Mutants make good cowboys
By Todd Fan
Disclaimer: "So the first plot point involves knitting socks? I think we're in for quite a ride guys"
Weee, I can finally get this finished. No I dind't have oodles of time, I only did 4 chapters, the rest was already done, I'm not super Todd Fan….not yet, anyway. Soon….soon.
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ACT 5 – Kelly is really a-Head
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We open on the Wander, the governments own high-tech train. In the engine room driving is Logan, who has a trusty cigar stuck in his mouth. Suddenly, we see Pietro running alongside…or rather Pietro sitting on Jott who is running alongside.
"….Tried", wheezes Scott.
"Forge!", shouts Pietro, hitting the side of the train, "Forge stop the train! Don't make me whup your ass!"
Pietro rides up to a window, where Forge is knitting chain-mail.
"Hey, I'm warning you!", snaps Pietro, "Stop the train!"
"Come in", grins Forge, "have a seat"
"Forge stop the train!", shouts Pietro, again, "stop smiling at me!"
Pietro makes a desperate leap for the back of the train, and is instantly catapulted to the roof, which opens, depositing a rather terrified looking Pietro onto the seat next to Forge.
"We'll just make our own way there, yeah?", says Scott.
"Forget the horse", mutters Jean.
"How nice of you to drop in", says Forge smugly.
"Alright", says Pietro, standing up, making a show of taking off his shades and hat, "Let's drop the beards, the bikes, the fake boobies, set that needlepoint aside, and let's settle this like men"
"I need a man first, teenager", says Forge, then looks at his work, "as a matter of verification, this is not needlepoint"
He points to a picture of the Cheyenne flag on the wall.
"This is needlepoint", he says, then goes back to work, "I'm just putting the final touches to me latest invention. I call it the 'Imperiable'. It's a vest which, when worn under the clothing, can stop any modern bullet, even at close range"
"Technicaly, that 'aint your invention", says Todd.
"In this parody, it is", growls Forge.
"That so?", asks Pietro, aiming his gun at Forge's chest.
"But I haven't tested it fully yet!", squeaks Forge, then frowns, "Guns. I find them so primitive, and completely unnecessary if ones done one's proper planning"
"Save it for the commune, Hippie", snorts Pietro.
"I must tell you, Mr. West", says Forge, ignoring him, "I have always found that allowing any situation to degenerate into physical violence constitutes a failure on my part"
Pietro blinks, trying to understand the big words.
"Well then, Mr. Forge, you failed", says Pietro, punching Forge in the face.
Forge twitches, then glares at Pietro, who is bouncing up and down, holding up his fists.
"Alright then, Mr. West", says Forge, "we'll settle this, like men"
There is silence for a moment, until Forge makes a sound like a dying cat, waving his arms around. Pietro watches this curiously, until Forge hits a button behind him. This releases a mallet from the ceiling, knocking Pietro onto the snooker table, where straps appear, tying him down. The table then turns inwards, so Pietro is now outside and under the train, inches from the track.
"I love this train", smiles Forge, sitting back in his seat
Pietro whimpers, desperately pulling on various levers.
"Cheers", says Forge, holding a wine glass, "By the way, while you're down there, feel free to make use of my sub-carriage-inter-rail-vehicular-aggressor. I designed it myself"
Pietro yanks a lever, which turns Forge's chair into a similar situation as himself.
"I've been thinking", says Forge, attempting not to see how close his head is to the train track, "maybe the president's right. We should put aside our differences and work together"
Suddenly, both pool table and chair flick back to inside the train.
"Mommie", whimpers Pietro.
It turns out Logan has released them, and is standing at the doorway.
"Knock each other about all you please", he says, "but harm my train and I'll douse you like dogs"
Forge squeaks, noticing the pan in Logan's hand…the pan that's very close to his cigar.
"Logan", he says carefully, "that's my trouble-reduction sauce"
"Well then, lets get on about our presidents business, shall we, gentlemen?", growls Logan, "where to?"
"New Orleans", says Pietro.
"Why don't we let Professor Kelly decide", says Forge, walking off.
"Who?", blinks Pietro, "I don't need some nobody professor telling me where to head"
A pun, you see, as Kelly's head is sitting on a stange contraption, his eyelids forced open.
"…I'm not dead, you know", says Kelly.
"You are at the moment!", snaps Todd.
"Meet Professor Edward Kelly", says Forge, "kidnapped from MIT six months ago. Expert in the field of metallurgy. Discovered in a field of alfalfa"
"That's a man's head", says Pietro
Forge brings two halves of the metal collar that was around Kelly's neck.
"This magnetic collar was found about six feet away", he says, "near his body. I'm still trying to figure that one out"
"That's a man's head", Pietro says, again.
"You sure like to repeat yourself", says Todd.
We see Kelly's head is strapped to some projector machine at the back of his head, Forge lights a candle inside, adjusting the machine.
"According to the retinal terminus theory", continues Forge, "A dying persons last conscious image is burned into the back of his eyeball, kind of like a photograph"
He flicks on the machine, light coming from Kelly's eyes, like a cinema projector.
"…I feel happy, I feel happy", says Kelly (1)
"Perhaps there's a clue there", says Forge, "I give you Kelly's last image"
"That's a man's….head", says Pietro.
They look at the image on the screen, seeing it's upside down. Forge blinks quizzically, before nodding.
"Refraction of the lenses causes the image to appear upside down, so we…", Forge turns a lever, which turns Kelly's head upside down.
Pietro watches this in disgust.
"That….is a man's….heeaad", he chokes out.
"Voila!", says Forge, not bothered at all.
They look at the blurry image on the screen, Sabertooth holding the spider-man iconed saw-thing.
"McCreed", growls Pietro.
"He seems to have something in his pocket", says Forge, sitting on a pair of magnifying glass glasses, "but it's too fuzzy to make out. Verification of the aqueous humour has led to the loss of…"
"Glasses", says Pietro, picking up Kelly's glasses and putting the on Kelly's face
The image is cleared, even though the paper in Sabertooth's pocket seems unreadable. Forge squints at it as Pietro steps over.
"Friends of the South", reads Pietro, "come to a costume ball, April 14th, half past eight, 346 garden pine district.."
The pair look at each other.
"New Orleans", they say in unison.
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(1) – If you don't know Monty Python (the horror!) this joke will be lost on you.
Click on!