"There's a blind corner coming up ahead."
"Yes, I know that. I've driven down this road before, believe it or not."
"Well, I'm just saying to look out... ooh, and look out for that truck as well..."
"I can see the truck and I don't need a running commentary."
"All I'm doing is trying to help - oof! Easy on the brakes there, how fast were you going just now?"
Ororo stomped one foot down on the gas, her expression less than cheerful. "Fast enough. Now will you stop criticising my driving for five minutes please?"
Hank frowned at her. "Really, Ororo, I'm merely trying-"
"My patience. Why couldn't you have gone in the other van?"
"All the spare seats were taken by Sam. Er, by the Sams." He paused. "Sam's Multiples had taken all the seats? Yes, I'll go with that one."
"One more word, Henry, just one, and I swear here and now I'll throw you out of this van without even slowing down."
As she took the next turn barely touching the brakes, Hank risked a glance at her face to see if she meant it. Her face indicated she did, and the blue doctor turned to look out his own window and sulk.
"I hope we get to Forge's place soon," Bobby muttered. "This stopped being funny ten minutes ago."
Next to him, Jubilee nodded her now-shaggy down at him. "The sooner we get there the better," she agreed in a disturbingly bass voice.

----

Following Hank's discovery of the Nanobots, things had gone rather quickly. Once they were identified as the alien factor responsible for the power-switch, the next step was to identify the source of the 'infection'. Sam having provided assistance in that area - and a quick test revealing the casserole as the source of the Nanobots - it had been simple to dispose of it. A rapid questionnaire with the Brotherhood had revealed that their dinner had also been supplied by a mysterious outside source, almost certainly the way they'd been infected.
Having identified the Nanobots and removed their source, it became a simple matter of deactivating them - for a limited definition of "simple". The first few attempts had resulted in a few short, painful electrocutions for the volunteers, promptly inspiring others to withdraw their offer of volunteering. The bots were small, but they were resilient and numerous and very well designed - well designed enough to be resistant to any attempts the residents of the Institute made to dispose of them, well enough for everyone to decide that in order to shut them down for good, they'd need the help of someone who understood such designs a lot better than they did.
It had been at this point that Kurt had suggested Forge. The others had expressed surprise that Kurt was willing to let Forge use his equipment anywhere near him, given what had happened the last few times. It was likely that Kurt had a witty retort of some kind prepared, but instead he'd promptly burst into flames and run around shrieking for a few minutes. Later, having been extinguished, he'd wiped the foam out of his fur while announcing that whatever Forge did to them, it couldn't be that much worse than what was going on.
Which had led to two X-Vans, one X-Jeep, Scott's beloved convertible and Lance's own jeep being loaded to the brim as the entire mutant population of Bayville set off, in one grand convoy, to see what Forge could do about the situation.

----

Lance nudged his jeep up just a touch over the speed limit - observing, with sour humour, that this only brought him up to the same speed as Scott in his red car, leading the way.
"Can't we get there any faster, yo?" Todd wanted to know. "I'm sick o' bein' Blob. Feel like I gained twenty pounds already, nameen?"
"Goin' as fast as we can, Todd," Lance said coolly. "Just sit back, enjoy the ride, watch the show."
"What show?"
A blue-haired head popped up in the back seat of Scott's convertible, looked at them, and promptly burst into flame. The screams carried quite clearly to them in the open-topped jeep.
"Ah," said Todd. "That show."
"I wish he'd stop doing that," Tabitha observed.
"I wish he'd stop screaming everytime he does do it," Pietro declared. "You'd think the guy woulda gotten used to it by now. That's, what, the eighth time since we arrived at Geek Central that he's set himself on fire? Dumb bastard should know by now that it doesn't hurt."
"Nobody ever accused him of being too smart for his own good," Lance pointed out. As the rest of the Brotherhood nodded sagely, a small raincloud appeared over Scott's car and extinguished the Elf; behind them, Ororo's van honked its horn in acknowledgement.
Turning, Tabitha looked over her door. "How you doin' there, Freddy?"
Fred grinned at her, his round body jiggling in an alarming fashion as he ran alongside the speeding jeep. "Me? I'm great. How're you doin'? I guess you're doin' fine, huh. Yeah. It's a nice day for a run, mm-hmm! I'm doin' just fine."
"Good for you, big guy."
Lance looked at Todd, riding shotgun. "Dude, I swear - this is the weirdest car trip anyone has ever been on."

