Remy's Diabolical Plan
Chapter Seven: The Diabolical Seagulls
~X~
Remy and Rogue spent exactly one hour and forty five minutes in the grocery store arguing, shopping, laughing and ooing and awing over the movie selection. No, buying movies (with Professor X's money) wasn't exactly a necessity some might say, but neither was the popcorn or the sodas or the mountains of junk food or the beach towels. They had already bought so many other unnecessary things that buying a few movies didn't seem like such a bad idea.
And the board games…Well, they actually needed those.
Eventually they had finished shopping and rolled two carts full up to the check out line, unloaded everything, loaded it back up, stared in awe at the cashier when she told them the price, handed over the Professor's card, brought the groceries out to the van, unloaded it all again, and then were in the van and driving back to the house past the horse statue and the construction site and the many people all in their swimsuits.
The town they were in was small and quaint and everyone seemed nice. Actual, everyone here seemed to be a little nicer than normal…Remy immediately dubbed them all as 'creepy' as they watched everyone smiling and waving and chatting with each other. Rogue adamantly agreed. No one could be that nice without having a hidden, creepy agenda. There were trees along every street lining the sidewalks, more people were walking than driving, and every restaurant and shop seemed to be have someone's name in the title.
The sun revealed many things to them about their settings that the darkness had concealed from them the night before. The house was a few miles from the rest of civilization, proving that it really was a private beach house. The long driveway leading to the house was at least a mile long and completely surrounded by oak trees the entire way. Once you came to the end of it, it curved to the left and when you turned, you got the most spectacular and beautiful view of the ocean. The house seemed taller than it had in the dark and the white shutters and porch was nearly blinding when you looked straight at them while the sun was shining bright. The beach was littered with spots of beach grass, seashells and right now, several sea gulls. Way off down the beach to the right of house they could make out a big cliff that they might have been tempted to jump off of if it weren't for the dangerous looking jagged rocks protruding from the water at the bottom.
The others were all on the porch when they came up, sitting on the rocking chairs and the swing and talking. Remy told them that they needed help with all the groceries and Scott (looking way too serious for a simple request for help with carrying some bags) stood up and said, "You heard him, team! Let's go!" Grumbling, everyone followed.
Scott nearly had a heart attack when they opened the back door of the van and he saw everything.
"You were supposed to get things that we needed!" He gasped as he took in the sight of the trunk section and the backseat of the van jammed with bags and boxes.
"We did," Remy said obliviously.
Scott gawked at the trunk of the van. "You bought ten twenty-four packs of sodas! How could you?! You know Kurt can't handle his caffeine!"
Kurt hung his head.
"That's why we got him caffeine free lemon-lime soda!" Rogue said happily and pointed to one of the boxes.
Kurt perked up.
"That's not the point." Scott argued. "The point is—wait, is that Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit?" Then he turned on them with wide, horrified eyes. "YOU BOUGHT BOARD GAMES?!" He screeched.
"Calm down," Remy held up his hands. "I paid for those."
"You did?"
"Of course." Remy replied, sounding very honest.
"Oh," Scott relaxed and turned back to the van. "Ok then…"
Behind his back, Remy shook his head and mouthed 'NO' to everyone else except for Jean who also had her back turned. This caused everyone else to start giggling and Scott whirled around on them suspiciously.
"Why is everyone laughing?" He screeched. "What! What is it?"
"Nothin, Scotty." Remy said innocently.
"Don't call me that."
"Scooty Scott."
"Don't call me that either!"
"Scooty Scooter Skitchy Scott."
"Ah!"
"Skippy Scott."
"Remy, for the love of-"
"Look how lovely that blue sky looks, Scott," Remy said suddenly and flung an arm around Scott's shoulders. "And those clouds are real fluffy, ain't they? Don't ya just love summer?"
Scott looked lost. "I think the sky is blue anytime of the year, Rems."
"And the smell of that air!" Remy said enthusiastically and breathed in deeply. "All salty and warm…"
"I get that you're trying to distract me," Scott said, "but we need to get a move on because we're supposed to meet that guy at one."
"You called him?" Rogue asked before picking up on of the heavy boxes of drinks. Shaking his head, Remy came up and took it from her along with two more boxes.
"Yes," Scott replied as he too picked up some of the drinks. "He gave me directions to where he works; we're supposed to meet him down on the docks."
"What's his name?" Tabitha asked as she loaded down both arms with bags.
Over the top of the boxes in his arms, they could see Scott looked a little sheepish. "I never got the opportunity to find out." He shrugged as he climbed the steps of the porch. "He's one of those people who like to talk—thanks," he said to Amara as she held the front door open for him. "But he kept talking and talking and by the time he stopped, we had been talking for so long that asking his name at that point would have been rude…" He finished his story just as he reached the kitchen counter and he set down the heavy boxes of drinks.
