Anna drove the plastic spike hard into the soft earth. The little grinning pumpkin dressed in a purple stary witch's hat made for a satisfying handhold as she pretended each of the decorative lawn ornaments was a stake destined for a vampire's chest hidden just below the thin veil of dirt.
"I don't think you need to push those things that deep into the ground." Kitty held the remaining plastic pumpkins close to her chest. Connected by a chain of flimsy wire, the pumpkins seemingly couldn't help but get tangled in one another despite Kitty's best efforts.
"Probably not," Anna grunted, snapped the next pumpkin out of Kitty's hand, and drove the thing so deep into the ground that only the tip of its hat was visable above the grass.
"Anger management going well, big sis?" Kurt was performing the same job Kitty was but for Evan across the narrow driveway opposite them.
"You're looking at the anger management." Another grunt as Anna pushed the pumpkin deep into the earth.
"Man, what did we do to get stuck with the worst job?" Like Anna, Evan was covered in sweat and dirt from the effort. Unlike Anna though, Evan had bothered with kneepads and gloves while Anna's knees and hands were starting to look like she had fought a losing battle escaping a trench.
"Could be worse." Kurt pointed his chin back at the mansion. "We could be, Scott."
Anna wiped the sweat from her face, rolled onto her rear, and caught sight of Scott atop a 20-foot ladder in front of the mansion's exterior. 3 rungs below the peak of the ladder, he was guiding fat webs Jean was levitating from the ground onto the face of the mansion. With a hammer in one hand and presumably a nail in the other, he started whacking the web into place. With every hammer blow, his ladder shook on the uneven earth till finally the ladder completely collapsed from under him. Anna lept to her feet when she spotted Scott begin to plummet towards the earth. His arms covered his face as he shouted, but halfway through his descent, he began to spontaneously float.
Jean's hands splayed and trembled as she gently lowered Scott to the ground. Slowly, until he was a few feet above a patch of bushes when Jean's telekinetic ability without notice sputtered out and he fell flat on his face inside the greenery. A couple of bluejays fluttered out of the bush before Scott poked his head out with a scratch across his forehead to show for the story later.
"Yeah." Evan snorted before plunging another plastic spike into the ground. "It could be worse."
Anna rolled her neck across her shoulders and twisted to back in hopes of getting a good crack out of the deal. It was then her eyes fell on the forest to their left.
Kurt glanced at her and snickered. "What are you thinking about?"
Anna snapped back to reality and looked at him. "Hmm? How do you know I'm thinking about anything?"
Kurt pulled more decorative pumkin lights free from their rat's nest. "You always bite your lower lip when you're overthinking something."
Anna felt the inside of her lip with her tongue... and then soon after felt her front teeth lightly pulling the flesh of her bottom lip into her mouth. "Do not!" She said with a little more verbal bite than intended before immediately returning to her task with the pumpkins.
"Then the Mississippi comes out when you're frustrated."
Anna paused mid-spike and leaned back on her haunches. "Alright, mister smart guy." She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at Kurt. "You got me so figured out, what am I thinking about?"
Kurt looked toward the same patch of trees she had been just moments before. "That's the direction of Logan's camp, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
YOU ARE READING
X-Men Evolution: Rogue Evolution
FanfictionA secret world exists within our own that only a few, a reluctant few, know about. The world of Mutants. They walk amongst us, talk like us, and many even look like us. However, within each of them they carry great powers beyond our understanding...
