Take the Long Way Home
Hey folks, sorry about the long, long wait. My muses haven't been very helpful lately. #Gestures to the open door of the muse room, where Draco and Coyote are chained to desks, writing furiously# But they're cooperating much better, now that Blackwargreymon and Vegeta are in charge of production. #The two muses in question are standing over the other two, energy blasts at the ready#
AN: Since, for some unknown reason 's, Quickedit program doesn't recognize asterisks, I will be using #'s instead to denote actions.
L1701E-the big team-up will begin the chapter after next man. I hope you can wait until then. Yeah, I got the name for Kiva, just couldn't remember Jamie's name. Thanks for the info.
Fluffy's numba 1 gal-You'll find out what happened to her in a while. But first I want to get some other stuff outta the way.
Moezy chan-Thanks. That's great news, but I still can't believe that you're giving up writing pokemon fanfiction! You're really good at it!
Azuredragoness-Oh yeah? Well you forgot one minor detail. HIM! #Points at Draco, who merely grins viciously and wiggles his claws in a small wave# And what if they switched partners during the battle? BWGmon could easily defeat Nayru, Draco could take Kiwi-mahn (He's named after a freakin fruit, how tough could he be?), Coyote would eat the dancing turkeys and Vegeta would atomize, and then ionize, the FBBWAT (what does that stand for anyway?) So NYAH! Sticks out tongue
Soulstress- Thank you, thank you very much. # Takes a bow #
Raliena- A FEW problems?!!
Animeluvr1-sorry, no evil Rick here.
Andivari-interesting doesn't even come close man. I got the ideas that you gave to Animeluvr to pass along, gracias. Trust me, you do not want to know what's in there! Have read your HP fics, very nice work there. Can't wait for you to update your other fics too.
SickmindedSucker- Thanks, you really helped me out there! It's okay about not reviewing lately, stuff happens, and we just have to deal. Read the latest installment of "Not Just a Sleepover", and it was great.
Alleycat588- Thanks for forgiving me. No more mess-ups; promise!
Legendary Warrior-Heh-heh; yeah, the tapes should make an interesting little running gag. I plan to humiliate Kelly with one of them, so you can look forward to that as well.
Descendant- I'm glad that you like this, I'm a big fan of your work.
Disclaimer- Sanity? What's that?
-AAA- Translation
AAA-telepathy
AAA-self debate, or conversation with feral side in Shawn and Rahne's case
Chapter 28- Talks in the Sewers
The X-jet came to a shaky landing in the hanger beneath the Institute, where Jean and Scott stood waiting. The Professor and Beast were still hung over, and Coyote was still recovering from the beating his sister had given him when she had found him drinking so soon after the battle. Storm and Logan, who was finally sober again, were just finishing cleaning up with the help of the kids that had stayed behind. So that left the two 'responsible' teens to greet the rescuers. As soon as the door opened, a brown haired blur raced past the two, heading for a bathroom. Lance actually made it this time too. A rather shaky looking Toad and Nightcrawler, who were supporting each other as they stumbled out of the plane, followed him. "Ohhhhh, mien stomach!" Kurt groaned.
"This is worse than the time I tried to eat that tarantula, and that was not fun yo," Todd moaned. The two continued down the ramp, lurching side to side in a strange tandem sort of dance. Tabby and Maria followed the two, still looking offended.
"What happened, where are Shawn and Rick?" Jean asked. Maria just growled, pushing past Scott with a murderous look on her face and headed for the DR, while Tabby snorted in disgust, passing by the psychic without a word. Jean was tempted to use her powers to find out what had happened, but thought better of it. The professor was still in a fairly vindictive mood from his hangover, and would probably punish her for that sort of thing.
Rick and Shawn appeared next, Shawn looking a little put out, and Rick had a little less spring in his step. Over the flight, they both had realized how badly they had offended the girls with their reactions to the rescue, but still couldn't see why they were this angry. They were also a little disappointed that the girls hadn't had more faith in their abilities. Shawn looked at Rick. "So how do you think we should make it up to them?" he asked as they walked right by Scott and Jean, ignoring the two completely.
