(NOTE: This fic is rated PG-13 because of a few gruesome injuries that occur.)
 

     A red-haired teenager wearing glasses rushed through the entryway, hurriedly putting on his work vest as he took out his time card and punched in. Jogging up to one of the cash registers, Arcade almost ran smack dab into a taller, skinny young man with a buzzcut, also wearing the same Toys “R” Us work vest.

     “Woah! Take it easy there, Webber! You’re only about ten minutes late for your shift, dude. The manager hasn’t noticed yet-- he’s been in his office all morning, like he always is.”

     “Good,” Arcade said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Yeah, I was playing on my Xbox and didn’t realize what time it was. Are you taking off now, Dan?”

     “Yeah, I didn’t mind covering for you a few minutes after my shift was over, but I’m starving,” Dan said, “I’m gonna go out and get some dinner in me. But hey man, you shoulda been in here about fifteen minutes ago… It was the weirdest thing. A HUGE group of people—musta been upwards of a hundred fifty, two hundred something-- came in and bought up all the Super Soakers we had in the store. They’re still out front in the parking lot, filling up their guns.”

     “Yeah, I noticed them when I was coming in,” Webber replied. “They aren’t filling them with water, though, they’re using some kind of red liquid.”

     “They’re probably all participating in some big squirt gun fight or something,” Dan replied, looking out the windows of the storefront at the crowd he was talking about. “Gonna get all messy, or something. It’s kinda cool, y’know—you don’t see too many adults doing something fun and crazy like that, especially in big groups.”

     “Man, I wish I had a big clique like those guys,” Arcade sighed. “That would be so awesome to get in a squirt gun fight with that many people… heck, if I wasn’t working from now until closing time, I’d go out and ask ‘em right now if I could join in…”

     “So, where did you wanna hit first?” a blond-haired woman in the midst of the parking lot crowd asked the man next to her. The crowd was finishing filling up their squirt guns and sealing up the remaining Powr-8 for use later.

     “Hey, let’s go get those Xavier kids first!” a man yelled out from a couple yards away, having overheard the conversation. “You know that’s the biggest gathering place for those Mutant freaks here in Bayville!”
     “Well, there are those ones living in the sewers…” another man said. “… I heard there’s lots of Muties down there.”

     “We don’t know where in the sewers they are!” the blonde-haired woman rebutted. “And I’m not about to trudge through knee-high… debris… looking in vain for a bunch of ragged freaks who’ll just take off running if we find them anyway. Buncha cowards down there, I heard.”

     “Yeah, and you seen the defenses they got around the Xavier place?” another woman piped up from elsewhere in the crowd. “We’d get taken down before we even got in the front gate!”

     “Hey, what about that Brotherhood place?” someone else from the crowd shouted out. “They tried to pass themselves off as heroes a while back, remember that? And there’s only a few of ‘em, we could take ‘em down no sweat, and send a message to the other Muties here in the process—we won’t be pushed around by them anymore!”

     “Yeah, those freaks deserve it!” a man in the crowd yelled out.

     “Sounds good to me!”

     “Finally, it’s time to payback these Muties!”

     “The Brotherhood it is, then! C’mon, I know where they live!”

     The crowd all gathered around the man who had spoken last, and amid shouting and chants of “No More Mutants!”, they followed him down the road.

     “Checkmate. Heheh. You lose again, Freddy.”

     “Aw, c’mon, Toad! You gotta be cheating or somethin’…. I mean, how come you got two queens and I have none?”

     “I keep telling ya, that’s the way the game is played, yo! I mean, we got the same number a’ pieces, right? You got one more pawn than me, but ya don’t see me complainin’ about it!”

     “I dunno…”

     “Will you idiots SHUT UP!? I’m trying to watch TV, morons!”

     “Geez, Lance, we’re just playin’ a game!”

     “Eh, he’s just mad ‘cause he lost his Kitty again, yo. Here, Kitty, Kitty!”

     “Oh, do NOT start with that BS again, Toad.”

     “Here, Kitty!”

