The Gist of It: It was a dark and stormy night-- no, I kid. The episode opens at night and a mysterious figure in a... to quote Scott... "fruit bowl" helmet breaks into the X-Mansion. Okay, it's not that mysterious, since they show his face like... right when he walks on screen. Anyway, Lance gets past the defenses and is all like "Whee! I wanna be an X-Man! I'm gonna pull a Rogue so I can get closer to Kitty and because Mystique ditched the Brotherhood, leaving us with nothing and rather than try to help my friends some more, I decided to leave them wallowing in their own poverty with that horrible Tabitcha chick while I live in a nice mansion. Sure, they've been with me through everything, and sure I'm the eldest, and thus, the 'daddy' of the group, but I've been neutered by Kitty and only care about her now because I'm a guy, and guys are so dumb that they'll follow some girl through everything and leave their friends feeling HURT AND ALONE AND ABANDONED!!!" (*cough cough* Nooo, I'm not speaking from personal experience with a friend who happens to be a guy who happens to have a girlfriend who happens to have him by the balls >.>)

Or something along those lines.

And so, reluctantly, they let him join, even though Scott's like "*points finger* He's evil! EEEVILLLL!!!" and Kitty's being a TOTAL bitch about the BH boys, saying something like "Are you finally tired of living with those losers?" Yeesh. If I was Lance, I'd be like "Man, and here I thought you were a nice girl who wasn't a total Jean Grey-esque snob. Screw you guys! *runs back to the BH, who's waiting to beat on him with clubs*" Kitty shows him to his room, and he's all "Blah, this'll be a piece of cake."

Sooo, yeah. There's lots of scenes of the new mutants (and Lance in that HORRIBLE HORRIBLE X-Geek outfit! *shudder* Goddd, it looks so bad. I prefer the stupid salad bowl on his head ANY DAY) training and... yeah. That's about it. Scott generally acts like a jerk, as he still thinks Lance is evil, but I think he really does try to act nice in one part, and ohhh the slashiness. Yes. Fun for Rosiel! And Lance is shorter than Scott, which was something I thought was true when I saw "Survival of the Fittest" and it's now confirmed. Really, this has nothing to do with the ep, but now I know that I'm NOT wrong when I refer to Scott as "the taller" of the two in one of my fics that'll never be published ANYWAY so moving on...

Scott sees that his car's all wrecked after the big training scene thingie, and Lance is all "Haha, your car sucks" and he and the new mutants jump into his jeep (how the hell did it get there? Or did he take it with him when he ran off?) and drive off to school, WHERE--

He's confronted by the BH!! XD Go Pietro! Go Freddy! Go Todd! ...and Boom Boom's there, but whatever, I'm going to pretend that she's dead. Freddy's all pissed off and like "I thought I looked up to you!" Pietro's... well, he's got some good lines :D I think Todd's hurt by the whole thing... he really kinda looks it in one part. Boom Boom doesn't say anything because she's dead. Yes. Dead. Some... thing tells Lance that the X-Dorks'll never accept him blah blah blah, Lance is like "Screw you all *shoves Todd and leaves*" It is this scene where I hate Lance. Buuut I'll elaborate on that in the opinion section.

Anyway, Lance later sees the new mutants sneaking out, and they (sans Lance, I mean) go for a joy ride in the X-Van and pretty much wreck it. Lance gets the blame because Scott's like "SEE! He's EVIL!!" The next night, they decide to take the Blackbird, and they're like "Go away Jamie! C'mon, Lance, it'll be fun, you'll get the blame anyway!" and he's like "No! Grr!" And so they leave and Lance, with his magical Lassie senses and process of elimination, is like "Shit! They're taking the jet!" and he runs off and gets Kitty and they phase into the jet as it begins to take off.

