By Berzerker_prime

Summary:
     Mushroom mayhem.  That’s all the summary you get for this one.  ^_~

Author’s notes:
    Well, I’m still working on the last part of Passing Time, Fighting Night, but in the meantime I got this really warped little idea and it wouldn’t go away.  I needed something to break up the serious, stick in the mud tone of PTFN, so I decided to go for it.
     This is a little one-shot, partially inspired by an episode of Cowboy Bebop (see?  This is what happens when I listen to soundtracks while writing…).  This is pure, unadulterated silliness in the X-Men: Evolution universe.  So, enjoy.
     Oh yeah.  For anyone who knows Kanno-sensei’s music from Bebop, look up the song “Chicken Bone.”  It goes with the mood pretty well.  ^_~
     ONWARD!!!!  ^_^

*********

     Dishes… she hated dishes.  She was stuck with them again, just like always.  Jean flipped off the faucet and set about drying the dishes that were piled in the dish drainer.  Next to her, the dishwasher chugged away with the big dishes.  She’d been left with the dinner plates and the glasses from the meal.
     Luckily, however, there were two less than normal.  Kitty and Evan’s botany class had gone on an all day field trip to the Bayville Botanical gardens and they weren’t due back for another half an hour or so.
     But still… she was always left with the stupid dishes.  Just because she was the one who didn’t wait until the last minute to do her homework.  Her reward for being such a studious person?  Constant KP.  It just wasn’t fair.
     She was in the midst of wiping off a glass when there was a sound behind her.  Somewhere in between a balloon explosion and a gasp, it could only be described as a “bamf.”  Startled, Jean dropped the glass and it shattered on the floor.  She whirled around and found Kurt perched on the edge of the opposite counter top, looking at the broken glass somewhat sheepishly.
     “Oops!  Guess I should call in my arrival time, ja?”
     “I really hate it when you do that,” Jean stated, getting the broom, “and get off the counter!  We’ve gotta make food there, you know.  What are you, some kinda cat?”
     “Sorry,” Kurt said, hopping down to the floor, “anyvay, I sought I’d come down and stake a claim to some of ze leftovers from dinner for my lunch tomorrow.”  He began making his way to the fridge only to have a tug on his tail result.  He turned back around and found Jean’s closed fist at its end.  She was looking at him with one of her… expressions.  “Or maybe I could help vith ze kitchen, first?”
     “Um hum,” Jean stated, nodding a sarcastic nod and dumping the remains of the broken glass into the garbage can.  She then pushed a towel into his hands.
     It was about fifteen minutes later that they had finished the dishes.  Kurt again made his way across the room to the fridge and pulled out a small Tupperware container of the leftover spaghetti they had had for dinner that evening.  He set it on the counter and cracked open the cover.
     “My!  Lunch sure comes early zis time of ze year!”
     “You just ate a half and hour ago!” Jean exclaimed.  “And I thought you wanted that for tomorrow.”
     The lid was off of the Tupperware and Kurt was digging in the drawer for a fork.  “Ja, but I have to make sure it does not go bad.”
     He was about to dig in when the swinging door to the kitchen opened up and Kitty and Evan came bursting in.  Evan was first through and headed straight for the fridge himself.  Unfortunately, Kurt’s tail got in the way of his foot.
     “Man, am I starved!” Evan said about the same time that Kurt yelped in pain, dropping his fork and pulling his tail into his hand.  “Huh?” Evan looked at him, curiously.
     Kurt was blowing on the rapidly swelling end of his tail.  He paused long enough to say something to Evan.  “You stepped on my tail!”
     Evan rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.  “Sorry Kurt… didn’t see it, there.  I’m so hungry, all I saw was the ice box.”
     Jean was the first to acknowledge Kitty’s existence.  The pink-clad freshman was cradling a small package.  “Hey Kitty, what’s that?” Jean asked over the din of Kurt and Evan’s escapades.
     Kitty opened the little bag and dumped some of the contents on to her hand.  What appeared was a few small brown lumps of what appeared to be some kind of mushroom.  “Peyote mushrooms,” Kitty stated, “I got ‘em at the Gardens.  I’m gonna, like, dry ‘em out and string ‘em up as a souvenir.”
     “Peyotes?” Jean asked.  “Aren’t they the ones that are supposed to make you, um… see things… if you eat ‘em?”
 Kurt and Evan were instantly interested at the mention of “see things.”  They both wandered over to look at the mushrooms, Kurt still holding his swelling tail.
     “Doth mine ear deceive me?” Evan asked in jest.  “Is perfect little miss Kitty Pryde turning into a tripper?”
     Kitty glared at him.  “I am not!  They’re just, like, a souvenir!”
     “Ja, ja!” Kurt agreed with Evan, “well, Kitty, vhen you down one of them, just vatch out of ze frogs on ze stairs.  Zey’ll get you every time!  Lemme see!”  He made a reach for the mushrooms in Kitty’s hands and she pulled back quickly.  Evan joined in and made a grab from another direction.  The three high schoolers knocked into each other and the mushrooms went flying in all directions as they fell to the floor in a pile.  Jean ducked from the shower of psychotropic vegetables and looked back again when Kurt gave another yelp.  He disentangled himself from the pile, clutching his swollen tail.
     “Guess I need some Bactine or somezing.”
     Kitty made a rather annoyed growl from her place on the kitchen floor.  She and Evan both got up and surveyed the new mess.  “Look at this, like, absolute mess the two of you caused!” Kitty snapped at Kurt and Evan.
     Jean sighed and got out the broom again.  Kurt was on his feet again, tail in one hand.  He put the cover back on the Tupperware container full of spaghetti, failing to notice a new piece of brown vegetable on the very top.  He took the container up in his other hand and turned back to the other three.  “Vell, time to go and study!  Later!”  He bamfed out, taking the leftovers with him.
     “Were those tonight’s leftovers?” Evan asked, somewhat annoyed.
     “Yeah,” Jean stated, “he already staked a claim to them for his school lunch tomorrow.”
     The fridge was Evan’s object of attention once again.  “Man, that leaves me with nothin’, here!”

