rrrrrring
rrrrrring
rrrrrring
click
"Hello?"
Kitty tapped her foot. "Hi, Fred."
"Hi. Hey, is this Kitty? I guess it is. Hey Kitty. Howzit goin'? You wanna talk to Lance, I guess. You want me to get him? Or maybe you don't wanna talk to him. Is somethin' wrong? What's wrong?"
"...Fred, are you okay?"
"I'm feelin' kinda funny. See, I'm Quickie today, an' it's kinda weird."
"Right."
"Yup. I'm talkin' real fast an' stuff, an I ain't as hungry as usual neither. But I keep wantin' sugar, but nobody's gonna give me any 'cause I'll get all hyper like Quickie usually does, 'cept he ain't doin' that today 'cause I'm him today and he's Tabby."
Kitty began to bang her head softly against the wall. "Fred, can you put Lance on? Please?"
"Okie-dokie."
In the hall behind her, there was a loud whoomph sound accompanied by a scream; a second later, a wildly-shrieking Kurt careened down the hall, most of his body covered with flames. A cheerful-looking Sam followed him.
"It ain't gonna hurt you, ya wuss," he called at the Elf. Kurt ignored him and continued merrily on his way, scorching the walls as he went. Sam shrugged and stuck his head in the kitchen door a short distance away from Kitty.
"We found out who got Amara's powers," he called. "If you see Kurt running around screaming and on fire, you wanna try and remind him he's fire-proof now?"
Various voices from the kitchen made their assent, and Sam stepped back. "Oh yeah. Anyone know where Dr. McCoy is? We probably oughta get him to ice Kurt down a bit. He needs practice with Bobby's powers anyway..."
Distracting Kitty from the dramas of the Institute, Lance picked up the Brotherhood's phone.
"Hello? Who is this? What's going on?"
"Hey Lance. Geez, calm down, willya?"
Lance's voice groaned in her ear. "Oh, it's you. Fred just said it was the phone for me... I was kinda hopin' it'd be Magneto or Mystique."
She blinked. "You don't sound happy."
"In case you didn't notice when you guys came by earlier, things ain't exactly normal around here."
Kitty glanced out the window just in time to see Bobby and Hank attempting to remove the now-extinguished Kurt from a large block of ice. "I think I can identify."
"Huh?"
"Look, whatever went wrong with your powers, it's affected us now. Things are really crazy over here right now."
"Whoah." Lance's voice sounded alarmed. "What the fuck is going on, then?"
"We don't know," she informed him. "But we're trying to work it out. Do you think you guys could, like, come to the Institute? Since your powers went haywire first, maybe we can figure something out..."
Lance was silent for a second, then sighed. "Okay. We were tryin' to get in contact with Boss-Man or Boss-Lady, but neither of 'em are answering their phones. We'll be there in a little while, okay?"
"Great. Just keep ol' Slashy from attacking us."
"I don't think he's going to be able to slash you anytime soon. He got my powers."
"Oh, awesome. See you later, then."
----
In the Kitchen, Ororo finished marking up notes on a large whiteboard and stood back. "I think that's everyone accounted for," she said. "For some reason Sam, Roberto and myself are still fine, but everyone else seems to have made a power switch."
Rogue grinned toothily. "Hey, it ain't all bad. Havin' fangs really sets off the Goth look."
Jean rolled her eyes. "At least I don't have fangs. Yet. And I now have a new appreciation for Kurt's metabolism, by the way. I knew he ate a lot but I now understand why he has to... I'm starving."
"You've been eating all afternoon," Rahne pointed out. "He doesnae have to eat that much."
"She's been eating healthy foods," Ororo corrected her. "Kurt's metabolism needs quality, not quantity. Eating a lot of fruit doesn't make much difference to Jean now."
Jean sulked. "But I really wanted that pineapple."
Bobby thoughtfully pulled a spike out of his elbow and pointed it at Rahne. "It was pretty cool when you electrocuted the pineapple and it exploded. Ray never does anything that funny."
"That wasnae funny! I got it all over me!"
"I thought it was pretty damn funny," Rogue put in.
"Yeah, well, it wasn't your pineapple," Jean reminded her. Nearby, Amara snorted.
"At least all of you got interesting powers," she pointed out. "I don't know how Jubilee takes herself seriously. I mean, fireworks? I don't know whether to shout Evil Beware or Happy New Year each time I fire up."
Kitty wandered into the kitchen accompanied by Jamie and three of the Professors.
"I called Lance. The Brotherhood will be here in a while," she reported.
"Good," commented one of the Professors.
"Excellent," the next one agreed.
"I'm hungry," said the third. "Do we have any pineapple left?"
Everyone looked at him.
"See," said Jamie. "I told you that one clone is always retarded."
----
Lance made it two feet from his jeep before Logan was glaring into his eyes.
"Listen, kid," he growled. "I get the deal with the flag o' truce an' all. But I see you take one step out of line, I'm gonna make you wish you were never even born. Capice?"
Lance nodded.
Growling slightly, Logan raised one hand, bunched it into a fist, and vanished through the ground.
"Oh for fuck's sake," said Evan.
"At least his clothes stayed on this time," Roberto pointed out.
Jean sighed. "I'm guessing he's in the sub-levels?"
Ray nodded, eyes closed. "Yep. Fell all the way down to level two."
"I'll go get him then."
Jean vanished in a plume of smoke; Lance blinked. "Oooooh... kay..."
"Kitty's powers went to Logan," Scott explained.
"Yeah, she told me on the phone," Lance agreed. "Still don't think I was ready to see it, though."
Meanwhile, Todd had climbed out of the Jeep and was looking at Ray. "What, you got Baldy's powers?"