And so, Bobby crazily pilots the thing, Jubilee acts like a mini-Boom Boom (blech) and Sammy's all "Dude!" Uh. Yeah. Then there's this big action-packed scene, Lance and Kitty save they day, everyone makes it home safely, and the jet's all ruined. Scott's like "Grr! This is your fault, Lance!" and Lance is like "Yeah, whatever, I did it." because he's cool and takes the blame like that. However, the kiddies finally stand up and say "Nooo, we did it." And everyone's like "Oops, sorry we blamed you for everything, Lance!" and he's all "Blah, you guys suck, I'm going back to the Brotherhood." aaand then Kitty kisses him and he leaves. They don't show what happens after, though, so I'm gonna assume that Pietro, Freddy, and Todd jump Lance and beat the crap outta him. :D

Brotherhood Moments: I don't really know if any of Lance's scenes count, so the only scenes I'm considering is the beginning when he's going past the defenses (only because he's wearing his BH outfit and the way he's taking out the defenses reminds me of canon-Av) and the scene at school where Pietro, Freddy, and Todd confront him for ditching them.

My Opinion: Mixed feelings. On one hand, I got to see Lance a lot, but for a horrible, horrible price. Hm. For all that I like Lance over canon Avalanche, there's still one thing that Dominic (canon Avalanche) has over Lance: He doesn't betray his team for a girl. Sure, he leaves Johnny and Freddy to die in Kuwait while he gets to escape, saying "They're not worth it" even though Johnny's his best friend, but at least he was doing that to save someone else's life, not to be a horny teenager. Good old LOYAL Dominic... Not like STUPID Lance. Maybe I'm biased against his decision because I don't like the X-Men, or MAYBE I'm biased against it because I know what it's like to have a good stupid guy friend do that *kicks her school's theater department, as they would be the equivalent of the X-Geeks in her life*.

In any case, his decision makes me disgusted, and I cringed at the very beginning of the ep, the second they showed his figure. And here I thought they would save the torture for later, lull me into a false sense of security before springing the badness on me like in "Badda Bing, Badda Boom"... but, alas, no. Problem is, I like the new mutants (okay, I don't, I just like Bobby, Sammy, and Jamie, even though their voices are horrible), BUT I hate seeing Lance on the X-Freak team, BUT I like seeing Lance in general, BUT I hate seeing Scott act like a jerk (because I like him :\), BUT I liked the two-second slashy scene, BUT I hate seeing Boom Boom standing so close to the BH as she taints them with her air of whoreyness, BUT I like seeing the other BH boys, BUT I hate seeing the new mutants act like a bunch of mini-Boom Booms, BUT I liked the ending! *big sigh*

You see where my problem is... I don't know WHAT to make of this episode. Ohhh, but I know one thing: I hated Lance for a couple seconds. When the BH confronted him and he pushed Todd. What the HELL did Todd do?! He's like the kid of the group, and Lance was like the daddy and he just SHOVED the poor guy! And because I like looking more deeply into things than necessary on occasion, I'm guessing that Todd's probably more hurt by Lance's leaving them than the others were. Why? Because I can think that. :P Oh, and the Lance/Kitty thing is much more tolerable now. I liked how the writers handled it.

Rating (out of 5): This was difficult. Any episode where Boom Boom talks gets an automatic two points knocked off of the rating, but then again, Pietro talked and so did Todd 'n Freddy, so the rating should be knocked up a little, BUT there was the whole Lance being in the X-Men and Scott acting like a jerk, soooo... after much deliberation (haha, not really) I'm gonna give this episode... a... 3.5. Uh. Yes. 3.5 The goodness and the badness kept on canceling each other out, so with the two points knocked down for Boom Boom, there wasn't much room for a higher rating. So 3.5!

BH Babble:

: Wow, Avalanche, you seem to have a fondness for screwing your friends over! Like in, oh, I dunno... KUWAIT! >.<
: Hey, you're yelling at the WRONG guy about that! Besides, it's not like--
: Shut up! *thwaps Lance* You abandoned us, so you have NO RIGHT to defend yourself! *sobs* Just because you think Summers' ass is cuter than mine doesn't mean--
: Uh... Pietro?
: Yeah?
: He left because he thought KITTY'S ass was cuter than yours.
: Oh...... That's even WORSE!! *runs after Lance* I'm gonna kill you!
: O.O EEP! *runs... like THAT's gonna do anything*
: Ahh, things are finally back to normal. :D