Hooray, Hooray, The T-O's Gone Away! or "Yoink!" (And That's A Technical Term!)

by Alicia McKenzie

Nathan Christopher Charles Dayspring Summers is in a very good mood.

In fact, 'good mood' is putting it mildly. You see, things have changed in our hero's life. After being dragged face-first through levels of angst unusual even for him (and bearing up amazingly well, taking care to keep all the emotional breakdowns off-panel) the Askani'son has finally caught a break. The Powers That Be have whispered about Big Changes and New Directions, and decided that it would be ever so nifty to get rid of Cable's techno-organic virus.

That's right. No more T-O virus.

"But why?"

Well, why not? Poccy went bye-bye, so the boy needs something new to do. Whatever that winds up being, the BAQ (Bad-Ass Quotient) will be so much higher this way.

"But how?"

What do I look like? She Who Is The Dispenser of Marvel-U Pseudo-Scientific Gobbledygook? I've got no clue. I'm sure that whatever the explanation winds up being, it'll be entertaining.

"But without the T-O virus, he'll be lopsided! He'll fall over!"

True. On the bright side, he'll break a lot fewer chairs.

***

Anyhow, where was I? Right! Nate in a good--um, a marvelous, dazzling, splendiferous mood. Nate sitting in the back of a taxi, singing 'Everything's Coming Up Roses' as the terrified driver proceeds on his way towards a certain Westchester address and thinks very loudly about how much he wished he'd passed by this particular passenger.

Nate stops singing and eyes him sympathetically. "I'm really not insane, you know," he confides. "I'm just very happy. See this?"

He raises his arm. It's a very well-muscled arm, and in the position he's holding it, he looks very much like he's about to punch the driver in the head. The driver's eyes widen. At this point, there seems to be very little preventing his eyes from falling right out of his head.

"Uh--yeah," the driver says weakly. "What about it?"

"It's not metal!" his large passenger says enthusiastically. "Isn't that great!"

"Uh--sure."

"Do you have any idea how awesome this is?" He leans over, reaching over the seat and sticking his hand in front of the driver's face. "See? Skin! Real skin! I even have body hair!"

The driver tries not to moan. Fortunately, by this point, he's getting close enough to the address that the end is in sight. If he can just drop off his passenger and break the speed limit getting out of here, maybe he'll be able to see his family at dinner and tell them how much daddy loves them, and how he'll never pick up large maniacally grinning men again--

There's a mansion, at the address. A very nice mansion. Clearly well cared-for, lavishly appointed, very imposing. It's a building that screams 'look at me! I'm elegant', and has a very deceptive air of having been there for a long, long time.

In reality, the mansion is demolished every few months. And that's in a good year. It's seen countless battles and explosions and natural disasters.

Unfortunately, it ain't seen nothing yet.

"Here!" Nathan say enthusiastically, shoving a handful of bills at the driver, who flinches violently. "Take it all! Big tip for you, buddy! You've been such a great conversationalist, you know that?"

The driver, who hasn't said ten words since the large scary man got into his cab, blinks like a deer frozen in the lights of an oncoming sixteen-wheeler. Nathan beams and leans forwards, patting him on the shoulder. "Tell Marge and the kids I said hi," he said happily. "Tell them they've got a great dad. Buy them something nice on your way home."

"Okay," the driver whimpers.

"Bye, Howard!" Nathan calls as he gets out of the car. "This is so great!" he says delightedly, skipping towards the front door of the mansion. The ground seems to tremble, just a little. It has better sense than the mansion, which just sits there, oblivious. "The family'll be so happy to hear my news! It's time to CELEBRATE!"

And Howard flees, leaving tire marks on the driveway. Twenty miles down the road, he's pulled over by a police officer who's very unhappy with the results his radar gun showing him. The normal taxi shouldn't be traveling at a hundred and ten miles an hour.

Howard couldn't agree more. He takes the ticket gratefully, and begs the officer to take him to jail.

He doesn't want to be anywhere near his passenger's celebration.

Howard has very good instincts.

***

Scott Summers is in a pretty good mood. Then again, when you've spent most of the last year sharing your body and mind with an ancient Egyptian Social Darwinist, pretty much everything is good, comparatively.

Even washing the dishes. Which was what he was doing when his son capered into the kitchen, grinning from ear-to-ear.

"Slym! Slym, guess what!"

Scott grunts and tries frantically to breathe as he's lifted off his feet in a crushing bear-hug. Maybe it's the oxygen deprivation, but he's starting to have some doubts that this is his son. Nathan Christopher Charles Dayspring Summers is not a huggy person.

"Urk--ribs--gakh--"

"Oh!" Nathan puts him down. "Sorry," he said, blushing charmingly. "I guess I got a little carried away."

Scott's mind is working very quickly. He's a tactician, after all. He's putting two and two together, drawing conclusions from the available evidence, making decisions. Scott is very good at that.

Hugs. Blushing. No T-O.

::ZAK!!!!!!::

"What are you doing here, Stryfe?" Scott shouts angrily at the man he's just blown back into the kitchen wall. "Where's Nathan?" Inwardly, he's shrieking like a little girl for Jean.

