Home Alone

"She's not comin' back yo."

Lance turned to Todd. The freshman crouched on the couch next to him. He did not look very happy. "Accept it! She dumped us!"

"She'll be back," Lance said.

"And you call me dumb!" Todd slapped his forehead. "It's been over a week! If she really wanted to come back, she would have! Or at the very least sent us a postcard or somethin'."

"She'll be back!"

"Lance, they put an ad for a new principal in the paper! She is not, repeat, not coming back! She's gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Moved on with her life. Forsaken us. Permanently withdrawn from our lives! Gone out to take a long long walk! Lost to us forever. She quit the team. Resigned! She abandoned us! Cast us aside like day old leftovers! Permanently gone bye-bye! She-is-not-ever-coming-back!"

"She'll be back."

"Will somebody please talk some sense into this guy?" Todd shouted to the others. "I'm getting a headache here!"

"He's got a point there Lance," Pietro said. "She's gone. I mean if you were her would you come back?"

"Listen to him Lance," Todd nodded.

"Now Magneto on the other hand, he is definitely coming back."

"Don't listen to him Lance," Todd groaned, hiding his head in his hands.

"What makes you so sure he's coming back?" Fred asked.

"Magneto has this annoying habit of appearing and disappearing from my life when I least expect it," Pietro explained. "He'll be back. He's done it before."

Outside they could hear the rolling of thunder. "It's getting late," Lance said. "We'd better get the Toad to bed."

"Why?" Todd was irritated. "I can stay up as late as you guys! Besides. I don't feel tired." He involuntary shuddered as another roll of thunder sounded off.

"Whatsa matter? Is little Toddy scared of a little thunder?" Pietro mocked.

"Who me? Nah!" He shook his head nervously. "Hey uh, why don't we uh, play a game or somethin'? Yeah? That'll be fun."

"Nah, we should all hit the hay. We've got school tomorrow," Lance sighed. "Come on."

"Maybe we should do something about those X-Jerks though." Fred said as they went upstairs. " Maybe I could sneak into the mansion or something to find out what they're gonna do?"

"Freddy, no offense, but you couldn't sneak into a war zone without someone hearing you!" Lance laughed. "I mean even the X-Jerks get us confused because the ground shakes so much when you walk. They can't tell if it's you or me!"

"Come on guys let's go to bed," Pietro said. "We'll figure something out in the morning.

A few hours later Todd was still wide-awake. He hated thunderstorms. And lightning was the worst. Ever since he was a little kid, the sound of thunder scared him. He briefly remembered when he first went to the mansion of Xavier and Storm attacked him. He was terrified. There was no way he was going to join up with someone who could fry him any time she liked!

A loud rumble made Todd duck his head underneath the covers. He tried not to whimper as he heard another rumble. Then there was a knock at the door.

"Toad?"

"F-Freddy? Izzat you man?" Todd peeked from under the sheets.

"Uh yeah," Fred turned on the light. He was carrying something behind his back. "I …uh…wanted to check up on you."

"I'm not a little baby y'know!" Todd said defensively.

"I know, I just…got a little…uh…" Fred scratched his head.

"Yo! What's that you got there?"

"Huh? Where?"

"Behind you. What do you have in your hand there? What is it?"

"It's nothing." Fred blushed. "Really."

"Freddy."

"Okay, but it's not what you think!" He produced a worn teddy bear. "I uh…found it in my stuff. I was just cleaning out my closet and I found it. Yeah. That's it. I mean, not that I think that you would need it or anything. I mean, I sure don't! Nah I was…Y'know."

"Oh…Well, uh, funny you should mention that," Todd produced something from under the covers. It was a faded green lumpy frog. "It's all I have from my mom. I have nothing else from when I was a baby. Not even some stupid picture of me lying on a rug in my birthday suit. It's dumb, I know but…"

"No! No! It isn't!" Fred came in the room and carefully sat down on the edge of the bed so it wouldn't tip Todd over. "My Gram Gram gave me mine. She was nice."

"You had a Gram Gram? That's cool," Todd looked at the stuffed animal. "Mine's called Hopper."

