DISCLAIMER Sabretooth is not mine. Sinister is not mine. They belong to Marvel, though they have not been treated well. We do not have Marvel's permission to use them. Fortune and Christine/Fancy are not mine, they are Mel's, and she is welcome to them. The others, however, are mine, though I deny this when in public.

The name Geriatrix was filched from the Asterix books, again without permission. Athos was a musketeer, whose name I thought added a certain something, and the Cohen Maneuver was named by me, but taken from Terry Pratchett's 'Interesting Times', which I recommend as being a fabulous book.

He heard footsteps outside, and frantically scrunched down even further behind the central heating unit. It was at times like this that he really hated being so big. Wolverine, he thought resentfully, could have found lots of great places to hi - stay out of the way in, while he was limited to three. Or four if you counted the roof, but it was wiser not to, as Delphi could get really nasty if she thought you were deliberately avoiding her.

The door opened. "C-Creed? Are you in here?" quavered a frightened voice.

"Shh! Ya want her to hear ya? Get back here!"

"Right." The young Australian teleporter Blake Thompson, a petty crook before Delphi had hired him, limped down the stairs into the basement and took refuge behind the deep freeze. There was a bruise on his temple, and an unidentifiable purple smear on his face.

"She got ya, huh?"

"Uh-huh. Let's just hide down here 'til it's over."

"We ain't hidin'."

"We ain't?"

"We're - stayin' out of the way."

* * *

Upstairs, a tall, redheaded girl stamped into the kitchen. They were hiding. She knew they were hiding. Wimps. She looked in the fridge for something to eat, but nothing appealed to her.

"Would you like a cup of tea, Lady Oracle?" The tiny, wizened Japanese standing at the counter offered hopefully. Delphi gave him an evil glare.

"You and whose army?!?" She snarled. Takubayashi winced and sidled hastily out of the room. Delphi sighed. Perhaps she'd overreacted a tiny bit - naahh. She kicked the fridge thoughtfully. Ellis, Mel, and that blonde telepath friend of Mel's - Christine, that was it, had all been gone when she woke up that morning, leaving the men to take the brunt of her temper. For their sake, they'd better be hunting up a packet of Tim Tams or something.

Delphi seethed quietly for a while. Maybe killing Cyke or someone would make her feel better. Nah. While she was fairly certain that she could convince Sinister to wave a magic test-tube, and Havok would probably be just as good, Rachel Summers was sort of an important historical figure. Better not take chances. There were two adorable bluebirds on the windowsill, twittering and whistling for crumbs. She threw a plate at them.

An L.I.O.B appeared in the middle of the room, and immediately ducked as she threw a bag of walnuts directly at his head. He took up a defensive position behind the stove, peering at her worriedly. Since this seemed to be the rather nice, sympathetic one who tried to get her the things she wanted, and because Delphi had suddenly decided that she wanted company, she didn't follow up with the steak knives.

"What?" she said reasonably quietly, absently juggling two peaches, a jar of thyme, and one of the steak knives. "You want me to insult someone? Alter the course of history? Eat a lemon without making a face?"

"Uh, not exactly." The little bald man said nervously, keeping a very close watch on her hands. "Er, we want - that is, you are needed to prevent an occurrence. A certain person must not come to power at this time…there may be some confrontational developments…a certain amount of conflict will almost certainly transpire…" He trailed off, boggling slightly as the peaches were returned to the fruit bowl, the jar of thyme concussed a passing jackdaw, and the steak knife embedded itself in the table, all in the space of one second. Delphi grinned humourlessly.

"So you're saying that there'll be a fight?" She'd gotten the hang of the way they talked some time before, out of necessity, but wasn't in the mood to be patient. He nodded frantically, and simply dumped the rest of the information into her mind before he vanished. She paused for a moment to assimilate the plan, while the usual headache appeared, took one look, and fled, muttering something about a prior engagement.

Very calmly, very quietly Delphi walked to the door to the basement. She opened it gently. "GET YOUR SORRY BUTTS UP HERE, YOU WIMPS! WE'VE GOT LOSERS TO TERRORIZE! NOW!!!"