Rick shrugged. "I haven't got a freakin' clue." The two boys had been discussing different ways to make the whole thing up to their girls, but hadn't been able to think of anything that might work. Shawn had suggested jewelry, but Bahumut, who claimed "I ain't got nothing better to do" and was attempting to help the two, had shot it down, saying it would have been to much like a bribe, as well as pointing out that Maria didn't wear jewelry. Rick had suggested chocolate and flowers, but Shawn had pointed out that they didn't know if either of the girls even liked those things or not. In the end, they decided that the only thing to do was… ask their crush's roommates' advice. As they left the hanger to seek out said females, Dante walked out of the plane; supporting a very green looking Amara, and leading a still peeved Wanda. He looked over at Amara and smiled a little.
"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad." Amara responded by getting noisily sick all over the half demon. "AWWWW MAN! THIS WAS MY FAVORITE TRENCHCOAT!" Wanda gave a small smile, before brushing past the two X-men, as if they weren't even there. Jean sighed and reached out with her TK, grabbing a bucket and mop from a storage closet close-by. She grabbed hold of the mop and floated the bucket over to Scott. Rick, who had finally remembered that Amara was his crush's roomie, walked back into the hanger. He caught a glimpse of what was happening, did an abrupt about-face, and briskly headed back the other way. 'I'll talk to her after she's feeling better,' he thought.
In the DR, Maria had set up a level-seven battle simulation, and was currently beating Logan's high scores into the dust. As she fought, she thought about what had happened. Deep inside she knew she was overreacting, but she didn't really care at this point in time. 'It's just…' Just that he completely ignored the fact that you were worried about him? the little voice that was her subconscious probed. I thought you were gone,' Maria growled mentally, slicing a robot in half with a particularly vicious thrust of her claws. Nope! the voice chirped back, sounding surprisingly like Kitty. Maria groaned mentally, without slowing her furious pace.
'What do you want?' she growled mentally. For you and Shawn to get back together the inner voice chirped. 'No. Fucking. Way,' the girl snapped mentally. The inner voice sighed. All right, I'll leave you alone. For now, it added before fading away. 'Perfect,' Maria groaned, 'Now all I need is Sabretooth and Pietro running around in my head and I'll be just as bad off as Rogue is!' She thought of the constant torment that Rogue had to go through because of her powers, and the fact that she was constantly reminded of the fact that she couldn't have skin-to-skin contact with anyone for the rest of her life. 'Maybe I don't have it as bad as I'd like to believe,' she thought, before turning off the simulation and heading to the girls wing for a shower and a good book.
Up in the mansion, Shawn was stalking around, on the lookout for either Kitty or Rogue. He heard some muffled noises, coming from the room they shared with Maria, and decided to investigate. He cracked open the door, and took a peek inside. Unfortunately, he was noticed. Kitty gave a little shriek and turned a bright crimson, while a currently shirtless Lance (AN: BACK FANGIRLS, BACK I SAY!) picked up the closest thing to him, and chucked it at his friends head, which turned out to be his own shirt. Shawn picked the cloth off of his face, and smirked. "I'd advise you two to keep it down, I saw Logan headed this way, and you know how he is. And with the pheromones you two are putting out, I'd say he'll find you in ohhhh…about a second." As he said this, there was a -Snikt- from behind him. He turned slowly, to find Logan standing behind him, claws bared and murder in his eyes.
"Rockhead," he said in a surprisingly neutral voice, " you have a quarter of a second to get your hand offa the Half-Pint's ass, and make your peace with God." Kitty immediately turned intangible, along with Lance, and the two lovebirds began to rapidly drop through the bed, and then the floor. Logan merely watched them go, and, once they were out of sight, re-sheathed his claws, chuckling lightly. "That never gets old," he laughed, walking out the door. Shawn watched the old feral go, mouth open in shock.