Fortunately, Nathan is still a pretty tough son of a bitch, even without the T-O virus. He's also running pretty much on instinct at the moment. After all, how would you feel if you suddenly had the ability to pick up a stray thought a continent away and extinguish a star? Nate's not all that sure what he's doing right now. But his instincts are still in perfect working order, and were busy throwing up a TK shield while he was still grinning at his father.

As a result, all he winds up with are a few bruises and a shitload of bewildered confusion. "You blew me into a wall," Nathan protests, brushing the plaster dust off him as he gets back to his feet.

"Back off, Stryfe!" Scott snarls.

"But--you blew me into a wall!" Nathan opens his mouth to point out that this doesn't class as healthy father-son interaction. Then, it hits him, and he blinks at Scott, his mouth hanging open. It's rather cute, all things considered.

Unfortunately, Scott's not in a mood to appreciate it. "You're insane!" he roars, firing another optic blast at him. Nathan takes a moment out from standing there and looking adorable, and deflects it. "You think you can just waltz right in here?"

"But--"

The skidding noise from the hallway is the sound of Jean arriving at great speed. Having had thirty seconds or so to process the alarm blasting along their psi-link, she's rather more prepared for what she finds.

"Leave my husband alone, Stryfe!" she shrieks, with all the outraged protectiveness of someone who's had quite enough of playing the grieving widow, thank you very much.

Nathan merely blinks at the sight of his stepmother preparing to go Dark Phoenix on his still rather attractive behind. "But--"

Jean lets loose with a full-volume, Enraged Cosmic Avatar Howl, and attacks him with every ounce of her considerable telepathic might.

Nathan makes a face. "Ouch," he says peevishly. "That wasn't very nice."

Now it's Jean's turn to blink uncomprehendingly. Usually, when she hits someone with that much power, they tend to scream, fall down, and bleed from unusual places. Then again, she reminds herself resolutely, readying herself for another attack, this is Stryfe! The Chaos-Bringer! The--

Nathan looks thoroughly disgusted for a moment, but then grins, his mood shifting rapidly. He's in too good a mood. It's hard to pout. Besides, this is funny, in a weird sort of way.

"Scott, Jean," he says in his best serious voice. "I think you ought to sit down."

They stare at him.

He grins at them, and then glances at the kitchen table. Two chairs pull themselves out, and Scott and Jean let out various noises of indignation and fury as they're deposited there, gently but firmly.

"That was far too much fun," Nathan murmurs gleefully. "Now, are you calm enough to hear me out? I'm not Stryfe."

"So where's the TO virus?" Scott demands in his best hostile, defiant, 'do your worst, you filthy villain' voice. It's very impressive, actually. He's had a lot of practice.

Nathan chews on his lower lip, trying to decide what to say. The real reason is only going to convince them that yes, he is insane, and thus must be Stryfe. The tortuous, complicated, 'treading the borders of willing suspension of disbelief' explanation cooked up to cover it might make them go catatonic.

He decides to improvise. That's his strong suit, after all. "It's gone," he says, and gives them his very best smile. "Aren't you happy? I'm happy. I'm thrilled." The euphoria comes flooding back and he jumps up to stand on the table, throwing his arms wide. "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!"

Two things happen. One, the table doesn't break. Nathan, all too used to furniture reluctant to hold his former 350-pound weight, giggles happily and stamps a foot experimentally. "Solid oak! I love it!"

Two, there's another skidding noise from the hallway.

"GRRR!!!" Logan, at heart, is a very uncomplicated man, and if anything, will come to a conclusion even faster than Scott. "STRYFE!!!!"

Nathan, startled out of his rapturous examination of the still-intact table, looks sideways at the charging Wolverine.

And smiles, very nastily.

"Logan, meet Floor," he says pleasantly, once Logan's reached mid-leap. "Floor, meet Logan."

Logan makes a sound like an infuriated beaver as he hits the floor, very hard.

"Aw, look at you two," Nathan beams. "You're getting along already."

"You can't fight us all, Stryfe!" Scott declares.

Nathan sits down cross-legged on the table. "I'm not Stryfe," he repeats, grinning helplessly as he keeps Logan pinned to the ground. Logan's envisioning doing terribly painful and poetic things to him, and it's very entertaining. He's never realized Logan has such a vivid imagination. "And actually, yeah, I could fight all of you. But I'm not going to," he declares, nobly, choosing to ignore how much of a kick he'd gotten out of smiting Logan. He'd been wanting to do that for a long time. "Would you just settle down and listen to me? I've gotten rid of the T-O virus. Isn't that a good thing?"

The last question comes out a little planitively, and he gives his parents his best Puppy Dog Stare Of Doom.

Scott looks stricken, and Jean starts to sniffle. Now, it must be pointed out that neither of them are actually feeling repentant of their own accord. Nathan, without realizing it, is projecting such a potent mixture of hurt feelings and bewilderment that they can't help themselves.

Logan, on the other hand, is still writhing on the floor, snarling anatomically impossible threats.