"I call mine Mr. Peepers."

"Well, I always preferred Grover myself," Pietro leaned in on the doorway. He pulled out a bright blue monster doll. "I think my father gave me a whole set of these but this one's my favorite for some reason."

"Looks like a cuter version of Blue Boy," Todd smiled.

"Yeah and it's a puppet too!" Pietro smiled. He then put his hand in and spoke in the Grover voice. "Hello everybody! Loveable Grover here! The adorable blue monster!"

Pietro was pleased at the sound of his friend's laughter. "Hi there Mr. Peepers! Hi there Hopper!"

"Hello," Fred said in a funny voice waving Mr.Peeper's arm.

"Good to see ya!" Todd smirked, doing the same with Hopper.

"So what would you like to do tonight?" The Grover puppet asked. The others played along with their cherished toys.

"I dunno, do you have any ideas Hopper?"

"No Mr. Peepers. How about we talk about how stupid the X-Geeks are?"

"Why don't all of you just shut up so I can get back to sleep!" Lance shouted from his room.

"My isn't Lance cranky," Grover giggled.

"Let's talk about him!" Mr.Peepers joined in.

"I am living in a nuthouse!" Lance groaned. "My insane roomates are having a tea party with their dolls! Will you kids shut up and go to sleep before I stuff those dolls down your throats?"

"Oooh! Sounds like a challenge!" Grover said.

"That's it! I'm….WHAAAATTT?" Lance screamed as he got out of bed and turned on the lights in his room. "Oh you guys are so dead!"

"He's just jealous 'cause he doesn't have a dolly!" Fred giggled. Lance stormed into the room.

"Okay, which one of you lunatics did this?" Lance snapped. His hair was tied in pigtails with two bright pink ribbons. "Stop laughing! Pietro? Did you do this? This looks like your handiwork!"

"Not guilty!" Pietro held his hands up. The Grover puppet "spoke" "Yeah I was with him the whole time. He's innocent I tell you, innocent!"

"Give me that!" Lance swiped the puppet from Pietro's hand.

"Hey! Give it back!"

"Huh! Stupid baby toys," Lance snickered.

"Give it back Lance, I'm warning you!" Pietro fumed.

"Make me!"

"Give it back to him Lance!" Todd said. "C'mon!"

"Maybe I'll take your stupid stuffed frog too!" Lance gave an evil smile.

"No! No!" Todd hugged it tightly to his chest.

"Back off man!" Fred shouted. "And don't you even think of laying a hand on Mr. Peepers!"

"Relax, I'm not gonna do anything!" Lance kept the puppet out of Pietro's reach. "I'll give it back when he confesses!"

"I ain't gonna confess to something I didn't do!" Pietro snapped. "Lance, I swear if you don't give it back in two seconds I'm gonna…"

"What? Hit me with your Miss Piggy doll?"

"That's it!" Pietro zipped out of the room.

"Lance he didn't do it. I did!"

Lance was shocked. "You Freddy?"

"Yeah!" Fred pointed to himself proudly. "Didn't know I could sneak up on people too huh? That was for your little comment downstairs! Oh and Mr. Peepers has something to tell you too!"

"What?" Lance asked. Fred whacked him on the head with the bear. "OW!"

"Oh La-aa-nce…" Pietro stood at the door holding something behind his back. "I've got something for you! Ta Dah!" He pulled out a small, worn blue blanket. It looked more like a large handkerchief with pictures of ducks on it.

Lance turned pale. "Where did you get that?" His voice was barely above a whisper.

"Underneath your pillow. Where you keep it. So you can cuddle it and suck on your thumb when you go sleepy-bye!" Pietro mocked and pretended to suck his thumb.

Lance's ears grew red as he heard the Brotherhood laugh at him. "I –do-not-suck-my-thumb!" He hissed through clenched teeth. "Give that back to me Pietro."

"Aw, little Lancy-Wancy want his widdle blankie back?" Pietro taunted.

"For your information, it is not a blankie." Lance said haughtily. "It is called a woobie. Now give it back before I kill you."