"Did he just…? And then…?" he threw up his hands, and walked down the hall. "It's official, I'm living in a nuthouse." A southern drawl coming from the library as he passed it had him stopping in his tracks.
"Ahnd (And) it took yah this long to figuah (Figure) it out?" Shawn stopped in mid-step, and backtracked. He peered into the room to find Rogue sitting comfortably on one of the leather couches, a book in her hands. Bahumut appeared in the air next to the book's cover, or rather his head did.
"Ah Poe. Great writer, but he couldn't hold his booze worth crap, if memory serves." Both Rogue and Shawn were startled by this little announcement. Not so much by the way he had appeared, but by the fact that he could so casually talk about a man who had been dead for more than a hundred years. Everyone in the Institute had gotten used to the spirit popping up in the weirdest ways, but they tended to forget that he was much older than he acted, several times older than even Logan.
"Anyway…" Shawn said, cutting off the conversation, "I need your help Rogue." Rogue smirked and set her book down.
"How much of a favor are we talking here?"
"I'll do your jail-time for you." Rogue raised an eyebrow.
"Well then, if you put it that way, whadda ya need?" Shawn took a deep breath.
"I need you to help me figure out how to get back into Maria's good graces." Rogue looked a little perplexed by the request.
"Ah thought that you two were lahke(like) this," she said, crossing two of her fingers over each other. Bahumut, in a miniaturized form, appeared on the arm of the couch, laughing to himself.
"Not anymore girl, he fked up big time." Shawn tried to swat the miniature dragon-man, but his hand just passed though him. He leaned back, and sunk into his chair a little.
"Razafrazzing, no good…" he muttered to himself. Rogue smirked at their antics, then leaned forward a little bit.
"Why don't you tell me what happened tah get you inta such hot water, ahnd Ah'll see what Ah can do." Shawn nodded, and began his story from the point he had woken upm, with Bahumut providing commentary and corrections. At one point oin time, they even had to consult Smaug on what had happened, since both of their versions of what had happened seemed to be just a bit off. During the entire time, Rogue merely nodded and made small noises to tell them to go on. At the end of the narration, Shawn stopped and looked at her hopefully. "Wahl(well), there's really only one thing Ah can say," Rogue began slowly. Shawn nodded eagerly. "Bahumut's right, you fcked up big time," she finished, with a small smirk Shawn just looked at her for the longest time with a sullen expression.
"That," he finally said, "Was NOT funny."
Up on the second floor of the mansion, Rick had finally tracked down Amara, who was now feeling much better. He had explained his problem, and was now waiting patiently for some kind of a solution from the Roma Novan princess. "Well…" she said, after thinking for a few minutes, "There's only one thing I can think of that would make me forgive you in this kind of situation." Rick nodded so hard and fast it looked like his head was about to come flying off.
"Yeah? What is it?" Amara smiled.
"Your best bet is to take her on a shopping spree." Rick looked at her for a moment, and then, seeing that she was dead serious, got up and made his way out of the room.
"Where are you going?" Amara asked. Rick tossed his reply over his shoulder.
"To collect on some favors I did for a certain roommate of mine. I'm gonna need some spending money."
-The Morlock Tunnels-
Calisto stood over the two captives, regarding them silently. Shippo merely looked her in the eye, cool as a cucumber. Sebastion had begun to get a little antsy, and was wiggling his arms, and shifting around, trying to get more comfortable. Evan leaned against the wall behind Calisto, a single spike held in his right hand. Caliban had apparently slipped away from the two, and was nowhere to be found. "Who are you?" Calisto asked after a prolonged silence.
"Shippo," the fox said, "And the boy is my charge, his name is Sebastion."
"Please, call me Slash," the boy interjected. "Do you think you could let us go now? Please? I'm starting to get a cramp in my neck." Thorn looked inquiringly at Calisto, but the older woman ignored his request, still concentrating on Shippo.