***

"Let me get this straight." There's nothing Hank McCoy likes better than a good medical puzzle, but this one is taxing even his considerable intellect. His eyes are as big as dinner plates behind his glasses, but he continues to wave the hand-held medical scanner over Nathan. The fact that it looks like a Star Trek tricorder is only incidental. Forge sometimes has a strange sense of humor. "You've gotten rid of the T-O virus."

It's a rhetorical question, of course. He's not stunned enough that he can't analyse the readings his tric--scanner is giving him, and it's very clearly telling him that yes, there's no trace of the T-O virus in Nathan's system. Also that it IS Nathan, rather than Stryfe. Well, not that Hank's ever had Stryfe in his infirmary, but let's not dwell too long on how he knows the difference, shall we?

"Yeah, isn't it cool?" Nathan says enthusiastically. Hank, at least, is displaying something closer to the sort of reaction he'd actually expected. He'd WANTED to stun people, flonq it. Maybe it's perverse, but he's beginning to realize just how little fun he's had in his life. Past time to rectify that.

Hank's eyes get a little wider. "Cool," he says thoughtfully, wondering what odd physiological side effect accounts for the sudden use of teenaged slang on Nathan's part. Since he and the others had broken up the rather bizarre scene in the kitchen, he'd heard Nathan say that Logan's subsequent temper tantrum was 'so freaking funny' and that the new wallpaper in the hall was 'awesome, look at the radical little widget-pattern'. Some sort of mental regression, maybe?

Nathan laughed uproariously. Scott yelped, nearly jumping out of his skin, and Jean grabbed his arm. "Don't be silly, Hank!" Nathan told him, his eyes sparkling. "It's just that my telepathy's better, so I get the slang now. Didn't any of you ever figure that out? I didn't absorb English completely." He crossed his arms over his chest and grinned at his parents. "All better now, though."

Hank files the information away, to save for some future scientific paper. He's always looking for new pet topics, after all. "Well," he says pleasantly. "There's no trace of the virus in your system. I'm delighted, Nathan, truly." He casts a quick look back over his shoulder at Scott and Jean. "Scott, Jean, aren't you delighted?"

They don't look delighted.

"It's all right," Nathan says contently. "They'll get used to it."

"Ahem. Yes," Hank says, deeming it an opportune moment to change the subject. "So--Nathan, might you let me in on how you managed this miracle? I'm very curious."

"I closed my eyes, concentrated, and went 'yoink!'" Nathan said happily.

Hank raises a bushy blue eyebrow. "'Yoink?'"

"'Yoink'," Nathan affirmed.

***

Charles Xavier is not having a good day. Then again, Charles rarely has a good day. Good would involve enjoying oneself, and Charles is far too fond of semi-ascetic self-denial.

Thus, he is merely having a day. A day that seems to be developing into a troublesome one.

"This is not entirely a positive development," Charles says, in his best ominous voice.

"Oh, lighten up."

He tries again. If nothing else, Charles is possessed of great - one might almost say inhuman - persistence. After all, most people recognize that they're making the same mistake twice long before their mortal-enemy-slash-object-of-unrequited-lust tries to take over the world for the five hundredth time.

"The heightened power levels are clearly affecting your mind, Nathan," he says, attempting to sound concerned. "Just look at your behaviour today. That alone tells me that you need some assistance in bringing your enhanced abilities under control."

"Of course they're affecting my mind," Nathan says with a laugh, and keeps juggling the fragile, nineteenth century tea cups. He has fifteen of them in the air right now. Charles is becoming slightly distressed. Then again, all the REALLY good china is safely locked away. "They're psionic abilities, remember? So if they were affecting my toenails, we'd have a problem."

"Nathan--"

"Seriously, Chuck, chill. I'm fine. I'm just having fun." Nathan tries the Puppy Dog Stare Of Doom on him. "Is that such a bad thing? I never used to think I was allowed to have fun. It was always 'save the future, yadda-yadda, kill the Egyptian, etcetera, cock-a-doodle-doo--'"

Charles blinks, feeling himself edging closer to the limits of his coping powers. "Cock-a-doodle-doo?" he inquires weakly.

"Yeah. Old Xavier had a farm, eyieyio!" Nathan waves a hand dismissively at the teacups, which return themselves neatly on the shelf where they'd been. "Have you ever thought of having animals, Chuck? I mean, you've got stables. Horses are nice. I was actually having a pretty interesting conversation with a horse the other day--"

"Nathan--"

"Did you know they actually like flies? I thought that was strange. And flies do talk, too. Well, I keep saying 'talk', but you know what I mean, right?" Nathan gives Charles an inquisitive look.

Charles stares back at him blankly. "Not--really," he manages. "I--rarely talk to flies."

Nathan grins. "You're boring. What have you been doing with your telepathy all this time, then?"

Charles takes a deep breath, and tries to retreat into professionalism. "You need help, Nathan."

"Oh, probably," Nathan says breezily.

"I can provide you with instruction," Charles says, with something close to relief. At last, some progress.

