A Powder Keg Ready to Explode

"This is Trish Tilby reporting live from Washington DC where another outbreak of mutant violence erupted. Ironically the cause of this violence was a reported scuffle between the X-Men and the Misfits, two mutant groups that advocate peace with humans. The fight broke out in the Congressional Cafeteria just before Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of the Xavier Institute was to speak with several key members of the Senate on mutant tolerance. The cause of the fight is still under investigation but authorities are claiming it was an accident. Needless to say that meeting between the Senators and Professor Xavier was cancelled until further notice."

A shot of a large portly senator was shown. "If these mutants are examples of peaceful mutants, I'd hate to meet up with those that plain hate our guts!" He snarled. He was covered in eggs and tater tots.

Trish was shown again. "Valerie Cooper the Head of the Mutant Affairs Department, called this incident a childish demonstration of…"

Xavier turned off the monitor and glared at Scott and Lance. Several of the X-Men and Misfits were in the room as well. "Well…" Xavier said in a very angry tone. "I hope you two are happy. Thanks to you, not only was this very important meeting cancelled, but also the wave of anti-mutant sentiment is even stronger than ever. I don't need to remind you how important this was to us. Not only was this meeting supposed to establish a dialogue with several key lawmakers on Capitol Hill, it was also a fact finding investigation to see if any of them knew anything about this Neverland that we're supposed to find."

"You remember that?" Roadblock asked. "The one with the big boom that will supposedly spell all our doom?"

"To say I'm disappointed in the both of you is an understatement," Xavier's tone was harsh. "I know the two of you have your differences but I was under the impression that you were mature enough not to have a brawl in broad daylight on Capitol Hill!"

"It wasn't really a brawl," Lance shrugged. "Just a disagreement that got a little out of hand."

"A little out of hand?" Scott whirled on you. "Thanks to you, the entire building is going to need a new foundation!"

"Me?" Lance turned on him. "I'm not the one who blasted apart a chandelier and put a huge hole in the roof!"

"No, but you are the one that made me do that by causing the fight!" Scott snapped. He turned to the X-Men. "Tell him guys! You were there!"

Lance turned to the Misfits. "Yeah guys tell them all how Summers started the whole thing for no reason!"

"I did not!" Scott shouted.

"Scott as much as I hate to admit it," Jean glared at him. "This time it was all your fault!"

"Hell no, it was Avalanche's fault!" Wanda snapped. "He overreacted!"

"I'd over react too if I was threatened!" Angelica snapped. "Wanda how could you say that?"

"Because she knows it's true!" Rogue snapped.

"It is not true," Remy told her. "Cyclops is just too uptight!"

"Of course you'd agree with Lance," Lina sniffed.

"Big shock!" Scott snapped. "Thieves always stick together!"

"I'd rather be a thief than a total nutcase!" Lance snapped.

"Too bad you're both!" Scott retorted.

"He has a medical condition and you know it!" Kitty stood up and put her hands on her hips.

"Oh shut up Kitty!" Althea snapped. "Like you really care!"

"Don't tell me to shut up!" Kitty shouted back. "And I do care!"

"Yeah right!" Althea snorted.

"Kitty does not lie!" Peter stood up for her.

"Wanna bet?" Angelica glared at him.

"ENOUGH!" Xavier shouted. Everyone stopped. "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE BICKERING! IS THAT CLEAR?"

"So much for unity between the Misfits and the X-Men," Pietro groaned. "We can't even agree among our own teams who was at fault!"

"It's clear who was at fault!" Scott said.

"Yeah!" Lance replied.

"He was!" Both Scott and Lance pointed at each other at the same time.

"You know we do have the tape from the security cameras showing what happened?" Cover Girl asked.

"Yes and they will show that Alvers used his powers on me for no reason!" Scott said. "He just used them to move the ground and shove me into the wall!"

"Was this before or after you threatened Lance with a knife, Scott?" Jean folded her arms.

"For the last time I was not threatening him!" Scott snapped.

Roadblock casually turned on the monitor again. On it was Scott waving the knife while shouting at Lance. "PUT IT BACK OR I'LL MAKE SURE YOU NEVER TAKE ANYTHING AGAIN EVER!" Scott shouted on TV. "YOU HEAR ME SHAKEDOWN?"

"Okay maybe technically that was a threat…" Scott was clearly embarrassed.

Roadblock turned it off and looked at Scott. "Would you like me to tell what Lance took that set you off in the first place? Or would you further like to plead your case?"

"I wouldn't if I were you," Althea remarked. "Since your mouth is working for the prosecution!"

"Wavedancer…" Xavier warned. He looked at Scott. "Well what did he do?"

Scott looked embarrassed but refused to come straight out with it. "Alvers was being rude. The guy has no table manners whatsoever!"

"He saw me take a couple of tater tots off of some guy's plate," Lance explained.

"Excuse me?" Logan blinked. "Tater tots?"

"Yeah you know, those things made up of potatoes and fried up and…" Todd began.

"I know what tater tots are, Toad!" Logan snapped. He looked at Lance then Scott. "You got mad at him, for taking someone else's tater tots?"

"He was stealing!" Scott snapped.

"I was trying not to waste food!" Lance snapped. "Look they were out of tater tots up front and I really felt like having some. So I walk by this guy's table and I see a whole pile of tater tots on this guy's plate. Only he ain't eating them! He's making out with this blond chick who looks like he's paying her for more than her typing if you get my drift. Well I figured they were too busy to notice so I…"

"And so you took some off of his plate and put it on yours," Roadblock made the connection. "And Scott saw you."

