DISCLAIMERS:
All characters appearing in this piece are copyright properties of the Marvel Comics Group and are being used without their permission. No money is being made from their appearances here.
[Rated R; gratitious nudity, mild language, Jubilee freaking out]
This story is an answer to Maria Cline's odd little challenge of a day or two ago. Having not much to do this week, I thought it'd be worth a try. Given the nature of the challenge, this idea came up immediately.
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She left her room that morning, taking care not to be noticed as she opened the window and drifted out, streaking off towards the south, and the spot on the banks of the Mad River (though it hardly lived up to the name) she had chosen for a daring experiment.
It was good that no one saw her. Not because it would've indicated that she was a mutant (not that she cared about it), but because she was naked.
Yes, Monet St. Croix was naked. Completely naked, except
for the small purse she was holding in one hand and the thick blanket draped
over her shoulder. Just her long, flowing black hair and smooth bronze-colored
skin, reveling in a
freedom which had long been denied to her.
No one, not the headmasters of the Academy, not her monstrous evil brother, and not even that quarreling mob of superhero wannabes, was going to stop her!
A grin slowly crossed her face as she felt the wind caressing a body which could withstand a pelting by bullets, its gentle (to her) pressure feeling like a lover's hand sweeping across her breasts and legs. With a speed that rivaled that of the fastest of race cars, she made a low, arcing turn towards her destination, flying barely out of reach of the highest trees which stood in the valley below her. After a few minutes, she was at her destination.
Monet landed softly on the pebbles lining the creek and looked around in quick glances, making certain that no one witnessed her arrival. A telepathic scan of the area within a radius of one mile ensured that no one would come blundering in on her. She heaved a sigh of relief.
{ I finally have the time to do what I wanted to do, all of these years! }
With that, she unfolded the blanket she had carried with her and laid it on a boulder she had moved into position earlier that week. The broad, inclined face was now angled towards the sun for a better exposure, and Monet raised herself onto her perch to lay down.
The sun felt so warm and gentle as it shone down on her bare skin. As the sensation reached her brain, Monet forgot about the troubles of the past several years, the plight of her twin sisters, and of the tribulations imposed upon her by their peers and the headmasters of the Massachusetts Academy.
{ It feels so good. _I_ feel so good. }
Monet let that thought linger with her for as long as she dared. This was a different sort of ecstacy for her, the breath of total freedom that was so long denied her. She laid there, completely naked to the sun, the Earth, and the Summertime air, and did not care.
Her bliss was not to last.
The only warning she had of the intruder was a faint rambling voice behind her from her right, one which became horrifyingly familiar as it came closer. It's owner was clearly in a bad mood.
{ No. It couldn't be her. }
"Rassumfrassum..." The sounds of dry branches snapping began to become audible.
{ Please, God. Not here. }
"AAGH!" the voice shrieked. There was a pause, and then the stampede grew a little closer, moving around above Monet. Monet didn't move.
{ Is she going away? Thank you, God! }
"Shit! It's better _this_ way." Another pause, and the stampede approached Monet again, this time at a faster rate of speed.
{ Oh _No_! She _had_ to change her mind, didn't she? }
Now the stampede started to come around to Monet's right again, even as it got closer. There was a whipping sound, followed by a loud series of pops which mercifully cut off what had to be a string of obscenities. Then the stampede broke free of the thickets surrounding Monet's clearing.
She grimaced as a dark shape bolted out from behind her perch
and spilled out onto the pebbles with a loud clattering noise. A
familiar face, flushed with embarrassment and rage whirled about as its
owner slipped on some loose pebbles
and went rolling to one side, coming to a stop about twenty feet from
where Monet was laying. The smaller girl got up slowly, nursing numerous
scratches and bruises.
"God-DAMN it! That's the last time I'm takin' Ev on a fishin' trip out here!"
Monet resigned herself to witnessing the impotent fury of Jubilation Lee. All four feet-eleven inches of her, thankfully clothed (albeit by much-worn and now-torn clothing).
Surprisingly, Jubilee never did notice that one of her teammates
was just under ten yards behind her. She was too busy making menacing
glances towards points north, back from which direction she had been coming.
She didn't notice
Monet, sans clothing of _any_ kind, lying motionless on a boulder with
a pleading expression crossing that beautiful face of hers.
Jubilee was now simply engrossed in calling out to her unseen companion, "Ev! _EVERETT_!" Monet felt her heart leap into her throat.
{ Oh, my God! What if Everett _is_ with her? What if he sees me like this? } then she caught herself, {Wait. Maybe I can turn this to my advantage. }
Monet collected herself and waited. If Jubilee would be expected to do anything, she'd start wandering around out here, searching for an escape route that would take her out of the clearing without having to pass through a gauntlet of thorns and low twigs.
Either that, or Jubilee would bring Everett here...
Jubilee seemed to know where Everett was. She wasn't turning around. Monet resisted the temptation to call out. She wanted Jubilee to be surprised.
Jubilee finally got tired of waiting. It was clear that Everett wasn't within earshot of her. As Monet expected, she began to pace about the clearing.
"Awhath'hell! I'll get myself outta here."
Not surprisingly again, Jubilee seemed to be taking her sweet time. She skirted the edge of the thicket, but backed away, absently wiping the small trickle of blood that had run down her cheek where an offending thorn had scratched her. Having done that, she finally noticed the boulder.
Monet was ready. { Good! }
And, of course, Jubilee just _had_ to telegraph her intentions,
even with no audience that she was aware of. "Waitaminnit, I can
get up here and, like, send off a shot to bring Ev --" She stopped in mid-sentence
when she found
herself getting an eyeful of Monet's pubic hair.