     ”Alright, that’s IT. Blob, Toad IS cheating—you’re both supposed to have the same numbers of each piece.”

     “I KNEW IT!” Blob roared, throwing the chess set against the wall. “You CHEATED!”

     “H-hey now, Freddy, it was just a joke. I was gonna tell ya how it was really played next time. C’mon, let’s…. ow ow owwww, that’s my earrr…”

     Blob ignored Toad’s whining and carried the skinny short Mutant by the ear into the kitchen. A few seconds later, the yelping and shrieking began, followed by several crashes and bangs. Lance still couldn’t hear what the people on TV were saying, but he didn’t particularly mind this kind of interruption.

     About a minute later, however, Lance heard someone running down the stairs, towards the front door.

     “Will you clods SAVE IT!” Wanda threatened. “There’s a bunch of people gathering around our house for some reason—I heard them from my room upstairs. They’re chanting some anti-Mutant garbage.”

     The noise from the kitchen abruptly stopped, and Blob walked out, looking out through the window at the top of the front door. A wobbling, bruised Todd followed a few steps behind.

     “Huh, I guess they didn’t learn the first time,” Blob said, cracking his knuckles. “Nobody messes with the Brotherhood! Just give me a few minutes, I’ll send ‘em packing…”

     “I’m coming with you. I’m getting really tired of this too,” Wanda growled. “Toad, go wake up Pietro, tell him what’s going on. I’m sure he’ll want a piece of this, too.”

     “What… whatever you say, babycakes…” Toad said, making his way up the steps… slowly.

     “Hey, and those idiots are carrying a bunch of squirt guns!” Lance said, as he made his way to the front door and peered through the same window Blob had just looked through. “What are they gonna do, moisten us to death?”

     “It doesn’t matter what they’re planning, we’ll—LOOK OUT!” Wanda yelled, as a jagged rock crashed through the front door window. Lance ducked out of the way just in time as Wanda hexed the rock, sending it sailing back out into the front yard.

     “Y’know, I WAS gonna let ‘em get away with only a few scrapes and bruises,” Fred said, cracking his knuckles, “But I’m gonna give ‘em a REAL good pounding this time…”

     Yanking the door open so hard it almost separated at the hinges, Blob stomped out onto the front pedestal. “You guys better run away right now, or you’ll face the wrath of the BLOB!”

     “And not just the Blob, but all of us,” Wanda threatened, stepping out as well. “Get out of here. NOW.”

     “Nothin’ doing, Gothie!” one of the members of the crowd yelled out amidst other jeers, and fired his squirt gun at Wanda. A reddish liquid splattered her across the face and arm. Wanda growled, and raised her hand—only to suddenly scream in pain as the liquid started to bubble, reacting with her skin.

     “What’s going on?!” Lance said, stepping into the doorway. “Wanda, what’s wrong!?”

     “This stuff…” Wanda hissed, “It feels like ACID! What is…”

     “Alright, this stuff works!” cried the man who had squirted her. “Everyone, let’s get ‘em!”

     For the next few seconds, time seemed to move in slow motion, so many things happened at once. The crowd started to bear down on Fred, Wanda, and Lance, with several squirting off more shots at Wanda to keep her immobilized as she became drenched in the liquid. Wanda’s screeches of agony tore through the air, immediately drawing Toad’s attention from upstairs. Not bothering to take the time to hop down the stairs, Toad crashed out of the upstairs window, a few yards from where Wanda and the others were gathered. Horrified at seeing his beloved in such agonizing pain, Toad launched himself at the nearest person with an incomprehensible shriek, sending them both down to the ground in a heap and drawing the attention of other members of the crowd nearby.

     At the same time, Blob gave out a roar and charged into the thick of the crowd, bowling aside people and even throwing some out of the way, severely injuring them in the process. The rioters were not deterred, however, and the nearest ones all shot their squirt guns as one, lacing Freddy’s arms and head with streams of Powr-8. Fred gritted his teeth against the pain, but continued forward in a berserker rage, trying to take out as many people as he could while more and more Powr-8 started to react with his normally impenetrable skin.

