Should Old Insanity Be Forgot
Mr. Pendergrass groggily came too. "Oooh, what happened? Where am I?"
"Hello," Hank grinned at his patient.
"AAAHHH!" Mr. Pendergrass startled.
"Please relax, Mr. Pendergrass," Hank put his hand on his shoulder. "You've just had a mild heart attack. You shouldn't excite yourself."
"AAAAAAAHHHHH!" Mr. Pendergrass screamed.
"Beast you might want to consider backing up a bit," Pietro called out from his hospital bed. "Unless you want him to go into cardiac arrest again." He had a bandage on his hand and his leg was in a sling.
"Sorry, I forgot," Hank apologized.
"What happened to me?" Mr. Pendergrass groaned.
"You had a heart attack," Scott told him. He was in the next bed. "Beast operated on you."
"He what? Here?" Mr. Pendergrass yelled.
"It was the fastest way to save you," Hank shrugged. "You came out of surgery with flying colors. You're in our medical ward."
Mr. Pendergrass looked around and saw Scott, Pietro, Bobby, Kurt, Doug and Shane all bandaged up in nearby beds. "Everyone say hi to our new room mate," Pietro said sarcastically.
"Hello!" Kurt moaned. He was lying on is stomach and his tail was in a sling. "I'd wave but my arms hurt."
"More from his Mom kissing his boo boos," Todd snickered as he, Lance, and Fred walked into the room.
"Don't tire them out," Hank warned as he went out of the room. "Behave yourselves! I have to update my medical files and try to find out where Shipwreck ran off to this time. So please don't do anything to upset any of my patients!"
"It's a bit late for that!" Mr. Pendergrass snapped.
"Amen to that brother," Shane groaned. Both his arms and his leg were bandaged. "All these years, all these gunfights and knife fights I've survived without a scratch! I was even nearly run over by a bus…And how do I get it? What finally does me in? Two dozen exploding pink and blue light bulbs!"
"Not that I really care why you're here, because I don't," Scott moaned. "But why are you guys visiting us?"
"Now is that any way to talk to your friends?" Fred tisked.
"Since when are you guys our friends?" Bobby asked. He was in a neck brace and his leg was bandaged up.
"That's just the lack of painkillers talking," Fred waived.
"There aren't enough painkillers in the world to relieve us from the pain in the butt you people cause," Scott told them.
"We thought we'd visit you guys while you were laid up and can't fight back," Todd remarked. "I mean to bring you some Christmas cheer." He made a big smile.
"This does not bode well does it?" Kurt groaned.
"Oh god…" Mr. Pendergrass moaned. "I hate my life! This is the worst year of my life! I was passed over for partnership at my firm. The IRS audited me. A shopping cart crashed into my car door and it cost me thousands of dollars to fix it. Then I blew out a tire on the highway in the middle of the pouring rain. I catch pneumonia and had to stay in the hospital for a week. Then my wife ran off with my golf pro."
"That's awful," Pietro said.
"Tell me about it," Mr. Pendergrass groaned. "And just when I was improving my slice too!"
"You think you had a bad year?" Doug looked at him. "I find out my old school was run by an evil organization determined to rule the world and I helped work on a weapon for them. They tried to kill me, my home burns down twice, switched my body with a teacher for a night, nearly got eaten by demons in a dimension filled with fire, nearly got killed in another dimension by an evil psychic force, got involved in a drunken bar fight with my teachers and some insane gods and on top of it all I have this one zit on my back that just won't go away!"
"Okay that's bad…" Mr. Pendergrass blinked.
"Well I've got an evil dad who wants to take over the world," Pietro said.
"Oh please," Shane waved. "For years I've survived practically on my own and ran my own gang in LA. Now what happens? I meet a girl and the next thing I know, I end up in a weird mutant soap opera with the Chinese mob and her assassin aunt. Then I'm caught by the cops after tripping over a stupid dog and it's either go to jail or join a military unit made up of mutant lunatics. Boy did I make the wrong choice!"
"That's all? HA!" Scott scoffed. "This year alone I've had my body swapped with my girlfriend and my worst rival, been split into several different personalities for a day, nearly raped by one of the split personalities of Professor X's evil son, nearly eaten by vampires, met my out of control teenage daughter from a possible alternate timeline, fought off dozens of ninjas and mercenaries that wanted to kill me…"
"Who doesn't want to kill you?" Lance snickered.
Scott glared at him and continued. "Let's not also forget nearly being killed by the Hellfire Club and Cobra, Jean being fused to an all powerful cosmic force that nearly killed us and to top it off a dead emu fell on my car, which was also trashed six times this year!"
"Are you finished?" Kurt gave him a look. "You wanna talk real pain? Please! I wrote the freaking encyclopedia of pain!"
"Why? What happened with you?" Mr. Pendergrass asked.
