//------------------------------// // ...Logic! // Story: The Merc With the Moth // by Tatsurou //------------------------------// After fighting their way through an elevator segment, they approached a narrow bridge. "You know," Deadpool pointed out, "in the original game, this is where Vertigo used her powers to make me dizzy and push me over the side into a water slide segment." "But I made us immune!" Chrysalis pointed out. "Dang..." Crazy complained. "That slide section was fun." At the other end of the narrow pipe bridge was a sign. It read Deadpool and Chrysalis Cheer Squad that way. Not Cthulic. There was an arrow pointing down off the side of the bridge. "Cheer squad?" Chrysalis asked, surprised. "Cheer squad!" Deadpool proclaimed eagerly. "Energetic young ladies eager to shower us with affection?" Cray-Chry squealed. "A whole group of buxom young ladies eager to see us?" Crazy added. "...an obvious trap?" Stuffy offered. "A shoehorned train?" Stuffalis suggested in a seeming non-sequitur. "Geronimo!" Deadpool and Chrysalis screamed together as they leapt over the side. Once in the water below, the two went into separate pipes to slide down while collecting points. Deadpool slid on his back, while Chrysalis called a wooden board to slide on. The pipes met at the bottom in a large walled in area where awaiting them was the promised...wooden cutout of a cheer squad. "What?" Deadpool demanded. "That's not what we were promised!" Chrysalis complained. "By an obvious trap sign," Stuffy added. "In Vertigo's handwriting, no less," Stuffalis added. "Why didn't you mention that before?" Crazy demanded. "...Father? Shall we demonstrate how that conversation would have gone?" "Indeed." Stuffy cleared his throat, and then began pitching his voice to imitate Crazy. "What? Why would Vertigo direct us to the cheer squad?" "Because it's an obvious trap meant to shoehorn us into the tracks of the original game path?" Stuffalis offered. "Nah, they'd never do that! Obviously Vertigo felt bad about how things went last time and arranged a cheer squad for us! I mean, it'd be easy to find a half dozen young girls happy to fuss over Chrysi!" "And the fact that it's an obvious trap meant to delay and distract us?" "We cannot dissapoint the hypothetical cheer squad! Could we live with ourselves if we moved on without giving them a chance to shower us with love, affection, and massages?" "Massages!" Deadpool shouted eagerly, lunging at the wooden cutouts and crashing through them. "...that massage hurt..." "...I rest my case," Stuffalis concluded. "Wow. Is that really what I sound like?" Crazy asked. "Yes!" Stuffy replied. "You have no idea how annoying it is." "Cool!" Stuffy groaned in frustration. "Umm...I think we just missed something important," Chrysalis pointed out, pointing out a nearby grating to where Blockbuster - on Mr. SinisterClone Face's orders - had just killed their target. "They stole our contract money!" Chrysalis complained, yanking her guns out. "...dammit! Not enough to unlock the plasma gun yet!" "Then we'll go without!" Deadpool cried, charging out at SinisterClone Face. After Deadpool's body was exploded exactly like it was in the original game, Chrysalis briefly checked to make sure he was still alive, then turned to SinisterClone Face. "Can you teach me to do that?" Mr. SinisterClone Face stared down at her. "You aren't terrified? Or enraged?" "Why should I be?" she asked. "Daddy's still alive, and my agent's a Cthulic monstrosity whose daughters will be here any minute with ice cream. If you try pulling that with me, they'll have your original brain for lunch, Mr. Clone Face." "Mr. Clone Face!" Deadpool laughed despite being just a head. "Guess what? As far as this story's concerned, that's your official name now! ...no idea what she means by it, but totally awesome anyway!" Mr. Clone Face groaned. "Are you going to try and stop me?" he demanded. "Not here!" Chrysalis replied. "I don't have enough points yet to unlock the best stuff, and the script says Uncle Fuzzy's gonna show up soon! Maybe this time I'll get to fly the Blackbird!" Mr. Clone Face stared at her for a time, then called down a rope. "Come, Blockbuster," he ordered. "Genosha awaits." "But you didn't teach me how to explode people with my mind yet!" Chrysalis wailed as he went up. Glaring up at him, she shouted, "I'm gonna eat your face!" Not long after, Uncle Fuzzy arrived with Psylocke, Domino, and Rogue. "Uncle Fuzzy!" Chrysalis called happily, leaping into his arms. "You brought friends?" Uncle Fuzzy groaned as the X-Girls snickered. "Good to see you too, Chrysi. Now, where's Deadpool?" "Still pulling himself together," she replied. "Can we load him into a cargo compartment so I get to fly the Blackbird this time?" "But I want Daddy to see us flying!" Cray-Chry complained. "Good point, Daddy needs to see it happen," Chrysalis pointed out. "So do I get to fly it?" "If only so I can refuse Deadpool by saying I already promised you the controls," Uncle Fuzzy replied quickly. "Backstabbers!" Deadpool screamed as he leapt to his feet. "Oh, hell~o ladies!" Deadpool's attempt at flirting, however, was screwed over as all of the X-Girls immediately began fawning over Chrysalis and showering her with pets, kisses, cuddles, and affection. Deadpool slumped over against the wall. "It's just not my day..." Uncle Fuzzy came over and patted his shoulder. "I'm still here for you, bro." Deadpool sighed. "That's good...I just wish you had nice boobies..." "I've read that fanfic!" "By the way, the bad guy's called Mr. Clone Face now!" Chrysalis told the X-Men happily, startling more laughs. Chrysalis' flying was, if anything, worse than Deadpool's. This was probably because she lacked even Deadpool's grasp of basic physics, and her magic was currently strong enough that channeling it into the Blackbird meant that it functioned based on her idea of how it should work rather than physics. As a result, they wound up taking several brief side trips on their way to Genosha. These brief stopovers included such interesting locations as The Ghost Zone, the inside of a giant Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man, Atlantica, and even buzzed a Wizzard falling into space off the edge of a world carried by a giant turtle. Eventually, they crashed into Genosha. "...Again!" Deadpool called eagerly. "Everyone's still alive but unconscious," Chrysalis pointed out as she levitated them to safety. "Oh! Does that mean this is where we repeatedly slap Uncle Fuzzy to get him to wake up?" Crazy asked. "And where we playfully nom on one of the X-Girl's titties until she wakes up and claim we just wanted some milk?" "They slipped that past the censors?" Deadpool asked, shocked. "No."