     Meanwhile, Lance let loose a wave of force among the earth towards another section of the ground, toppling dozens of members, some of whom were firing their squirt guns as they were bowled over. Lance grinned in triumph as some of the liquid fell on the rioters’ own faces… but stared in shock as the people stood back up, unharmed except for a few minor bumps on the back of the heads here and there.

     Just then, Quicksilver speeded out the front door, not needing more than a split second to take notice of what the situation was.

     “Pietro, that red stuff doesn’t hurt them!” Lance yelled as Quicksilver ran through the crowd far too quickly for them to react yet, snatching away a few squirt guns in the process.

     “No, but I will…” Pietro yelled back, beginning to circle about a dozen or so rioters and quickly turning the immediate area into a miniature whirlwind.

     Lance desperately sent more waves of force towards people advancing on him, inadvertently cracking the foundation of the house slightly as he did so.

     “You jerks want some!? Then come get some! I’ll take you all down with me!”

     Beast quietly stepped into Xavier’s office and closed the door behind him, shutting out the sounds of the evening party coming from downstairs.

     “Alright, Charles, you said you’d tell me what’s going on later. What did you see in those glimpses of the future? What will happen to Jean?”

     “That’s… exactly the problem I’m having, Hank,” Xavier replied from behind his desk, his hands steepled as they always were when he was in deep thought. “I did glimpse the future in Apocalypse’s mind, but… is the future fixed? No matter what I or anyone else does, will what I saw come to pass? Or is what I saw just one of the infinite number of ways things could turn out?”

     “That certainly is a question for the ages,” Hank said, smiling slightly as he sat down in a chair facing Xavier. “I can’t answer that anymore than you can, Charles. But if there’s a possibility of… whatever it is… happening to Jean, then you should tell her so she can—“

     “No!” Xavier said, a bit more forcefully then he had intended. “It’s… not an injury or something I could just tell her to watch out for, Hank. This is something… much more complicated than that. I’m afraid that if I tell her, then perhaps… perhaps this event will happen even sooner than I glimpsed it, that her knowledge of it will accelerate the process. And I must not allow that to happen, even if it means keeping her in the dark about it.”

     “Then why don’t you at least tell me?” Hank said, “You can trust me. I promise I won’t tell Jean. But I can at least watch out for signs of whatever you saw coming to pass, and help take the appropriate precautions since I’m out in the field more often than you are.”

     “Hank, I’m sorry, but… I simply can’t risk it,” Xavier said sorrowfully. “Even though we’ve made considerable progress since Jean had her power surge last year, she still tells me that she occasionally will catch a blip of what someone is thinking in the same room she’s in, though she quickly reigns her power back in after she realizes she’s using it. My mind is powerful enough to be shielded from her accidental scans, but yours is—“

     Xavier was interrupted as Ororo burst into the room, an alarmed look on her face.

     “Storm, what is it?” Xavier asked.

     “You’ve got to see this, Charles. Come quickly.”

     “Again, we’re bring you an aerial view of a current riot that has broken out outside the Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House,” a reporter voiceover said as the television screen zoomed in on the chaos below. “Details are still sketchy, as it has only been going on for about ten minutes or so, but it appears that a large group of civilians are shooting some kind of liquid at the Mutant Brotherhood members, and it appears to be harming them in some way—we are unsure why it is not having the same effect on the civilians, but we will keep you up to date as more details come in. The police are mustering a force to combat the crowd, but it will take a while for a large enough force to be assembled to—“

     Xavier turned off the TV, a worried look on his face, then wheeled around to face the other party members, who had been watching the screen with horror. Xavier noticed that Kitty looked especially worried.

     “As I feared, the anti-Mutant backlash has already begun as a result of the near-apocalypse a few days ago,” Xavier sighed. “X-Men, we’ve got to stop this before there are any more casualties on either side. Kitty, Jean, Ororo, Bobby, Jamie, Kurt—you six have powers that can be used easily in a non-lethal manner. Please suit up and get down to the Brotherhood house ASAP, and try to stop conflict on both sides, with as few injuries as you can manage, please. Oh, and take protective headgear—the last thing I want is for any of you to get severely injured as well. I’m not sure how these people have gotten a hold of Powr-8, but I know from our laboratory tests—and from Evan’s experience--  that it is extremely hazardous to Mutants.”