"Nope," said Evan. "I did."
"I got Jean's," Ray explained.
The rest of the Brotherhood had left the jeep and were standing in a group; Pietro glared at Evan. "So you're a telepath now, Daniels?" he sneered. "What, gonna make all the boys fall in love with you?"
Evan stared at Pietro. Pietro punched himself in the face and fell over.
"I like having the Professor's powers," Evan announced.
"You suck," Pietro growled, and headbutted the ground several times.
"Evan, cut that out," Scott ordered. "It's an abuse of Professor Xavier's powers and I like enormous boners prodding me in the face while Logan spanks my ass. I'm his bitch!"
Everyone was silent for a moment.
"Dude," Todd said. "Havin' Baldy's powers rules."
Evan frowned. "That... wasn't me."
"Sorry man," Ray apologised to Scott. "Couldn't resist."
Over in the mansion, Kurt's face appeared at the window. Tabitha waved; Kurt promptly burst into flames, shrieked, and fell out of sight.
"This place is so much more awesome now that you guys swapped powers," Fred announced. Lance pinched the bridge in his nose and shook his head.
"I never thought I'd say this," he informed Scott, "but I really want things to go back to the way they were yesterday."
"Tell me about it," Scott agreed. "If Bobby makes one more 'boner' joke with Evan's powers I'll kill him myself."
"Alright," Ororo said, putting the cap back on the marker pen and turning away from the notice board. "Those are the final changes. What now?"
The Professor - there being only one in the room - looked at the Brotherhood. "When did the change begin?" he asked.
Tabitha shrugged. "We were feeling kind of strange this morning. Didn't notice much until we were at School, though... Pietro was the only one to actually use his powers all morning, and he didn't go to school."
"He kept blowin' himself up," Fred supplied helpfully. "He was sayin' how every time he moved or thought about Tabs or got angry or upset or started cryin' or anything he made boom-bombs an' blew himself up. So he was under a blanket on the sofa when we came back to see if'n he was okay an' he was cryin' a bit an' he yelled at Tabs but we figured out it wasn't her, an' then he blew himself up a couple more times-"
"Fred," Pietro said. "Your helpful advice isn't."
"Huh?"
"Shut up."
"Okie-dokie."
"And did you feel anything... unusual... besides the use of each other's powers?" The Professor asked.
Lance shook his head. "Not me. Todd was feeling weird, but that was probably just Fred's metabolism kicking in. I don't think the rest of us even noticed."
Kitty looked around. "Where is Todd, anyway?" she asked.
----
"You ready?"
"Go fer it, yo. It ain't gonna hurt, I'm tellin' you."
Roberto shrugged, wound up, and slammed one solar-charged fist into Todd's chest. Todd flew backwards across the lawn, connected with a tree, snapped one branch clean off, and landed in a pile on the ground.
Sam, Rahne and Kurt winced collectively.
"I'm okay," Todd's voice called over cheerfully. "I ain't as heavy as Freddy, but it still didn't hurt!"
"Cool," breathed Jamie. "Do it again!"
"Hit him in the head this time," the Professor enthused.
The others stared at him for a moment. He wilted.
"Sorry. I'll be quiet."
----
"Well," Hank noted, looking at the whiteboard, "we can almost certainly discount anything natural causing this phenomenon. There's far too much variation over the age groups to explain it without Sam, Roberto and Ororo being effected."
"So what does that leave?" Pietro wanted to know.
"Something unnatural," Evan told him. Pietro scowled at him.
"Read my mind right now," he told Evan. A moment later, Evan recoiled.
"Dude, no! That is fucking sick!"
"Next time it's gonna be a horse," Pietro threatened, and Evan glared at him.
"It is not healthy that you have those images in your mind," he told Pietro. "Seriously."
"Children, please," Hank sighed.
"Sorry."
"Okay, so something unnatural did this," Tabitha said. "What was it, then?"
"My money's on Boss-man," Lance said. "Probably some experiment of his."
"Or his associate, Dr. Essex," Ororo suggested. "This is right up his alley."
"Who?" Fred asked.
"Similar to Magneto," Hank explained, "but he goes right through megalomania into total cruelty."
"Oh."
The Professor shook his head. "Which is why I doubt either of them are responsible," he said. "This is mischievous, irritating, inconvenient - but not harmful. If anyone who wished us harm could disrupt our powers on a scale like this, they'd have openly attacked. This is more like a prank, though I have no idea who could do this, let alone who would."
Sighing, he thumped his fist on the table; another two Professors appeared, blinking in surprise.
"Oh dear," said Hank.
The first Professor sighed. "I have a newfound respect for the difficulties of being Jamie," he informed the others.
"You don't have to tell me about it," his clones said in unison, and blinked at one another.
It was at this point Rogue walked in the door and shook her head. "It ain't natural," she muttered. "There's too damn many of ya wheelin' around here."
"Sorry," the three Professors apologised at the same time. Rogue groaned.
"Good thing I don't have to hang around here much longer, I'm just here to find Storm. Amara's settin' off fireworks out the back an' she's started a leaf fire."
Fred's face lit up. "Fireworks? Can I see?"
Lance covered his eyes with one hand and nodded. "Go."
In the time it took to blink, Fred was gone; a second later Amara shrieked wildly, followed by Fred's voice howling in protest.
Kitty looked out the window and winced. "Um... it looks like Fred ran into Amara and she got caught in his... uh, cleavage. And now she's attacking him."
The room winced collectively.
Ororo headed for the back door, shaking her head. "I'll go work things out," she announced. "Charles, Hank, please - find a way to fix this."
The Professors and Hank looked at one another.
"We'll try," they all said.