Now it was Monet's turn to be surprised. There was no flood of incomprehensible ranting from the Asian girl's mouth. "Motormouth" Lee's regular Southern California drawl had given way to a high-pitched, intermittent squeal not unlike the sound made by fingernails scraping a chalkboard. The pouty lips were agape and twitching violently, as though all of the words that were supposed to come gushing out of that mouth had collided in the back of her throat and now fell out in mangled fragments.
Jubilation Lee, the most loquaicious member of Generation X, was stammering. And she was stammering uncontrollably.
Monet managed a weak smile. Jubilee still couldn't find her voice.
"Th'... erk... yer...nu-nu-nu...NUUH...eek'd..." was just about all that she could make out. Nor did Jubilee move back, such was the shock of finding herself out in the open, almost straddling a naked girl.
Monet finally decided that enough was enough. It was quite obvious that Jubilee was now paralyzed with the flurry of emotions that now swirled through her like an F5 tornado on a rampage. She brought her arm up to push the younger girl away.
Jubilee snapped, "GETAWAYFROMME!" Monet's hand never reached her. Forcing herself to break her gaze away, Jubilee managed somehow to slide back off of the boulder and land unevenly on her feet without breaking anything.
"GETAWAYGETAWAYGET_AWAY!_" followed by the expected shower of sparks. Nothing that worried Monet.
Still, Jubilee wasn't through yet. To her, Monet was making a pass at her. { Eww. That's _gross!_ } She found herself stumbling wildly backwards, splashing water as her panic brought her meandering into the stream momentarily.
Then Monet moved from her perch, swinging her legs around with an almost-elemental grace and descending from the boulder, a joyful smirk on her face. To Jubilee, Monet the Sexual Predator was in pursuit of her prey.
"I warn you!" she screeched, "Don't come any closer to me, M. Yer _grossin'_me_out!_"
"Am I so unattractive to you, Jubilation?" Monet chirped, "For shame." She never moved, but Jubilee was stumbling backwards as though expecting a lunge.
Not that such a thing was impossible. Monet could be there in an instant, before Jubilee moved another hand. But what was the point in playing up to the girl's rather immature presumptions. It was Jubilee who had the perverted thoughts, after all...
Jubilee fell down, landing on her buttocks with a grunt and wincing momentarily before forcing her eyes back open to ensure that Monet wasn't moving towards her. She never took her gaze off of Monet as she continues to scramble backwards on her hands and feet in an inverted crabwalk.
Jubilee was nearly hyperventilating now. "'For shame'?" she gasped, "_'For shame'?_ You're the one who's gotta have fuckin' shame, _dammit!_"
Monet acted hurt, "Be ashamed of myself? _Moi?_" She held her hand over her chest as a guesture. "What have I to be ashamed of? I'm not the one who kept her gaze firmly fixated on another woman's privates..."
"That's _gross!_"
"But of course it is," Monet said, "Except when you're doing it." Jubilee hesitated in her tracks, propped up on her hands and feet like some awkward crustacean.
"Whaddyamean? You're the one layin' nekkid out in the open, _y'idjit!_"
That was the last straw for Monet. "You've said enough, you hypocritical little brat!" she shouted, "If there is one thing I am _not_, it is an 'idjit'." She took one step forward, fists clenching at her sides.
That was all the indication that Jubilee needed to get away while she still could. Even as the last words spilled from her mouth, what was left of her rational mind (such as what Monet would reluctantly call it) was swallowed whole, chewed into a juicy pulp, and spilled back out by the wave of blind panic that finally overwhelmed her.
All Jubilee would remember before the fear took hold of her was Monet beginning to move towards her. Her voice went from near-hysterical rambling to an unending shriek which left her ears ringing from the force of the explosion it produced. Everything else just went blinding white.
From Monet's point of view, though, the scene was different. Jubilee just froze in place, her eyes whirling in their sockets like little tops as her voice cracked the top of it's range.
"_GETAWAYFROMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!_"
Then came the explosion, a pressure wave that erupted from beneath Jubilee with the force of a fighter on its afterburners. With much the same effect, too.
In spite of herself, Monet flinched and shielded herself even though the blast merely kicked a hole in the riverbank not less than ten yards away. Neither the brilliant heat of the flare nor the shower of scorched and broken rocks that pelted her really did any harm other than getting her a bit dirty. A glance over her arm revealed Jubilee streaking away as a meteor-like object, tearing up through the treetops a quarter-mile away, towards the Academy.
Monet was more embarrassed than anything else, if at all. "I didn't expect that," she sighed. And she stood there and wondered if she should go retrieve Jubilee before she killed herself hitting something.
{ If she didn't already do it. }
Lowering her arm, Monet surveyed the damage. Lots of mud and dirt splattered all over herself, no doubt. { Thank you Jubilation, for ruining the perfect morning for me. } But when she saw the path that Jubilee had cleared through the underbrush and into the the forest beyond, she had to laugh.
There, in smouldering tatters around the hole torn into the riverbank or hanging off of smoking branches of the nearby bushes, were the remains of Jubilee's clothes. Perhaps with a little relief (she would deny it later), Monet started to laugh out loud.
Somewhere out there, Everett was no doubt breaking off in pursuit
of his companion as she rocketet overhead in a shower of sparks.
Jubilee would no doubt be unharmed wherever she landed (but not so for
whatever she landed on),
but it would be priceless to witness the looks on both of their faces
when the smoke cleared.
With images of a naked Jubilation scampering about the rim of
a crater dug into the Earth and Everett's awkward attempts at comforting
her running through her mind, Monet fell to her haunches and let the tears
flow freely, laughing
her triumph to the world.
The morning was not a complete loss...
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THE END
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