"You had to ask that, didn't you?" Lance groaned. "Look at him, Mac! He's practically a walking advertisement for What Not To Look Like!"
"In addition to running from my life and all the other insane events you have just heard," Kurt began. "I learned my entire family tree. My mother is an evil shape-shifting terrorist, my father is an evil demon from another dimension that was trapped in human form and pretended to be a British spy. Surprise! Guess who unwittingly helped him turn back into a demon?"
"On top of it all he's got one half sister who was the product of an experiment with Magneto," Lance added. "Another half brother whose the founder of the FOH a bazillion other half brothers and sisters that are demons."
"Don't forget your other baby brother," Bobby said. "The one you had to give up so the ninjas wouldn't kill him."
"Ninjas?" Shane asked.
"Before you got here," Lance explained. "I'll tell you later."
"And what's your story?" Mr. Pendergrass looked at Bobby.
"My parents who dumped me sold my life story to make a Lifetime movie," Bobby said.
"You win," Doug admitted.
"Plus one of my worst enemies, Pyro, thinks I'm gay and I have the hots for him!" Bobby added.
"I wouldn't call Pyro one of your worst enemies," Kurt said.
"Yeah aren't you being a little over dramatic?" Scott asked. "I mean, you two hardly even spoke to each other."
"We have fought each other you know?" Bobby snapped.
"Only a couple of times," Pietro pointed out. "I mean come on, it's not like you guys are Lance and Summers."
"Yeah," Both Lance and Scott said.
"You guys aren't even Toad and me," Kurt remarked.
"Yeah you're like…" Todd scratched his head. "You know that dog that once walked by the Institute gates and Lockheed snapped at him? You're like that."
"Which one of us is the dog and which one of us is Lockheed?" Bobby asked.
"Well Pyro is Lockheed, duh," Todd said.
"Why is he Lockheed and I'm not?" Bobby yelled.
"Because Lockheed breathes fire," Pietro looked at Bobby.
"Yeah Iceman get with the program," Shane said.
"Oh I am so not the dog!" Bobby yelled. "Scott, Kurt you guys don't believe that do you?"
"Well…" Scott thought a minute. "You gotta admit that like Pyro, Lockheed does go kind of nuts every now and then."
"Yeah why wouldn't you want to be the dog?" Kurt asked. "The dog is saner than Lockheed. Well at least it was before that darn dragon chased him halfway down the street into that ice cream truck."
"Oh yeah," Bobby thought. "I'd forgotten about that. Now that I think about it the dog does make more sense."
"Well I'm glad something does around here," Mr. Pendergrass moaned.
Just then Hank walked in with Lifeline. "Merry Christmas Everyone," Lifeline grinned.
"Thank god! This cast is really starting to itch!" Pietro strained against his bonds.
"Why? What does he do? Is he a mutant too?" Mr. Pendergrass asked.
"No, but he does have healing abilities," Scott explained. "He's an Esper."
"A what?" Mr. Pendergrass blinked.
"That's a human who has special psychic abilities that are not linked to an X-Gene," Hank explained. "Commonly mistaken or referred to as magic."
"Oh…" Mr. Pendergrass blinked. "Ohhhh!" He felt better as Lifeline started to use his abilities on him. "That feels good!"
"It won't completely remove all the damage done but it will speed up your recovery," Lifeline explained. Soon all the mutants were healed as well and their bandages removed.
"That feels so much better," Pietro flexed his arms. "I'm my wonderful handsome self again!" He jumped around the room and ran around causing a small gust of wind.
"Too bad you didn't get rid of all the pain, Lifeline," Scott groaned.
"Aww, I guess it's too late to give you this," Todd took out a small strange looking dark blue device from his pockets.
"Okay what is this?" Doug asked.
"I dunno," Todd said. "But I found it in Professor X's shoe closet. You wouldn't believe how many shoes that guy has. It's like forty of 'em."
"Why would a guy in a wheelchair need so many shoes?" Lance asked.
"That's not the point Lance!" Scott snapped. "He's not supposed to be in there!"
"Well neither was Remy's dad but he was in there too," Todd said. "I think he put it in there."
"What?" Scott yelled. "Give me that!" He reached out to grab it.
"NO!" Todd clung to it. "It's mine! Or at least it was gonna be yours before you got better!"
"Let him have it, Jerk Off!" Shane snapped at Scott. He tried to help Todd yank it away from Scott.
"Oh no you don't you Rapper Reject!" Bobby leapt to Scott's defense.
"You might want to move back Mister Lawyer," Fred gently guided Mr. Pendergrass away. "This could get real ugly real fast."
By now both Kurt and Lance had joined in the tug of war, each on the respective side. "GIVE IT! NO, YOU GIVE IT! HANDS OFF!"