     The end of the semester was drawing near and as such the weather had turned rather nice.  There was a certain picnic table that the X-men had staked out as their own and always met at for the lunch hour.  It was on the backside of the fieldhouse part of the school, close to the basketball court.
     Scott, Jean, Evan, Rogue, and Kitty were already there, sitting and eating their lunches when Kurt showed up on the scene, image inducer for once acting the way it was supposed to.  He plopped his backpack down, greeting them all with a cheerful wave.  He dug around in his backpack for the Tupperware.
     “Hey, are those last night’s leftovers?” Evan asked of Kurt.
     “Beat you to zem fair and square,” Kurt responded, digging in with a plastic fork he’d foisted from the lunch line.
     “Yeah, for once,” Scott agreed, “usually Evan makes off with them before anyone else can.”
     “Besides, Evan,” Kitty put in, “you, like, owe him for trampling his tail yesterday.”
     Kurt wound some noodles on to his fork, making certain to get some of the tasty meat sauce caught up in them, and popped it in his mouth.  “Ja,” he agreed around the mouthful, “I’d like you to know zat it still hurts.”
     “Oh yeah, ‘Crawler?” Even asked, somewhat sarcastically.  “Tryin’ to play the guilt game?  Well how’s about you and me, on the court, right here, right now.”
     Kurt swallowed what he had been chewing and eyed Evan.  “You’re on, Bone Boy.”
     They both packed up what remained of their lunches and Evan pulled out a basketball.  He checked its air pressure, and then the two of them were off.  They played the friendly tournament the rest of the lunch hour, completely losing track of the time until the bell rang.
     “Aw man!” Evan exclaimed.  “I didn’t get to finish eating.”
     “Neizer did I,” Kurt agreed, catching the basketball on a bounce and then passing it to Evan, “oh vell, no time to lose.  If I’m late for History, Frauline Peterson vill keep me after!”
     Both were back at their backpacks in an instant.  Kurt gathered his up and was off and Evan took a moment to pull his lunch out and stuff it in his face on his way.

     It was passing time between sixth and seventh hours that Kitty ran into Kurt just outside their Geometry class.  Even though Kitty was a Freshman, they shared a class in Sophomore Geometry because she was in the accelerated math program.  When she arrived at the classroom, Kurt was standing just outside, stuffing the spaghetti into his mouth as fast as he could.
     “Hey, Kurt,” she said.
     Kurt mumbled a food-muffled response.
     “Never got a chance to finish eating, huh?”
     He shook his head, stuffing another forkful into his mouth.
     “Better hurry up,” she warned, “there’s only, like, one more minute of passing time.”
     He stuffed one more forkful into his mouth, chewed quickly and swallowed as they entered.  “Finished!” He proclaimed, triumphantly as they both took their seats.  The bell rang and class started.

     It was about forty-five minutes later that Kitty heard the most peculiar thing.  She could have sworn she heard a giggle from the seat next to her.  She looked over at Kurt and found him poking his eraser with a finger.  Well, to anyone else, it looked like two fingers, but she knew better.  His other hand had become a rest for his chin and, sure enough, it was the only thing muffling a series of soft giggles emanating from the Mutant.
     Must be planning a practical joke again, she decided and turned back to the board for the last five minutes of class.