"Why were you looking for the Morlocks? What was your intent?" Shippo sighed, and then stood up, brushing away the small strands of roots that clung to him. Calisto stepped back a little as the fox towered over her, and Evan moved to intercept. He stopped though, when the seeming threat merely leaned up against the wall of the sewer. He looked over at Slash for a moment and nodded to himself. There was a flash, and then Slash stood up as well, brushing cinders from his clothes. Shippo smiled at the boy as he cracked his neck, then looked blandly at Calisto.
"We were looking for the Morlocks with the intent to challenge your best fighter to one-on-one combat with Sebastion." Everyone in the tunnel, sans Slash, looked at him like he was nuts. Even a few of the rats were edging away from him.
"Why?" Exo asked.
"To see if his training is truly paying off. Sebastion is being trained in the art of swordplay, and we needed to find someone with fighting capabilities, and experience, that would pose a challenge. His mutation gives him enhanced reflexes and slightly enhanced strength, so challenging a normal human is out of the question." Evan looked at the fox through narrowed eyes at that.
"Why not fight him yourself?" he asked in a gruff voice.
"Not to sound full of myself, but I'm just too good." Evan's eyes narrowed a bit more at that. "I'm quite a bit older than I look, and I've learned more tricks and techniques than any human or mutant really has a right to know." Cappy, who had been silent up until now, spoke up.
"What do you mean, any 'human or mutant'? I would assume from your appearance that you are a mutant yourself." Shippo shook his head sadly.
"Not a mutant, no. But in my time creatures such as myself were feared and hated with more of a passion than anything since. Take Hitler, the KKK and the White League; combine them together, and you'd have a fraction of the hate that members of my race received. Although," he added as an afterthought, "it wasn't entirely unjustified." Everyone was backing away from the fox, with the exception of Slash. Evan had begun to move in-between the two groups, ready to intercept an attack, while Exo had changed into a strange, black Triceratops-like robot, with several armaments on it's back (A Darkhorn, for those of you not versed in Zoids). Thorn looked at the two, slightly fearful.
"If you're not mutants, then wh-what are you?" she asked nervously. Shippo grinned slightly, showing off a single fang.
"I'm a demon of course, a Time Fox to be precise." The reactions were varied, but all of them were enjoyable. Calisto took two more steps back, and nearly knocked into Evan, who managed to maneuver around her somehow, both of them looking a bit shellshocked. Cappy had adopted a thoughtful look, but had also taken a step back. Thorn was looking around, muttering to herself about Candid Camera © and Punk'd © (Great show, Can't believe they stopped shooting it!). Exo reaction however, was the funniest of all. He had just stood there for a moment, before fainting… while still in his robot form! Thorn looked from Shippo to Slash in shock.
"Y-you're both demons?" she quavered. Slash shook his head, while Cappy attempted to revive Exo in the background. Calisto and Spyke were still in a shock coma, and weren't really good for anything but staring blankly right now.
"Not quite. I'm descended from a hanyou, a half demon. Apparently there were a few demonic genes floating around in my family's bloodline. Shippo-sensei thinks that my X-gene somehow affected the dormant demon genes, basically reactivating them and giving me the abilities and appearance of a hanyou, alongside my actual mutant power." Calisto, shaking off her shock somewhat, looked at him.
"And what is your power exactly?" Slash looked at her for a moment.
"It's kind of hard to explain, so I'd better just demonstrate." With that, he drew his sword from its sheath. His arm tingled as the familiar energy of the steel cleaving fang reached out to him, in a sort of question. He gently told the sword that he didn't need to access its powers, through a sort of energy communication. He held the wooden sword up straight in front of him, and concentrated. Everyone in the tunnel watched, with the exception of Shippo, who merely buffed his claws against his shirt, before examining them nonchalantly. A golden sort of light began to envelop the wooden blade, starting from where Sebastion grasped its hilt, and working upwards. After a few seconds, the entire sword was glowing faintly. A moment later and the glow faded away, revealing sharp metal where dull wood had once been. Slash swung the sword in an arc, listening to it whistle through the air, eyes fixed on the blade. He almost seemed to have forgotten about his little audience, until Shippo made a sort of coughing noise to get his attention. Slash shook his head, then looked up, bringing the sword to rest. He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment
"Er…sorry. My friends back home used to tell me that I zone out sometimes when I have my sword out." He looked over at Shippo. "Kinda the way Hack zones out around a computer, and Crush zones out when there's a good song on the radio, huh?" Unnoticed by everyone else, Spyke, who had been keeping a tight grip on his javelin-like spike, relaxed his grip a slightly when he heard the name Hack.