"A WOOBIE?" They all said together and laughed.

"And you think we have baby toys?" Todd laughed.

"My parents gave me that before…" Lance started. "Never mind! Just give it back!"

"You give me my Grover back!"

"I will as soon as you give…just give that back to me!"

"As soon as you give me my Grover!"

"Give me the woobie first!"

"No! You give me Grover! Or else!"

"Just hand it over!"

"Come and get it!" Pietro zipped downstairs.

"GIVE ME BACK MY WOOBIE!" Lance screamed as he followed him.

"Oh we gotta watch this!" Todd laughed as he hopped out of bed. Both boys followed their insane friends. They saw Pietro dancing around taunting Lance. Lance responded by grabbing Grover's head.

"Give it back or Grover loses his head!" He snarled.

"You do one thing to Grover and the woobie goes down the garbage disposal!"

"Fred's not gonna eat a baby blanket!"

"Not that garbage disposal! The one in the kitchen!"

"We have a garbage disposal?"

"Of course we do. We never use it for obvious reasons, but it is in working order!"

"You wouldn't!"

"I would!"

"You're bluffing!"

"Am I?"

"Well I'm not gonna give you back Blue Boy's cousin here until you give me my woobie!"

"And I'm not gonna give back you're stupid baby blankie until you give me Grover back!"

"Okay! I got an idea!" Todd said. "Lance you give me Grover. Pietro you give the woobie to Fred. Fred you give me the woobie and I give you Grover. Then you give Grover to Pietro and I'll give the woobie back to Lance here before he has a hissy fit and that way everybody's happy! Okay?"

"Okay," Pietro said warily.

"I'll go along with it," Lance agreed.

"What am I supposed to do again?" Fred asked.

"Just stand next to Speedy over there!" Todd groaned. Fred complied. "Okay. On three. One. Two. Three. Now!"

The boys did as Todd suggested. For a second however, Fred got confused and nearly gave Pietro Todd's stuffed frog, which Todd had brought down with him. But he quickly realized his error after Todd hit him with Grover. Soon they all had their correct childhood treasures. Lance absently stroked the fabric of his woobie before he realized what he was doing and hastily shoved it in his back pocket.

"Okay," Lance groaned. "Let's all go to bed before something else happens tonight."

Right on cue, that was the exact moment when a bolt of lighting flashed and the power went out.

"Hey, the lights are out!"

"No kidding Toad! Ouch!"

"Sorry."

"Watch it!"

"My foot!"

"Whoops?"

"Get a flashlight!"

"Where is it?"

"How should I know?"

"Well I can't see it!"

"We're in the dark stupid! Of course you can't see it!"

"Don't call me stupid!"

"I think I got it!" Pietro clicked on the flashlight. "There."

"What's going on?" Fred asked.

"The Martians have landed Freddy," Todd quipped.

"Calm down Fred!" Lance said. "Just the Toad's idea of a joke."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! It's just the power went out? What else could it be?"

"Maybe it's the X-Jerks?" Todd asked nervously. "What if they just up and decided not to take any chances and get us while we're asleep?"

"Toad that's not gonna happen!" Pietro said. "I mean those goodie-goods wouldn't even think of doing that! Okay maybe that Wolverine guy would do it, but them? I don't think so. Well maybe not. Would they?"

"Nah they wouldn't!" said Fred. "Of course, they do kinda start almost all the fights around here. Ever notice that?"

"If I was them, I'd cut the power. That's what I'd do before I'd make an attack," Pietro began looking around.

"Yeah, that's real good thing to do if you wanted to attack…in the dark…" Todd began to whimper.

"Cut it out you lunkheads! Xavier's pet goons are not gonna do anything unless he tells them to do something anyway!" Lance shouted.

"But what if he did tell them to do it?" asked Todd.

"Then we'd be in trouble," said Pietro.

"Y'know I heard that Xavier guy can even warp people's minds," said Fred.

"Well that means you're safe Freddy."

"I'm serious Lance!" Fred whimpered. "What if he gets into our heads and decides to change us? Turn us into goodie-goods! It could happen!"