"I don't think so," Nathan says, shaking his head firmly.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't like you, Chuckie boy." Nathan's eyes rove the confines of Charles' study. "Bored, bored, bored," he mutters.

***

Scott is making a phone call. It's to a number he really shouldn't know, to a certain team of young mutants that's supposed to be dead. But hey, if Cable can yoink out his T-O virus, maybe we can retcon Ellis and revive X-Force, right?

Unfortunately, dead or alive, they're not at home, and Scott whimpers. "Sam," he mutters into the phone. "Sam, if Domino's there, get her and bring her to the mansion, okay? We need help. Nathan--"

"Scott!" Nathan blinks as his attempt to push the door out of the way telekinetically accidentally rips it off its hinges.

We won't mention what happened to the doorframe.

"Whoops," Nathan says tentatively. "I didn't mean to do that."

Scott puts the phone down, very carefully. "That's all right," he says, as brightly as he can. "We can fix that." At the moment, Scott's brain is trying to deal with a little too much at one time. "Nathan, would you like to go outside and play catch?"

"You think I'm going to destroy the house, don't you?" Nathan demands, with a picture-perfect expression of hurt innocence.

Scott squirms. "Of course not," he says, not very convincingly.

"Yes, you do." Nathan grins. "But I'd still like to play catch."

***

Stryfe is not having a good day. Hell, Stryfe is not having a good year--or is that two years? Three? He can't quite recall. That's what happens when you get killed, resurrected, killed again, turned into some weird shadow of your gloriously anarchical self, and then killed again. Stryfe is seriously beginning to wonder if he's done something truly terrible in his past lives to warrant this much abuse from the Powers That Be.

After all, all he ever wanted was to wreak a little creative havoc, make a few selected family members writhe and scream his name, maybe accompanied by a few satisfying phrases like--oh, something like "Please just kill me!", maybe.

But now here he is, torn between retcons and not entirely sure of who he is anymore. Oath, he doesn't even know whether he's supposed to be alive, in Hell, or lurking in the back of Cable's mind making nasty comments! Would knowing be too much to ask? Once upon a time he had a purpose in life, flonq it, and now--it's all very sad.

That was the first thought that went through his head when he woke up this morning.

The second thought was that he was feeling rather lonely, and should look up his brother. Just for old times' sake.

The reason he's in a particularly bad mood is that it took him only a few minutes to track Cable down. Yes, that's a perverse reason to be annoyed. (Then again, this is Stryfe we're talking about.) Yes, Stryfe is usually the instant-gratification type. But the problem is, it's taken him so little time to track Nathan down because his brother is lit up like a Christmas tree on the astral plane. If he hadn't looked twice, he would have assumed the large glowing entity-thingy was actually Nate Grey--

--only Nate Grey's dead, Stryfe reminds himself resolutely. Yippy-ki-yay, the little twit is dead. And he really has to make more of an effort to stay focused.

Like right now. It's generally a good idea to have some shred of a plan in mind BEFORE you go floating down out of the sky to land in the X-Men's backyard. Just cackling maniacally really doesn't cut it.

'Tremble before me'? Stryfe wonders, mentally running through the classic entrance lines. Nah, too trite. 'Let's get ready to rumble!' would be entertaining - he's been practicing that one lately - but maybe a little too much.

There's always the classic.

"Honey, I'm home!" he says cheerily, noticing that Cable and Cyclops appear to have been playing catch. Catch, Stryfe thinks. He's never played catch. He mentally adds that to the list of reasons Apocalypse Was A Terrible Father, as well as the list of Childhood Experiences I Was Deprived Of, Flonq You, O Cruel World.

But flonq that. Cyclops should be firing an optic blast at him right about now, Stryfe reflects, puzzled. "Come on, Pop," he says, trying to bait Scott into being as predictable as he usually is. "Lay one on me! Feed my inferiority complex! Come on!"

Scott just looks from him to Cable and then back again, emitting something that sounds very much like a whimper.

Cable isn't looking at Scott. Cable is looking at Stryfe, and grinning.

"Stryfe," he says, sounding genuinely pleased to see him. That alone is very odd. Usually, when they meet, there's a window of about ten seconds before Nathan loses his temper and hurls himself at him, snarling insults. "Stryfe. Here. Now. Oh, wow."

The grin is getting downright maniacal. It's like looking in a mirror. Stryfe finds it strangely intriguing, and yet disturbing at the same time.

"This is just--neat," Cable says, slowly but almost exuberantly. With definite relish. And maybe a little mustard on top.

Stryfe folds his arms across his chest and smiles chillingly. So, Nathan wants to do small talk? He can do small talk. Anything Nathan can do, he can do better. "Looking rather well yourself, old chum."

Scott whimpers again. Whether he's whimpering because of the destructive potential of having a battle royale in the backyard or simply because Stryfe is inexplicably speaking in a British accent is one of those questions I'll have to leave up to your imagination.

Cable tilts his head, still grinning. "Ach, dinnae use that flattering tongue on me, boyo," he says, in a distressingly convincing approximation of Moira MacTaggert's accent.