     “I’ll go meet up with Callisto and see if she can make more of that yellow goop they fed me when I came down with Powr-8 poisoning,” Spyke said.

     “Good idea, Evan,” Xavier said, “We’d very much appreciate that, especially if this doesn’t go as well as we’d like it.”

     All of the X-Men that had been given assignments rushed off, and the other party guests dispersed slowly, looking rather nervous and worried.

     All except one, that is.

     “I’ll see if I can’t use my influence to get an extra squad of police on this faster,” Nick Fury said softly to Charles, making sure that none of the normal party guests heard their conversation. “I’m also going to look into this whole Powr-8 thing, see if I can’t help track down that Guy Spear person you said was being manufacturing it a few months back.”

     “Thank you, Nick,” Xavier said, visible lines under his eyes. “It’s been quite a stressful few days. I’m glad to have you on our side.”

     “Don’t worry about it, Xavier,” Fury said as he took out his cell phone and started to walk outside. “Your kids handled Apocalypse, I’m sure they can handle this.”

     “It’s not their victory I’m concerned about,” Xavier replied. “It’s the public’s growing hostility towards Mutants…”

     “Oh my gosh, LOOK at all of them!” Shadowcat gasped as the X-Men, all traveling within the X-Van, arrived within visual distance of the Brotherhood house. “It looks like there’s even more rioters in person!”

     “Which means we’ll more than have our hands full, I’m afraid,” Storm said as she parked the X-Van and everyone piled out. “Especially since we need to avoid severely injuring any of them.”

     “Luckily, it seems ve only have to do zat until the police arrive… whenever zat is…” Nightcrawler said.

     “Alright, enough with the stalling already!” Iceman said, icing up. “Let’s get rolling!”

     With that said, Storm and Jean took to the air, Kurt teleported himself and Jamie towards the crowd, Kitty phased into the ground, and Bobby skated on his own ice bridge over to the fight.

     “Storm, I’m not picking up any mental signals coming from Wanda or Toad,” Jean said. “They’re already unconscious.”

     “Alright. Jean, see if you can find them and levitate them up above the crowd so they can’t be reached,” Storm ordered, starting to descend closer to the rioting masses. “I’ll start to clear out the rioters.”

     Storm closed her eyes for a moment and then reopened them, her eyes now a familiar electric blue. Storm clouds suddenly started to appear in the sky, churning, and within a few moments a heavy downpour started. This started to get the public’s attention, and much of the large mass of people started to focus their attention on the X-Men. For their credit, however, Xavier’s Mutants were more than ready.

     Once Kurt teleported himself and Jamie near the crowd, Jamie smacked himself against a nearby lightpost moderately hard, and then did so again and again. Within a couple seconds, there were a few dozen Jamies, all donned in the same protective masks the rest of the X-Men were wearing. The small army of Jamies then ran towards the nearest mass of people, trying to rip the squirt guns from the rioters’ hands. Given that Multiple was just 13 years old, however, many of the rioters overpowered their own Jamies and started fighting back—however, every blow they landed on their oppressors just produced another few Jamies, which only added to their problem.

     As for Kurt himself, he was busy popping around the “battlefield”, taking people’s squirt guns from their hands and porting away before the rioters realized what had just happened. Every time he amassed a collection of  four or five, Kurt would then teleport up to a nearby rooftop, deposit the guns, and port back into the masses to start the process all over again.

     Bobby, meanwhile, was skating around on his makeshift ice bridges, freezing many of the crowd’s squirt guns and the arms that held them. A few squirt blasts hit him, but most of the shots splattered against his mask harmlessly. The few that did hit his suit only caused him minor pain, as the downpour quickly diluted the liquid.

     Lance was just inside the front door of the house, sending wave after wave of force against his pursuers as he backed up slowly. They seemed to finally be getting the hang of Lance’s ability, however, and it now only seemed to be slowing down their progress towards Lance, not stopping it.

