Chapter 5: Meeting Mary Jane

As night fell, the animals returned to their home except for a few birds and the family of deer.

"Let's see what's upstairs." Mary Jane said, and she went up to find a bedroom with seven beds. "Oh what adorable beds, and they've got their names carved on them." Mary Jane then proceeded to read the names. "'Hank' 'Ororo' 'Bobby' 'Kurt'" Mary Jane giggled good-naturedly. "Some of these names are a little funny. 'Logan', 'Kitty', and 'Rogue'." Mary Jane then yawned. "I better be getting to sleep."

Mary Jane then laid down across Ororo, Bobby, and Kurt's beds as the deer went to sleep on the floor. The birds then put the candle out with their tails and covered Mary Jane up before flying down stairs.

Suddenly, the deer were awakened by the sounds of people coming, and they returned to the forest for fear of being attacked by the cottage's inhabitants.

()()()()()

The group returned home as Hank led the way by using a flashlight.

"Look!" Hank suddenly said as he stopped abruptly and everyone slammed into him. "Our house. The light's lit!"

Everyone then snuck to the side and looked at the house.

"Jiminy Cricket." Kurt said in a low whisper as he looked.

"The door's open." Hank pointed out as light was coming through the doorway.

"Looks like smoke's coming from the chimney." Kitty said.

"Something's in there." Bobby remarked.

"You don't think it's Sinister, do you?" Ororo asked.

"Could be anything." Kitty said.

"Either way, something's up." Logan said. "We better approach it carefully."

"How?" Kurt asked.

"Let's sneak up on it." Ororo said.

"Right." Hank said. "Follow me."

They nervously snuck to the house and went inside. Hank slowly opened the door which appeared to creek louder than it normally did, but they just put that off to nerves. They then tip-toed in as Kurt slammed the door shut.

"SHH!" They all hissed at Kurt.

"SHH!" Kurt hissed at the door.

"We better search every nook and cranny." Hank said.

"Yeah, and ve should search everywhere too." Kurt said, which earned him a slap from Rogue.

"Ouch!" Kurt exclaimed.

"Guys, be quiet." Logan hissed.

As Hank, Ororo, and Rogue checked one area of the house, Hank looked down and gasped.

"Look at the floor!" Hank called out in surprise. "It's been swept!"

"Who on Earth would break into a house to sweep a floor?" Rogue asked incredulously.

Logan rubbed a finger against one of the chairs at the table and looked.

"The chair's been dusted." He observed.

"The windows are all washed." Ororo stated.

"No cobwebs anywhere." Kitty stated.

"The whole place is cleaner than an operating room." Hank said in surprise.

"Someone's definitely been in here." Logan said. "We're lucky if we manage to clean the place once a week, and we never get it this clean. There's dirty work a foot."

"The sink's empty." Bobby said as he looked inside with Rogue. "Guys, someone stole our dishes."

"No they didn't!" Ororo said exasperatedly. "They just cleaned them and put them in the cupboard."

"Yeash, if we end up findin' that Courtney Cox lady from Friends, I'm gonna laugh." Rogue said.

"Hey, they washed my cup!" Kitty groaned as she ran her finger around it. "No more sugar!"

"Good." Rogue said. "The last thing we need is you all hopped up on sugar again."

Ororo and Kurt approached a bubbling pot.

"Something's cooking in there." Ororo said as she sniffed. "And it smells pretty good."

Ororo made to grab a ladle when Logan grabbed her hand and pulled her away.

"Are you stupid?!" Logan asked. "That could be poison!"

As if on cue, the pot hissed.

"AHH!" Kurt exclaimed as he teleported behind Rogue.

"Why do I bother?" Logan said.

Hank then drew everyone's attention to the table.

"Look what happened to the table!" Hank said as Kitty picked up some golden rods that were there.

"Hey cool, flowers." Kitty said. "Look at this Bobby, golden rods."

"Oh no!" Bobby said as his nose began to get stuffed up. "My nose, I've had hay fever for the last few weeks! You know I can't stand it, Kitty! I ca- I coo- I c-"

"HIT THE DECK!" Logan called out. As Kurt, Kitty, and Rogue ducked, Logan, Ororo, and Hank held their fingers to his nose.

"Phew." Logan said. "Thanks guys… AH CHOO!"

The other six were then blown into the wall as they were covered by a thin layer of frost.