Scott is now whimpering steadily. His sons are playing 'Name That Accent', and talking about using tongues on each other. This is very disturbing. He wonders where the cavalry is. The calvary should be here. Unless the cavalry's hiding in the mansion because it knows Stryfe is out here, and is feeling rather General Custer-ish about getting its ass out here and fighting the good fight.

Stryfe pouts. "Ew," he complains.

Nathan blinks thoughtfully. "Well, that didn't come out right at all," he says a bit huffily, and then glares at Stryfe.

Stryfe grins. This is more like it! "Right," he said happily. "Telekinesis. Telepathy. Fists. But no tongue."

The sound of Scott passing out and hitting the ground hard is a momentary distraction, at best.

***

Bobby Drake has been having a rather dull day. Emma Frost isn't returning his phone calls (apparently the last time she took him to a party, he used the wrong fork and lost her a twenty million dollar business contract), Hank is sequestered in his lab (yes, and the sun IS going to rise in the east again tomorrow, why do you ask?), and there's nothing on TV but a 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' rerun. He's very bored.

So when the fireworks start outside, Bobby giggles like a schoolboy who's dimensionally sideslipped into a world where every day is a snow day, and runs out the nearest door to get a closer look. Scott is sprawled on the grass, and Bobby thoughtfully goes over and drags him out of the way of the two very large men floating ten feet above the ground and throwing what looks like telekinetic water balloons at each other.

Yes, telekinetic water balloons. Yes, these are the two men whose primal conflict shaped the very fabric of thirty-eighth century society. But since this is a PG-rated fic, to have them trying to telekinetically rip brains out through nostrils would be inappropriate.

"Die!" one of the men is shrieking at the other.

"You first!"

"I did!"

"Well, so did I!"

"But you didn't STAY dead, did you!"

"Well, neither did YOU!"

Bobby further notes that it's very difficult to tell the difference between Cable and Stryfe, now that Cable's TO virus is gone. Oh, wait. One of them's wearing the green sweater Jean gave to Nathan last Christmas, so that must be Cable. Unless Stryfe's been raiding his brother's closet.

Okay, so that would make Stryfe the one in the ripped jeans and the fluorescent orange 'Spock is dead!' t-shirt. Bobby shakes his head, grinning. He'd never taken Stryfe for much of a Star Trek fan.

"Flonq that. You realize you told me to 'die'?" Nathan laughs. "That's the best you can come up? And to think, I respected you for all these years because you had the best insane banter I'd ever heard, short of Apocalypse--"

"Don't you compare me to him, you--you--poopy-head!"

Damn that PG-rating! I don't know about you, humble reader, but I've always yearned to expand my vocabulary of thirty-eighth century curses, and with the two of them bending over backwards to ensure Jean doesn't take it into her head to wash their mouths out with soap--

"Poopy-head!" Bobby Drake laughs hysterically. Well, it's good that someone's getting a kick out of this. "Stryfe, you called him a poopy-head?!?"

"ARGH!!!!" Stryfe screams, and goes flying through the air to slam into Nathan. They both wind up rolling around in the muddy mess their telekinetic water balloons have created in the backyard, wrestling and grappling and growling curses and biting and pulling hair--

"HAH! Stop--tickling--" one of them shouts. They're both covered in mud at this point, so Bobby can't tell which it is.

"Oh, so the mighty Askani'son is afraid of the tickle war!"

Well, that answers that question.

"You would be too, if you had sensation in your left side for the first time since you were a baby!"

"Oh, woe is me. Oh, everyone feel sorry for Natey-poo--"

"You really are obsessed with shit today, aren't you?"

Stryfe shouts something about 'innocent eyes' and promptly tries to wash Nathan's mouth out. With mud.

"THAT IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!"

Bobby yelps, and looks back over his shoulder to see that yes, it is indeed Jean standing there, and yes, she Looks Pissed. The Phoenix-wings around her are a dead giveaway, although paired with the steam coming out of her ears, she looks more like a Phoenix-shaped teapot.

The two mud-covered combatants pause, and give her identical martyred looks.

"But he started it--"

"Of course I started it, you clod, I always start it--"

"So what? I intend to finish it!" Nathan suddenly declares, his eyes flashing and his eyebrows drawing together in an expression that Bobby's learned, even with very little exposure to the Ways Of Cable, means 'run like hell and forget about the damned will, there's not going to be enough of you left to prove you're dead anyway'.

Stryfe suddenly flies up into the air, then comes crashing back down--and bounces. One bounce takes him to the edge of the muddy patch, two to the edge of the woods. Bounce number three is accompanied by a crashing sound and the indignant chittering of several displaced squirrels.

"Oh, SHIIIIIIIIIIT--" came a distant howl in the middle of bounce number four.

Then, there's a splash, from the direction of the lake.

"Boing," Nathan says, with an evil little smile.

***

Scott's day is going from bad to worse. He's starting to wonder if he ever woke up from his swoon in the backyard. He must be dreaming. Must be. Scenes like this don't exist in his safe, predictable little world. There are four members of the Summers family in one room, and no one's trying to kill anyone. There's something very wrong with this. Any moment now, someone's going to crawl out from behind the couch and say "Smile, you're on Candid Camera!"