     Lance was surprised when a familiar figure suddenly phased up from the floor right next to him, carrying a few squirt guns which she promptly dropped.

     “Kitty, what the heck are you guys doing here? Get out of here, I don’t need your help! We can take care of ourselves!”

     “Lance, just cut the macho act and stop already with the mini-quakes! This house is, like, starting to come apart!”

     “What, you think I don’t know that!? But it’s the only way I can keep all these idiots at bay, and I’m not about to leave the rest of the Brotherhood here! Quicksilver’s the only other one holding his own—even Blob’s wearing down!”

     Indeed, one look out the doorway confirmed Lance’s statement—Blob was right in the center of the crowd. He had managed to fling away or injure quite a large portion of the crowd—the news report Kitty had listened to earlier mentioned the crowd size being around two hundred or so, but now she guesstimated it was only about a hundred people—but Freddy didn’t have much left in him. He was absolutely covered in Powr-8, and though Storm’s deluge was helping to wash off much of it, the effects had already been done. Blob’s skin was almost entirely covered in burns, and the injuries were so severe on his arms they had burned right through his skin. Kitty had to hold back bile as she saw the bloody muscle tissue showing through. Freddy himself seemed to be getting increasingly tired as more and more Powr-8 was squirted at him, and his punches and throws were becoming more and more weak and half-hearted. Quicksilver was moving too fast through the crowds for Kitty to really gauge his status, beating up a person here and there, but she guessed he still must be doing alright if he was still moving so fast.

     A sudden strong gust of wind—no doubt the result of Storm—suddenly swept across the front porch, clearing away any rioters standing up in that area. What Kitty saw on the ground made her gasp—in addition to the same gross burns that Blob had endured all over their bodies, Wanda and Toad, both crumpled on the ground unconscious, had countless bruises and cuts. Kitty noticed Toad and Wanda twitch a bit from the rain, so they were definitely still alive, but she was honestly surprised they weren’t dead, they looked so bad.

     Jean, now being able to spot the two unconscious Brotherhood members from the air, promptly levitated them up to safety, above the reach of the crowd’s squirt guns. By now, the combined efforts of the X-Men and the Brotherhood were having a decided effect on the crowd— only about half of the remaining uninjured members had squirt guns, and they were quickly being removed of their “weapons” as well. The sound of police sirens soon sounded in the distance, and many of the rioters on the outskirts of the conflict started to scatter, their hopes of eliminating the Brotherhood dashed.

     Some of them, however, were not so easily discouraged. One of the members near the center of the conflict yelled for them to make a final rush towards the house, hoping to hole up inside it and take Lance and Kitty hostage before the police came.

     Hearing the call and seeing a large mass of the crowd run towards his and Kitty’s position, Lance had had enough. Grunting in exertion, Lance send out one last wave of force through the Earth, this one a doozy. As it spread out, the wave sent the rioters on the ground flying for several meters--- not to mention several Jamies and Quicksilver, who was caught off-guard. The wave even started to crack the foundations of the houses a few blocks away before it died down.

     In his anger, Lance had forgotten to take one thing into account before he let loose, however—he was still inside the Brotherhood house.

     Kitty screamed a warning as the ceiling started to cave in on her and Lance. Diving and taking a hold of Lance’s leg, Kitty managed to phase them both just a split second before the house came crumbling down on top of them.

     It was over, Lance finally realized at he stared at the collapsed house before him. Mystique had neglected to show up yet again after she was freed from Apocalypse’s control, and now there was no more Brotherhood boarding house… that was it. The Brotherhood of Bayville was finished.

     Lance—and, standing next to him, Pietro—watched silently as the ambulance personnel loaded Todd, Wanda, and, with great effort, Freddy as well into different ambulances. Once the adrenaline had worn off, Blob had finally collapsed under all the pain he had been feeling. He was still conscious, but in such obvious pain Lance could understand why the big guy didn’t want to move.