"Oh no. She's using The Voice…"

* * *

Five minutes later, Delphi was, if possible, in an even worse mood than before. The first two and a half minutes hadn't been so bad. The fifty-two seconds it had taken the remainder of her team to assemble, the further twelve seconds needed to give Shyft/Blake the co-ordinates, twenty-eight seconds in transit, thirteen seconds of getting everyone's toes out from under everyone else's feet, and forty-five seconds of assessing the transport site had all been quite normal and fairly busy. Now, however, she had been waiting for the female dereliction-of-duty squad for nearly three minutes, and their odds of surviving the arrival were getting alarmingly low.

A crash, a scream, and a muttered comment of "Oh, bugger." heralded their belated appearance. Climbing over the rocks to the left of the plateau where they had appeared, the first group eventually located the second in a large hole. Evidently Fortune's Luck Powers had struck again. After hauling them out, dusting them off, and yelling at them a bit, Delphi reassembled the group on the plateau, and started handing out instructions.

"Shyft, you're in group one with Fancy and Fortune, you will break into the cargo thingy and steal us some transportation, don't ask me why we can't just teleport, I don't know, and don't ask me how, just do it. And don't let Fortune anywhere near it until the last minute. The rest of us will - " At that moment, a dozen or so generic ninjas appeared, screaming threats and curses.

Delphi looked at them, looked at her team, thought about it, and in a fit of contrariness decided to blow the plan straight to hell. "Take us to your leader." she commanded, drawing herself up and glaring at the one who, since he was standing at the back, could be assumed to be in charge.

"Ummm..." He wasn’t used to this. Prisoners were supposed to scream and beg for mercy, or fight, or occasionally run away. He’d never had anyone start issuing demands before. "Er...you are our prisoners! We will take to the great-"

"Yes, yes, that’s fine. Pick up your feet, boy, I don’t have all day!" The strange woman in the leather outfit ordered. The oddly assorted group behind her nodded urgently. He wavered for a moment, then, in the tradition of low-men-on-the-pyramid everywhere, decided to take the problem upstairs and let someone else handle it.

"Of course. This way." He formed up his men around the ‘prisoners’, and led them down the stony slope, trying very hard not to hear the conversation going on behind him.

"NO! You don’t need them!"

"I don’t mind."

"Of course you don’t. You’re a raving loony homicidal maniac who enjoys killing and maiming and does so as a lifestyle choice. Del, one is quite enough!" Fortune retorted.

"You can do that all on your own, boss."

"The way you insult people. It’s art."

"You could always ask." the little old man suggested. The red-haired woman tapped the head ninja on the shoulder.

"Hire? Never! We are all loyal to the High Whutzitt, and we would rather die than betrauurrk!" The man found himself dangling and choking off the end of the sentence. The red-haired woman had picked him up by the throat. With one hand.

"I didn’t know that the L.I.O.B.’s gave her super strength!"

"Let’s get one thing clear, little man. I am not having an even remotely warm and fluffy kind of day today, got it? I am annoyed, I am tired, I am looking for someone to take these things out on, and I have exactly zero patience with heroics at the best of times, which this isn’t, so I suggest that you not say anything unless you really, really mean it, okay?"

"Okay." He choked. The other ninjas backed away. She dropped him on the hard ground with a thud. "Urgghh....arrghhh...here we are, lady. The High Whutzitt will-"

"Do as he’s told." she snapped, marching up the stairs to the rather small fortress. "If he knows what’s good for him."

* * *

Seventeen minutes later, it had been determined that the High Whutzitt did not, apparently, know what was good for him. He had insulted Delphi’s clothes, weapons, looks, and taste in companions, laughed at her suggestion that he stop messing about with the local villager’s genetic sequences, and had actually been foolhardy enough to tell her to leave. Fortune had hidden under a table by the fourth minute, Blake, Ellis, and Takubayashi had sneaked behind a pillar during the eleventh, Fancy had inched behind Sabretooth between the fourteenth and fifteenth, and by now even Sabretooth was looking for a handy spot to stay out of the way in until Delphi was done tearing people’s arms off. Delphi had been icily polite. Since none of them ever remembered this happening before, they were more than a little suspicious.