Kurt, who had been teleporting things in and out of the house, had already brought nearly half of the things in the time it had taken Remy, Scott, and Tabitha one trip.
"Hurry up slow pokes," he told them in a provoking tone, "You're just embarrassing yourselves." And he teleported away again.
"Show off," Scott rolled his eyes as he turned around to head back to the car.
Thanks to Kurt, it didn't take very long to unload the van. It took a little longer to put everything up since every time Scott pulled junk food out of a bag, he would turn white and say shrilly, "What is this!?" Kurt, however, was thrilled when he discovered that Rogue had picked him up some boxes of pancake mix and four different flavors of syrup. Kitty complained about one of the movies they had picked out, Scott complained when he realized that they had bought movies, Amara complained about the laundry detergent they had gotten, Jean complained that they were all so loud they were giving her a headache, Tabitha complained that they got the toilet paper with the little girl on the front and the little girl creeped her out, and Rogue excitedly told everyone about how the fair was coming to town and that they could get their pictures taken with a monkey.
This served to cheer everyone up a bit. Except for Remy because he still didn't get why anyone would want their picture taken with a monkey.
After they all piled into the car, Remy and Rogue found out that Jean and Kurt's mission to get a lay of the land proved that they should probably rent another car. Scott had already gotten approval from Professor X for it but since none of them were old enough and the credit card didn't have any of their names on it, the professor had mysteriously said that he would take care of it. He had also told them that he had hired someone to prepare the house for them after Scott asked him about it, and he requested that they keep the flowers in the backyard watered. No one had even seen the backyard yet but Scott had agreed and wondered why Professor X sounded so happy.
Since his ankle was feeling better, Scott was able to drive again. He took them back into town, down a giant hill, past the construction site (and Remy happily pointed out Rogue's future husband to everyone) past the horse statue (and Rogue pointed out Remy's future wife to everyone), around a big curve, down another hill, past a stretch of restaurants and then into a random parking lot where he turned around, claiming he was lost. So he turned around and drove back past all of the restaurants, up a hill, around a curve, past the horse statue, past the construction site, and then finally to the bottom the first big hill that they had gone down when they had first started.
"We're here!" He said and sighed sadly before hopping out of the car.
Everyone followed. Scott seemed to know where he was going now, or at least they hoped so as they followed him down a set of wooden stairs and then onto the docks. There was one big main dock with several other smaller docks branching off of it that had a few boats tied to them. But at this time of the day, most of the boats were gone. They stayed on the main one, following Scott down the path and breathing in the scent of fish and salt water.
Before anyone could ask Scott where he was leading them, a man appeared from one from one of the boats. In first appearance, he seemed intimidating. But once they drew closer they could see that he was smiling and he didn't look all that mean. Rogue vaguely recognized him. She knew she had seen him before but only in passing, never because she had spoken directly to him.
He was tall. He easily towered over all of them, including the guys. His hair was brown and wispy and if he had been shorter they might have been able to see where he was starting to go bald in the back. A big brown beard and mustache covered half of his face. He wore a simple white t-shirt and brown overalls and worn looking boots. The skin of his arms and face and neck were heavily tanned and muscled from years of work out in the sun, and several scars could be seen on his arms and over callused hands.
"Hi there," he greeted them in deep, rumbling voice. "Are you Scott?"
Nodding, Scott stopped and peered up at him. He held out his hand. "I am, nice to meet you."
"Yeah," he shook Scott's offered hand. "Nice to meet you. My name's-"
SCREEE!
A seagull flew over their heads at that exact moment, efficiently blocking out the rest of the hairy man's sentence.
Scott hesitated before saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Your name is?"
"That's ok," he said politely, "My name's-"
SCRAW!
The same seagull flew over them again.
"Uh…" Scott was left feeling very confused. Should he ask his name again? He didn't want to look stupid, but he didn't want to not know this mans name! "That's a nice name." He tried, hoping the man might say it again. "Where did that come from?"
The man scratched his beard in thought. "I think my mother named me after her favorite dog…Personally I hate the name, but we take what we get." He shrugged. "So, looks like you brought the whole group. I recognize some of you but I don't quite remember your names…"
"Oh," Scott turned and started pointing the others out. "That's Jean, Kurt, Rogue, Remy, Kitty, Amara, and Tabitha."
"Wow, that's a lot of names," he remarked but smiled at them all anyway. "Nice to meet you all, my name is-"
SCREEEEECH!
"-but I'm sure you already heard me say that." He finished.
Scott eyed the offending seagull, seriously contemplating on whether to lift up his glasses and make it shut-up. Everyone, trying not to look confused, nodded and smiled anyway, all of them growing more and more irritated with the bird. Honestly, the stupid thing was so loud that the Professor all the way back in Bayville had probably heard it.
