Rogue paced back and forth in front of her team, practically bursting with restless energy. She was nervous and excited at the same time as this would be her real first mission as team leader of the X-men beta team. She intensely disliked the Alpha team constantly referring to them as the “junior X-men” feeling it was patronizing. Until now Beta had not yet been allowed solo field missions, so she’d taken matters into her own hands, determined to send her team out regardless.

“Alright people, enough of the kid’s table shit!” she barked, causing everyone to snap to attention. Gambit put the cards he had been shuffling with one hand in his cloak pocket. John and Bobby ceased their quiet conversation and gave their full attention at the decisive command in Rogue’s voice. Jubilee sat at Rogue’s right hand, fanning several folios of data about their mission. Kitty’s hand hovered expectantly over her notepad.

“Tonight at zero hundred hours we begin. We have 24 hours to hit the targets, achieve our objectives, and evac without detection. That means-“ Rogue's gaze lashed over each team member with a burning intensity, “you ALL have to be consistently on task and focused. “ She gestured to her right and Jubilee slid into her hand the mission particular, which Rogue distributed to her team.

“As we’ve gone over in detail over the last two weeks we all have our individually assigned targets and multiple objectives. Despite a great deal of this operation being undertaken by individuals in solo phases, during the mission there will be times when you will work in tandem with your pre-assigned teammates to achieve an objective. You all have your go signals for each phase, so pay attention to the calls. Things may not go in the chronology we planned, in fact COUNT ON IT!” She banged her fist on the table in emphasis, causing Kitty to nod seriously and scribble note furiously

“Stick to the plan. For phase one from zero hundred to 0700 we will be radio silent as we will be able to accomplish the objectives without relayed communication or detection at this early stage as we have the element of surprise. We then rendezvous at 077 to evaluate phase one implementation. After that we switch to earpieces and you follow my call signs without question.” She made eye contact with eye team member to reinforce that her orders were to be followed to the T. “One slip up…ONE…and the whole mission will be compromised, and I cannot promise any of us will survive if the targets acquire us before we can evac. Jubilee!”

Rogue whipped her head to face her first officer, who sat up straighter and said with a professional and alert air, “Sir!”

“You have the most important missions of all. It will require intense concentration and the ability to keep it for a sustained period of time. You will need absolute focus and will be working solo for all of phase one. I have confidence in you, which is why I have given you this specific assignment. You will be one your own except when we rendezvous. Stay quiet and out of the way, but stay alert and focus on the target and objective at all times. Without you our mission will be detected before we even get off the ground and we will be DEAD. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir!” Jubilee said firmly, her mouth tightening into a grim line. She would not let Beta team down, they could count on her.

“Gambit, Shadowcat, you will wait at your designated positions until 0300 hours while Jubilee works, then move on your targets. Iceman, Pyro, and I will set the booby traps at the designated coordinates at the same time. Do not deviate from your assignments and do not get caught. If any of you are caught we WILL leave you behind and disavow any knowledge of this operation. DO YOU GET ME?!” She shouted at her team. If they couldn’t handle the idea of being left to enemy hands she needed to know it now. They did not let her down.

“YES SIR!” her entire team shouted in unison.

“And IF I am captured you WILL leave me behind. No one is going to be a hero today. There’s too much at stake. GOT IT!”

“YES SIR!” She was proud of her team, they were the best and it was time everyone knew it. She could see on all their faces the determination, the commitment, the stuff that made them a superlative team. Beta knew now it was time to prove it once and for all to each other, to themselves, and to the Alpha team.

Those assholes were going to start paying big time in a couple of hours. Because then it would be April Fools day.

The following morning the senior staff, Alpha team, was settling down to breakfast at the head table while Beta team quietly sat across the room at their own corner, bookending the crowd of 40+ students between them. Beta team preferred to sit on the other side of the room from Alpha team in the mornings to discuss training and briefings without constant annoying tips from Scott and gruff criticism from Logan. Today, they were even happier to be as far away as possible to eliminate possible detection of tired faces, slight bags under bloodshot eyes, and twitches at the corners of their lips. Jubilee sat with her back to the Alpha team, her head down, focusing intently on her cereal but only stirring it listlessly while she creased her forehead in concentration at the seeming puzzle of soggy marshmallow stars, clovers, and red balloons.

“You’re a trooper, Jubes,” Rogue said, massaging her friend’s shoulder lightly. Kitty hovered on her other side, holding Jubilee’s hand gently.

“I didn’t know this was going to be so hard,” the yellow clad sparkler whispered. “You know I practically have ADD.”

“Trust me, you’re the only one I could count on for this stage. You’re doing great, only 5 more hours to go then Bobby will spell you at noon. You kept us from being detected last night. My right hand man.” She slapped Jubilee gently on the back in a comradely fashion.

“Ok,” Jubilee sighed and massaged her temples, shutting her eyes to focus harder.

Jean Grey swept into the cafeteria humming, grabbed a bowl of fruit salad and a glass of OJ, and nodded politely to Bobb,y who courteously stepped to allow the senior X-man to pass. He lingered near the senior staff table, examining his breakfast choices from the buffet and eavesdropping.

Jean dropped into her seat and continued to hum as she meticulously rearranged the fruit in her bowl to her satisfaction.

“Good night last night?” Ororo cocked an eyebrow at Jean’s unusual good mood. Usually the telepath was a bit dour first thing in the morning.