"Boys! Boys! Stop it!" Lifeline shouted. He tried to pull the boys apart. "No violence on Christmas!"
"Oh boy! I love tug of war!" Pietro joined in the mad grab.
"Doug! Come on and help us man!" Bobby yelled.
"Do I have too?" Doug moaned as he reluctantly went to help. "I just got out of a cast for crying out loud!"
"Just do it!" Scott ordered.
"I don't know why you dragged me out of the bar…" Logan grumbled as Roadblock pulled on his arm. Hank and Jean were with them.
"Because it's clear we need you here!" Roadblock said. Then he saw the mess. "Oh great! Now what's going on?"
"They're fighting again," Fred told them.
"We can see that Blob!" Logan snapped. "WILL YOU MANIACS…"
BLAST!
A huge purple glow enveloped all those surrounding the device. It made a huge rumble that shook the entire mansion. All the mutants in the house and almost everyone in it ran down to see the commotion just in time to see the enveloping glow make them disappear.
"TODD!" Althea shouted.
"They're gone!" Wanda shouted.
"Holy smokes," Fred whistled. He looked at a shocked Mr. Pendergrass. "Now are you glad you listened to me?"
"Ohhhhh!" Mr. Pendergrass passed out again.
"What the heck was that?" Roberto asked.
"Maybe it was a teleportation device?" Fred asked. "Whatever it was."
"No, ya think?" Ray asked sarcastically.
"Where did they get it?" Logan asked.
"Toad said that he saw Remy's dad put it in Xavier's shoe closet," Fred told him.
"Why is Remy not surprised Jean Luc is behind this?" Remy groaned.
"But where did they go?" Jean blinked.
"Maybe they went to Atlantic City with my Pop?" Althea thought aloud.
"Atlantic City?" Logan looked at her. "Who else went?"
"To AC?" Althea asked.
"No to Ft. Lauderdale for Spring Break!" Logan roared. "Of course I meant Atlantic City!"
"Well," Fred thought. "There's Shipwreck of course, Kurt's parents…The Wagners I mean. Not Mystique and Azazel. Well they probably could have gone but not that I know off…"
"We got that Blob!" Logan snapped. "Who else?"
"The Blind Master, Spirit, Cover Girl," Fred counted on his fingers.
"No surprises there," Hank remarked.
"Angel," Fred continued.
"Angel?" Hank asked.
"He was really depressed about his dad," Fred explained. "I think Shipwreck talked him into going."
"Of course he did," Logan sighed.
"Trinity, Spyder…Gambit's sisters…" Fred thought. "Remy's Dad…"
"Oh no…" Remy groaned. "Gambit think they gonna try to steal from the Casinos there again!"
"AGAIN?" Logan looked at him. "I LEFT THE BAR FOR THIS?"
"Yeah!" Belladonna snapped. "Atlantic City is my beat! He's only supposed to steal from Vegas! I mean…That's a shame."
"I'm not even gonna ask…" Logan grumbled.
"In other words we have one group of maniacs causing damage in Atlantic City and another group of maniacs about to cause trouble who knows where," Althea sighed.
"I think I might know where," Forge thought. "Al, can I see your teleportation watch for a minute?"
"Sure," Althea gave it to him. "You're going to use the homing device we have right?"
"Actually I just wanted to see what color it was but that's a good idea," Forge began to investigate.
"Okay let's think up a plan," Logan took a deep breath. "Obviously we need a group to head out to Atlantic City and retrieve the lunatics. Cajun, since your family is so involved you go."
"Figures," Remy sighed.
"Wavedancer…" Logan began.
"Forget it!" Althea folded her arms. "Dad's a lost cause. My Toddles needs me more!"
"Fine!" Logan threw up his hands. "Going to Atlantic City are Gambit, Rogue, Belladonna, Psylocke, Storm…"
"ME?" Ororo protested. "WHY DO I HAVE TO GO?"
"Because you can zap the sailor," Logan said matter of factly. "Beast, Roadblock you go too."
"I'll take Jean, Angelica, Xi, Arcade, Rina, Jubilee, Wanda and Forge," Althea said.
"I'll come with you," Logan said. "Between X's and my noses, Jean's telepathy and Forge's gadget talents we should track them down in no time."
"What about us?" Fred asked.
"The rest of you stay here in case of emergency," Logan ordered. "Which is probably going to happen."
"Gee left behind again," Jesse sighed. "What a surprise."
"Somebody's gotta look after the babies," Rogue pointed out as the Atlantic City group prepared to leave.
"That's even better," Roberto groaned.
"I've got a signal," Forge said. "I know where they are!"
"Where?" Logan asked.
"Outer Space," Forge blinked.
"I'm going with the Atlantic City group and find a bar…" Logan turned around.
What happens next? Besides pointless insanity of course. Find out!