"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with... S!"
"For the last fuckin' time, Sparky. Nobody wants to play."
"Shh! If we start doing it, everyone else will! You'll see!"
"There's nobody else here but us, you moron."
"Oh yeah? Well, who's that?"
"...that's another one of us. Jesus Christ."
"Well, I'm playing anyway. Now, it starts with an S and I'm looking at it riiiiight now..."
"...it's Sam, isn't it?"
"Dude, how'd you guess?"
"That's what it was the last seven times."
"Well, I gotta start it off easy so people get interested."
"Nobody is interested. Shut up."
"Oh yeah? Well, let's see about that! I spy, with my little eye..."
"If I kill you, does that count as suicide?"
"...Logan?"
"Yeah, Chuck?"
"Why did we agree to ride in this van?"
"Cause we're stupid."
"Ah."
"...beginning with S! C'mon, you guys, it's easy!"

----

A short time later, the vehicles having arrived at their destination - somehow without any of the occupants having been murdered. Together, they crowded around the building and looked at each other.
"If he's not home I can't promise not to kill anyone on the way back," Evan announced. "If I have to put up with everyone's thoughts for much longer I will snap."
"I'm just sick of being on fire," Kurt complained. Pietro threw a plasma bomb at Kurt; Kurt took two steps back, burst into flames, and fell over howling in protest as the plasma bomb exploded harmlessly a few feet away.
"Pietro," Scott ordered. "Stop doing that."
"But it's funny!"
"I know that, but if you keep doing it he's gonna come looking for revenge when he gets his own powers back. You do remember the Noodle Incident(4)?"
Pietro went pale and stepped back. "I'll be good."

Shaking her head, Jean stepped up to the door of the large brick building and knocked loudly. There was a short wait, and then the door swung open to reveal Forge.
Forge looked out at the twenty or so grumpy-looking mutants, squeaked, and slammed the door shut again.
The mutants in question looked nonplussed.
"Why isn't he helping us?" Amara wanted to know. "Why did he run off like that?"
"We'll know when we catch 'im," Logan growled. "Jeannie, head up to the roof and see if he tries to get out any other exits. I'll go through the door an' unlock it-"
Jubilee knuckled up to the door and smashed it off its hinges with one blow. Logan blinked.
"...or there's that."
The crowd of disgruntled teenagers pushed past him into the workshop, leaving Logan, Storm, Hank and Charles outside.
"Well?" said Charles. "I suppose the door is open..."
They entered.

"So why did you run away?" Kitty wanted to know.
Forge grinned weakly. "Um... you surprised me? And you look, uh, kinda annoyed, and when you guys turn up here when you're annoyed I tend to get stuff broken. Like my inventions. Or my bones."
"Okay. But we don't want to hurt you, we just want your help."
"Oh. Then are you gonna put me down now?"
Everyone looked at Ray. Ray remained focused on Forge, who was hovering some seven feet off the ground.
"In a minute," said Ray.
"But I'm not much good to you up here," said Forge. "I can't help you with anything when I'm floating this high off the ground."
"He's got a point," Scott agreed.
Forge nodded. "Right. So let me down and I'll help you with the Nanobots."
"Wait," said Jean. "How did you know about the Nanobots?"
"What Nanobots?" asked Forge.
Everyone was silent for a beat.
"That didn't work, did it?"
"Okay," Kitty announced. "Like, now I wanna hurt him."
"I changed my mind," Forge said to Ray. "I think I want to stay up here a while."
Ray dropped him on the floor like a brick.
"You did this?" Scott demanded. "You're the one responsible for everything?"
"Everyone, please," Charles called from behind them. "We can beat him to a bloody pulp later. Right now he needs to start talking, and then start repairing the damage he's done."
"But we can hurt 'im after that, right?" Logan wanted to know.
"Oh yes, of course."
"I'm glad you guys are my friends," Forge said.

