't believe what this old guy just volunteered me for! I didn't want to go back out into the woods! Argh!


"He thinks it'll be great way for all of you to 'bond', Kookie." Mom tried to sooth my frazzled, frayed and fricasseed nerves as she packed some clothes for Scott.

"Get a blowtorch!" I grumbled. "'cause that's the only way I'm going to bond with him."

"Kookie, I know this is sudden but it won't be as bad as your imagining it." Dad tried to calm me down and I tried to set him on fire with my glare.

"Why can't we 'bond' like a normal American family? In front of the television?"

"Why are you being so argumentative about this?" Scott was going into wanna-be Professor mode. "Why not try it before you completely dismiss the idea?"

"Can I apply that same philosophy to sex, drugs and, " rock n' roll usually follows but decided it was too cliché. "Mutant dominancy?"

Mom shot her eyes to Dad who was looking longingly at the window as if he wanted to jump out of it. After a moment, she looked back at me. "No, you may not."

Scott, who looked so much like a federal employee I was slightly freaked, cheerfully tried to convince me with a forced smile. "It's only for a weekend. That's not too much to ask is it?"

"Depends." I snapped, maneuvering myself into the authoritative position that they have been trying to get me into for the past year and more. "What do I get out of it?"

With a sharp sound of the zipper being zipped, Jean whirled around with her red hair and smile. "The feeling of being that much more rooted into the family."

I eyed her suspiciously. "You're not going are you?"

That started Jean and Scott with one of their glaring contests which meant they were fighting it out telepathically. I threw up my hands in disgust and slammed their bedroom door on my way out. There was no use talking to them when they were 'talking' to themselves.


Like it or not, I got dragged on the camping trip.

And whether they liked it or not I played the 'dumb girl' part to the maximum. Dad was slightly annoyed when I picked up one of the stakes for the tent and asked if we were going to kill vampires. After protesting about hammering the 'vampire bullet' into the ground for fear of needing it later, Scott pointed to Christopher and said 'go'.

The older Summers was busy making the fire.

At least that's what I thought he was trying to do. He turned around when I drew close and smiled up at me.

"You'd think after the last time I would remember to bring a match."

He was attempting to use two stones to get a fire going. I tipped my head and sighed. Grabbing another set of stones, I flexed my muscles trying to build up some of that special mutant adrenaline and then with a swift and powerful scrapping of the stones, the sparks flew.

"Wow," Christopher breathed. "I can't believe I was shown up in strength by such a small girl."

One of my eyebrows ticked. I knew he wasn't trying to be mean or anything but it wasn't like I was running around in a frilly blue dress with pink ribbons in my hair singing 'the Good Ship Lollipop'. Small girl. Heh. I was about 5'7 thank you! Also, I was not 'slim and trim' I had what they would call an 'athletic build'. Grrr.

"What about some dinner?"

"Got the number of a pizza place that'll deliver to the middle of nowhere?" I retorted, crossing my arms. Scott came up at this time, fishing poles in hand.

Oh, the man had lost his mind. I did not fish. I was not a nature girl! I had once eaten fish until I saw "The Little Mermaid" and then cried because I kept envisioning I had previously partaken of Ariel, Flounder, merfolk, etc.

"We live off the land up here." Scott's Dad replied with another crooked smile. "It's called roughing it."

My eyebrow made an arrow as it arched and I looked at the jeep, the tent, the bug spray, etc. and back to him. Yeah, this was totally 'living off the land'.

"Uh-huh. And what exactly about this is 'rough'?"

"We never bring toilet paper."


After the whole fishing epidemic, we ate and then went to our respective sleeping bags. The purpose of the tent was for show because even though it was mid-February, I think Miss Ororo had made it a bit more camper friendly because it was too hot in the tent.