“Oh no,” Jean said absently, shaking her head slightly, “You know how sometimes you get a tune in your head that you can’t stop playing over and over?” Ro nodded. “Well, I had the strangest dream last night about birds and I swear I’ve been stuck on ‘Rockin’ Robin” ever since I woke up. I love that song, but I haven’t heard it in forever.” And she went back to humming between bites of melon and berries.

Bobby ran his left hand over the back of his head, the signal to a watching John at the Beta table. John leaned over and whispered to Jubilee, “Confirmation.”

She nodded and continued to frown into her cereal. “I fucking hate that song. The thing I do for you guys.”

“That’s my trooper,” Rogue said, rubbing her friend’s neck once more.

Logan stomped into cafeteria more loudly than usual, causing a few heads to turn. He was wearing a green t-shirt that said “Kiss me, I’m Irish” in gold lettering. When Hank opened his mouth Logan snarled what sounded very much like a death threat and the furry doctor’s lip zipped.

Logan slammed down his cup of black coffee and glowered into it, as though it were the reason all his other t-shirts smelled like shit. “Laundry service messed up my clothes, put fabric softener in. All my shirts stink except this one,” he grunted at Ro’s curious look.

She nodded, well aware that Logan was extremely particular that his clothes be washed only in unscented pure soap with no additives at any point in the washing. Most common detergents irritated his nose and sensitive skin in the extreme.

Remy reached over to tap Kitty’s hand consoling Jubilee’s torment and nodded knowingly over her shoulder. “Confirmation.” She smiled tightly but did not look around to see her handwork. She was extremely relieved Logan had not detected her presence in his room when he returned to the mansion close to dawn. Rogue knew it was fight night at his favorite bar, which factored quite neatly into their plan. His fresh laundry has been placed on his bed by the mansion service earlier that evening and Shadowcat had sprayed all his black and white t-shirts lightly with Febreeze. She remained in her phased form for 5 minutes before entering his room, during the mission, and 5 minutes after she exited and returned to her own wing, remembering several years ago he’d said she was nearly impossible to scent in her impermeable state.

“Too bad he didn’t have a pink shirt,” she muttered quietly, all too aware of Logan’s enhanced hearing.

“Nothing doing, sugah,” Rogue whispered. “The only reason he has that is I made him wear it for St. Paddy’s Day last year. Surprised he still has it.”

Scott walked in near the end of breakfast, an extremely harried look on his face. He grabbed a coffee and bagel and slid into the seat next to his wife, dropping a perfunctory kiss on his wife’s cheek while she hummed aimlessly into her OJ. Logan quirked an eyebrow as Scott’s choice of eye wear that morning, his ruby quartz swim goggles. Without his sunglasses or visor covering up most of his upper face, Scott was able to shoot a raised eyebrow of his own at Logan’s horrendous and several weeks out of style t-shirt in return. Logan had the good grace to admit he had no room to rib the fearless leader that morning and only grunted.

“Couldn’t find my glasses this morning. Jean, did you put them somewhere? Jean?” Cyclops nudged her. “Hello, honey?” He snapped his fingers in front of his wife’s face, and she seemed to snap to herself and out of the song she was engrossed in.

“What honey?” She looked at him abstractedly. “What’s with the goggles?”

Scott huffed, “That’s what I was going to ask you. Did you put my glasses somewhere? I couldn’t find them.”

“No, I didn’t,” she replied tersely and went back to making abstract formations with her uneaten fruit salad and humming Rockin’ Robin.

“I couldn’t find my spare set either,” Scott groused, shooting a look at Hank. “If someone would finish with the upgrade to my visor I wouldn’t have to wear these.”

“I’m sorry my friend, I would have had it ready for you this morning but something appears to have gone wrong overnight with the chemical coating I applied to the interior of the quartz,” Hank said, a frown creasing his furry forehead as he considered the problem that was puzzling him. “I was attempting to refract incoming light with a new silicone based polymer to increase your night vision capability. But for some unknown reason during the evening an unexpected reaction occurred and the compound turned opaque.”

“English doc,” grunted Logan, still glaring into his coffee and plucking morosely at his shirt.

Hanks fur ruffled slightly in annoyance. “It means he can’t see through his visor until I remove the compound, so it’s either the goggles or nothing until at least tomorrow.” That made Logan’s day a bit brighter. He could throw his jacket on to hide this butt ugly shirt but Scooter would be stuck looking like a dork for the rest of the day.

“Confirmed,” Rogue said to Gambit and he nodded seriously, only the corners of his red on black eyes crinkling to indicate his satisfaction at the perfect heist. Rogue nodded back, pleased with her decision to use the professional thief for this particular phase. Only Remy had the stealth to not only steal right from under the nose of the Alpha couple while they slept but also to evade tripping any of the motion detectors in the med lab and contaminate Beasts’ experiment without detection. Shadowcat was excellent at sneaking in and out of places, but Gambit’s innate stealth was practically a mutation of its own.

And without Jubilee’s constant, endless projection of Rockin’ Robin Jean might sense the tension and subterfuge that was surely bubbling on the top of Beta teams’ minds. The good doctor wasn’t nearly as ethical as the Professor (who was thankfully at a conference in France) when it came to poking in people’s heads. At the least she might have detected Gambit’s sinister presence in her room last night. Jubilee’s and later Iceman’s projection marathon of the most annoying song Rogue could think of was crucial to escaping detection from the snoopy telepath for the duration of the mission.

