Two tired and one not so tired
X-Men trudged along the
path to the Subreality Cafe,
their one rest between fan-fic
parts.
"Gosh, Ah'm tired - stiff!" Rogue complained.
"Don't tell me, ma chere." Gambit
was dragging his feet
beside her. "Gambit's going strong and
I love doin' it wid
but so many?" That last part came
out as a squeak.
"Ah mean the secret agent one was kind a cool-"
"So's dat western one-"
"Only because you got to play Zorro and dupe
Lila with it, sucker. But what about the
one where I had brains-"
"Or dey beautiful one where I had only
ten years wid you-"
They had to admit there were some good times.
"Still-" The both of them echoed in unison and
sighed.
Hank McCoy, the third member of their party
chimed in, "I on my part, crave a
new leash for my personal life.
Trish has been delegated as Trash and
Siku appears to me as so many incarnations
that's a wonder I'm not suffering an identity
crisis for her."
"A father's got to be proud of his little
girl, but hey, UP THERE!" He raised his voice ,
looking at the sky. "I'm
hoping if I can just have more of a
life to lead?"
Everyone's got to agree that they
were really hard used
by those fan-fic writers. This time they
all gave a big
sigh as they covered the last steps to
the door.
The bouncer was there as usual but
he was dressed differently today. And sadly,
it must be whispered that he could do
with a little dignification. He had on a green
party hat and a red - white stripped vest.
Pinned to his breast pocket was a big
cardboard tag with the words "Mr. Welcome"
on it. But the most incongruous part of his
costume was a metal detector he carried in
his right hand.
Resisting the impulse to laugh,
Rogue asked, "Yah got to
be the new mascot for the change
in hospitality policies, sugah?"
He gave her a sour growl.
"It's Kid's Night out, Stripes.
All the children of the X-Men
are holding a gathering tonight."
"Wat's wid dey metal detector?"
"Some of these buggers come
from alternate futures where they own
their own personal street gangs." He pointed
to the pile of pistols, shotguns,
lasers, and rocket launchers in the corner;
there was enough to equip a small army.
"Look at the stuff they got. Maybe you should
guide them a bit, huh?"
"I'm afraid it's out of our jurisdiction,
old friend. These kids belong to
writers of the Projected Pessimism
Movement. And we're either dead or hiding
in those stories."
Rogue didn't know what to expect
when she opened the door.
She certainly wasn't anticipating any the
extremely warm receptions.
Ten pairs of eyes, in the predominant colors
of green and glowing red, looked up at her
entrance and promptly went, "Mommy!"
"Oh mah Lowd! So many!"
Hank snickered beside her,
"I can see that the both of you have been
very busy. Thank God I've only got
one daughter even if I do need a schedule
to keep track of her ages."
"Dis be no time for joking, mon ami.
Hey cherie, I don' remember dat one!"
"That's because it's Jimmy, stupid.
Mah son with Magneto. Wait a minute
he's no fan-fic!"
"And de other one?"
"It's Cory. Yah went MIA for severial years
and he grew up. Now what's up with
that little boy?"
"It's my son wid Belle-"
"Who's Belle?"
"Who's Belle? You remember her, de crazy blonde."
"Sugah, half the stories you're in have
a crazy blonde. Yah got to be a bit more exact."
As Remy tries to explain this to Rogue,
neither of them notice one of the children
coming out of the pack that stood before them.
He went toward the bickering duo,
who seemed to be giants compared to himself.
Of course that may be because the last time
we seen him was at the one month mark. Now he
was older, a lot taller, and trying to get their
attention.
The boy first approached Gambit
and began to jump up and down but
it was done in vain, no response. He blew his
long brown hair out of his eyes and went
toward Rogue and began to pull on her jacket.
"Like dis going to work! She can't feel me
pulling..."..... Then as if a bolt of
lightning hit him. "I got dis link thing going
on and I'm doing dis?"
He began to float up, and now he was
eye level with the both of them. He still
went unnoticed, that is of course until
he took hold of an empty beer can.
KA-BOOM!
The whole cafe turned and looked at the floating boy.
"Why did you do that?" shouted Scott
as he emerged from the Summer's clan reunion.
"It was de only way I could get dem to see me, alright?
You know how rude des two can get!"
The last part there, trying to get at of
one of thoses famous Summer's lectures.
"Finally someone has heard what I've
been saying all this time," Scott proclaimed
as his image became lost in the
crowd.
The boy turned and faced Remy and Rogue.
Rogue looked at the child's name tag and
leaned over to Remy.....
"Jean Luc?"
"King of Thieves, remember dat one chere?"
"Unfortunately."
"Den you do remember Belle!"
"Not with your kid."
Remy fell silent not wanting to explain.
"If you two had let me talk, I would have
told you dat some people want to speak wid Poppa."
"Who would they be, sugah?"
