Make Some Room for Boom Boom

"You have got to be kidding me," Elliot lamented.

Per Mystique's instruction, he and his new Brotherhood compatriots were on their way to Bayville High. Trouble was the group's open-top jeep had only so many seats. With driver and shotgun taken, Elliot's only option for a seatbelt was to squeeze into the backseat with Fred Dukes, a mohawk-headed mutant whose immense belly was currently filling up two seats just by itself. Elliot was becoming quickly aware why everyone else called him the Blob.

"Oh squish in there, you sourpuss," Boom Boom, his new hot pink-wearing housemate, jeered, "or I'm telling everyone about the weird shit you keep in your room."

Eliot grimaced, only inviting the rest of the Brotherhood to pile on.

"Huhhuhh! What's he keep in his room?" Blob grunted, his massive overalls quivering as he laughed.

"Oh you know...," the blonde girl stared Elliot down, bangles glinting in the morning sun, "just his very own...,"

"I'm getting in, I'm getting in!" Elliot interrupted, angrily taking his seat beneath Blob's armpit. He was half-tempted to turn the snooping girl into Fred's loofah, but Mystique had told him to play nice. He braced for the long journey to school, his face squished into Blob's potbelly.

"Magician, you ready?" Lance called from the front seat. It was the code name the team had graced him with. but Magician, too muffled to get out a yes, just gave him a magically passive-aggressive thumbs-up.

"Wa-hoo!" Boom Boom hollered, as Lance revved the engine. The punky blonde was wearing sunglasses today and had spread her legs out in the front seat, kicking her feet up on the passenger side dash. As Lance gunned it through the Bayville streets, she started playing her favorite game: tossing her namesake plasma bombs at passing cars to make them swerve as they drove by. She was having a ball.

"Knock it off, Tabitha," cried Lance, steering out of the way of one of Boom Boom's projectiles, "the X-Freaks are already on our case for using our powers in public. Stop giving them an excuse to kick our asses again." So saying, the mullet-headed mutant grabbed Boom Boom by the arm, preventing her from lobbing her next orange sphere at a passing cop car.

"Tch, since when do you listen to the Geek Squad, Avalanche?" His explosive captive replied, reabsorbing a pair of her explosives before wrenching out of his fingerless-gloved grip.

"Since he started dating their Kitty cat, mrow," chimed in Todd Tolansky who probably would have been known as Toad even if he didn't have the mutant powers of a giant tongue and coughing up slime. He had poked his head into the front seat, from his place hunched over like a frog, sitting on Fred's knee.

"Huhhuh, yeah." Blob laughed along. "Lance just loves to pet the X-Men's Kitty, and serve the X-Men Kitty milk, and uh, take the X-Men Kitty to the vet for, ummm...medicine?" Fred’s very smooth brain was slowly losing track of his belabored metaphor.

"Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty," Toad hyucked, picking up the slack, yellow eyes mirthful as he tried to see how long it would take for Lance clench his fist and cause an earthquake in frustration.

Instead Avalanche just hit the brakes, causing the unbelted amphibian to nose dive into the jeep's cassette deck. The resulting stop also pushed Elliot's nose deeper into Fred's 5XL overalls.

"Somebody kill me," Elliot muttered, as the group started to exit the vehicle. Once free of Blob, he quickly departed, taking long way around Bayville High to avoid the crowd of students.

By happenstance, the Kitty in question was standing fairly nearby. Katherine Pryde, Shadowcat of the X-Men, had been watching much of the Brotherhood's exchange, her eyes framed by two long bangs that hung down from either side of her high brown ponytail. Dressed in capris and her preferred pink cardigan, she chuckled to herself as she flirtatiously approached the earthquake mutant.

"So hey Lance, long time no see," she smiled up at the slightly taller boy.

"Oh uhh, hey Kitty," Avalanche grit his teeth, getting out of the car as Toad and Blob started to smirk.

"Are you doing anything this weekend?" she asked, rubbing one of her sandals against the lower part of her leg.

"Uh yeah, homework. Got a big project for chemistry that'll probably take me two days," the boy nodded, not even making eye contact with the mutant girl.