So far, phase one was going exactly according to plan. But the last operation in this phase of the mission was going to be the trickiest yet. And if she slipped up in her implementation she’d be the one left behind by her teammates, just as she’d ordered. No time to worry about that, she thought as she checked her watch, time for her to implement her own strike.

Wolverine finished the last of his coffee and stomped out the door. Despite the dark look on his face, Rogue excused herself from the Beta table and followed him, the mission first and foremost on her mind.

“Hey Logan!” she called. As usual his feet ground to a halt. It was nice to have that kind of power over her friend. To bad she didn’t have a lust mutation instead, she thought, of just kid sister Wolverine taming wonder powers. She shrugged, time enough for that later as she caught up with him. “Morning sunshine,” she drawled and turned her smile to megawatt power. Logan relaxed a bit at her seemingly easy expressions and grunted what sounded like a “good morning” back. Innocent smile still firmly in place she glanced at his horrid t-shirt and back at his eyes. Uh-oh, his eyebrow were doing that hawkish thing, drawn down like an angry V. “Not saying anything sugah. You want your jacket? I think you left it to my room the other night after the hockey game.”

“Yeh thanks kid. I can’t go around like this the rest of the day.” He followed her to her room.

“Classes today?” she asked, keeping up what she hoped sounded like idle conversation.

“Nah, Scott’s taking my intermediate self-defense class to a dojo in town. Something about needing to teach them how to fight ‘the proper way’” he sneered, still annoyed Summer thought his teaching methodology was questionable and insisted on taking over the class once a month to teach them pansy shit like rules and no ball-kicking. “I gotta go to town and pick up a part for the jeep.” Rogue knew this already, having memorized the teaching schedule for the week while tactical planning with her team.

“Can I go with you?” already knowing his answer. He always got his ear bent by Xavier or Scott for taking her out on his bike during the day in front of the students. Some bullshit about “people talking.” Part of him didn’t mind if people speculated about his special friendship with Rogue, it gave the growl voice in the back of his head more fodder to tease him with late at night, especially the idea of how much it would piss Summers off. The other part, the teacher-mentor-big brother part definitely did not like that other people looked at Rogue that way, like she could be something more than just his friend. It was a thought that he debated endlessly with himself and worrying about other people’s thoughts on it just pissed him off more.

“Nah kid. I got some other…stuff to do. You’d be bored.”

Rogue opened the door to her room. “Alright, I got things I need to work on anyways. Here ya go.” She grabbed his jacket from behind a chair and held it open for him. Amused that she was being so solicitous, Logan turned around and shrugged into it, relishing the brief touch of her fingers against his neck as she turned down the collar and patted it into place. He turned to see her brilliant smile turned full-blast on him.

“What?”

“Nothing…you just look nice sugah.” And she patted him on the cheek like a little boy she was sending off to grade school. Scowling inwardly at that though, Logan grunted and stomped out the door.

“God, would it kill him to just WALK?” But even Logan’s noisy exit couldn’t shake her giddiness at the successful completion of this stage of the mission.

Wolverine stalked down the hall, sipping his jacket all the way up to his throat. It was a little warm for leather but fuck all if he was going to let anyone else see him in that fucking stupid shirt. Classes were about to start and the hall was clogged with rugrats who obligingly scampered out of his way, some of out habit but most b/c of the more-then-usual snarly look on his face. As he passed he heard a few giggles. More giggles. Logan turned around and looked down the hall to see what was so funny. No one there except some junior high school grader mutants and the sound stopped. He turned back and continued towards the garage. Titters again, then some outright laughs. Again he turned around, nothing unusual, just a gaggles of snot noses covering their mouths with their hands. He growled at them, pleased to see a few of them back up with wide eyes, then he continued on his way, growing every more aggravated at the sound of laughter behind him. He checked his zipper, up tight. Word must’ve gotten around about the stupid shirt at breakfast. Grr.

Logan kicked his motorcycle to life and headed to town. No helmet as usual, what was the need with an adamantium skull and healing factor. Besides, he liked to feel the wind in his face. He gunned the bike down the highway, taking the long route to town, letting himself unwind in the way only the bike let him. He gave a couple of low hand signs to passing bikes from the other direction and nodded to another one he passed. The grizzled guy on the Harley sped up to match his speed, then looked over and grinned at Logan. Logan nodded back.

The guy still kept grinning, despite missing a few teeth. The other biker swerved a little closer and the Wolverine tensed, not sure what to make of it. The biked yelled, “You got style!” and laughed. Logan was confused, but nodded and gunned the bike, racing to the breakdown lane on the left to leave the moron behind.

Logan slowed down in the emergency lane after a couple of miles, easing back to let a family sedan overtake him on the right. He looked over to gauge the distance to move back to the fast lane and saw two little girls waving at him. What the fuck? Little girls did not smile and wave at him. He was a big, scary looking, badass motherfucker on a Harley. Then the mom in the front seat smiled and wiggled her fingers too, said something and the little girls laughed behind the window and waved some more. Disgruntled, Logan slowed down to let them pass him, and crossed 3 lanes of traffic, enjoying the blare of horns behind him as he took the exit to the auto shop. He spent some time poking through the aisles until he found what he wanted, but the whole time something was setting him on edge. It seemed like every asshole in the place was looking at him. It wasn’t like he was some new guy, hell he was in here every week. Every the clerk who rang up his order had a funny look on his face as he made conversation.