"Maybe it already has!" Todd gasped. "Maybe that's what happened to Rogue!"

"Guys Rogue left because of Mystique!" Lance said.

"Yeah that's what she said. But Mystique ain't around here no more. She might have at least pop in to check up on us," Todd reasoned.

"Hey, the Toad's gotta point," Fred said. "What if they wanna pick us off? One by one?"

"Yeah, like pod people," Pietro gulped. "I can see it now. One by one they hunt us down. But they'd do it sneakily. Like in school, or on our way home. We walk down a corridor all alone and bam! They jump us!"

"Guys, no! Don't listen to this!" Lance warned, trying to ignore feelings of utter panic clawing inside him.

"You wake up in a medical lab of some kind," Pietro continued, his eyes growing wider. "You want to run, but you can't! You're tied up. Maybe in a straightjacket! And there he is. In the corner. He wheels up to you. He says he wants to help, smiling that phony smile of his. And then it starts! He gets inside your head and slowly saps your brain of all its free will! You try to fight but you can't! Next thing you know you're wearing one of those geeky uniforms and doing homework and oh! The Horror! The Horror!"

"Cut it out man! You're freaking us out!" Fred shouted in a panicked voice.

"Yeah!" Todd clutched his stuffed frog tightly.

"The worst part is that you don't even realize what's happened to you!" Pietro continued his voice getting higher and higher. "You just think you've decide to turn over a new leaf. Imagine, hanging around with Jean all day. That explains it! That's why she's such a goodie-good and does homework all the time! She's been programmed! I don't wanna be like Jean! I don't wanna!"

"Shut up!" Lance screamed. "For the last time, it is not the X-Men!"

That was when a bolt of lightning flashed again. The boys all screamed and grabbed each other in a group hug.

"AGGHH! IT'S STORM! SHE'S COME TO KILL US!" Todd screamed.

"Why would she do that?" Lance asked, exasperated.

"Uh…no reason."

"Oh no!" Lance gasped. "What did you do?" He grabbed his pajama shirt. "What did you do?"

"I kinda made a little withdrawal from her purse," Todd whimpered.

"But that doesn't mean she knows it was you," said Pietro.

"I also made a little deposit. I slimed her purse!"

"YOU DID WHAT?" The Brotherhood all screamed at Todd.

"I was just getting back at her for attacking me at the mansion! I was mad! I didn't know she was gonna do this! Honest!"

"Oh we're dead! We are so dead!" Pietro slapped his head.

"Get a hold of yourself! They haven't got us yet!" Lance snapped. "If this is it I'm gonna go down fighting! Who's with me?"

"Yeah! Let's get those X-Jerks!" Fred shouted.

"Right!" Todd and Pietro shouted together.

"What do we do Lance?" Pietro asked.

"I'll think of something!"

"Aluminum foil!" Fred shouted.

"What?" Lance asked.

"We can use aluminum foil to protect us from the brain draining! I heard it's supposed prevent aliens from reading your mind! Maybe it'll work against the psychics they've got!"

"That's only a myth stupid!" Todd shouted. "It's totally ridiculous!"

Another bolt of lighting flashed. "It's worth a try!" Lance shouted. "Blob! You and Toad go into the kitchen and get lots of it! Plus some weapons! Quicksilver! You and I will check out the perimeter. See if we can find them!"

"Right!" Pietro zipped to check the windows.

"Hey! Give us the flashlight man so we can see!" Fred shouted. Quicksilver zipped back with another flashlight and gave it to Todd. Todd and Fred went into the kitchen while Lance and Pietro checked the outside from the windows.

"I don't see 'em!" Pietro zipped from window to window.

"They're out there Quicksilver, I can smell 'em!" Lance said checking out his window. A loud rattling of pots and pans was heard. "What are you guys doing back there?"

"DON'T WORRY MAGNETO SIR! WE CAN HANDLE THEM!" Todd shouted. He hopped up to them wearing a strange tin foil crown.