"I repeat, it is imperative that you cease your experiments immediately. It is necessary, for the proper advancement of the timeline, that matters be allowed to proceed at their own pace." The High Whutzitt sneered. "If you do not co-operate, I regret that I will have to use force."

"I’m sure you will." He snorted. "I know about you, Oracle. That isn’t really you, is it? You’re possessing some poor, stupid flunky while you stay nice and safe wherever it is you hide. It doesn’t matter to you whether that body gets hurt or killed. Right? Wrong." He stood up. "I know something else, too. While you’re in that body, you don’t have access to any of your special powers, and if it dies, you’ll die too. Athos!" A tall. lean man, wielding two long swords, stepped forwards. The swords were long, completely black, and hummed softly. It wasn’t a friendly noise.

Delphi looked him up and down, then deliberately drew her own swords. "A duel, eh? Whutzitt, you think of everything. To the death?"

"But of coursse." Athos hissed in a voice like tearing silk. "To the ultimate death, in fact. In your casse, anyway."

Delphi paused, and looked up at Whutzitt. "Now, Whutzie, I do hope you’re playing the game properly. Using an unkillable champion just isn’t sporting, you know."

"Oh, he can be killed. Not easily, but it is possible." Whutzitt gloated. "Athos! Kill her."

"Just a minute!" Athos paused. "For shame, Whutzie. The proprieties must be observed! You do of course realize that you can’t win." She said, turning to Athos. "Not a hope in hell of even getting close."

"Because I know the Cohen Maneuver. It’s a classic." Under the table, Fortune realized what was about to happen and stuffed her fist into her mouth to keep from having hysterics.

"Really?" Athos sounded skeptical. "I think I’d like to ssee thiss ‘Cohen Maneuver."

"Right. Your funeral. First things first, though." She reached back, and pulled out a pair of silk handkerchieves. "Would you like to go, or shall I?"

"You can, if you like." Athos looked bored.

"Watch this then." A handkerchief soared lightly into the air. It drifted over her extended swordblades, and fluttered to the floor in three pieces. "Not bad, huh?"

"Bad." Athos sneered. "A child could do ass well."

Delphi extended the other handkerchief. "Let’s see you do it then."

Athos took it scornfully. He tossed it high in the air, sweeping his swords back like the wings of a bird - and then didn’t do anything else ever again, because Delphi had stepped in while he was looking up and removed his head. "Twit."

Fortune climbed out from under her table. "Wow! A real reverse-Cohen! His hanky! Brilliant!"

"While I was down there, by the way, I had a good angle. I know!" Fortune said dramatically.

"That Whutzitt is really....MR SINISTER IN A FUNNY HAT!!"

"Curses!" Screamed Sinister, ripping off his disguise. "I’ll get you next time, Oracle, and your little Sabretooth too!" With which he vanished. The generic ninjas all stood staring at the empty space in horror, then screamed and ran away.

"Wimps. Hey, those are nice swords." She leaned down and picked up Athos’s swords. "Good balance. Sharp, too. I have won you, swords, by right of being the one still alive at the end of the fight. I will care for you well, and you will go to new places and kill interesting people."

"Uh, boss? Yer talkin’ to the cutlery."

"Shh. You’ll hurt their feelings. Check the body, willya? There should be some sheaths around somewhere." Sabretooth shrugged and went to look. The others straggled out of their hiding places and stood around, not doing anything much. Fortune looked at them appraisingly.

"You know what? You guys need code-names. No spandex-wearing-spitforbrains is going to take you seriously if you don’t have a codename."

"Got one." Blake said smugly. "It’s ‘Shyft’."

"Well....it’ll do. Ellis?"

"That is a fake name."

"Cool. Old dude?"

"I don’t know..." Takubayashi said dubiously. He had a nasty feeling that the dreaded code-name, carefully avoided up until now, was about to finally get him.

"Hmm... You’re old...you’re kinda wise...you’re old... I know!" Fortune crowed. "Geriatrix!"

"See, the boss agrees. I dub thee Geriatrix. Pity we don’t have a bottle of champagne to smash over his head, eh?"

