It was the fateful day that Max had set his plans in motion to gain Storm as a member of the BLISS Pleasure Cruise. Storm had viewed the BLISS website and had been subjected to the full force of subliminal messaging that had convinced her that taking a BLISS Pleasure Cruise was the most important thing in the world to her. It had been icing on the cake that Kitty Pryde had also stumbled upon the website and had also been ensnared.
On the outside grounds of the X-Mansion, Cyclops had just asked the X-Men where Storm was when the biggest of the Sentinels, a Mark 3, unleashed a volley of missiles from its outstretched palm. The X-Men all dodged to avoid them as best as they could, but the front window of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters didn’t hold up nearly as well. The small explosion caused the nearly wall-length windows to shatter in a million tiny pieces.
Even as the shards rained down from above and to her right, Kitty was practically prancing down the long hallway. She had a wide, contented smile on her face and wore a flowing lace dress. She was seemingly unaware and thanks to her power, completely unaffected by the commotion outside. Kitty would have normally jumped at the chance to defend the mansion or tend to the children that attended the school, but under the influence of the BLISS website, all she wanted to do was to leave to be a guest on the cruise.
When the glass shattered in the startling explosion, Kitty didn’t even jump. She had simply glanced up at the oncoming shards that could have cut her skin, and activated her mutant powers. The glass was continuing to zip through her phasing body, and Kitty proceeded down the hall as if she didn’t have a care in the world, and eventually reached the elevator that would carry her to the vast facility that was home to the X-Men’s base of operations underneath the Xavier Institute’s grounds.
The elevator door opened and Kitty was met by Ororo’s Monroe’s smiling face. Like Kitty, Storm wore a flowing dress. Storm’s had a fancy floral pattern on it. The normally earthy woman had more makeup gracing her face than she normally wore, and her Mohawk, which she had once wore so proudly off her scalp, had been slicked back.
Kitty Pryde smiled back at Storm and immediately set to work. She made her way to the main computer terminal in the underground facility’s command center and began typing. She was entering command after command. Storm looked on approvingly. She knew exactly what Kitty was up to. Soon, the tracking system on all vehicles belonging to the X-Men would be disabled. She had also disabled all communications and had set up an encrypted code to reactivate it that would take Forge himself to decipher. The pair would be free to enjoy themselves and not have to worry about any of their teammates finding them and taking them away from their much needed vacation cruise! Storm’s smile grew at the thought of the cruise.
Once Kitty was finished with the X-Men’s main computer, Storm led the computer wiz to another part of the underground facility. They stood in front of the arched door with the X-shape in the middle and Ororo began to enter in her pass code to gain access to the giant room that was Cerebro. Cerebro was created long ago by Professor Xavier himself, and is a device that is used by powerful telepaths to find any mutant or human on the planet. For a moment, Storm’s serene expression faded on account of what that meant for her and Kitty. They wanted to be left alone, and technology like Cerebro simply wouldn’t allow that. Lucky for the both of them, technology could always be turned off. Kitty once more went to work. She started the process of disabling the supercomputer. It wasn’t difficult at all, since all she was doing was requiring Professor Xavier’s personal eyeprint for any usage of the machine. Kitty’s objective was for Cerebro to be offline for the duration of their cruise. Professor Xavier had been called away on important, secretitive business and that usually meant he would be gone for a long time. Kitty Pryde reasoned that if he was the one that built it, he should be the one that would use it.
It all made sense to her in her compromised mind.
Storm watched Kitty work for a while, before the Weather Witch knew she was needed elsewhere. She had something important to attend to. Kitty, meanwhile, looked up briefly from Cerebro’s control panel, and nodded her head. She knew the plan Ororo had devised.
While Storm and Kitty were plotting far below the Xavier Institute, Cyclops was leading the X-Men against the Sentinel attack. Just minutes prior, Jean Grey, the love of Scott Summers life, had been rendered unconscious by a laser blast. He raced over to her and cradled the redhead in his arms. He looked up at the oncoming purple-toned robot, the largest of the group, and gritted his teeth.
“Enough of this,” he seethed under his breath.
He was just about to take off his visor that kept his optic blasts from inflicting total damage to anyone around him, when he heard the revving of an engine. An all too familiar revving of an engine. He secured his visor once more to his temples and shot out a large blast at the Sentinel, taking out one of its legs in the process. Cyclops then turned to see where the sound of the engine was coming from.
The leader of the X-Men gaped as he saw his red convertible racing away from the mansion’s underground garage, the secret entrance closing back into the ground. Even through the smoke billowing up from the many explosions that had taken place on the front lawn, the X-Men leader could just make out two feminine figures in the front seats. For the life of him, Scott Summers couldn’t fathom how Storm and Kitty could be driving away from the mansion when it was under such an attack.
Storm looked over at Kitty, and pressed her foot on the gas until it hit the floor. Kitty glanced back to the commotion at the X-Men’s front lawn. Storm shrugged her shoulders and told Kitty to lean over to take the wheel. She looked up into the sky briefly, before her pretty blue eyes took on a completely white tone. She raised her hands to the sky, and soon, dark clouds began to accumulate high above the mansion and the rumble of thunder could be heard off in the distance.
Scott yelled for all of his X-Men to fall back. He picked up Jean’s prone body in his arms and raced away from the Sentinels, himself looking up to the sky. In the car, Storm then clenched her outstretched palms into a fist and without warning, lightning bolts struck the front lawn, frying the oncoming Sentinels and ending their attack.
The X-Men looked on in wonder at the immense genocidal robots that had just minutes ago been attacking them. They had been reduced to nothing more than sizzling junk. Cyclops lay Jean down on the lawn, trying to catch his breath as Beast tended to her. All was silent save for the sound of his car’s engine sounding in the distance. The X-Men leader was filled with questions, and he looked on as the red corvette disappeared amongst the forest trees that neighbors the Xavier Institute. Storm and Kitty had to have had a reason for stealing his car, and ignoring the initial call to defend the mansion. If not, nothing made sense. He was so lost in thought, he barely noticed a figure step up next to him.
“I have to hand it to you, Cyke,” Wolverine said, his voice low and gruff. His gaze followed Cyclops’ and he placed a hand on the tall, slim mutant’s shoulder, “You sure do have nice toys. It’s just a shame everyone’s always stealing them, ain’t it, Bub?”
Cyclops looked down at Wolverine. His eyes were covered by the ruby visor, but it was clear that he was not amused.
**********
A few days later, the alarm blared and beeped, and Storm wanted nothing more than to smash the object before realizing that she wasn’t at the X-Mansion any more. She could abuse her own personal alarm clock all she liked, but paying for a replacement at the hotel she and Kitty were staying at would be a terrible way to start their cruise vacation. Kitty, who finally began to stir as the alarm continued, glanced at her fellow X-Woman with a tired, annoyed, and yet somehow happy expression as the dark-skinned mutant finally turned the clock off. Storm was also the first to sit up off her cozy mattress and took a moment to spread her arms wide in the air in a long stretch to start her day. When she was done with that, she turned her head to smile at Kitty, who was still resting her head comfortably on large feathered pillows.
“Today is the day!” Storm declared happily.
“The day we go on the cruise!” Kitty chirped.
It had been all either woman could think about ever since being subjected to the BLISS website. The thought of taking a break from their duties as members of the mutant superhero team, the X-Men, and divulging in a much-needed vacation had been an obsession to Ororo Monroe and Kitty Pryde. Nothing could stop them from taking their place as special guests about the BLISS vessel.