     How had that blowfish gotten on to his desk?  Well, no matter anyway.  It was telling him a nice little story about pink elephants and giant My Little Ponies.  It was also singing.
     “I feel good, really really good, I don’t know why but I just feel good.”
     Curiously, Kurt poked the little blue blowfish.  A series of green bubbles sprouted forth from its mouth and floated into the air, turning into zebra-striped Pokémon before bursting and disappearing into the air that was turning yellow.
     It was a very funny act for the blowfish to put on.  So, of course, he had to be a good audience and laugh at the creature’s antics.
     How had that blowfish gotten there anyway?  Wasn’t it just down next to the purple wombats near his feet?

     The bell rang, finally signaling the end of the day.  Kurt and Kitty both got to their feet.  Kitty gave a stretch and looked over at Kurt who seemed to sway a little bit.
     “Later, Herr Blowfish,” he seemed to say to his eraser, which he was apparently going to leave there, “Frau Vombat and her kittens vant to play.”  He poked the eraser once more, giggled, and then left without saying anything further.
     “He’s not planning a practical joke,” Kitty mumbled to herself, picking up Kurt’s backpack as he’d left it behind completely, “he’s executing one.  Guess I’ll just, like, stay out of his way until he, like, figures out I’m on to him.”

     Kurt followed the wombat family down the hallway of cheese.  A few frogs joined them on the way, each and every one of them colored orange.  The wombats were headed up a flight of stairs made of crackers and Kurt decided to follow them.  Suddenly, there was another frog directly in his path.
     “Hey,” it said to him, “this is a stairway to heaven, you know.”
     Kurt looked down at the frog, somewhat miffed that it was in his way and keeping him from following the wombats.  “Stupid frog,” he mumbled and continued up the stairs.

     Todd was more than a little miffed that the X-geek was seeming to completely ignore him.  He had gotten right in the ‘Crawler’s way on the stairs, too.  But no!  Kurt had to just continue on, mumbling something about a stupid frog.
     “Hey, don’t just walk away from me, yo!” Toad called after Kurt.
     Lance Alvers appeared at the bottom of the stairs.  “Wait a sec’, Toad,” he commanded, “take another look.”
     At the top of the stairs, Kurt ran straight into a wall of lockers and looked up at it.  “Oh, excuse me, Frau Giraffe,” he said to the lockers, “I vas just following ze vombats.”
     “Whoa, s’up with him?” Todd asked.  “Looks a little like he’s trippin’ or something.”
     “Yeah,” Lance agreed, somewhat conspiratorially, “maybe something he ate…”
     The two mutants of the Brotherhood looked at each other, smiling somewhat mischievously.

     The wombats had arrived at a large cavern whose walls were made of meatballs.  Several other wombats came out to join them, in all sorts of different colors.  The blowfish swam by, followed by a parade of several others.
     “Wow!” Kurt exclaimed.  “Ze gang’s all here, zen, ja?”  He poked the blowfish and expected it to blow out the bubbles that turned into zebra-striped Pokémon again, but instead it started playing techno conga music.
     Suddenly, the wombats had grown to his size and they formed a conga line.  Not wanting to be a pill, he joined the line and started dancing conga in the direction the wombats were leading.

     Lance wasn’t entirely sure what Kurt was doing in between he and Todd, but it appeared that he was following them while… doing a… conga…
     At least, that was what he appeared to be trying to achieve, but he really only succeeded in wobbling back a forth quite a bit.
     “Herr Vombat!” Kurt exclaimed.  “Zis is fun!  How often do you have zese gazerings?”
     “I dunno just what he’s on,” said Toad, “but whatever it is, I want some.”
     “Get real,” said Lance, “all we’re after is gettin’ this geek and bringin’ him to Mystique.  She won’t care how we did it, but she will care if we let a golden opportunity slip by.”
     “Yeah, yeah,” Toad agreed, “just as long as she doesn’t yell again.”