"Pity." Geriatrix agreed, thanking Fate for small mercies.

Fortune patted him on the shoulder. "Scuse, guys. Just gotta go check whether this place meets the Secret Undercover Bases Under a False Identity Standard Minimum Toilet Quota. Be right back."

"I ain’t that lucky."

"I heard that, Creed! Watch it, or I’ll fill your trousers with piranhas." Fortune left, getting the last word again. The feud between Delphi’s best friend and her Thug was reaching epic proportions.

"Uhh, people?" Christine said, staring at a computer panel. "We have a problem."

* * *

They all looked at the door. It was a very impressive door. It was a door that made a statement, to the effect that anyone opening it had better be extremely serious about it. Which was a fairly reasonable statement for a door leading into a highly radioactive control type chamber to make, but that didn't make it any less annoying. After a long, thoughtful silence, Blake suddenly chirped up.

"Hey guys, you know what this is like? This is like that thing in that Star Trek movie, you know, the part where Spock has to go into the radioactive room to save the ship?"

"Yeah. Didn't Spock die, though?" Christine said doubtfully.

"So? Hey, does anyone have a …a…" Creed paused.

"Vulcan." Delphi said absently.

"Yeah, does anyone have a Vulcan stashed in a pocket? We could send him in." Creed said sarcastically. "Brilliant idea, kid."

"He went in because he was the strongest, bravest -" Blake began.

"And cutest." Delphi grinned.

"Okay, and cutest, member of the team." Blake looked pointedly at Creed. "Except for the 'cutest' part, that pretty much describes you, doesn't it?"

"No way! Not a chance! Forget it, kid!"

"It's you or all of us, you selfish…"

"Hi guys!" Fortune said cheerily, coming around the corner. "I'm back. You know, they put the toilets in the oddest places in these secret bases. Are we going in here now? Okay!" She opened the first door, and stepped blithely in. Everyone just stared in shock, except for Creed, who gently pushed the door closed behind her. The airlock quickly cycled through the decontamination procedure, and the second door opened. Fortune stepped through and looked around, noticing with surprise that her friends…well, teammates, anyway…hadn't followed. "That's strange."

Outside, Delphi whimpered put her head in her hands. "My best friend, my only link to my own world, and she's a twit." Sabretooth shrugged.

"Well, since she's in there anyway, she can do it, right?" He strolled casually over to the door, and leaned nonchalantly on the locking mechanism. Delphi walked over to the meter thick, radiation proof, seeing panel and gave the confused looking Fortune a long look.

"What? Where are you guys?" Fortune said, though no sound could be heard. Delphi could read her lips, but the innocently puzzled expression said it all really.

"You are the biggest idiot in the entire universe, and possibly most other universes as well." Delphi said clearly forming the words. Fortune had "Huh?" written all over her face. Delphi ran through a series of eloquent gestures. Fortune stepped back.

"Oh, did you want to go first?" She asked apologetically. She walked around to the door, making it through the first one but the second door refused to budge. She walked back to the window. "Sorry, it won't open." She shrugged and politely didn't comment on the fact that Delphi must be hurting her head on the glass she kept hitting with it. Delphi looked up, and with a tragic expression pointed behind Fortune. Curious Fortune turned around. A second later she was frantically dragging on the door.

"Open!" She screamed, jumping up and down. "Open!" She raced back to the window. "Did you know there was a bomb in here?" Delphi nodded. Fortune jumped up and down some more. "The door won't open, the door won't open!!" Delphi pointed towards the door. By squishing her face against the glass, Fortune could see Creed leaning against the door grinning.

"And the room is very radioactive." Came a solemn voice. Fortune jumped and looked wildly around the room. Then she recognised Geriatix's voice and calmed enough to press herself up against the glass and mouth very slowly at Creed.

"You die."

"You first." He mouthed back. Fortune gave one final short emphatic hand gesture. Christine winced.

"Fortune?" she said, leaning over to talk into the microphone. "You're going to have to disarm the bomb."

"What?!?" screamed Fortune. "Are you crazy?! This is me, guys!! I shouldn't even be allowed into the same room as a bomb!!!"