“Having a good day?” For someone reason the cashier’s voice cracked. Logan grunted something noncommittal, wanting to get the fuck out of there b/c everyone was acting weird. “So, you like Japanese stuff?”

“What?” That was a totally random question. I mean, he used to live in Japan but no one outside of the mansion knew that.

“Nothing.” The clerk’s face was red. Logan growled, took the alternator and stomped out. The unmistakable sound of guffaws reached his ears. What is with everyone today?

Logan tossed the alternator on the work bench in the garage and headed to the kitchen for a cup of joe before a Danger Room session. When he got there Gambit was settled at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper with one hand and idly shuffling his ever-present deck of card with his other. Logan poured himself a cup, took a big slug, then choked and spat it into the sink.

“What the hell is this shit?!”

Gambit didn’t bother to lower the paper to respond, “Es chicory mon ami. We out of regular coffee so Gambit make dat. Drink all the time in Nawlins.”

“Tastes like mulch from Ro’s flower bed.”

“Gambit tink you not man enough for dat drink.”

“Whatever Gumbo. It just tastes like ass.” Remy shrugged and turned back to the paper, starting on the crossword. Kitty rolled in, juggling a few textbooks.

“Oh thank god, I need some coffee before working on this assignment,” she sighed and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. Logan didn’t bother to warn her about the manure tasting concoction and just waited with anticipation for the look of disgust he was sure was coming.

She sniffed it then turned to Gambit. “Chicory? I haven’t had this in forever.” Kitty then took a hearty swig. He was sadly disappointed she didn’t instantly vomit and even more so when she shrugged. “It’s a little weak Remy.”

Gambit nodded towards Logan. “De Wolverine tink it too strong.” Kitty rolled her eyes at Logan, as though sorely disappointed in him, balanced her mug on her books and left the kitchen. Curious as to what exactly he was missing with this foul stuff, Logan sniffed it again. Catching the amused look on Gambit’s face, Logan scowled and took another drink and struggled valiantly to keep a nonplussed look on his face while the vile stuff roiled its way down his throat and settled in his gut like a steamy pile of crap.

While he was trying to muscle through another mouthful Scott walked into the kitchen and reached for a mug from the shelf. Logan definitely wasn’t going to warn Cyke about the crap in the coffee pot, especially if he was the only one who couldn’t tolerate the stuff. Scott inspected his mug before turning to the sink to rinse it out. “Anal right down to your coffee cup” Logan snorted internally. His annoyance at Scott turned to delight when the fearless leader turned on the tap and instead of water coming out of the faucet it shot out the dish sprayer next to it, soaking his shirt.

Logan practically cried with laughter at the look on Scott’s face as he limply plucked his drenched shirt away from his chest. The look on Cyclops face was one of intense aggravation and it wasn’t helped by Logan’s jibe that now his swim goggles were appropriate attire. Scott brought on hand to his eyes and appeared seriously tempted to rip his eyewear off and blast Logan through the French doors to the patio. Gambit quietly slipped out the side door to the hallway while Logan and Scott traded insults and watched from the shadows under the stairs as Alpha team’s leader stalked out of the kitchen towards the teacher’s wing to change. From the sounds behind the now closed kitchen door, Logan had apparently turned on the TV to watch the news and a crinkling sound indicted he’d taken up the discarded newspaper. Gambit muttered into his sleeve mic to Bobby that his careful rigging of the sink sprayer with Krazy Glue had taken down Scott’s already bad mood another notch. Rogue sounded quietly in Gambit’s ear, asking for confirmation of someone having a drink.

“Oui chere,” he whispered again, keeping one eye on the kitchen door. “De Wolfman still trying to finish his cup. Kitty did good work.”

A whispered thanks from Shadowcat sounded and was followed by, “What did you put in it exactly?”

Gambit eyed the door again, keeping one ear alert to the sound of Logan on the other side. “Lawn clippings, mulch, and dat manure what was spread yesterday on de rose bushes.”

A gagging sound came through the earpiece. “Thank god I didn’t actgually put that in my mouth!” The distinct sounds of Iceman and Pyro chuckling over the comm from their positions near the greenhouses made Gambit smile. His grin widened a mile when he heard the sound of a coffee mug shattering on the floor and Logan cursing. Apparently the big man in his distraction had forgotten to watch out when he tried to rinse his cup out in the sink. Gambit slipped quickly away, muttering an addendum to his report up his sleeve.

Logan was more than ready for a Danger Room session after the way his morning had been. Beast was already waiting for him and the two spent an hour battling through a post-apocalyptic urban setting chased by Sentinels and government super soldiers equipped with heavy artillery. After working off enough bad temper to make Logan only pissed off instead of borderline homicidal the two men headed to the locker room, threw their sweaty uniforms down the laundry chute and made their way to the sauna to relax muscles after a hard workout. Hank shoved open the door into the large cedar hotbox, looking over his shoulder to finish a query about a particular fighting move he’d studied Logan using in the DR, and he didn’t notice the sauna was already occupied.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?!” Jubilee screamed, scrambling to snatch up the pitiful excuse for a towel she’d dropped on the floor at her feet while relaxing in the steamy heat. The towel was incredibly tiny and chosen for that exact reason, so Jubilee wriggled in apparent desperation to cover her nakedness.

