Midnight Havoc
by Odeena Sabnach

It was a little past two in the morning. A slim shadow sneaked quickly along the wide corridors of the Xavier Institute, until it finally came to a stop.

Scott Summers knocked quietly on a massive wooden door. "Bobby! Bobby, you awake?"

There was no answer, and Scott sighed as he knocked again. "Bobby! C'mon, man, wake up! Bobby!"

Finally, after lots of knocking and swearing, the door cracked open, and a brown eye curiously peeked through.

"Scott?" Bobby Drake mumbled sleepily. "Whaddya want?"

"Yeesh, about time!" Scott rolled his eyes. "Forge called us in tonight, remember?"

"Forge who?" Bobby asked in a very, very sleepy voice. "I don't-"

Without any explaination, Scott yanked the door open. Bobby groaned and shielded his eyes from the sudden light, then sighed, "All right already, I got the point."

"Good." Scott was beginning to get anxious. "Now pull yourself together and follow me."

"Okay, let's... uhm, let's go."

With that, Bobby started to walk down the corridor, not caring whether Scott was following or not.

"Uh... Bobby?"

"What?"

"You're still in your underwear."

"Say what?"

Bobby glared down at his longjohns, pink and painted with cute little red hearts, and blushed. "I... I... 'scuse me..."

About a couple minutes later, Bobby Drake - being his usual hot-headed self - came out of his room, grinning evilly and holding a can of shaving cream in one hand.

"Ready to go, Scott!"

"O...kay..." Scott raised an eyebrow. "What's with the cream?"

"What, that? Well, let's just say that I have a small score to settle on the way out."

Scott chuckled. "Logan'll kill you when he finds out you stashed his shaving cream, man."

"So what! He can buy another! Besides, it's for a noble cause, know what I'm saying? C'mon!"

Still undecided, Scott shrugged and followed Bobby down the hall, careful not to make anymore noise. It was a miracle how come nobody was up yet.

A few minutes later, Bobby stopped in front of Jean's door and chuckled evilly. "Hehee, it's payback time."

"Uh... okay." Scott leaned against a wall. "But hurry up about it, we're late already."

"No problem, man."

Scott watched as Bobby opened the door and sneaked inside Jean's room. He heard the faint noise of spraying, and then Bobby came out, looking extremely pleased with himself.

"Jean oughta have a big surprise in the morning", Bobby whispered, chuckling.

"Ssh!"

In an instant, Scott grabbed Bobby by the sleeve of his coat and shoved him into Jean's room, causing him to drop the can of shaving cream, then closed the door without a sound. Faint footsteps of someone - who was probably wearing old slippers or something like that - came closer and closer, until they finally stopped in front of the door. Scott and Bobby held their breaths.

"Well, whaddya know." Logan's voice was content. "My shaving cream."

The footsteps started again, until they finally died off. They waited a bit more to be sure, then rushed out.

"That was close, man", Scott whispered. "Now let's make tracks before anybody sees us. Then, we'd have a lot of explaining to do."

"I'm fully with you, man. But with Logan pacing around, it'll be a wonder if we can make it to your car without being spotted."

In the end, the wonder did happen, and the two managed to get to the garage, unheard and unseen. Suddenly, Bobby got an idea, "Hey Scott, why don't you let be drive?"

"Absolutely not." Scott crossed his arms. "You know how you tend to get... er, excited about stuff, and it's my car we're talking about."

"Aw, c'mon, please? I'll be real good, I promise, just... just this once! Pretty please!"

"All right, all right... yeesh. But I'm warning you, one scene, just one, and -"

"Hang on to your lunch!"

"Bobby!" Scott shouted, hanging on to his seat for dear life. "Slow down!"

~

Forge had an anxious look on his face when he opened the door. "What took you guys so long?" he asked. "I thought you'd never make it!"

"Almost didn't", Scott answered with a sigh. "Because of certain reasons."

"C'mon, man, my driving wasn't that bad!"

"Yeah. Pick up another mailbox and say that again."

"That was an accident."

"An accident that's gonna cost me a whole repaint, you hot-head!"

"Guys, guys!" Forge raised a hand in a pacifying gesture. "You can tell me all about it later, OK? Right now, I've got something real neat to show you."

"Another gizmo?" Bobby tried.

"Right on. And this is the gizmo of all gizmos. C'mon, you've got to see this."

Forge reached for a counter top and grabbed something off it. He held his hand behind his back for suspense, then victoriously shoved it in the faces of the two X-Men. He was holding something that looked like Kurt's image inducer, except that it was all just a big screen, with no buttons, no dials, nor anything else like it.

"Nice", Bobby commented. "So, what's it do?"

"Well, remember how Kurt can teleport anywhere he wants?"

"Not anywhere", Scott corrected. "He's got a two-miles limitation, you know it."

"Yeah. But with this beauty, anyone can zap anywhere on the globe in a jiffy. It's untested yet, but it should do the trick."

"And that's why you called us here?" Bobby yawned, eyeing a can of Cola settled on Forge's desk with eagerness.

"Uh-huh. I wanted you guys to be here when I test it. I think this is gonna be the next best thing since television. Help yourself, Bobby. I see how you're looing at my Cola like it was the Holy Ghost."