"See! See he admits what he did!" Scott pointed.

"I didn't take all of them!" Lance snapped. "And then Summers gets all on my case for not even ten stupid tater tots and I told him I wasn't going to put them back and for him to mind his own business! The next thing I know he's waving a knife in my face!"

"I wasn't really going to use it on you!" Scott snapped. "I was just waving it around for dramatic effect!"

"Oh it had a dramatic effect all right," Pietro groaned.

"And that's when you used your powers to shove Cyclops away…" Logan groaned.

"He had a knife! I was defending myself!" Lance shouted.

"When he pushed me back my glasses got loose and…" Scott tried to explain.

"Yes, yes we all know what happened from that point onwards…" Xavier held up his hand. He looked at Scott. "Tater tots? You got into a fight with Lance…Over tater tots?"

"Well…" Scott fidgeted.

"We have just lost some very important ground not only in our fight for mutant rights, but how the public perceives us," Xavier was getting angrier. "And any claim that the Institute can help mutants control their powers has been completely shattered on national television! Not to mention the harsh reprimand I got from Valerie Cooper…And you did all this over tater tots!"

"Told you it wasn't my fault," Lance snorted.

Roadblock glared at him. "You just had to have the tater tots, didn't you? Even though they didn't belong to you?"

"Well…" Lance began.

"You just had to grab them to satisfy yourself?" Roadblock added. "You just had to act like an animal and eat whatever you saw in front of you? Isn't that true?"

"And of course you had to go correct him, didn't you Slim?" Logan glared at Scott. "Even though it wasn't any of your business was it?"

"Uh…" Scott gulped.

"The two of you are just lucky that Ms. Cooper has decided let this go," Xavier added. "Of course I had to make certain promises…"

"Let's just say we owe her a few favors," Logan grunted. "And you know she's not going to be shy about cashing them in!"

"But it still doesn't do anything for publicity problems," Ororo reminded them. "The call for mutant registration and containment has been increased and more people are listening!"

"We've even had a complaint from some Senator from Idaho who for some reason thinks the X-Men are anti-potato!" Logan snapped.

"Great," Pietro mocked. "Mutants are gonna get it because Lance had a tater tot craving and Summers couldn't deal with it!"

"I really like tater tots…" Lance said weakly as he shrunk in his seat.

"Good," Roadblock told him. "Because you are going to be peeling potatoes for the next forty years!"

"And you are going to be assisting him!" Logan whirled on Scott.

"With those two in the same room, we'll all have a lifetime supply of mashed potatoes," Pietro quipped.

"I'd like all of you to leave and do some serious thinking, right now!" Xavier ordered. The Misfits and X-Men filed out.

"What are we going to do now?" Cover Girl asked.

"Perhaps the only thing we can do is to keep our teams separate," Xavier sighed. "Forbid the Misfits from teleporting to the Xavier Institute and making the X-Men not have any contact with them."

"You don't mean that," Cover Girl looked at him.

"Cover Girl look at the evidence!" Xavier told her. "The Misfits and the X-Men can't even sit down to breakfast together without having a fight and making the news! All this time we've been trying to bring our two groups together and what has it gotten us? Lawsuits, property damage, negative publicity…"

"Drunken brawls,"Hank added. He glared at Shipwreck. "Among other things..."

"Hank for the fiftieth time I'm the one who seduced him!" Ororo snapped. "As much as I'd love to blame the whole sortid incident on Shipwreck, I started it! And Shipwreck being Shipwreck just responded like any dog you would throw a bone at."

"You were drunk," Hank glared at her.

"You were all drunk!" Logan told him. "Do you want to see the replay video of what you did that night? That rosebush is never going to be the same again!"

"We both got drunk of our own accord, and what happened was a mistake we both made!" Ororo threw up her hands. "It will never happen again so can we please forget it!"

"That's right," Shipwreck nodded. "Actually since she's the one who tied me up technically..."

"If you ever want to breathe again, you will stop that sentence and move on," Ororo glared at him.

"Okay maybe we've had a few setbacks…" Shipwreck said deciding to do what he was told. "Okay a lot of setbacks but that's no reason to throw in the towel! Ain't you always saying that humans and mutants should learn to work together?"

"Maybe some mutants and humans shouldn't work together?" Xavier sighed. Suddenly an alarm sounded.

"What's that?" Roadblock asked.

"Cerebro's alarm system," Xavier's eyes narrowed. "I programmed it to alert us if there was an instance of an instance of mutants using their powers in large numbers."

"Or if Dorian Leech was found," Ororo added.

Quickly they made their way to Cerebro. "Man this thing is lit up like a Christmas tree," Roadblock whistled. "What is it Xavier? What do you see?"

"Oh no…" Xavier scanned with Cerebro. "This could not have come at a worse time…"

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

And what was it that Cerebro had picked up?

"Our power grid has gone out!" Solitaire was trying to work the machines in the Vault. Several Morlocks had noticed the power was gone. One Morlock was able to generate a glowing ball of light to illuminate the room.

"It wasn't me!" Dorian yelled. "I didn't do it!"

"We know," Solitaire told him. "Somehow the power grids got shut off!"

"Which means the shields that disguise our mutant signatures has just been shut down as well," Postman said. "This is not good!" The sounds of gunfire could be heard. "What was that?"

"The GRSO," Eve shouted as she ran in. "They've found us!"

Next, you guessed it: A big old battle with lots of surprises!