Between the popping of the fire and the Summers' snoring, I somehow got to sleep only to be woken up by a feeling of being watched. Under the rules that were beat (literally) into my head, I laid perfectly still. My eyes were still shut and either Dad or Christopher were really talented at pretending to sleep or I was the only one feeling eyes.

Of course with my luck it'd be a raccoon or something.

As long as it wasn't a spider. I would just die if I came face to face with a spider. Ick.

Fear was making my blood pump faster. Who was it? What was it? Maybe Jean decided to join us after all and I was just freaking out over nothing. Something in my brain buzzed with the steadiness of anticipation that made me know that I wasn't alone.

After another ten years of waiting I was ready to break the rules and jump up and scream "come out so we can kick the crap out of each other and get it over with!". Or I might have been crazy. I tried to go to sleep but it was just as hard to go back to sleep as when you've had a really freaky nightmare about a bug being in your sheets.

Even if I was able to keep my body from trembling and my eyes were constantly closed, my breathing sped up. There was no way that if the thing watching me was human that they didn't notice. I was so scared without any real reason!

I was an X-person. I shouldn't have been afraid!

But I was. I so was.

I was trembling. I was so freaking scared of probably nothing that I was trembling! Sheesh, I was a coward. But, on a more positive note, I was a coward with a big mouth. A big mouth and a distinct scream. And when I couldn't take it anymore, I sat up and screamed my little mutant lungs out.

There was pressure on my shoulders, on my mind and I started shaking harder. I was screaming my lungs out in hopes that Dad or his Dad would wake up and save me from the invisible stalker. That was, until I heard Scott's voice and my vision cleared (that happens when you open your eyes) and that's when I saw him above me.

"Wh-What's going on?"

"That's what we'd like to know." Scott leaned back on his haunches and ran a hand through his hair as Christopher, who was behind him, had a curious look on his face. "You were screaming."

"I-was asleep?"

"Yes." Scott's Dad replied. "Must have been one heck of a dream!"

"Yeah, but that's okay." I should have shut-up. "But it's a normal thing nowadays."

"So this is natural for you?" I gave in an incredulous look to Christopher.

"It's normal, not natural."

He put his hands up in the air and backed off, "Sorry I asked."

"Yeah, me too." It wasn't like I was purposefully being a brat, but my dream was already horrible so I couldn't think of any reason why I should wake up like a little rain of sunshine. Uhm, ray of sunshine not rain. I think that would hurt. Then again, if a rain of sunshine would hurt maybe that was what I was waking up like. "Sorry."

He nodded and turned back to the fire or what was left of it. Scott helped me to my feet and I felt my stomach tighten and twist as my head throbbed and my vision swam.

"So, uh, what's for breakfast?" Christopher chirped.

"Fish." Scott answered and then backed up quickly as I turned a lovely shade of green.


This was turning into a regular day camp.

Out of the blue (actually off of a motorcycle) Cable appeared. He said that Jean had repeatedly suggested that he join the little Summer fest. I had a feeling she just wanted the boathouse all to herself and to sacrifice innocent little me was something she was more than willing to do. I felt so love.

Right now all three true, blue Summers were in a little boat looking like the three stooges, although after the first twenty minutes I quickly became bored with watching them and decided to poke something. The only thing around the campsite that I saw that wouldn't a) eat me, b) maul me, and c) throw me into the lake tied on a rock was a harmless looking snake.

Okay, yes, I know it was a really stupid idea, but it was very entertaining. As it would get ticked off, I jumped away from it. It was fun to see it slither away and then hiss at me in its own snake way. I had a theory, not that I wanted to test it out but I had one nevertheless, that my 'black' skin would protect me from its fang and thus it's (possibly) lethal bite.

Thankfully, I didn't have to see if my theory worked because being the very Kerry type of girl that I was (through and through) I lost my balance (because I had yet to mutate into a monster who had eyes in the back of her head), tripped over a log as the snake slithered away only to come face to face with a peeved off skunk.

I was sure every single animal died of fright at my screaming.