     Lance surveyed the scene again. The X-Geeks were helping the authorities to either cuff the rioters that were in reasonable condition or escort to ambulances those that weren’t. Although it was now pitch black out, there were so many ambulance and police car sirens flashing everywhere it almost looked like it was broad daylight—although everything was colored red from the lights, of course. The area itself was in complete ruins—diluted Powr-8 soaked the ground, tinting everything further red, and many of the buildings nearby had cracks and dents in their walls, the result of either Lance’s earthquakes or Freddy throwing one of the rioters into said walls. The roads surrounding the house were choked with ambulances, police cars, and wounded rioters, and they were also cracked and curved from Lance’s tremors, as well.

     Lance’s attention was turned from the scene as Ororo slowly walked up to the two Brotherhood members, her eyes refusing to meet theirs.

     “Um… we’re just about finished here. If you want us to give you a ride to the hospital in the X-Van, we could—“

     “Forget it,” Lance interrupted. “We don’t need your pity. I’m going to see if I can get a ride in the ambulance that’s carrying Toad. Just… leave us alone.”

     Pietro, a large bump on the back of his head and a few Powr-8 burns on his a face the only visible injuries from the fight, merely glared at Ororo, then walked off in the direction of the ambulance carrying Wanda.

     Ororo sighed and signaled the rest of the X-Men to head back to the X-Van.

     Police Chief Sanchez kicked down the office door, pointing his gun at the center desk chair.

     “FREEZE! Guy Spears, you’re under arrest for— Mr. Spears?”

     Sanchez motioned for the other police officers to enter the room, all of them pointing their guns at the desk chair—its back turned towards them—as they cautiously made their way over to the other side.

     Taped to the seat of the chair was a piece of paper, a note hastily scribbled on it—“SORRY, I’M NOT IN RIGHT NOW. WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEAVE A MESSAGE?”

     Sanchez cursed and tore up the paper.

     “Well, we’ve got his factory under our control, so at least he won’t be making any more Powr-8,” Sanchez growled. “Let’s go and contact the higher-ups, boys—tell ‘em we’re gonna have to search long and hard for this guy, apparently. Chances are by this point, he’s already caught a flight out of the U.S….”

     Xavier wheeled into the hospital room holding the Brotherhood members, accompanied by Ororo and Logan. For it only being a week since the riot, they looked rather well—Pietro’s few burns now only looked like shallow scars, and Wanda, Blob, and Toad at least didn’t look absolutely disgusting anymore—they were crisscrossed in jagged scabs, bruises, and less-severe burn marks, to be sure, but at least they weren’t bleeding everywhere like they had been earlier. Wanda was currently sleeping, but the rest were fully conscious. The yellow goop Spyke had brought after the riot had really helped the healing process, apparently.

     “Well, your medical bills are paid, boys,” Xavier said, smiling slightly. Pietro just scowled, and Todd and Fred weren’t capable of moving much except their mouths, but Lance nodded ever-so-slightly as a thank-you. “The authorities have also rightly determined that you were acting in your own self-defense, therefore you have been acquitted of any charges filed against you by the rioters. Have you any thoughts about where you wanted to go from here—what you wanted to do?”

     “If you’re talking about joining your squad of geeks, forget it,” Lance said. “I tried it once, and it was one of the stupidest decisions I ever made.”

     “I had a feeling you might say that,” Xavier said, his expression turning into a more serious one. “Nevertheless, with you all now homeless and with no one to take care of you, despite our differences, I cannot allow myself to completely leave you on your own so suddenly. Therefore, I have rented an apartment for you downtown. You will find it of acceptable quality. However, given that you are not under my tutelage, and you have no desire for me to gain legal responsibility over you, I am left with only one feasible choice. I have paid a months’ rent for your apartment, and provided you with a reasonable amount of food and water, but I’m afraid that after that—“

     “Oh, no,” Toad said. “Please don’t tell me—“

     “—it will be your responsibility to pay for it, and to do so—“

     “No, no, no, no—“

     “—you all will need to seek employment.”

     “NOOOOOOOO!!!!”

    The End

Back to Beastbot's Fanfiction Index