Stryfe sniffles a little louder, pulling the blanket around him. "Can I have some more hot chocolate?" he says in a tiny little voice, looking up at Jean with big hurt eyes.

Anime-Stryfe. We should all be very, very afraid.

"Of course," Jean coos at him, and then looks sideways at Bobby. "You. More hot chocolate. Now!" she says in the She Who Must Be Obeyed voice. Bobby scampers obediently, with a small yiping noise like a kicked puppy, and Jean gives a satisfied nod as she turns back to Stryfe. "Are you a little warmer now?" she says sympathetically.

"Oh, he's perfectly warm," Nathan says crossly, from where he's sitting cross-legged on the ceiling. Nathan was rather put out to receive a scolding for bouncing Stryfe into the lake. He wasn't expecting a medal or anything, but a pat on the head and a 'Good job, Nathan! Nice attempt at trying to drown your psychopathic brother!' would have been nice. "Stop fussing over him, he's just looking for attention."

"You hush!" Jean says, threateningly and somehow indulgently at the same time, a combination that takes a great deal of skill. "I'm very annoyed with you, Nathan Christopher, so don't push your luck. Being temporarily insane will only get you so far."

Nathan makes an irritated noise and floats down to land on the floor, still in his cross-legged position. "I am not insane," he said huffily. "He's the insane one. We all know that."

Stryfe gives Jean a very wide-eyed look. "I'm not insane," he says in that same child-like voice. "I'm just misunderstood. You love me, don't you, Mommy?"

"Not you, too," says the column of green smoke just now taking shape in the corner. The green smoke sounds rather irritated, and, as it resolves into Madelyne Pryor, Take Two, everyone concedes that she has something of a right to be. Madelyne sticks her lower lip out as far as it can go and regards her sons mournfully. "You've both fixated on the cow, haven't you? I'm going to start thinking neither of you loves me."

"We don't," Stryfe said helpfully, and then shrieks and hides behind Jean as Madelyne gives him an ominous look. "Mommy, she's making faces! Make her go away!"

"Madelyne!" Nathan says happily, and flings himself at the astral ghost of the woman who gave birth to him, then had a few problems in the sanity department and tried to sacrifice him to demons. Contrary to all appearance, Nathan is really the forgiving sort. Really.

Madelyne shrieks, and them makes a small strangled noise as she winds up pinned beneath her son's still-considerable bulk. "Now--darling--" she wheezes. "Mommy's--glad to see you, too--but I need those ribs--and this really doesn't look good."

"Someone has an Oedipus complex," Stryfe says with a nasty grin, and sticks his tongue out at Cable.

Nathan pops back up. "I do not!" he says, sounding outraged. "You take that back, or I'll--"

"Nathan! Don't you threaten your brother!"

"Shut up, Jean," Madelyne says lazily, propping herself up on an elbow. "I've always said a little healthy sibling rivalry is a good thing."

Jean gives her an incredulous look. "Since WHEN, Ms. 'You Stole My Family, Prepare To Die'?"

Madelyne directs a dismissive, somewhat obscene gesture in Jean's direction, then gives Nathan a once-over, and abruptly begins to beam. "Well, look at you!" she coos, sitting up and examining him more closely. "You got rid of that nasty virus! What a good boy!"

Nathan preens a little, and then gives Scott and Jean a defiant look. "At least someone's happy for me."

***

The world is about to have a really bad day.

No, it's not because that idyllic little scene with the Summers family eventually strained the boundaries of 'willing suspension of disbelief' and mayhem broke out. Although if Stryfe hadn't decided that being taken into the metaphorical bosom of his family wasn't such a wonderful thing after all (if he'd known that Jean made such reprehensible excuses for chocolate chip cookies, he wouldn't have wasted so much energy angsting over everything he'd missed as a child) and beaten a hasty retreat, muttering about "things to do, people to kill", undoubtedly there would have been mayhem. Familial mayhem on a level to rival Greek tragedy. Bloody, epic--

--oh, right. Back to the matter at hand. That is, the Shi'ar armada approaching Earth. Yes, this would be an appropriate time to cue up the 'Imperial March' from Star Wars on your mp3 playlist.

You see, ever since the Phoenix went postal and gobbled down a whole planet of broccoli people, the Shi'ar have been keeping a wary eye out for flares of psionic energy coming from Earth. After all, who's to say that the next hungry cosmic avatar won't decide that Chandilar looks like a particularly toothsome truffle?

Only what they don't know, of course, is that there's no cosmic avatar to be found on Earth at this particular moment. Just one very irritated and resentful Askani'son.

***

"Cable--"

"Go away."

"Tin-man--"

"Leave me alone!"

"Twinkle-face--"

"WOULD YOU MIND!?!?!" Cable screams, reaching out with his telekinesis and levitating Logan into the air, until they're eye-to-eye. The Askani'son sitting in the tree, and the Wolverine, dangling in mid-air and grinning rather nastily.

