Chapter 8: The Strange Case Of The Molting Brain

            "Switch courts!" Northstar commanded.  He had been directing most of the flow of the game with a loud, irritated voice.

            Kurt didn't like being ordered around, but he was so tired after the last time he got knocked out he just wanted the game to get over with.  You'd think that the two of them would have been prime talents to get a tennis match over quickly and painlessly, but it was dragging on through uncountable ties.  Best to just ignore the bad attitude and keep the game moving… and rest the aching neck in due course.

            "Hey!" Jean-Paul exclaimed.  He sounded appalled.

            "What?" Nightcrawler couldn't even finish the one syllable before Northstar was in his face, dangling some fuzz in front of his eyes.

            "You shedding?" He indicted, rubbing the fuzz between two fingers.  "This… crud is all over that side of the court!"

            "What?"

            Jean-Paul threw his hands over his head in incredulity.  The fuzzy evidence fell from his hands and floated downward.  "I'm asking if you've been shedding while playing tennis!" He made it sound like a serious crime that someone might do such a thing - even unintentionally - during tennis!  The horror!

            "Not me." Kurt shook his head.  "Maybe your brain's finally exploded from all that running around you do and you're shedding that fluff-brain out your ears."

            "An insult?" Northstar had his hand around the offender's throat so fast a slow-motion playback wouldn't have betrayed the moment where his fingers slammed against Kurt's neck.

            BAMF!

            Nightcrawler teleported out of the death grasp reflexively.  Now on the other side of the court, he saw that Jean-Paul hadn't been entirely unfounded.  There was a bunch of fuzzy crud on the ground.  "Watch the neck please!" His eyes were squinted in such a way that the yellow light behind them seemed to glow more fiercely than typical.  "I ran into a real accident earlier, and I'd hate to have to teach him a lesson."

            "Clean up the court, and quit molting already." Northstar recovered from finding his hand empty by flexing his fingers into a fist and back.

            Kurt was growling again.  He hated it when those reactions snuck up on him so suddenly; it only reinforced that demon-exterior impression.  He kept growling, anyway.  One snarl suddenly turned into an uncontrollable sneeze, ruining the whole intimidation act completely.

            "Oh, I see." Jean-Paul said.  "You're ill, sneezing, and your fur's falling out.  Tough break; guess I win by default."

            "I'm not sick…" Not entirely true.  His neck ached warningly, and this sneezing was unexpected.  Not to mention the company was sickening.  But what about this sneezing?  "It's something… falling from the sky?"

            They both turned their attentions upward, and saw the fuzz really did seem to be snowing down from the sky.  It took a little deduction before it was only too obvious that Wolverine's ball-holocaust was the cause.  The last straw was seeing the deflated tennis ball carcasses strewn across the court.

            "This is still your fault!" Jean-Paul roared.  "He's aiming for you specifically!"

            Nightcrawler wished he could revert to psychotic demon mode now, but the fuzzes creeping up his nose kept him sniffling too humanly to pull it off.  "Tell me, is there a target painted on my back, or has God just decided today was a great opportunity to make me answer for some things?"

            "Don't you even bring God into this!  If anybody could be accused of doing the slowest work in this world, let me break it to you, it's Him."

            "I don't know about that," Kurt retorted.  "He must have been in a rush to have turned you out so imperfectly."

            "I'm imperfect?" Jean-Paul scoffed.  "Grab a mirror, buddy.  But take care of this mess first before I decide to skip straight to your seven years of bad luck."

            Kurt exhaled laboriously.  "Do you really enjoy wasting your time arguing all day long?  Let's just forget about the fuzz and get on with this."

            Northstar wondered for about 1/1000 of a second if he really did enjoy arguing, but dismissed it as silly.  Anything that blue slowpoke came up with wasn't worth thinking about anyway.  He spent his next few fractions of the second getting into position to return whatever pathetic serve was coming next.  For the last few milliseconds, he prepared a few dozen insults to sling at Kurt just in case he said something that was supposed to be witty.  Ah yes… it was good to be speed personified!

            Meanwhile, Storm and Beast had taken up a real match, requesting that the two new players observe what tennis was like in action.  So far, Ororo had refrained from using her powers to influence the game, opting for straight skill in this competition.

            "Thirty to fifteen!" Hank announced.

            "What's the matter, Katia?" Peter hoped it wasn't something bad.  The disappointed look on her face was frightening.

            Shadowcat was disgusted.  "Rogue is such a liar!"

            Colossus blinked, expecting all the details whether he asked for them or not.  Usually, Kitty would fill him in on an entire day's experience without any encouragement.  She didn't seem to believe in sparing the unimportant details, insisting on describing the meals she'd had, the clothes she wore, and especially the exact words she'd used at the time.

            Completely out of character, Kitty did not automatically explain her situation to him.

            "Rogue is a liar because?" Colossus prompted, feeling worse at the silence than he would have at the most dull description of a dancing lesson in the world.

            "See for yourself." She grumbled.  "He's up, running around… breathing of all things!"

            So that's it.  "Kurt is alive?"

            "And well!" She whined in dismay.

            "That's game," Scott gave the peace sign.  "Set," The hang-loose sign.  "And match!" A shadow puppet rabbit.  Nobody bothered to ask what that last sign was for.  "I win!"

            Wolverine's game was not quite over yet.  He shaded his eyes as he watched the plummeting, gutted ball.  "Come on, come on…" He ground his teeth in anticipation as the ball neared its mark.  "And… yes!  I win!  Bet he never saw that one coming!"

            Rogue surveyed the chaos that Logan's game had inflicted on court two.  The filleted ball had finally succeeded in landing across Kurt's face, preventing him from seeing the ball that was in play over there, and consequentially losing the match to Northstar.

            "Not only did he lose the game for himself," Jean muttered, pointing at Wolverine. "He managed to make Nightcrawler lose, too.  All with one slice."

            "Mad skillz." Rogue agreed.

            "I think we may need to revise our new rules again.  There seem to be a few wrinkles yet." Xavier started wheeling his chair away, entertained to his satisfaction.

            Jean entered the court to congratulate both the winners… for that's how they both viewed themselves.  Better than some of the fights they'd had for stupider things.  "Nice work, guys.  You put on a good show."

            Cyclops greeted her excitedly, throwing an arm around her waist.  "Yeah, I was pretty great today!  Only cost a few hundred dollars in tennis balls, too!"

            "That's… wonderful, Scott…"

            "And did you catch that smooth ending, Red?" Logan also seemed pretty excited.  He recreated his final slice with hand movements, depicting a falling object cruising right onto a running person.  "Don't get that replay on ESPN!"

            She forced a smile, nodding in what she hoped was an appreciative gesture.  "Very nifty."

            They didn't notice Rogue skulking towards her prey in the distance…