"Oh," Kitty paused, her quiet hopes for dinner and a movie scuppered. "You need any help with that?"

"I'm fine," her clueless study date replied, before whipping his head back to glare in menacingly at his jeering roommates.

"A-alright," she stuttered as he walked away. "Guess see you around, Lance."

"Yeah you too, Kitty," the punk boy responded, dispersing to class with rest of the Brotherhood.

Disappointed, Kitty let out a frustrated sigh, only to jump in surprise as Boom Boom grabbed her from behind.

"How's my favorite X-Girl doing?" The chop-haired blonde laughed, hugging Shadowcat by the shoulders and not letting go.

"Hey Tabitha," Kitty gave her a half smile, touching Boom Boom's ringed fingers dejectedly as they started to walk out of the parking lot.

Having watched the lousy exchange between her and Lance, Tabitha had prepared a solution. "You doing anything tonight, Kitty? I'm hosting a party at the Brotherhood Boarding House. It's gonna be - L-I-T- lit!" So saying she stepped in front of Kitty, producing a foursome of plasma bombs between her fingers before letting them explode one by one in her hands.

"Isn't Brotherhood Boarding House like super gross?" Kitty wrinkled her nose, "I swear Lance told me y'all don't have working water half the time."

"Please honey, I got that fixed, instituted a chore wheel and everything. Place even smells nice," Tabitha shot back, quietly pressing an explosive into her locker's combination lock. "Sometimes all you need is a woman's touch." With a crunch the door of her locker exploded open, sending papers flying onto the floor.

Kitty looked up at her hopefully but just shook her head, "Well I mean that sounds nice, but...there's no way I can go to a Brotherhood party."

"Aww come on, it'll be fun!" Boom Boom enthused. "Besides," she smiled teasingly," Lance'll be there."

Kitty blushed, a little embarrassed, but still shook her head. "Look I know, Tabitha, you're trying to have it both ways, living with the Brotherhood and being friends with the X-Men, but...," she took a moment to phase her hand through her locker, not even bothering to open it, "I can't just go to a house of X-Men villains. I personally know what it's like to have Blob sit on me. It totally sucks!"

"Then bring a friend, or five! I don't care," Tabitha shrugged. "Here ask Rogue. HEY ROGUE, wanna come to a Brotherhood party?"

Opening her locker behind Kitty, Rogue was clearly startled to have been noticed. Turning to the two pink girls, the goth teen just stared at them a moment, a strand of hair from the white streak above her forehead having fallen out of place.

"Whuh?" The southern girl asked, confused.

"PAR-TYY, TO-NIGHT," Boom Boom enunciated, "BRU-THER-HOOD, you coming?"

Rogue folded her shear green sleeves across her halter-top, blowing the strand of pale hair out of her face, "...No?"

"Boom Boom's inviting me," Kitty caught her up to speed. "But I don't really want to go by myself...so?"

Rogue let out a beleaguered sigh, her untanned face scowling as she did. "What's in it for me?"

"A lifetime of friendship?" Kitty pleaded. “Bisexual hook-ups?” Tabitha winked, nodding her head encouragingly by her side.

Ignoring Tabitha but well aware of Kitty and Lance's dating situation, Rogue rolled her eyes but relented. "Fiiiine."

Boom Boom and Shadowcat squealed.

"But this means I get first dibs on alone time for our room at the mansion," Rogue added.

"Totally totally. Thank you, Rogue," Kitty squeezed her left shoulder, careful to keep her fingers solely on Rogue's mesh top. The southern goth shook her head but smiled in spite of herself.

Watching the two X-Men depart for class, Tabitha was suddenly greeted by Toad who had been listening in.

"So we're having a party?" The knobby kneed high schooler asked his attractive housemate.

"Yep," Boom Boom smiled, hands triumphantly on her hips. "And you're gonna mop the floors," so saying she pressed a trio of plasma bombs into his grungy hair. "Or else," she added.

"Aw man," Toad hung his head sadly, moments before the bombs exploded in his face. The school’s sprinkler system went off in response.