Why shapeshifting and alcohol don't mix.
"Dad..."
He turned sharply, glaring at the creature before him as the cloud of sulfurous smoke that heralded its arrival dispersed.
"How did you find me?"
The creature - his daughter, Katja Wagner - shrugged. "We had a tracking beacon on you. It's on your right shoe, between the tread."
He looked angry for a moment, then looked at his shoe. There it was.
"You little..."
"It's your fault, not mine," she said with a shrug. "Just pick it off and smash it if you want. I only used it so I could find you and give you this."
He raised an eyebrow at the object she held out to him. It was rectangular, wrapped in fancy wrapping paper.
"It's a video," she said, "of last night."
There was no missing his baffled expression. She smiled. "It was very special to me, even if you were drunk!"
Even more baffled. Incredulous, even. She laughed. "No, nothing like that. You have a dirty mind. Just watch it, ja?"
* * *
"Last night. Special to her. What the heck was that all about?"
Ransome was grumbling to himself as he popped the video into his VCR and settled back in an overstuffed chair to watch. Not much fazed him, but this video had him curious.
What came up on the screen was a slightly shaky shot of Kevin Pryde - Spectre as he was known in the X-men - holding a broom handle like it was a microphone. Turning up the volume a bit, Ransome could hear some odd music in the background. He thought little of it. He was more concerned with Pryde's devious smirk.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen...and Guise, assuming this tape got to its intended recipient... welcome to mutant mayhem of the funniest kind. Guise, I hope you're sitting down... here's why shapeshifting and alcohol don't mix."
Before Guise could wonder what on earth Pryde meant, the tape blacked out for a second, then blinked back on a spectacle that made Guise, a seasoned terrorist, cringe and sink lower in his seat.
There, on the TV screen, were three mutants all dancing in a line, arms linked, to the Sesame Street song "Fuzzy and Blue". One was Helen McCoy, AKA "Sable", the scientist and resident scholar of the X-men. The second was Katja Wagner, AKA "Nightshade", the demon-like acrobat and teleporter-and his daughter, though he was loathe to admit it some days. And the third mutant dancing...
Was himself. He wanted to shrivel up, crawl under a rock and die. There he was, dancing with the enemy, singing along though he didn't know the words, all because of what he held in his hand...
A bottle of vodka. He was dancing like a drunken fool because he WAS a drunken fool!!
He sighed a sigh that ended in a moan of mental agony and let his head fall into his hands. He almost couldn't make himself look up, but he did. He wished he hadn't.
It hadn't been bad enough that he'd made a drunken idiot of himself by dancing with those two furry blue nincompoops. No, now Katja was dancing, arms linked, with Sulley from the kids' movie Monsters, Inc. There could be no other explanation. He was a shape shifter. And "Sulley" was holding a bottle of vodka in one hand...
"I didn't...make it stop!"
It didn't stop. He could barely watch himself shift back into his natural form -albeit a bit clumsily-though he was now dancing with just his daughter in a sort of staggering mock-waltz. And all around the room, the other X-men watched, clapping, singing, and all grinning from ear to ear. But it was Katja who disturbed him the most, for Katja was beaming as she danced with him, and even laid a peck on his cheek. She didn't seem to mind that most of the so-called dance was spent propping him up and keeping out from under his feet. She was too elated to be on even this drunken truce with him.
Finally, the scene ended and the tape flicked back to Kevin Pryde again, who was still grinning wickedly and still holding the broomstick microphone.
"And if you're wondering, Guise, we do have several copies of this tape!"
And the image of Pryde disappeared into salt and pepper fuzz. Guise turned off the TV, leaned back in his chair, and shut his eyes.
He moaned.