Hank’s furry hands shot up to cover his eyes while he body blocked Logan from seeing into the sauna around his massive blue body. “Oh dear, I am so sorry Miss Lee, please excuse us. My most sincere apologies-”

Logan barked at Jubilee “What are YOU doing in here?!” past Hank’s shoulder and the large blue hand that was unsuccessfully trying to reach behind to cover Logan’s eyes as well.

“This is the women’s locker room you assholes!! GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!!” Jubes screeched as she attempted to flap her hands in a shooing motion without losing her towel, causing it to slip even more. Hank apparently wasn’t covering his eyes completely because the portions of his hands and face that weren’t covered in fur flushed purple. He backtracked and stumbled into Logan, pushing his friend with him as he hurried them away from the sign of the lovely Eurasian young lady doing a wildly erotic shimmy in the itty bitty towel while trying to preserve her modesty.

Logan and Hank stood in the hallway outside the locker rooms for a moment, Beast trying to regain his composure, his fur ruffled in multiple directions, and Logan grinning sideways at the blue doctor’s discomfit. They crossed the hall and headed to the communal shower room, all ideas of a sauna forgotten. The screams the very wet, very naked, very angry Rogue and Kitty that greeted them with when the men stepped into communal shower room made Logan’s ear practically bleed, but the sight had his eyes almost bugging out of his head. This time Beast did an adequate job of slapping a large blue palm over the other man’s face and dragging them both of there posthaste.

Once again they found themselves in the hallway between the locker rooms, both of which now had “Women” signs on them. “So where’s our locker room?” Logan wondered out loud. Hank announced that he was most definitely not going to look for it, fished several dirty towels out of the wash cart in the hallway, wrapped them around him as best he could, and headed out of the gym area and straight for his room near the med lab, where he swore he would take showers from now on.

Logan contemplated sneaking back into the second locker room to take a peek at Rogue showering. The bonus of seeing the pip squeak Kitty in the buff also had its merits also, but she was the trailer compared to the feature attraction of Rogue: all those legs, that auburn and red hair wet and running over her shoulders and between bazoogas he’d never known she was hiding all these years.

That thought withered on the vine, so to speak, when a dressed Jubilee walked out of first locker room, eyed a very naked Logan up and down and asked, “Are you cold?”

Rogue and Kitty almost suffocated on their giggles when they heard their co-conspirator's question through their earpieces and Logan’s extremely loud snarl that needed no audio device to be picked up. Quiet high fives were exchanged before they two women dressed and Kitty phased both of them down 2 floors to the med lab where they switched all the acids for bases while Hank was down the hall in his private bathroom, trying to scrub away all remnants of Jubilee’s nude hokey-pokey from his mind’s eye.

The good doctor was so focused on not reliving the sight of firm, taunt, young buttocks wriggling back and forth under a miniscule scrap of terry cloth that he never noticed a hand phase through the wall and reach into the medicine cabinet over the sink.

By late afternoon nerves were frazzled at the mansion, especially after the fire. Scott told John it wasn’t his fault, not really. Storm had just over-reacted when she found the greenhouse environmental controls stuck at 30 degrees and her prize orchids in danger of dying. She’d dragged Pyro from the basketball court by the scruff of his neck and shrieked at him to raise the temperature in the greenhouse that instant. Rogue and several other people who’d been outside in the late day sun watched the scene unfold. John protested, a bit too weakly the commander in Rogue thought making a note to drill him on better acting in the future, that he couldn’t control the temperature.

“Storm, fire is fire! It’s either hot or its like really…really…uh hot! I can’t-”

Storm was practically in a frenzy, darting from plant to plant, almost crying as her prize-winning blooms began to shrivel before her eyes in the frigid air of the malfunctioning greenhouse. This malfunction was, of course, a direct result of Iceman tampering with the controls and dumping some mutated muscle power into the Freon in the A/C unit that kept the indoor arboretum from becoming unacceptably hot in summer. She screamed at Pyro “JUST FUCKING DO IT! NOW!” and the air in the greenhouse whipped into almost gale force winds, damaging her beloved flowers even more than the cold. When a goddess start swearing like a sailor in 3 languages and threatens to fry you with 50,000,000 volts of lightning you’d be nervous too. With Storm hovering over him, hissing invectives at him to heat up the space pronto, Pyro lost control (truly accidentally, even he hadn’t meant to cause so much destruction) and blew out the glass in the walls with an inadvertently large fireball, then melted half the ceiling, causing everyone to flee for their lives from the molten silica falling like acid rain around them.

Hank spent the better part of the afternoon being badly tended to in the infirmary by a distracted Jean who kept levitating unconsciously while singing “Tweedle-lee-dee-dee-dee, tweedle-lee-dee-dee.” Beast was suffering from intensely uncomfortable armpitis. The unscented Bengay Kitty had liberally smeared on top of his Speedstick created a most unpleasant burning sensation that forced him to wear a wife-beater borrowed from Logan, which was stretched ludicrously tight over his furry chest, allowing blue hair to sprout from neck and armholes in an extremely hilarious fashion. In addition to the unfortunate outfit, Beast had to walk around with his arms bowed out to his sides to minimize the stinging in his pits, which made him look even more like a royal blue orangutan than he usually did.