"Aw. Someone's pouting."

Cable's expression is verging on the maniacal again. Logan finds it neither disturbing nor intriguing. Only somewhat entertaining. "I think you'd bounce just as well as Stryfe, you know," he says threateningly. "Probably even better."

Logan folds his arms across his chest and manages to look perfectly tranquil, almost Buddha-esque. Or at least, what Buddha might look like if he was short, hairy, and yet inexplicably attractive to ninety percent of the femme fatales on the planet. "You're jealous," he pronounces calmly. "Jean made the bastard cookies, so you're sitting out in a tree pouting. Real mature, jackass."

"She never made me cookies!" Cable looks almost tearful for a moment. This was supposed to be HIS moment, flonq it, and Stryfe had to go and steal the show. Stryfe was ALWAYS doing that. It was the red cape, Cable was sure of it. Well, the red cape and the fact that Stryfe could move like Fred Astaire when he put his mind to it, and thus achieve the maximum billowy effect. Cable had always been jealous of Stryfe for that, ever since he'd had that dream/precognitive vision of Stryfe doing the tango with Madame Sanctity with a legion of Dog Soldiers looking on and clapping.

"Did you really want her to make you cookies?" Logan asks skeptically. "Didn't you see those cookies? They looked like something Charlie's cat coughed up."

(There is a brief pause, in which the Powers That Be remind our heroes that they're in the mainstream comicverse, not the Ultimate X-Men comicverse, and our heroes plead for forgiveness on the grounds that Xavier is clearly evil in both universes, and their precise dimensional locale just slipped their minds.)

"It's the principle of the thing," Cable insists stubbornly. "Why should he get cookies? Just because he was the black sheep and suddenly he's decided he doesn't want us all dead after all--" He hesitates, looking skyward, and then growls. Loudly. Loudly enough that Logan, who can growl with the very best of them, is rather impressed. "Oh, that's it," he hisses. "I am SO not in the mood!"

***

The Supreme Commander of the Shi'ar fleet is now wishing he'd rolled over and gone back to sleep when the call came in for him to report to the Imperial Palace to receive this incredibly important, incredibly honorable, incredibly suicidal assignment. But no, he had to be a good, loyal officer and say "Yes, Majestrix, how high?" when Lilandra told him to jump, and now he's sitting here on the bridge of his fabulously powerful flagship, watching some unseen force swatting the ships of his fleet one-by-one. He's really not sure where they're getting swatted to, mind you. All he knows is that they're vanishing off sensors, and while he'd like to think they're just disappearing out of range, he's naturally a pessimist.

Eventually, his ship's turn comes, as he knew it would.

#BATTER UP!# a vengeful voice snarls in his mind, and suddenly, the flagship is hurtling back through space at a speed that really defies any logical explanation. Certainly, they would simply have kept on going, if their trajectory hadn't happened to intersect with the orbit of Pluto at a very unpropitious time.

Fortunately, no one was too badly hurt in the crash landing. The officers and crew of Her Majestrix's Starship In'teer'pariz (roughly translated as 'Beloved, Shiny-Pated Charles') pulled themselves together, started a colony, and remained happy Plutonians for the next fifty years, at which point their Terran not-quite-brethren, busy expanding out into the stars, reached their little paradise and introduced the concept of telemarketing.

At which point, of course, everything went to hell.

***

It's sunset. The mansion is still more or less intact, even with the temper tantrum Cable threw when Xavier accused him of provoking an interstellar incident (oh, I'm sure the north wing can be rebuilt with no trouble at all. It's not as if they haven't done it before.). Incredibly, no one's dead (Logan might have volunteered to play punching bag for a certain peevish Askani'son, but the man has a healing factor, and only offered in order to score points with Jean, so none of you should be feeling particularly sorry for him), and the Earth is safe from alien invasion. All in all, not such a bad day.

Or so Cable's trying to convince himself as he sits down by the lake, sulking. He's just had a rather extensive and unpleasant conversation with Xavier, in which the Professor informed him that he was "quite displeased, Nathan, and perhaps the next time you'll stop and think about what you're doing BEFORE you provoke an interstellar incident." He can sense Chuckles in there now on the holo-link with Lilandra, trying to apologize.

Now there's a dysfunctional relationship, Nathan thinks, muttering angrily to himself.

Talking about us? a familiar wry voice asked in his mind.

Now, a fully-powered Cable, being able to sense a stray thought a continent away, should certainly have sensed Domino coming long before she actually reached the shoreline. Realistically, he should have sensed her amusement when she checked X-Force's voicemail from Hong Kong and found Scott's panicked message. At the very least, he should have noticed the small, but highly sophisticated plane that had circled the lake right in front of him ten minutes beforehand as it headed into the hangar for a landing--especially since Domino had opened the pilot's-side window and waved at him.

But then, this is Nathan Dayspring Summers, a heavyweight prospect for Champion Brooder of the Multiverse, and a firm believer in the maxim that you should let nothing get in the way of a good sulk.