"Magneto?" Lance asked taking another crown Todd had brought with him and put it on his head. "Ohhh. I get it. Yeah…THAT'S RIGHT BOSS! THE X-GEEKS FELL IN OUR TRAP JUST LIKE YOU SAID!"

"YEAH BOSS LET'S GET 'EM!" Todd shouted. "WHY DON'T WE GO FIRST? AND YOU CAN SEND THE SECOND WAVE AFTER WE'VE WARMED UP?"

"Second wave?" Lance whispered.

"If they think there's more than four of us they might have second thoughts," Todd reasoned.

"Ohhhh. Good idea," Pietro said. "Blob! Bang some more of those pots and pans! Make a lot of noise!"

Fred did so. He opened one of the windows and threw a pot outside. "HEY MAGNETO! DON'T GET CARRIED AWAY THROWING STUFF! GIVE US A CHANCE!" Fred shouted and winked at his teammates.

Lance rolled his eyes and then shouted. "OKAY, SABERTOOTH AND UH…FLAMETHROWER GUY YOU TWO TAKE THE SOUTH PERIMETER!"

"Flamethrower guy?" Pietro groaned.

"Give me a break, it's all I could come up with!" Lance snapped. "Listen all of you! On three we all rush out and attack! Ready?"

"No," Todd muttered.

"One," Lance said, ignoring him. "Two…Three! CHARRRRGGGGEEEE!"

The Brotherhood raced out in the rain screaming, wearing their pajamas and various degrees of aluminum foil on their bodies. They ran around yelling. Fred and Todd threw a few pots and pans they took with them into the trees. Lance made a mini earthquake. Pietro zipped around, hunting for invisible enemies.

"Hey!" He shouted. "I don't see 'em!"

"They're gone! We must've scared 'em away!" Todd yelled.

"Victory!" Lance shouted. They whooped and hollered, dancing in the rain. Until another flash of lightning sent them scurrying back into the house.

"What now oh fearless leader?" Pietro mocked.

"Pipe down, Pietro! It's gonna be a long night!"

The next morning Scott found Lance pounding his head on his locker, muttering to himself. He looked horrible, like he hadn't slept all night. He looked at Scott.

"Alvers what happened to you?" Scott asked.

"Yeah, as if you didn't know," Lance snarled. "So that's the way you wanna play it! Fine!"

"Huh?" Scott suddenly felt very nervous.

"Listen Summers," Lance hissed. "I know what you X-Geeks tried to do the other night. Well it didn't work! You think now that Mystique's gone you can pick us off one by one, well you can just forget it!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know very well what we are talking about. You think you've got us don't you? Well bucko, we're on to you! We know you're trying to get us, but you won't! This ain't over. Oh no! Not by a long shot! Last night was just the beginning! And don't even try sending Baldy or Red to invade our brains because we've got a little something to counter that! Okay it's not perfect, but we're working on it!"

"Listen Alvers," Scott said, feeling very confused. "I don't know what you guys think we did but…"

"Ah hah! So it does work! You think you guys are so smart don't you! But you're not! 'Cause we got you guys figured out!" Lance tapped his head with his finger and gave Scott a wild look. "You think you can get in our heads? Well we're in you're heads pal! That's right! We know how you think! It's all up here!"

"I don't think you've got anything up there."

"Ha Ha! Summers, you may think you're watching us! But we're watching you! So watch your back!" He turned around and went into a nearby classroom. Before Scott could do anything Lance stuck his head out again. "HA!" he shouted before sticking his head back in.

Jean came up to Scott with a puzzled look. "I've just had the weirdest conversation with Fred," she said. "He was wearing this hat made out of tin foil and kept saying things like, 'You can't hear me can you?' What's up with that?"

"I don't know. Alvers did roughly the same thing. I…"Scott's voice trailed off as he saw Pietro and Todd walk by. Todd hissed at them while Pietro stuck his tongue out.

Pietro then whipped out a spoon and waved it wildly at them. "And there's more of this X-Geeks! Bring it on! We're waiting for you!" he cackled as he pulled a hissing Todd out of sight.

"That's it," Scott moaned. "They've lost it."