Generation X Presents:
A Short (and Somewhat Inaccurate) History of the X-Men
by Jaelle

Part Two

"And we're back!" Jubilee bounced back onto the stage as the last of the X-Men settled back into their seats. The lights dimmed again. There were a large amount of popcorn, ice cream and other snacks in evidence.

Jubilee grinned and consulted her notes. "Okay, so when we last left our intrepid heroes, they'd just been joined by even more intrepid heroes. Now from here on in things get really confusing. Partially because they were confusing and partially because I couldn't be bothered reading all the damn files."

"You mean you accidentally deleted them when you were installing network Doom!" yelled a voice from backstage.

"Ix-nay on the oom-Day Paigey!" Jubilee yelled back.

In the audience, Hank blanched, then sighed. "Well, at least we have backups." he said wryly.

"Uh yeah, I'll get back to you on that one Hankster," said Jubilee guiltily. "And now on with the show."

"What do you mean, you'll get back to me?!"

"Quiet in the cheap seats! So anyway, the new X-Men took up residence, not without their fair share of incidents however."

There was a splash of water and Everett walked on stage, one hand covering his eyes as he held a towel out at arms length. M's bare arm reached out from behind the curtain and accepted the towel. The audience was amused to see quiet dignified Storm blushing hotly. Gambit blew her a smoke ring. "And it was at this point that the first of a ridiculously familiar set of incidents occured."

Paige (in red hair and Marvel Girl costume) mimed swimming on stage. Following her were Jono (Cyclops), Skin (Angel), Mondo (Beast) and Synch (Iceman). They were all in original black and yellow X-Men uniform with large fishbowls on their heads. The boys "swam" offstage and Husk pretended to be concentrating fiercely on something. Red lighting flicked on. Suddenly, she began clawing at her face and with a ripping sound 'husked' off her skin to be revealed in the original Phoenix costume. She bowed and stepped offstage.

"Uhhh... thanks Paigey..." Jubilee said. "That wasn't too disgusting, but would you please clean up after yourself?" Paige re-entered with a broom and swept her ex-skin away. "Thank you. Moving right along, then, a new mutant joined the team."

M jumped onstage, "Hi! I'm Kitty Pryde! I'm cute! I'm perky! An' I wanna be one of the X-Men!"

Jubilee opened her mouth but Monet continued quickly, as her attitude changed slightly. "An' I like to rollerblade, chew gum, tell boring stories about my adventures, shop, channel surf..." Jubilee was making throat-cutting motions as Monet gave up all pretense of acting and began listing. "Don't study, pry, make attempted-funny jokes, talk and talk and talk..."

"Okay Monet zip it!" yelled Jubilee. She pulled at the cords that closed the curtain, cutting M off mid-sentence. The audience was roaring with laughter as she shook her head sadly, "You give them everything, you make them stars and this is how they treat you." She sighed.

"Anyhoo... so now the X-Men got Pryde. Then an attack is led against her by some sleaze queen trying to recruit her into her school. Due to the fact that it's midterms next week we regret that we are unable to show you this scene."

"Awwwww..." complained some members of the audience.

"Watch it Cassidy," snarled Emma.

"I didnae say anything!"

"You didn't have to."

"So we therefore bring you... more of the same!"

Husk stepped out in Phoenix costume, clutched at her head and husked into Dark Phoenix costume. She began to leave when...

"Ahem." said Jubilee, staring meaningfully at the discarded husk. Husk sniffed and carried it away.

Scott squeezed Jean's hand. *Don't worry,* she 'told' him telepathically, *they only mean it in fun.*

"Also..."

"I've had a vision!" Monet (Kitty) announced. "A vision of the future! We must at all costs keep it from coming true! It's a terrible catastrophe, this irritating Asian-American kid worms her way into the..."

"So the X-Men rallied to this cause!" Jubilee proclaimed loudly, shooting a death glare at Monet as the audience giggled. The rest of GenX ran onstage around M and struck noble poses. Jubilee fished a cassette player out of her pocket and hit play. Beautiful, longing music began to play.

"Brahms? Handel?" asked Bobby.

"The love theme from Mystery Science Theatre 3000," said Logan.

"Hey wait a second, wasn't Jean normal at that point?" asked Domino.

"No, I'm fairly sure she was absent." replied Roberto. "Jean?"

"Don't ask me. I've never understood it!" Jean replied.

"Oh yeah! Almost forgot. Somewhere around this time the first of the splinter X-groups formed. Only they didn't have an X in their names! A bunch of lame wannabes they were... the New Mutants!"

The curtain reopened to show Generation X in the original NM costumes.

"Hi! We're the New Mutants!" they yelled cheerfully.

Roberto and Sam booed loudly; "Yaa! Boooooo! Hissss..."

"Sam!" yelled Paige. "You're embarassing me!"

"And how do you thank Ah feel? Boooooooo!"

The curtain closed and Jubilee took a step forward. "And now, in a feat never attempted before... we present... the Dark Phoenix saga!"

The curtain re-opened and Husk stood there in Jean Grey costume.

"Attempting to save her friends Jean Grey was exposed to cosmic energy, and became the Phoenix."

*Rip* Husk was now wearing Phoenix costume.

"Corrupted by power, she became evil."

*Rip* Husk in Dark Phoenix costume.

"She was hunted."

The 'X-Men' jumped onstage to fight Husk. She struck a threatening pose and chased them back offstage.

"Even aliens didn't like her."

The 'X-Men' plus Artie and Leech chased Paige back across the stage and off the other side.

"But she was too powerful."

The 'X-Men', Artie and Leech were chased back across by Paige. "But she sacrificed herself for love."

Paige clutched at her heart and collapsed.

Jubilee sniffed and wiped away a fake tear. "Isn't that beautiful?" She looked at her notes. "But then it turned out that that wasn't really Jean at all but a simulcra crafted by the Phoenix entity when Jean first tried to save her friends. In fact her body was still intact, though unconcious, and her form was taken by the Phoenix which finally learned to love, sacrificed itself because of that and when it tried to return it's memories to Jean had them rejected, and they instead went to a clone created by Mister Sinister, woke it up and caused it to cause havoc, falling in love with Scott, marrying him, having a kid which was later sent into the future and then came back as a gun-toting, testosterone-emitting badass and so forth. Including one particularly ironic adventure when Mastermind made everyone think she was Dark Phoenix come back to life, ironic cos of the memories doncha know? So it was all okay after all cos then Jean really did come back."

She stopped and waited a few moments.

Joseph clutched at his skull, "My head hurts."

"Was it this confusing living through it?" Bobby asked, "I can't remember anymore."

Husk onstage stood and brought her hands up in order to husk but then paused. "I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be right now. But I really think you cheapened that whole perfect moment when Jean gave up her life."

Jubilee shrugged, "Don't blame me. But anyway, the important thing is that the Phoenix entity learned to love, and to grow from love, and was willing to sacrifice everything for love, right?"

There was a chorus of hearty "Yes!"s to that and Jubilee grinned. The grin turned evil, "Of course, there's a lot more. Then the original Jean did actually come back precipitating a battle between clone and original, resulting in a demon war but we ain't up to that part yet so..." Jubilee took a huge breath. "I need a glass of water. Tune in in another ten minutes when we step back briefly into continuity and look at some of the other major events that took place. Later."

Continued in Chapter 3.

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