Scott and Logan wasted 3 hours in the garage ripping apart Logan/Scott’s motorcycle to determine the source of the mysterious oil puddle that had appeared under it after Logan’s morning ride. Their inability to find the source of the leak, despite oil liberally smeared all over the casing by Jubilee after her nap to recover from 12 hours of Bobby Day mental karaoke for Jean’s benefit, was causing both men to snap at each other more viciously than ever.

Their sniping came to a head when both men were in their rooms across the hall from each other, changing out of greasy garage clothes for dinner when Kitty tied their doorknobs together a length of industrial strength cable. She banged on both their doors and phased through the floor. Shortly thereafter half the mansion could hear the combined and infinitely creative profanity of the two Alpha X-men as they struggled to open their own doors while simultaneously slamming the door of the other man working equally vigorously to exit his own room.

Logan was already in a foul mood b/c his favorite belt buckle wasn’t anywhere to be found and someone had sewn underwear, tighty-whiteys of all things, to the inside of all his jeans. He’d shredded two pairs in his haste to claw out the offending undergarments before he’d finally salvaged a pair to wear commando. His piss poor attitude was evenly matched by Scott’s, who’d just discovered a stash of mutant porn magazines in Jean’s underwear drawer with pointy hair and muttonchops drawn onto the naked male models with the most body hair and bulging muscles and oversized schlongs.

Just as Logan popped his claws to slice down his door and deal a deathblow to Summers who was screaming death threats at him from across the hall, Cyclops lost his temper utterly and, wrenching off his swim goggles, unleashed a full power optic blast through his own door and Logan’s…and then Logan himself, flinging the big man through the back wall of his room and out onto the gravel driveway 25 feet below.

Dinner in the staff dining room away from the student body was not much better, with Jean absent mindedly floating objects around her head like miniature satellites while babbling about “Jaybird street.” Hank was making even Logan’s iron cast stomach gurgle unhappily as he repeatedly scratched at it burning armpits then sniffed his fingers.

Logan has never had an upset stomach in his life, but his manure shake earlier that day made him seriously ponder driving 27 inches of adamantium into his gut and ripping the organ out for something better to do. He did not know how normal people survived all the embarrassing noises and emissions his GI tract was currently making. And oh god, the smell. It was like something crawled up his ass, resurrected after 3 days, then died again after visiting Taco Bell. He had to breath through his mouth and hoped to God no one knew it was him. Too bad they didn’t have an X-dog he could blame it on.

Scott was feeling his way around the table and his plate, making an unholy mess of his meal, hands, and clothes as he fumbled blind-folded for his food. Having broken his goggles by accidentally stamping on them when he blasted Wolverine out of the mansion, he was reduced to tying one of Jean’s scarves around his eyes. It was a quite pretty purple paisley print with burnt orange piping. He couldn’t see what he doing. Sue him.

Hank apologized many times between unmannered scratches at his pits for not having fixed Scott’s visor yet. He tried to explain that something was went wrong in the lab, as evidenced by a bright yellow streaks of chemically burned hair along his forearms that was the result of mixing one of Kitty and Rogue’s mislabeled beakers into a rather volatile compound. But his long-winded monologue on the hazards of chemistry was lost on everyone at the table, absorbed as they were in their own torment.

Logan was still moodily picking gravel out from between his knuckles where it had embedded after his claws retracted upon hitting the driveway with enough force to create a decent sized crater. If Scooter hadn’t been defenseless at the moment Wolverine would have served minced Fearless Leader as an aperitif. As it was, Logan settled for merely moving Scott’s glass too close to the edge of the table so Cyclops knocked it into Jean’s lap. She bounced a floating salt shaker sharply off her husband’s head then resumed her one-sided conversation with her third glass of wine debating how a raven could out-bop a buzzard and an oriole.

Storm had refused to come out of her room, still too shaken by the destruction of her greenhouse. No one had yet seen her hair. Even the Beta team wasn’t so cruel as to put permanent hair color in her shampoo bottle, but she wasn’t about to let anyone see her like this until she could get all the sky blue color out, specially picked out by Bobby as it was his favorite shade.

The Beta Team From Hell sat quietly at the other table, aware that being only feet aware from the senior x-men was dangerous as this point in the operation and they could not afford to slip into the gales of laughter that were threatening to consume them all. They settled for a series of kicks to each other’s shins and pinches under the table each time Hank raised his arm to sniff at the underside or Scott stuck his hand in the mashed potatoes or Logan cursed while working another stubborn piece of quartz out of his skin. Jubilee and Pyro keep an arm each on Kitty to prevent her from phasing through the floor in hysterics; she was dangerously close to losing her game face and spoiling the coup de grace that would commence later that evening.

After dinner, Hank retired to the med lab to cautiously attempt to cook up a medicated balm for his underarm irritation. Storm stayed secluded in her room, although she was going a bit insane trying to locate the source of the random beeping that emanated from somewhere in her attic refuge every few minutes, or sometimes twice in a few seconds. But it was never sounded long enough for her to locate its source. The Annoy-a-tron device Pyro had purchased online several weeks ago was a slice of evil genius even Rogue herself was envious of.