The group formed a rough semicircle around Forge, who hopped up on one of his benches and swung his feet, trying not to look too nervous. "So, uh, what do you want to know?"
"Everything," said Pietro.
"Uh, sure." Forge coughed weakly. "But first, um... what exactly happened to you guys?"
"What, you don't know?" Lance growled.
"Well, no, actually. I know the bots are doing something, but I don't actually know... what."
Kitty glared at him. "Did you put these things inside us?"
Forge wilted. "Hey, the casserole was nice, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," one of the Sams agreed. "We gotta get the recipe."
"Shut the fuck up, Sparky," growled another.
Forge pointed at the group of Sams. "Are there usually that many of him?"
"No," said Jamie. "He's got my powers."
At that, Forge's face lit up. "You swapped powers? That's incredible!"
"That's awful," Scott corrected him. "You have no idea how much damage we've done to... well, pretty much everything we've come into contact with since you did this."
"Oh, right," said Forge. "You guys break stuff. I forgot."
"Keep talking or we'll break you," Logan threatened, and Forge managed a sickly grin.
"Well, um... yeah, I infected you with the Nanobots. It was for an experiment."
"You didn't tell us?" Charles inquired.
"You guys tend to refuse to participate in my experiments, so I didn't bother telling you. There wasn't supposed to be any danger here, you weren't even supposed to know about it. This is just something that went wrong."
"Which is why we don't participate in your experiments," Ororo pointed out.
"Duh," agreed Forge. "Hence the problem."
"He's makin' my head hurt," Fred complained. Tabitha patted his arm.
"It's okay, Freddy. Let him dig his little hole. Then we'll have somewhere to bury the corpse."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Charles sighed. "And why, Forge, did you feel all of this was necessary?"
Forge pointed at another workbench. "For that."
The others looked. On the workbench were a pair of machines that, insofar as they looked like anything else, resembled microwaves with antennae.
"What are they?" Hank asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" said Forge. "They're popcorn makers."
Everyone was quiet for a long moment.
"That sounded way better in my head," Forge observed.
"You did this for popcorn?" Kitty demanded. "Oh, that is it. Get out of the way, I'm gonna shove his popcorn maker right up his-"
"No!" Forge scurried to the back of the bench he was sitting on and pressed up against the wall. "It was an accident, you don't understand!"
"Why the hell do you need to screw up our powers to make Popcorn?" Lance growled.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this!" Forge wailed. "I swear to God, you weren't even meant to know about it! Something just went wrong!"
Charles shook his head. "Alright, then. What did you mean to happen here?"
"The machine was supposed to draw a radio signal matching mutant signatures, sent in by the Nanobots," Forge explained hurriedly. "I wanted to get the signals from Boom-Boom and Magma to run the machine. Instead, all of the Nanobots started broadcasting their signals at once, and the machine couldn't read them. I tried to attach a filter to the signals, but that didn't do anything."
"So how did we switch powers?" Jean asked. Forge shrugged.
"Your guess is as good as mine. If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say that the filter just made all the signals bounce back to the bots, but with lousy aim... you'd have all the Nanobots in your body broadcasting your mutation to someone else, while you got the signal from another set of Nanobots."
Hank raised an eyebrow. "In which case we technically still have our own mutations, but these Nanobots are interrupting our mutant signatures? Is that even possible?"
"If I built it," said Forge, "probably not."
Ororo, meanwhile, was frowning. "So you wanted to build a popcorn maker?"
"Yep."
"And your first choice was to power it on plasma explosions. The second choice being to power it with Pyropathy. That... doesn't seem very wise."
"Oh, no," said Forge. "They weren't my first choice."
Charles looked concerned. "Forge, exactly how many people did you infect with these Nanobots?"
"Um..."