"Oh," he mutters, looking up at her as she approaches. "It's you." Domino raises an eyebrow at him, and he decides to go for broke. Nothing's gone the way he wanted it to today, and he's feeling distinctly unloved. All he needs to round off the day is yet another pointless argument with Domino. After all, they're probably due for one - the Powers That Be seem to like scheduling them once a year or so, just to make sure the two of them never get the chance to patch up their relationship - so he might as well get a head start. "Come to tell me I'm an irresponsible, power-drunk lunatic who needs to be on a leash?"

She's grinning at him. It's been a long, long time since Dom grinned at him, part of Nathan reflects almost wistfully. He misses that grin. It's the 'want to go get drunk and blow something up?' grin. It's also usually followed, in short order, by the 'want to do the horizontal tango?' grin, and assorted waitresses, Peruvian terrorists and dimensional alternates of his wife aside, Nathan's been feeling rather deprived in that area lately.

"You ARE an irresponsible, power-drunk lunatic who needs to be on a leash," Domino says cheerfully, and gives him what could only be termed a lascivious wink. "But alas, I left it in my other suitcase."

Nathan looks at her blankly. He hadn't expected her to agree with him, and that last comment had sailed merrily over his head. "Left what?"

Her grin only gets wider and more sly. "The leash, babe." She tilts her head and gives him an almost innocent look. "Along with the handcuffs, the chain mail bra, and the--"

"Dom!" he protests, flushing. Domino laughs and plants herself happily in her lap, and he slips an arm around her tentatively. "I missed you," he says hesitantly, not sure how she'll react. They didn't part on the best of terms last time, after all, and she might be holding a grudge about the whole leaving her in SHIELD custody thing. Then again, what else was he supposed to do with a possessed Domino when he had to go turn the thing that possessed her and all its nasty little friends into cockroaches?

Domino just beams at him. "Likewise." She slings an arm around his shoulder and gives him a knowing look. "Now. Talk to me. What's the matter?" She pokes at his formerly techno-organic shoulder. "Why are you out here sulking? You should be happy, Nate. This is a good thing."

He makes an irritated noise. "I AM happy," he complains, then gestures behind them at the mansion. "The problem is, I expected them to be happy, too." His scowl deepens even further. "But no, they have to look at me sideways, and bitch at me for having a little fun with Stryfe, and complain because I got rid of a Shi'ar armada that was coming here to kill me, only they thought I was Jean--"

Domino's not following much of this, but the emotions behind it are perfectly clear. "They suck," she says firmly, and quite sincerely. Dom's never been much of a fan of the X-Men, and it strikes her as both ridiculous and somewhat sad that Scott and Jean wouldn't be overjoyed to see their son cured of the deadly disease he's been fighting with his telekinesis on the molecular level for most of his life. She puts it on the list of Reasons Why I Need To Get Him Away From The X-Geeks And Back In My Bed Where He Belongs. "They well and truly suck. Bastards, all of them."

Nathan's mouth quirks upwards in one of those little 'I want to smile, but I'm too pissed off to admit it' smiles that Domino loves so much. "Bastards, no. But they do suck." He sets his jaw determinedly. "They suck to the nth degree."

"So, to hell with them," Domino suggests, tracing little patterns on his chest. "Come back to Hong Kong with me." She's finding herself very intrigued by the lack of techno-organics. Some women complain about their men having cold feet, but they should try dealing for twenty years with a bedmate whose whole left side tends to be uncomfortably chilly. "We can sleep late, eat Cantonese every night, and go dancing every Friday."

Nathan grins. "Cool." He hesitates, his expression turning almost diffident for a moment. "Would you make me cookies?"

Domino snickers. "Me? Nate, what the hell have you been smoking? I might make you a martini, if you're good--"

"Shaken, not stirred?"

"I never should have let GW introduce you to James Bond movies."

***

What? You don't like the fact that the story stops there? Well, as we've already discussed, we are dealing with a PG rating here, and once Dom and Nate really get going, PG sort of tends to head right out the window.

So, you'll have to use your imagination. Let's just say that our terrible twosome snuck back out to the hangar and flew away while Scott and Jean were still discussing what to do with Nate and Xavier was still promising to kiss Lilandra's toes if she would please forego sending a second armada to Earth. Maybe Logan noticed them, but Logan's been around the block a few times, and he has a bit of a soft spot for a romantic ending, much as he'd like to deny it.

Let's go on, and say that they made it back to Hong Kong just fine, where they had a wonderful reunion with a certain group of young mutants with a penchant for property damage, who are, if anything, wiser than their teachers, in that they picked up the invaluable lesson that coming back from the dead is best done quietly, to avoid massive angsting sessions and being dumped right into this week's encroaching global armageddon.

Let's take this hypothetical scenario a little farther, and say they partied for a week straight, celebrating being alive and Nate being T-O free. Then, once the hangover wore off, they sat down to talk, and realized there were still lots of bad guys out there, plenty of good fights to be fighting, and an immeasurable amount of good destructive fun to be had.

And let's say they lived happily ever after. After all, why the flonq not?

fin

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