"We didn't allow you, you marched in all on your own." Delphi snapped, grabbing the mike. "Now we don't have time to argue, so listen carefully. First, you have to disconnect the bomb from the big tank with the radiation trefoil on the side. Just reach down, and pull out the wire at the point where it connects to the tank."

"Why should I do it? I don't want to! This is not fair!! I'm not laughing!!!"

"Neither are we. Just do it Fortune."

Fortune pouted, looked at the bomb, and did as she was told.

"Now you have to open the bomb's casing."

"WHAT?!"

"There's a panel on the top left." There was the sound of some grumbling.

"Now for the stop sequence." Delphi looked around. "Who got the stop sequence?"

Blake pointed at Creed who pointed at Christine, who pointed at Ellis, who pointed at Geriatrix who shrugged. Not realising that the microphone was still on, Delphi said. "Come on guys, tell me someone got the sequence." There was a lot of sheepish "not me's".

Fortune passed the mild hysterics stage and was rapidly approaching rabid.

"What do you mean you don't have the sequence?!!"

Creed grabbed the mike. "Damn. What a pity.. so kid, do you feel lucky?"

Fortune took a deep breath. "That is it!! I'm going to live through this just so that I can kill you." With out taking her eyes off Creed she pressed a few buttons on the panel. She pressed enter, then, still without looking strode towards the door. "Let me out so I can rend his flesh from his bones."

The others looked at the bomb which made a disappointed sound as it powered down. Delphi unlocked the door as the airlock performed its duty. The outer door opened, and no one saw Fortune move. One minute she was in the airlock, the next she was chewing on Creed's ear, tugging on his hair with both hands, and kicking him everywhere her legs could reach. He stood there putting up with it like a man, and wincing like a man when her knee hit his groin. No one objected, since someone who has just disarmed a bomb deserves a reward. Watching with a series of the most varied avuncular expression the rest of the team noticed the gradual pinkening, then reddening, of Fortune's skin. They also noted that she was beginning to wince as much as he was.

"Amazing." Geriatrix observed. "She's been exposed to radiation levels high enough to kill a whole herd of elephants, and she's got a sunburn."

"OOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWCCCCCCHHHHHHHHH!!!!" shrieked Fortune. "ARGGHHH!!! Hurts hurts hurts ow clothes hurt air hurts ow ow burnt ow not fair why me ow ow owww…" She stood in the middle of the room, trying not to touch her teammates, herself, her clothes, or the floor.

"Poor Fortune." Creed grinned broadly. "But yer a hero, kid. Ya saved us all." He slapped her on the back.

She whimpered. "You bastard."

"Boss? Time to go home, d'you think?" Ellis asked diplomatically.

"Definitely. Don't worry, Fortune, we'll make you better." Delphi reassured her friend. With a quick spang and a flash of light, they appeared back at the house.

"No-one touch me! No-one breath on me! Don't even look at me hard!" Fortune moaned.

"Blake?" Delphi instructed the junior teleporter. "Nip down to the shop and get me…" she thought for a minute. "Sixty big bottles of aloe vera gel. The good kind." Looking a little puzzled, he did as he was told..

Twenty minutes later, Fortune sank with a sigh of relief into a cool, soothing bathtub full of gel. "Ahhh." She sighed. "That's nice and cool." Christine silently handed her a waterproof neck-pillow. "What's that for?"

"So you don't drown." Delphi shrugged. "We're going to have to leave you in there overnight." She put a glass of water down beside the bath. "Now go to sleep."

* * *

Next morning, the house was roused by a plaintive wail from the second-floor bathroom. "Guyyyyyyys! Heeeeeeeeeeeelp!" Delphi and Christine were the first in. At first glance, everything looked fine. Then Delphi looked closer.

"What the…" She reached over and touched the gel, then rapped on it. "Wow. I didn't know gel could set like that." She grinned, good humour completely restored for another month.

"Hurry up and get me out!" Fortune begged, waving her free hand helplessly.

At that moment, there was a roar from the first floor. "Pink?!? All my clothes are PINK!?!?! That's it, Fortune, yer gonna die!!"

"On second thoughts…" Fortune looked apprehensively at the door. "Take your time."