When Storm was finally about to lose her mind, she rang the downstairs line in the kitchen and demanded Logan come to her room immediately to assist her. After getting over the initial shock of seeing Storm’s formerly platinum tresses now an eye watering shade of robin’s egg blue, Wolverine joined the search. Even with his enhanced senses, Logan spent the better part of an hour with Storm tearing apart her formerly peaceful sanctuary in a vain effort to locate the quarter sized device that was programmed the generate a short, annoying beep of varying volumes randomly timed anywhere from 45 seconds apart to almost 10 minutes (AN: This is a real device you can buy online). Kitty surreptitiously phased her face the tiniest fraction into a darkened corner of the attic space to confirm Logan and Ororo’s effort to locate the infuriating device were fruitless, and withdrew to report into her sleeve mic the objective was achieved was going swimmingly.

Rogue acknowledged completion and gave Jubilee the go-signal to enter the garage with Kitty and get to work . Hank was hiding in his in the med lab, the power couple were having blazing row in the backyard over Jean’s secret stash of Wolverine-esque masturbatory reading material, and Logan and Ro were demolishing a section of drywall in her room the weather goddess insisted the beep was coming from. A little while later Gambit whispered urgently into the comm that Logan had given up on locating the source the maddening noise in Storm’s room and was returning downstairs in a temper.

Rogue shifted on her power smile again and “accidentally” greeted him at the bottom of stairs with a cold beer. “You don’t look like you’re having a good day sugah,” and she held out the icy cold Molson to him. The look of pure adoration on Logan’s face almost, almost made her rethink what they were doing.

Then he grunted “Thanks, kid,” snatched the bottle from her hands and stalked to the staff rec room without a backwards glance. Her fleeting sympathy was squashed as she called out “There’s more in the mini-fridge” at his retreating back and all she got was a stiff jerk of his head before he pounded open the rec room door with a fist and banged it behind him.

“Hope he likes his severely expired beer at a balmy 96 degrees thanks to John,” she thought to herself evilly.

While Jubilee and Kitty finished their work in the garage, Rogue sat in the library, deserted now that all the students were in bed, coordinating via comm with Bobby, John, and Gambit on the final act. Her three male teammates had gallantly offered to attach new doors to Logan and Scott’s doorframes, Xavier always having extras on hand in the basement storage room as it was not an uncommon occurrence to have to replace them on a regular basis at a school where people could stick to, blow up, or puke acid on every surface on it. The Cyclops demolition had been an unexpected bonus which allowed them easy access to the room while their occupants were occupied having makeup, blindfolded sex in the gazebo out back or cursing at not only their favorite hockey team losing but discovering the fridge was busted and all the beer was skunked. Scott and Jean’s toilet was covered in translucent saran wrap under the seat, and when Logan next took a shower he would be in for an unhappy surprise when Kool-Aid mixed with water in the showerhead and he got a face full of Strawberry Banana Tropical Punch.

Final stages of sabotage completed, Beta team rendezvoused in Rogue’s room at 1100 hours to crack open half a dozen bottles of delectable French wine Remy had swiped from the Professor’s private stash in the not-so-secret room behind the hidden panel in his office.

“Leave it to Gambit, dis is the good stuff,” the thief grinned as he lounged on the floor at the foot of Rogue’s bed, one leg kicked lazily over the other, cradling a half empty bottle of Petrus Pomerol 1998 like it was a long lost lover.

“No, the good stuff was the look on Storm’s face when Logan accidentally clawed through the electrical wiring in her wall looking for the Annoy-a-tron!” Kitty crowed, her head resting in Bobby’s lap as he stroked her hair.

“Oh god, do it again, please!” Tears were twinkling in Iceman’s blue eyes. He was laughing so hard he didn’t even notice his tears were crackling into tiny icicles as they froze on his cheeks. Kitty leapt from Bobby’s embrace and pounced onto Rogue’s bed. She snikted out 3 fingers into an imaginary wall then started twitching like she was having a seizure. Pyro bounded up behind her and pulled her hair into up spikes all over her head.

“Someone should remind him that metal is an excellent conductor for electricity!” he guffawed and flopped down with a bounce that knocked Kitty off the bed onto Gambit, almost spilling a marvelous bottle of Chateau Latour Pauillac 1990. Remy leapt to her aid.

“Non ma belle, don’t spill it. Tis a crime!” the Cajun admonished as he rescued the bottle from Jubilee’s tenuous grip. They all started laughing again.

Rogue took the saved bottle from Remy and took a long draw, then wiped her the back of her hand across her mouth. “I wonder if Beast has found the 10 packets of jello you and John dumped in his toilet,” she drawled to Iceman.

“If he has it’s probably already under a microscope, and he’s analyzing it to determine if a new mutant suck into the mansion through the sewage lines,” Bobby sniggered. That sent them all into gales of laughter, rolling all over the place and each other, clutching their sides. They were all feeling excellent, a little drunk not just on the sweet vintages they were demolishing but giddy also on sweet, sweeeeet victory. They all crowded onto Rogue’s king sized bed, passing bottles back and forth and recounting the various successes of the day. They all were grinning miles wide.

Then Rogue leaned over and kissed Remy’s neck long and slow. Red on black eyes twinkled in delight, “Oui chere, it’s about time,” he murmured as he tilted his neck back to allow her further access and slipped one hand across chest to quickly unbutton her blouse, allowing breasts encased in an emerald green satin push up bra to spill out. Jubilee practically ripped Pyro’s shirt off while Iceman and Kitty were both already stripped down to their skivvies.