"Sweet Heaven!" Ororo exclaimed.

"A very fine time ya picked to sneeze!" Logan whispered angrily at Bobby, his good friend.

"I couldn't help it!" Bobby whispered back. "When you've gotta, you've gotta… Uh-oh. I've gotta again."

"GRAB HIM!" Logan called out. They pounced on Bobby and tied a wash cloth around his nose, which served to muffle his sneeze and stop any more accidental ice blasts.

"Thanks." Bobby said.

"We've gotta keep quiet." Logan said. "We could all end up stuck in Sinister's lab if we're not careful."

They then heard an odd sound from upstairs.

"Whatever's in here is up there." Hank said.

"In the bedrooms." Ororo said.

"Uh-oh." Kurt exclaimed.

"Someone's gotta go up and chase whatever's up there down." Hank said.

They all nodded their heads, and six of them looked at Kurt as he looked behind him before remembering that there were only seven of them.

"Me?" Kurt asked in a squeaky whisper.

Kurt tried to creep off before he was grabbed by Logan and Bobby. They then pulled him in front of Hank as he held up his flashlight and was shaking as bad as Kurt.

"Here." Hank said nervously. "Take it. Don't be nervous."

Hank then mustered his own courage and put the flash light in Kurt's hand and shoved him up the stairs. At the landed outside of the bedrooms, Kurt turned around to look at the others several steps below him.

"Don't be afraid." Hank said. "We're right behind you."

"Yeah." They all said. "Right behind you."

"Mm." Kurt said nervously as he walked up and entered the bed room. In the light of the flash light, Kurt saw something groan sleepily as it stretched underneath several sheets.

"AHHHHH!" Kurt called out and ran down the stairs.

"Here it comes!" Logan said as he got his claws ready before they were all bowled over by something, and they ran straight out of the door. Kurt then tried to follow, but the door wouldn't open.

"It's trying to get out!" Hank screamed!

"Don't let it out!" Logan said calmly.

"Hold it shut!" Ororo added.

This added greatly to Kurt's fears that the creature and woken up. He didn't dare look behind him and tried harder to open the door until the door knob broke off, and Kurt fell into several pots and pans that landed all over him. Now sure that the creature had woken up, he ran for his life right out the door. This was the scariest night of his life!

()()()()()

Outside the cottage, everyone waited in the trees for the creature, whatever it was, to attack. They pounced down on what appeared to be some kind of metal creature and kept attacking until Hank realized something.

"Hold on guys!" Hank shouted. "It's only Kurt."

"Yeah, it's only-D'oh!" Kurt exclaimed as Raven hit him again with her stick. "What was that for?!"

"Scaring me for no good reason." Rogue retorted.

"Did you see it?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah!" Kurt said panting.

"How big is it?" Ororo asked.

"Huge!"

"What was it?" Logan asked.

"A dragon!" Kurt said as the creature was large enough to be.

"Has it got horns?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah!"

"Was it breathing fire?" Hank asked.

"Yeah!" Kurt said.

"Was it drooling?" Kitty asked.

"Yeah!" Kurt said.

"Stop saying yeah and tell us what it was doing!" Rogue shouted.

"It was sleeping." Kurt said.

"A monster's asleep in our beds?!" Hank exclaimed.

"Let's get it while it's sleeping." Logan proposed.

"Good idea." Ororo said.

"Let's go!" Bobby proclaimed and they went off.

They made it back to the bedroom and opened the door to see the thing yawning again, and it was covering Bobby, Ororo, and Kurt's beds.

"Whoa baby!" Bobby exclaimed.

"Heaven above!" Ororo added.

"What a monster." Bobby said.

"No kidding." Kitty replied. "It's covering three beds."

"Let's get it before it wakes up!" Hank whispered.

"Which end do we get?" Ororo asked, but everyone shushed her.

They then surrounded the creature and prepared to fight when Hank lifted the sheet, and they all stopped.

It wasn't a monster. It was a very lovely girl. With red hair, and she was in a light violet outfit.

"Oh my stars and garters!" Hank exclaimed.

"Who is it?" Ororo asked.

"It's a girl." Hank said.

"She's really pretty." Bobby said.

"She looks like an angel." Kitty said.

"Angel?" Logan said. "What would someone like her be doing here?"

"Shh!" Hank said. "You'll wake her up."

"Let her wake up then." Logan said. "She's trespassing."