     Kitty and the others arrived home about a half an hour after school got out.  Scott pulled the car up in the garage and he, Rogue, Evan, Jean, and Kitty popped out of the car, ready for the weekend.
     When they got into the house, Kitty made right for Kurt’s room and knocked on the door.  “Hey, Kurt!  I’m, like, on to you, so you can drop whatever it was you’re trying to pull.”
     Ororo happened by just then and spoke up.  “He hasn’t been back all day, Kitty.  Is there something you need?”
     Kitty held out Kurt’s backpack.  “Just a service fee for dragging this things back for him while he plays some, like, stupid practical joke.”
     Ororo gave a wry smile and crossed her arms across her chest.  “He’s probably off working on the next phase of his master plan,” she said, sarcastically, “I’ll bet he just doesn’t know you’re on to him, yet.”
     The phone rang and Evan called out that he would answer it.
     “It’s just, like, annoying, you know?” Kitty ranted.  “He just never knows when to quit.”
     “Um… Aunty O!” Evan called from the foyer, the phone in his hand.  “I think you wanna get this one!”
     Ororo cocked an eyebrow and made her way to the phone that was resting on the table in the bedroom hallway.  She picked up the receiver and put it to her ear.  “Hello?”  She listened for a few moments and a dark cloud seemed to spread across her face (no pun intended).  After a few more moments, she put the receiver back on the cradle and looked up to Kitty.  “Trouble,” she said, “Mystique’s people have Kurt.”
     “What!?”  Kitty cried.  “They nabbed him right from school?!”
     “Looks that way,” Ororo responded, “let’s get everyone together.  We have to get him back.”

     Kurt had been quiet while Mystique had been on the phone, but that ended the moment she put the phone back in its place on her desk.  Somewhere along the way, his image inducer had turned off and now he was crawling about the room, sticking to walls and the like, ever following the wombats, or so he said.  It was after Mystique had finished her proclamation to whoever was at the other end of the line that he started singing at the top of his lungs.
     “Doot doo doo, lookin’ out my back door!”
     Mystique ignored him for the moment.  “They’re more than likely on their way, right now,” she told her charges.  At least, she told the ones who weren’t occupied.  Blob was presently blocking the window so that Nightcrawler didn’t climb right on out.  Mystique continued.  “When they get here, Toad, I want you to dangle blue boy out the window.  If they don’t agree to bring Cerebro to us, be ready to drop him.”
     “Aw man,” Toad whined, “that means I’m gonna have fur all over my tongue.”
     “Don’t whine about it, Toad, just do-”
     “Poppies!”
     Kurt had slammed down on Mystique’s back from the ceiling, taking an obvious shine to her extremely red hair.  He began to pull on it relentlessly.
     “Get him off!” Mystique roared.  Blob obliged and pulled Kurt off of the blue-skinned shape shifter only to become Kurt’s latest jungle gym.  Nightcrawler climbed up to the top of Fred’s head and proclaimed himself king of the hill before he was “pushed off” by his imaginary playmates.
     Mystique picked her head off of her desk and rubbed a temple.  “If this doesn’t kill me, I’m going to kill him.  Either way, one of us is going to go before this is over.  Quicksilver, go outside and keep an eye out for them.”
     “Can do, boss-lady!”  And he was off even before he had finished saying that.
     A framed picture fell off the wall and to the floor, breaking the glass.  Mystique didn’t even turn around to see what she would have to replace.  She didn’t even want to know.

     The X Van pulled out of the driveway and began heading through town toward the high school.  Its seats were filled with battle ready X-Men, minus Wolverine since he had accompanied Xavier to a conference.
     “How could the ‘Crawler have been so clumsy?” Evan asked, incredulously from his place in the back seat.
     “Yeah,” Rogue agreed, next to him “this isn’t like him at all.”
     “Well, he was acting pretty weird,” Kitty stated, “a little like he wasn’t himself...”
     There was a pause and suddenly, Jean turned around to look at Kitty, somewhat amazed.  “Kitty!  You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
     “Hey, c’mon, like, stay outta my head, all right?”
     “Sorry, but I couldn’t help but pick that up.  But… the mushrooms?”
     “What mushrooms?” Storm asked from her place behind the steering wheel.  Her tone of voice was suspicious at best, accusing at worst.
     “Ummm…” Kitty stammered, “they were just a souvenir.  I wasn’t gonna… like, use ‘em or anything.”
     “Someone, out with the whole story, now,” Storm commanded.
     “Well,” Spyke ventured, “it was kinda an accident, Aunty O.”
     “And whose fault is that?” Shadowcat accused.
     “Kitty had some Peyote mushrooms that she got as a souvenir at the Botanical Gardens yesterday and Kurt and I were kinda teasing her about ‘em and they… kinda… got all over the kitchen.”
     “So, you think Kurt ate one by mistake?” Cyclops asked, the rest of his face reflecting the way his eyes must have been bugging out behind his visor.
     “Wonderful,” Rogue mumbled, “so he’s trippin’ on some whacked out mushroom and is probably havin’ a gay ol’ time with Mystique’s goons.”