----

"Pitor! Put me down at once!"
"Nyet, I do not think so. Not until you reveal to me where Illyana is."
Hovering high above the floor of Asteroid M, Magneto glared down at Colossus. Who was currently using his newfound magnetic-field manipulation powers to hold him there.
"Help me!" he roared at the other Acolytes. "Get me down from here!"
A steel-skinned Mastermind writhed in the air next to him. "I would if I could, dammit."
Down below, Pyro made no move to assist them. Instead he was alternating between looking at his new claws and forlornly staring at a cigarette lighter. "No fires today," he whispered sadly. "Can't do that any more. None at all."
"This is ridiculous!" Magneto roared. "Why do I hire you people? And where are Gambit and Sabretooth?"
"Gambit ran away when these changes occurred," Colossus informed him. "He was very excited, saying something about mind reading and bank account numbers."
"Sabretooth?"
"I do not know. Also, I do not care. I do, however, care about where Illyana is." Colossus glared up at him. "Now, if you please. Where is she?"

----

"...a couple?" Forge suggested weakly. Charles gave him a you're-in-it-deep look.
"Alright, alright," Kitty said. "Forge is a jerk and we're going to hurt him badly, I get that. For the moment, can we just concentrate on getting these stupid robots out of our bodies?"

Three minutes later, Forge turned away from the table where he'd been examining a Nanobot-rich blood sample.
"Okay, this should be easy," he announced. "All the Nanobots in your bodies are permanently set on broadcasting one signal. All we have to do is screw up that signal and they'll shut down automatically."
"How do we do that?" Hank wanted to know.
"The easiest way would be an exchange of Nanobot samples between those who switched powers," Forge said. "Pretty much any body fluid would do the trick."
"Wait," said Tabitha. So you're saying that if we exhange bodily fluids with whoever's powers we stole, and with whoever stole ours, everything goes back to normal?"
"Uh, yeah."
Tabitha looked at Pietro and Lance. "I like this plan," she declared. "You boys wanna feel the earth move?"
Scott blinked, then looked at Rogue and Kitty. "This could be a good idea."
"Yeah," agreed Ray, looking at Rahne and Jean.
"Yes," said Jean and Kitty.
"Oh hell no," said Evan, looking at Bobby and the Professor.
"I'm game," Kurt announced.
Rogue looked speculatively at Scott and Rahne. "I'll try anything once."
"Fuck off," declared one of the Sams, crossing his arms over his chest. "The first person who suggests I have sex with Jamie and the Professor, I'm gonna kill."
"And I'll laugh while I do it," added another Sam.
Pietro nodded. "I gotta agree with Farmboy here. No offence, Freddy, but when something's as big as you are and moving as fast as you can, that's something that mankind was never meant to bone."
The Professor cleared his throat. "Forge, perhaps you can think of a better solution?"
Forge flushed. "Well, I never suggested anything like that. I was just talking a blood transfusion or something, that's all."
"And how about simply turning the Nanobots off?"
He blinked. "Well... I suppose that would work, but..."
"But what?"
"But the popcorn machine was a present!"
Charles raised an eyebrow. "For whom?"
"Einstein. He likes popcorn."
Hank blinked. "Einstein?"
"My hamster," Forge explained. "He's over there."
Everyone looked across the room. From inside his cage, Einstein wiggled his nose at them and scuttled into his soup can.
"It's his birthday," Forge explained.
"Oh, screw this," Kitty growled. In three steps she strode up to Forge and grabbed him by the throat.

"Listen," she ordered. "You're gonna turn these Nanobots off, right now. And if you don't, I'm gonna sic Logan onto you. Got it?"
Forge blinked at her. "Whose powers does he have right now?"
"Mine."
"That makes him... less scary than usual."
"You don't get it," Kitty informed him. "All he has to do now is sneeze and his clothes fall right through his body. I swear to God I'll leave you in here with him if you don't turn these things off."
Forge looked at Kitty.
Kitty looked at Logan.
Forge looked at Logan.
Logan looked at Forge.
Fred picked his nose.
Forge looked at Kitty.
"Right," said Forge. "I'll just turn those off, then, shall I?"
Smiling dangerously, Kitty released him. "Good idea."
"This means there's no sex, doesn't it?" Tabitha wanted to know.
"Yup," Lance agreed.
"Damn," muttered Rahne.

----

(4) Calvin and Hobbes reference to an event that is never explained in detail or in brief, and about which nothing is known, save that it was unpleasant and apparently involving noodles of some sort. Absolute classic reference.