"Thanks, man." Bobby grabbed the can and gulped down its content, then burped. "'Scuse me."

"So, how are you gona test the thing, huh?" Scott asked, holding back a yawn.

"Actually, I have been looking for a test subject lately..."

Both X-Men flinched and began to look unconfortably. Forge grinned.

"I have it all figured."

Scott couldn't help sighing in relief. "Man, for a moment there, you got me. So, who's the subject?"

"Just a second." Forge went to another room, which was supposedly his bedroom, but kept talking. "It took me a while to catch one, but today I finally got lucky. Voilà!" he finished, coming back into the living room and holding a living duck by its wings. Forge placed the teleporter around its neck and released it.

"Okay, now watch." Forge grabbed a small remote and pressed a button. The duck suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke, and reappeared a second later in Scott's lap, from where it flew away immediately.

"Yes! Success! Let's try that again!"

This time, the duck didn't reappear anywhere in the room, but the loud noise of breaking dishes quickly gave away the place where it had arrived.

"I can't believe it!" Scott high-fived Forge. "Awesome as usual, man. Bring it back!"

"'Kay." Forge pressed a few more buttons on the remote, and the cracking in the kitchen stopped. But this time, the duck didn't show up anywhere. Forge raised an eyebrow.

"Whoops."

"What is it?" Bobby asked, then burped again. "Uh... sorry."

"No problem, man. I think I mistyped the coordinates."

"Aw... Any idea where it's gonna show up?"

Forge fell silent for a few seconds. "Dunno", he said finally. "Ah, well. No point in searching for it, I suppose. 'Sides, I still have plenty of teleporters left. Now. Who wants pizza?"

Scott and Bobby immediately raised their hands.

~

It was the first time in bloody ages that Magneto had allowed himself a decent sleep. Curled up in his sheets, the leader of the Brotherhood was snoring loudly and muttering in his sleep from time to time. He didn't even flinch when a living duck appeared in his room, neither did he when the duck flew on top of his head and comfortably settled itself there. Moments after, they were both sleeping peacefully, a man and his duck.

~

Tired after their night out, Scott and Bobby were stuffing themselves with industrial quantities of coffee in the kitchen of the Institute. Though it was still very early in the morning, neither felt like going back to sleep.

"Man, this was one whacky night", Bobby sighed. "Hey, gimmie another one."

"No way, man. You've had enough."

"Oh gimmie a break."

"Okay, you asked for it." Scott poured Bobby another cup. "So, how'd you like Forge's gizmo?"

"Cool. I mean, I'd never be late for school if I had one of those. And we wouldn't have to sneak out."

"Uh-huh."

Suddenly, the door, which was barely cracked, flew across the room, and Jean stepped into the doorframe, although it was hard to tell whether it was Jean Grey or some kind of a mutant cream monster. Her red hair was all a mess, and her entire face was covered in shaving cream. The overall efect was both hilarious and frightening.

Scott immediately backed away against the fridge. "Jean... uh, hi! What... what happened?"

"Don't you play dumb with me, Scott Summers! I know where you two have been last night! As for you - " Jean turned to Bobby, who gulped and tried to hide behind Scott " - you're in big trouble."

"But I was only kidding, man - uh, I mean, girl! C'mon - "

"Kid this!" Jean shouted and, using her powers, she opened the fridge door, sending both Scott and Bobby crashing on the floor. Using her powers, she took out a cream pie and shoved it into Bobby's face. "Ha!" More food flew from the open fridge, until Scott and Bobby were almost buried in it. "That'll teach you", Jean said finally, stopping the culinary avalanche and turning to leave.

"Oh no you don't!" Bobby picked up something that must've been a ham sandwich and thew it at Jean, hitting her in the head. "You won't get away that easy!"

"Uh, you-" Jean's mistake was to turn around, so the big, smelly fish hit her straight in the face, and she staggered a few steps behind. At the same time, Scott attacked with an open can of beans, and now Jean herself looked like a walking cooking pot.

"You'll pay for this, Scott", she yelled, and a stream of molasses suddenly pored down from a measuring cup all over Scott. Bobby jumped out of the way just in time and, while Scott tried to wipe the sticky substance from his eyes, Jean tripped him down into the pile of food on the floor. Now it was Scott who looked like a living cooking pot.

The food fight went on like this for about half an hour or so, until, finally, awaken by the noise, Professor X came downstairs to investigate what was going on. After hearing the whole story, her sent all three mutants to take a serious shower, and punished them to do all the chores around for a full week. Jean grunted at this and tried to throw some cream at the Professor using her powers, but he was quicker, and Jean got another splat of cream on her once perfect hair. After that, everyone went to clean themselves, careful not to be seen by anyone and unaware that Spyke had gotten the whole thing on tape. The same afternoon, everyone laughed their heads off when they saw the tape, and even Logan smirked faintly.

~
Magneto sighed and lazily cracked his eyes open. The twenty-four hours nap was starting to show off. He felt rested and ready to start a new day in battling against the X-Men.

Suddenly, something warm slid down his neck, and, reaching out to see what it was, Magneto found with surprise that a duck had been sleeping on his head. He gave it a puzzled glare.

"Crazy kids", he muttered to himself; then, he shrugged and went to wash the ducky poo off.