All the Beta women starting moaning loudly and wriggling all over the bed and their teammates while the guys groaned, “Yes…come one…that’s it…louder,” their hands hands wandering over previously forbidden curves, pinching and caressing. Kitty squealed as John’s tongue flicked over her bare shoulder. Jubilee cackled with delight when Remy’s hand slapped her bottom hard. Rogue played tonsil hockey with Iceman for a moment before scratching his chest hard, making him shout. They were all laughing and groaning and making quite a racket and none of them cared. This was it, what they were going to reward themselves with for their weeks of careful planning and hard work. They deserved it.

Feet thundered up the stairs and before any of them realized what was happening, Rogue’s bedroom door flew apart under the force of Wolverine’s claws. He kicked the remaining remnants out with his boots and stormed into the room. Five seconds was all took for him to take in the severely underdressed state of the entire Beta team and only .0031 seconds after that to see Gambit’s hand under Rogue’s bra kneading a breast that belong to HIM and one of Rogue’s hands tangled in Pyro’s hair as the flameboy looked up surprised from between Kitty’s legs.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!?!?” Wolverine roared. The sound of more footsteps resounded through the X-men’s wing as Storm, Hank, and a decidedly ruffled looking Scott and Jean crashed into the room.

“What’s going on? Where is it?” Scott’s hand flicked uselessly to the scarf still tied over his eyes, forgetting for a moment he had no protective eyewear.

“They’re naked!” Storm spluttered, then turned to bury her face in Hank’s wife-beater covered chest, mortified at what she was seeing.

“Who’s naked?” Scott’s head tilted inquiringly.

“Half-naked, actually,” Jean said soothingly, patting her husband on the head. “The junior X-men, dear,” she answered to Scott’s confused expression around the horrible scarf.

“That’s Beta team to you, Tweety Bird,” Jubilee giggled over Bobby’s shoulder, mindless that her boobs were hanging in Kitty’s face.

Logan gritted his teeth. “That still doesn’t explain what you are doing! Especially YOU,” he spat with a venomous tone as he shot out 3 claws and pointed them at the hand Gambit still had in Rogue’s bra.

“Mon ami, we jus celebratin.” The Cajun smiled lazily, lifting the hand that hand been massaging Jubilee’s thigh to grab a forgotten bottle of wine and slop it over his mouth. Kitty leaned over to lick it off while Rogue massaged the brunette’s neck.

Claws itching to kill, cock threatening to explode out of his jeans, Wolverine ground out, “Celebrating what?”

“April Fool’s sugah,” Rogue drawled, trailing a finger absently down Gambit’s bare chest.

“What?!” the entire Alpha team bleated at once.

“April Fool’s sugahs.” Rogue then stood up off the bed, holding out a hand to Remy and Kitty, pulling them up with her. She wound herself around the tiny brunette’s slender frame, the sexy little woman swathed only in the lightest baby blue matching bra and panty set. The rest of Beta crawled off each other and the bed to surround their team leader and secret weapon. They all laid a caressing hand on a bare part of Kitty’s body and as she phased them through the floor down to the garage, all of Beta screamed “BETA TEAM RULES, ALPHA DROOLS! LOSERS!!!”

The Alpha team stood there frozen, traumatized, positively gobsmacked for a good 2 minutes, utterly shocked and horrified that the kids, children, they had practically raised and trained to fight the good fight had used the talent they were born with the training the senior X-men had given them to torture them so.

Only when Kitty quickly phased halfway up through the floor behind Logan and grabbed his jeans, phasing them back with her through the floor in a world class mutant pantsing, shouting, “And we were kidding with the orgy!” did the Alpha team leap into action (and Logan into a new pair of pants and his leather jacket) and raced towards the garage as they heard an engine roar to life.

By the time Logan and the rest of the senior X-men made it to the garage Rogue and her merry band of miscreants were already off school grounds in the modified Hummer X-van and making tracks at the speed of light for the secret beach house on Cape Cod Professor Xavier’s had secured for them in exchange for their agreement not to destroy the mansion during their mission. Can’t keep anything from a telepath, y’know. Bobby had taken the liberty of freezing off the tracking device from the van then covering the driveway behind them in a 3 inch sheet of ice to ensure their clean getaway.

Scott and Beast moaned in horro at the sight of all the automobiles in the garage phased halfway up their wheels into the floor. The roar of murderous fury from Logan when he saw Jubilee had pimped his bike with a bright yellow paint job, streamers from the handlebars, and smiley face bell sent the rest of his teammates running for the house. Jean and Ororo immediately raced at breakneck speed for the liquor cabinet and hid Storm’s pulverized attic room for the rest of the night, getting off their face, and eventually they learned to ignore the relentlessly random beeping from the Annoy-a-tron. Scott and Hank locked themselves in the lab with a bag of indica Hank had confiscated from a student previously and kept intending to flush but couldn’t now that his toilet was blocked up with Kiwi-Strawberry gelatin.

And Wolverine? Well, he proceeded to spend the rest of the evening clawing apart the floor of the garage to free the cars and plotting revenge. Especially on Rogue…and Gambit’s hands.

The next morning Scott came into the garage, happily patting his repaired visor, and admired Wolverine’s handiwork; he'd managed to rip all the cars free without a lot less damage than the fearless leader expected. Logan was leaning over the hood of his jeep, half asleep on his feet.

“Logan?” Scott, gently shook his teammate's shoulder. “Logan? Did you know you have a giant Hello Kitty on the back of your jacket?”