"Well you just talked about one, and the
others.......well...." His words fell short
as he pointed to one of the dark corners.
Gambit's eyes followed Jean Luc's finger
and almost developed a heart attack
because of what he saw. Luckliy, the heart attack
didn't come, just a fainting spell.
After he awoke. "Rogue you don' see what I see,
do you?"
"If you're seeing five different Belle's
from five differnt stories, then yes."
"I was hoping you didn'."
Little Jean Luc lead both of them
to the waiting blondes. Gambit praised the saints
as he came closer that Rogue was with him.
One Belle he could take, maybe two but not five.
"Here is dat boy's mother." Jean Luc pointed to
the boy staring at the card. The same boy
who had started the whole mess.
After a few minutes of conversing with her.
"At least she isn't as insane as
the one from 'King of Thieves'...."
"Rogue maybe we shouldn't be talking about her."
"And why not? Because you got her sentenced
to the Death Row?"
"Non. 'Cause she over dere.........."
The Summer's Clan began to act up, again.
The Nathans and the Nathans - to - be were
now at war with each other.
Why? Because they wanted to fight, okay?
The numerous reincarnations of Rachel,
not to mention the fifteen Jeans
that have come to exist because of her many
death scenes could not control
the warring parties. Of course
Scott trying to get a hold of the blue doctor's
throat because of a brief fling with his wife
wasn't making their job any easier.
The only calm, not to mention sane
one of the group was old Corsair,
who was now sipping on his drink, trying to
get drunk, and forget he was related to any of them.
"Look at this! This is almost worse than
when the X-force kids got drunk in here!...."
Logan hearing the bartender called Beast
away from the hostile clan. Beast sat himself now
next to his friend and ordered himself
something to drink. The little Canadian gasped
in astonishment and held back his laughter.
"You give ME lectures about beer and my liver,
then turn around and chug them right down...
and we used to call you 'The Good Doctor!'"
"It's been a stressful day Logan."
"Not as stressful as the Cajun's."
"He'll live."
"They've been acting up since the comet
came passed the place." The little Canadian
chuckled as he pointed to the Clan.
"Seems to me that there are many strange things
taking place around here."
"What are you getting at Smurfy?"
"Don't call me Smurfy Jubilee,
and how did you get in here?"
"Through the door Fuzzy. How'd you think I got in?"
"My name is not fuzzy
and Wolverine stop laughing. It's not funny!"
"Not to you blue boy."
"Now I'm being double teamed! Oh well,
as I was venturing to the Cafe I noticed
this strange mound. I guessed it was
from some sort of ancient ceremony
but what ancient people could have created it?"
As Hank's words comes to an end,
the bartender begins to intervene in the conversation.
"A mound? With a gray stone in front of it?"
"You know of it, who constructed such a structure?"
"The writers, who else?"
"Why did the writers construct such a structure?
"No one knows why. They just did."
"Well..... what.. does... it do?"
"Jubilee don't talk with your mouth full!"
"It is an entrance from the world of comic books
to the world of fanfiction."
"The real world? Where what happens is final, well
forgetting about Jean?"
"Yeah but don't worry about it. No one ever
uses it, and besides, you have to be
a fan-fic to get in here."
A sound could be heard
much like the vibrating of an old washing machine.
The gray stone began to shake and turn white.
From the whiteness it became a doorway,
a shadowed figure then emerged from it.
All went dark again.
The shadow dusted itself off
and headed for the Cafe. Silently
it went to the trees, a method
a lot faster than trudging through the mud.
Not a sound was heard as it came into the clearing.
Leaping down it went toward the door,
only to be stopped by the bouncer.
"Knew it wouldn' be too easy.
Get out of my way, mon ami!"
"Sorry I can't let you in, I don't believe
that you're a fan-fic and they are
only premitted in."
"And I can't believe you're a bouncer
but I'm not complaining. Wat would it hurt
to just let me get away wid it?"
"Sorry, I can't"
"Oh well...... mercy anyway."
The figure turned and went back
into the woods, but not to far though,
just far enough not to be seen.
Looking around, the bouncer relaxed
and fell back into his chair. He picked up
his magazine and began to read.
That was the shade's cue, tree to tree,
with the slighest effort,
then climbed to the top of the roof. From
there it leaped at the relaxed bouncer.
"Sorry for dis...."
It slipped a cord around the bouncer's neck
".......but you wouldn't let me in." The
bouncer deprived of air went down
to his knees then lost consciousness.
"Consider yourself lucky hommes, my Cajun
mind realized dis place be needing a
bouncer to keep all de freaks out,
well besides me dat is..... Look at all dese
goodies! WOW! Never seen dis much stuff in my life."
The blue doctor joked.
"Well that's a good thing that no ones uses it.
Imagine two Jubilee?"
"Come on Wolvie, come out here!
It wouldn't be all that bad to have two of me!"