All in the way back in Bayville, Charles rolled quietly down the quiet halls. Smiling, he listened to the muted sound that the wheels of his chair made on the carpet. He turned into the quiet library, and made his way along the shelves quietly. All the books were there, the house was clean, and most importantly, it was quiet. Very quiet. Charles smiled again and then found the book he was looking for. Quietly he rolled to a table and quietly cracked the book open to happily read quietly.
Back at the beach, the hairy fisherman was smiling at them. "So," he said, "should we just jump right into this?"
"Yes sir!" Scott replied seriously.
"Um…ok."
The nice, hairy fisherman led them down one of the smaller docks where his boat was tied. Already sitting on the dock was a large, half cylinder shaped mesh and wooden lobster trap. He stood over this and pointed.
"That's a lobster trap. I put these in the water from one to three days and wait for the lobsters to gather in there. But ever since the lobster fishing season started—that was a few weeks ago—I haven't caught one lobster because someone keeps coming in the night and pulling them out of the water, letting out my catch, and then breaking the traps." He sighed. "And at fifty dollars for one of these-" he pointed to the trap at his feet, "Plus line, buoys, bait bags, bait, and gear, the price is really racking up on me. At this point I'm losing money."
"Don't worry sir," Scott said curtly, "The X-men are here to help and we won't let you down!"
"I knew you wouldn't," the hairy fisherman nodded and smiled. "Charles is a good friend of mine. It's a shame he didn't come with you though."
"Yes sir."
"Oh son, don't call me that, it makes me feel old." The fisherman said, "you can call me-"
"Ah!" Kurt screamed shrilly. "A bee!" And then he proceeded to frantically twist around before simply turning and running off.
"I don't see a bee…" Tabitha murmured as she looked around for this supposed bee.
Shaking his head, Scott turned back to the fisherman. "Ok, so here's the plan. You go out like normal and put one of these traps down. Then later we'll stake it out and wait to see who shows up…How far out do you usually put these traps?"
"I can put it where you'll see it well."
"Excellent. And how will we know where it is?"
"I'll tie this," he nodded to the trap, "to a buoy. Pretty simple stuff."
"Right." Scott nodded. "And what time do you leave at night?"
"When the sun goes down…about eight thirty."
Before Scott could say anything else, Kitty phased through him (causing him to yelp and jump a foot in the air) and with hands on hips, regarded the hairy fisherman with a firm glare.
"And what do you say about murdering innocent lobsters?" She asked him in an accusing tone. "They're just walking along the ocean floor, all nice and cheery and think they've found a good snack when bam! They're stuck in your traps! And then they get hauled off and boiled alive and MMFM!"
Scott's hand clamped over Kitty's mouth as he looked at the man in front of him sheepishly. "Sorry about her—lately she's kind of got this thing where she wants to defend animals. I don't know where it came from OOOWW!"
Kitty's jaws clamped down on the hand covering her mouth before she remembered that she could just phase through it.
"Ow," Scott whimpered and drew his throbbing hand to his chest, ignoring everyone's snickers behind him (and Jean's 'Oh my god, are you alright?') as Kitty stood up to the fisherman again.
"YOU, sir, are a murderer!" Kitty told him firmly.
"Oh God," Scott shook his head.
But the fisherman didn't seem upset by this or even angry. Instead, he seemed to be amused. Though whether that was because of the subject or because or Kitty's size, they couldn't tell. He chuckled softly as he looked down (it seemed like several feet) at her.
"Hey there, squirt, what's your name again?"
Kitty seemed highly offended by this and stood up as straight as she could. "I'm not a squirt! I'm a grown woman!"
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen…"
"Then you're not quite grown yet, are you?"
Kitty looked about ready to deck him. "HEY! You…whatever your name is! I am SO! You're just-"
"Calm down squirt," he continued to chuckle, "My name's-"
"Hey boss!"
Just like in a horror movie, a man appeared from seemingly nowhere off of the boat that they had been standing next to the whole time. Everyone yelped and jumped back except for the fisherman, who apparently knew he was there the whole time, and Kurt, who was standing far off down the deck and hiding from invisible bees.
Scott's hand shot to his visor, Remy procured three charged cards from his back pocket, and both of Amara's hands held two identical balls of fire.
The man that had come from the boat paused with wide eyes as he took all of them in. He looked exactly like fisherman what's-his-name except that his face was clean shaven and his hair was thicker. "What did I do?" He asked slowly and he looked afraid to move.
"Nothing," Scott said quickly as he lowered his hand. The others followed his lead; Remy's cards disappeared and Amara's fire was put out.
"Your phone was ringing," the new fisherman said slowly.
"Right," he replied and nodded. "I'm expecting a call so I'll have to excuse myself for now. Do you want me to set out the traps tonight?" He asked Scott who nodded. "Ok then. I'll see you again at eight thirty?"
"Sounds good," Scott said approvingly. "Alright team, lets-" He started to say but when he turned he found that his team (even his girlfriend) was already walking away down the dock away from him. Sighing, he followed.
To Be Continued...