'After all,' he thought to himself, 'how many people named Hack could there be in the world?'
"That's it?" Calisto asked, "You can just change your sword from wood to metal and back again?" Slash shook his head in the negative.
"No, I just used this as an example. I can change any substance into any other substance."
"Transmutation," Cappy said. Slash nodded. Calisto processed all the information she had received throughout this long conversation, and came to a decision.
"I'll think about your request. Until then, you're welcome to stay with us, and share what little we have. You're not likely to get a warm reception up there anyway," she added, nodding in the direction of the tunnel roof. Shippo nodded, before making a low sort of bow.
"Lead the way, O' Gracious one," he smiled. Calisto was taken aback for a moment, before growling, and stomping off down the tunnel. The rest of the group had to jog for a few moments to catch up to her, with Spyke bringing up the rear. Shippo looked at Cappy as they went, and smirked. "Was it something I said?" he asked in an innocent voice. Thorn and Slash had hung back a bit, so that they were walking a few feet in front of Spyke, but also a few feet behind Exo and the older mutants (and Shippo). They were talking quietly, comparing their life experiences, people they had met, places they had been. Shippo glanced back through the corner of his eye and chuckled quietly to himself. Perhaps his young charge would find more than a test of his martial skills down in these dank sewers.
-An Undisclosed Location-
Jon Lutz, the mutant hacker known as Hack, staggered into his Digital HQ, a bloody pulp. He was supported on one side by Biker, who was looking equally battered, with a crack through the entire left side of his mask and black burns marking up his white fur jacket collar. On his other side was Decoy, who was whimpering whenever he put his weight on his left front leg, and had his tail between his legs. Scratch followed after them, his orange battle armor crumbling, and one of his saber fangs broken off halfway down.
Biker and Decoy led Hack over to a large overstuffed armchair, and sat him down gently. Their task complete, they all collapsed in various chairs, or on thick rugs. As soon as they were down, their various places of rest began to glow, and the padding began to dissolve. After a few minutes, Biker and Hack were left sitting on the frames for armchairs, while Decoy and Scratch were now lying on nothing more than rags. Biker got up, and stretched, the damage done to him fully healed.
"Ugh, thank god for reconstruction programs," he grunted. Hack, who had healed as well, though not as fully as his digital friends, nodded; his face a study in sorrow. He looked at two orbs that he had had clenched in his fist when they had arrived. They were both green, and were the size of a normal program orb, but they were fizzing, and they would seem at times as if about to collapse in on themselves.
Jon got up, and headed towards a huge console, which had several small slots in them, each large enough for a single orb. He placed the orbs into two separate slots, and sat down at the monitor. Silently, he began to type. Biker came over behind him, and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry we couldn't get her out Boss," he said quietly. Jon shook his head.
"It's not your fault Biker. We underestimated Frost's abilities and forces, and over estimated our own. Even with the addition of Overdrive and Sidewinder, we still weren't a match for them. I'm going to think for a while, and see if I can come up with a way to tip the odds in our favor. But know this," he said in a dangerous voice, "I swear that I'll get Sharon out from that mad woman's control, or die trying!"---To Be Continued---
Whoah! There's a lot of stuff going on here! Will Shawn ever find a way to get Maria to forgive him? Will Rick survive his trip to the mall with Tabby? Will Logan kill Lance? Will Slash fight against the Morlocks and win? And what's up with Hack? Find out the answers to some of these questions, next time. But until then, Read & Review!