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Extra Credit to Mya G. for catching the Howl's Moving castle reference!

Mornings at the Xavier school could only be summed up by one word…Chaos. Some of the more paranoid new recruits felt that the morning rush for bathrooms, food, and rides to school was a form of battle training. Something engineered by the ominous hand of the Wolverine, not that any of them would ever say this in the same building… or even state as him.

If you were unfortunate enough to get in line for the bathroom behind one of the more "girly" girls at the school you were doomed to wait. Some of the students had even taken up pranks and bribery to get a better place in line.

Once, before she'd left for the Brotherhood, Tabitha, who also went by the incredibly apropos name of Boom-Boom, startled the fearless leader of the x-men in to giving up his place in line. Scott, who was the only one with enough patience to wait for Jean in the morning without gripping or pounding on the door, was leaning against the wall in a light doze when a loud crack brought him abruptly out of sleep.

Acting on pure instinct he'd jumped up and ran toward the front door of the school screaming and shouting that the school was under attack. And in his attempt to protect the school from these mysterious invaders had left his place at the front of the line open for the taking…Tabitha took full advantage. Scott tried to regulate the bathroom lines after that… but it simply forced the students to be more clever with their pranks.

Jamie, being the Grasshopper to Rogue's Sensei, had once duct taped the doors of all of the students closed. It was only a temporary stop, but it gave him a chance to use the bathroom first that morning and it inspired Iceman to freeze everyone's door handles and locks so they wouldn't turn and everyone couldn't open their doors.

Kitty Pryde had phased her hand through Jean's clock one night, shorting it out… in hopes that she would oversleep. Jean knew about the trick and swapped her clock for Kitty's.

Kurt once ported down to the kitchen after waking up late one morning, grabbed a bunch of doughnuts and traded his way up to the front of the line. He knew the power of food and used it to his full advantage.

If it wasn't the bathroom's it was the food. In the morning, the normally spacious kitchen of the Xavier school seemed like it was the size of a postage stamp. Elbows slammed into counter tops, each other, and plate or bowls of food.

Logan thought it was funny in the morning to hide the doughnuts until the students had worked themselves into a frenzy and throw into the middle. He said he liked to stand back and watch the feeding frenzy. Remarking with pride that he'd seen pack of rabid dog who were less violent about food then these kids. The Professor put a quick stop to that behavior.

Now, there were some at the institute that didn't buy into the morning panic. Some who where lucky enough or feared enough that they simply didn't have to fight the morning crowds. Pyro, the former Acolyte, now X-man… or "X-person" as the more feminist girls liked to say, was one of them.

He didn't have to fight for doughnuts because on his second day in the house, his first official day as an "X-person"… he'd walked into the kitchen, into the din and frenzy, jumped up on the kitchen table, pulled out his lighter and started screaming.

"Back up! Back up!" He held his lighter out in front of his life a weapon, which it was in his hands. When everyone had cleared a path to the food, he scooped up two glazed doughnuts and one Cherry Pop tart, and then bounded away cackling and talking about what a good team he and Betty made. It was assumed that Betty was his lighter.

Another one of these feared/lucky people was Rogue. Now, there were very few new recruits who weren't warned right from the get go, by the "New Recruit Gossip Hotline" that the Rogue was dangerous and that in the morning two things were left untouched for her and her alone.

The first being coffee…

The second being the last Jelly filled Doughnut.

The New Recruits, who would gossip about anything and anyone without cause, reason, or any regard for the law of the universe; had failed to inform one of their numbers of these two important truths…

One morning as Rogue sat enjoying her coffee and ignoring the hustle and bustle that was currently leaving a wide berth around her, a hand reached out to take the last jelly doughnut which sat like a temptation in the pink box in the center of the table. Some said that she left it to taste the strength of their wills. Other remarked that it was like when Vlad Dracula left a golden chalice in the slums around his city. No one dared touch it for fear of his wrath.

No one had warned poor young Dazzler, a ditzy blonde, who had instantly been taken in by the preppy khaki wearing set at the school, that the last doughnut was Dracula golden chalice. Before her fingers closed around the fried dough Rogue's hand shot out and her fork slammed down into the soft center of the doughnut, right between Dazzlers fingers. Cherry filling spilled out around the tines of the fork, Dazzler quickly took her hand back and check for injuries. Rogue left the fork in the Doughnut and no touched it as she finished her coffee.

Remy LeBeau was one of the lucky ones. It was well noted the Remy LeBeau, also a former Acolyte turned "X-person", had Jedi powers. Once just before the mad dash to various vehicles he came to the table with an empty plate. Noting that all the food was already on other people's plates and that the lone Jelly doughnut in the center of the table had been claimed by his fiery southern friend, he sat down. No one saw exactly how he did it, but before long he had a good portion of scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and the only piece of un-burnt bacon that the Xavier School had seen since the Voodoo incident…which no one dared speak of.

The strange thing was that the piece of bacon had been Kurt's and had in fact been destined for his mouth at the very moment that it was swiped by Remy. The New Recruits and had concluded that very morning that Remy LeBeau was a Sith Lord and the use of his Jedi Mind Powers for the procurement of food made him even cooler.

If after all of these, the students didn't feel the need or want to crawl back to their rooms broken and defeated… the mad rush at exactly 7:49am to get to cars of various shapes and sizes would do it.

There were as all with all things at the institute rules to the morning rush.

NEVER get in a car when Kitty Pryde was driving.

NEVER get in a car when Kitty Pryde was driving and

if you get a car when Kitty Pryde was driving see rule #1 and 2

Those who were fast on their feet made it to the x-van before the others. They were allowed to sit toward the front, not in the back… which it was agreed smelled like sweat, old cheese, and feet.

The older kids divided themselves up between Scott's convertible and Jean's car. They were on the road by 7:52am. Let it never be said that the X-men did understand the important things in life like how hot Remy and Rogue looked to members of the respective opposite sex when they took off on his bike together, getting a seat that didn't smell like someone's old gym shoes where being shove up your nose, or not letting Kitty Pryde behind the wheel of anything more powerful than a push-lawn mower… come to think of it… may be not even that…

Ah Mornings, they can be killer.

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