"I've thought of a lot of horrible things
in my life time, but nothing can ever
top that! Nothing!!!!!!!"
"Rogue it wasn' dat bad, none of dem tried
to kill me, just gave me dirty looks."
"Remy that's because they couldn't
reach you! Yah stood ten feet away from all of them."
"Not being able to kill me...
... dat not a good thing?..."
The door slammed opened.
All went quiet in the cafe, all eyes on
the figure that stood in the door way,
accompanied by the king of guns,
winner of the Cable and Bishop award.
"I'm not seeing dis, I'm not seeing dis-"
Remy's chant became more rapid
as the figure approached, until it's path began
to head toward Rogue. "Stay away from her!"
The figure continued on, ignoring him.
"Sugah, Ah can take care of myself, thank you."
The figure stopped in front of her,
keeping just enough room inbetween them
to maneuver the gun. The figure readied
the weapon, then aimed it.
Remy now ignored Rogue's earlier statement,
"Belladonna Bordreaux, I'm warning you!
Get away from her!"
She ignored him again, but this time
lowered the weapon. "Rogue, can you please move,
you're blocking my shot."
Hearing that, Gambit needed to sit down.
Stunned and speechless, not to mention confused.
Rogue still had the capability to speak so...
"You're not, going to kill me and Remy?..."
"Sorry not to today. Today they are my targets."
The blonde assassin pointed over Rogue's
shoulder at the corner where the five
other Belle's stood.
"Them? You're fanfiction counter - parts?"
"Oui."
"But why?"
In a calm voice she explained.
"I'm sick and tired of my character being
destroyed, now if you would be excusing me.."
Quietly she went around
the confused Rogue and stood before the first
of the five Belle's. Each wore a name tag
stating which story they were from.
After reading the first tag she addressed Belle #1.
"So, you're supposed to be me,
from de story, 'De Christmas Gambit' ?"
"Well, yes...."
"Good. I've been wanting to ask if
anything is wrong wid you?"
"No! Why would you think dat?"
"Cause you got no respect for yourself.
Taking orders FROM a KID,
to leave YOUR HOME,
on CHRISTMAS EVE...
you're de leader not him!
"Yeah, but-"
BANG!
"Wat do you think you're doin'?"
"Don't speak, you're worse dan she was! 'I hope Poppa
buys me a new dress!' You make me
sick to be me! If you don' like it,
go run to you're little room and cry! Non..
actually keep standing dere."
BANG!
"Why do you do dat?"
"Cause she was stupid in 'Choices' ,rain girl!"
One of the children lurked over,
stepping over the Belle from
"The Christmas Gambit"s body. "You can't
talk to my Mommy like dat!"
Belladonna turned and gazed upon the child
that now stood before her. She quickly,
to the best of her ability, hid the gun
from the child's view. Then she knelt down,
making sure she was eye to eye with the boy.
In a soft voice she asked, "Petite,
have you ever played a game wid your
Daddy before? Non? Why don't you go play
wid him now?"
"Daddy, Daddy, let's go play a game...."
"Cute kid, back to you. Afraid of the rain?
You're an assassin, a really good one at dat!
De best of de best and you're afraid of water
dat falls from de sky?....."
BANG!
Looking down at the body that just
went crashing down to the floor
she whispered to herself, "Maybe I shouldn' have
killed dat one, wid de kid and all."
"I knew you were a lot like me, not like de others."
The quiet moment quickly passed
as Belle #4 spoke. She faced the forth of
the group and decided that there would
be no sympathy for this one.
"My ears are now insulted."
"Why? If we weren't de same person..."
"We ain't de same person-"
"Of course we are!"
"No we ain't. You may look like me and
you may talk like me, but
dat as far as it goes!"
"But-"
"Look here, I kill people and den maybe rob dem
afterwards. Dose things I'm proud of,
and dey don't pass de line. Kidnapping
an infant and rape are far on de other side
of dat same line! Dat's why you be dying!"
"But-"
BANG!
"Now you're going to kill me, right?
If you are, den shoot me from where you stand."
"Hold on, I'm not sure if I'm going
to shoot you just yet. I'd to tell you,
but de Good Lord would have to come down,
and tell me what your name tag says."
"It says 'De Goodrun.' De bouncer
wrote it, horrible writing."
"De Goodrun? Is dat de one where I,
meaning you planted cocaine on de guy,
so the cops would arrest him?"
"Oui."
"If dat de case, den no.
I liked you in dat story."
Now with her work done,
she stepped over the four bodies,
each one bringing a bigger smile to her face,
and headed toward the door humming
to herself. The gun resting over her
shoulder she told herself, "Dat was ma
good deed for de year."
As the thought came to a close so did the door.
Jubilee, who had witnessed everything
unfold whispered to herself,
" 'No one uses it, and besides, you have to
be a fan-fic to get in here' Yeah right!"