     Meanwhile, back in Mystique’s office in the high school, Nightcrawler was in fact having a gay old time.  He was singing with the blowfish who had stopped playing conga music and started spouting both kinds of music at once; country and western!!  Kurt was busy doing a dance that included several cartwheels and somersaults.  In the midst of all this, he managed to succeed to kicking every single member of the Brotherhood in both of their eyes and run over quite a few feet.  Finally, they had gotten out of his way and allowed him just to spring from wall to wall while belting out a horribly off-tune attempt at a country song.
     “Man, I’m not sure I can take much more ah this, yo,” Toad warbled, rubbing a rapidly blackening shiner around his eye.
     Pietro happened into the room a moment later and ended up in Kurt’s path and the fuzzy elf landed on him and stopped.
     “Frauline Vombat!” he exclaimed.  “You’re being so forvard!”  And Kurt planted a big wet one square on Quicksilver’s lips.  After that, he continued hopping about the room.  But he stopped again right in front of Mystique.  “I found some flowers for you, Frauline!”  he called, climbing up on Mystique and pulling out some of her hair.  While she was yelping in pain and rubbing the freshly made bald spot, he bounded back over to Pietro and handed him the handful of red hair.
     Pietro was brushing off his mouth, trying to get rid of the fur that was already there and Kurt didn’t help things when he “handed” the “flowers” to Quicksilver’s mouth.  The Brotherhood mutant was sputtering anew.
     “I’ve had it!” Mystique finally bellowed.  “Blob, grab him!  We’re going elsewhere.”

     The X Van continued speeding down the street.  It had just turned on to the street where the high school was when a Jeep came screaming out of the school parking lot, Avalanche at the wheel and the rest of the Brotherhood riding along.  Blob had the happily crooning Nightcrawler slung over his shoulder.
     The Jeep pulled up in front of the X Van and skidded to a halt, blocking the road.  Both the X Van and Lance’s Jeep were suddenly emptied as the two groups faced each other down.  Mystique motioned to Blob, who tossed Nightcrawler to the group of X-Men.  Kitty, Evan, and Rogue managed to catch Kurt and they were all on the pavement in a pile for a moment as Kurt ranted something about how that must have been how pink elephants felt.  He was up again in a moment, dancing to some rather off beat music.
     “Take him!” Mystique commanded.  “We don’t want him any more!”
     And the mutants of the Brotherhood all climbed back into the Jeep and sped away as fast as Lance could floor the gas.
     “Well, guess that solves that,” Storm commented.
     “Yeah, but what do we do about Kurt?” Evan asked.
     Kurt waved a giant, goofy wave in the direction of the rapidly retreating Jeep.  “Bye bye, Herr Blowfish!”
    WobblewobbleTHUD.
     “That, I guess,” Rogue commented, looking down at the passed out Nightcrawler.
     “Okay,” Cyclops said, slowly, “so… what do we tell the Professor about this?”
     “Nothing,” Storm stated, “just… don’t tell him… anything.”

     It was several hours later that Kurt awoke back in the mansion with a splitting headache.  He found himself in his room, laying in bed and covered in a few blankets.  The room swam as he sat up and looked about.  Ororo was sitting in a chair by the window, quietly reading a book.
     “Vhat hit me?” Kurt asked, somewhat dazed.
     Ororo looked up from her book and gazed at Kurt with a bit of a whimsical smile.  “Well,” she said, “welcome back to the land of the living and seeing straight.”
     The room spun and suddenly, Kurt felt his stomach turn a few wild loops.  He hopped out of bed and bamfed off someplace, holding his hand over his mouth.  A moment later, Ororo heard another bamf down the hall followed by a very loud retching sound.  Kurt wandered back into the room and flopped back down on the bed, face first into the pillow.
     “Scratch zat first question,” he said, “vhat did I eat?”
     “A Peyote mushroom,” Ororo stated, “somehow it got into the leftover spaghetti you had for lunch.  Let’s say that Evan and Kitty are doing their own share of kitchen cleaning right now.  Oh, but Evan thought you might like this back, though, since he borrowed it a few days ago.”
     She reached over to the table by the chair and grabbed a CD from the surface.  She handed it to Kurt and he read the title.
     The Beatles, Yellow Submarine.
     Kurt flopped over onto his back and tossed the CD onto his nightstand as Ororo left.
     “Vombats,” he muttered to himself, “if I ever see another vombat…”

*********

Well, that’s it!  No, I’m not doing any of Kitty’s mushrooms, really I’m not!
*Berz sees several people threatening to toss virtual produce at her.*
Oops!  Guess I’d better go finish chapter 6 of PTFN.  ^_^;
Ja ne, minna-san!