"Hey, she's moving!" Bobby said nervously.

"She's waking up!" Ororo said.

"What do we do?!" Bobby asked.

"Hide!" Hank said, and they ducked down as the girl yawned and got up.

()()()()()

"Oh my…" Mary Jane said with a yawn as she got up. "Just what I needed. I wonder if the children are-"

Mary Jane then looked down and gasped in pleasant surprise as she saw the children.

"Oh you look so cute." Mary Jane said like a babysitter. The children then stood up, and she saw that they were in several outfits. Maybe they were play acting. "How do you do?" Mary Jane asked, but none of them answered. "I said 'How do you do?'"

"How do we do what?" Said a boy dressed in yellow with a black mask covering his eyes and face.

"Oh you can talk!" Mary Jane said excitedly. "I'm so glad!"

"Now don't tell me who you are, let me guess." Mary Jane said. "Now you…" She said as she looked at a boy who had blue fur on him. "You're… Hank."

"Oh, yes." Hank said with a nervous smile.

Mary Jane then looked at a girl with brown hair in pony tails, and it clicked instantly.

"You're Kitty." Mary Jane said.

"Y-yeah." Kitty said as she blushed.

"And you…" Mary Jane said as she looked at a girl with brown hair with a white streak in it, brown eyes, and a green outfit. "You're… Rogue?"

"How'd you guess?" Rogue asked sarcastically.

"The hair." Mary Jane said. She then turned to a boy in a blue jump suit. "And you're Bobby."

"Yeah." Bobby said as he smiled and rubbed the back of his neck.

"And you're…" Mary Jane said as she turned to a girl with long white hair.

"Ororo, ma'am." Ororo said. "And this is Kurt."

"Hi." Kurt said nervously.

"Don't worry, he's shy around strangers." Ororo explained.

"Oh, that is too bad." Mary Jane said as she smiled, and Kurt smiled nervously as well. She then turned to the last boy. He folded his arms moodily.

"Oh…" Mary Jane said deepening her voice to try and get the boy to smile. "You must be Logan."

"She's good at this." Hank said.

"We know who we are." Logan said shortly. "What we don't know is who you are and what you're doing here."

"Oh how silly of me." Mary Jane said as she blushed. "I am Mary Jane."

"Mary Jane?!" Everyone asked. "The princess?!"

"Yeah." Mary Jane said with a smile.

"Well your highness." Hank said respectively. "We're honored hosts. We're… Uh…"

"Mad as hornets!" Logan interrupted.

"Mad as hornets!" Hank said before shaking his head.

"Wait, no we're not." Hank said. "Ah, what was I saying?!"

"Nothing, just sputtering like an idiot as usual!" Logan said.

"Hey who's sputtering like an idiot!" Hank asked angrily.

"That's enough you two." Bobby said as he made a wall of ice in between the two.

"I say we tell her to get out." Logan said.

"Please don't send me away." Mary Jane pleaded. "If you do, she'll kill me."

"Kill you?" Bobby asked.

"Who?" Hank asked.

"My step-mother Queen Emma Frost." Mary Jane stated.

"Emma Frost?!" Everyone asked.

"She's wicked!" Kitty said.

"She's bad!" Ororo agreed.

"She's mean!" Bobby added.

"She's a vain and power-hungry witch." Logan said calmly. "I'm warning all of you. If Frost finds out she's here, she'll tear the whole place apart just because of Mary Jane being here."

"But she doesn't even know where I am." Mary Jane said.

"Oh yeah?" Logan asked. "Well from all the stories I've heard, she has enough black magic to easily figure out where someone is, and it doesn't take magic to make someone invisible. For all we know she's in this room right now."

"Oh my god!" Kurt said before he looked down Ororo's shirt to look for Emma, and Ororo punched him in the face.

"Oh she would never find me here." Mary Jane said cheerfully. "And if you let me stay, I will do the cleaning and keeping of the house for you. I can wash, sow, sweep, cook-"

"COOK?!" Everyone said at the same time as they were tired of Logan and Bobby buying them cereal from some town.

"Can you make apple dumplings?" Hank asked.

"Yes." Mary Jane said. "And plum pudding, and goose berry pie-"

"GOOSE BERRY PIE?!" Everyone called out. "Hooray! She stays!"

Logan rubbed his temples. He didn't think any good would come out of this.

Well Logan's trusting, isn't he?