Chapter 5: Magical Mishaps!

Disclaimer: I own Merf and Demon, that's about it. While it would be nice to own Caesar's Palace and the X-Men, it's just not gonna happen anytime soon (if ever!).

Merf and the boys, accompanied by Henri, entered one Caesar's Place's main showrooms and took their seats in a horseshoe shaped booth in the front row. As they waited for the Alejandro the Amazing to take the stage, the boys dug into the shrimp cocktail and champagne that was waiting for them. All the while they bragged, in front of the camera, of their so called "daring escape" right under the adults' noses.

"The entire scheme was brilliant, mates!" exclaimed Py.

"An' it all be tanks ta Merf!" Gambit commended as he clapped Merf on the back a little too hard, so that champagne shot out of the jockey's nose.

"(Cough) Now (cough) now, I can't take all the credit." said Merf as he grabbed for a napkin to wipe his nose, "Hell, if you guys hadn't made that bogus call into FedEx, then knocked me out none of us would be here."

"Ain't dat de truth, hommies!" laughed Gambit, "If anyone, we should be toastin' Jamie…" he looked around the table, but didn't spot the youngest member of the X-Men, "where'd de pup go?!"

"He vent to ze men's room," Kurt chimed in.

It was at this point Piotr couldn't remain silent any longer, "Comrades, be reasonable, we are in great trouble!" he said gravely.

"You said it Petey, we almost outta tartar sauce!" joked Gambit, which resulted in the entire table falling out in fits of laughter.

"That is not what I meant and you know it," said Piotr a sullen tone.

"Relax mate," said St. John attempted to smooth things over, "There's no way the adults could be here so quick."

Little did the members of the stag party know that they should have taken heed to Piotr's concerns because at the rear of the room, less than 50 feet away, in a darkened booth Storm and Sabertooth had just taken their seats.

The first round of drinks found the two entangled in each others' embrace.

Storm took a sip of her drink and wound up spraying it all over the table, "Uhg! (cough) Victor, what was that?!"

"Cream and Kaluha," said Sabertooth casually taking a drink from his glass.

"Cream and Kaluha! Victor, we can't drink this heavily," Ororo scolded, "we're supposed to be looking for the kids!"

"I've found the best way to catch up with something is to stay in one place. Mark my words they'll turn up before long."

Storm sighed, "I certainly hope you are right."

(Oh, if they only knew!-Don't worry it won't be much longer-Mwahaha!)

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Jamie had finished up in the men's room and was heading back to the table, reeking of the cheep cologne made available in between the sinks. He was relaxed and looking forward to magic show as well as the rest of the night, although he knew the others would try to send him back up to the room with Colossus before any of the exciting stuff happened. However, Jamie was not going down without a fight! Rather he was already concocting excuses for why they should take him along. The were as follows:

1. He was cute and hot women (i.e. strippers) love cute little boys.

2. If it weren't for him, they never would have gotten to Las Vegas in the first place!

3. If they got too drunk, he could always just hotwire a car and drive them back to the hotel (God knows he'd hotwired Scott's car when Cyke and Jean were-how should I put this?-"temporarily indisposed". The only issue Multiple had when it came to driving was visibility, you see, he was to short view anything over the dashboard).

4. He was the only one who could…

Jamie's train of thought was interrupted by an all too familiar gruff voice.

sniffsniff

"This way… I could always smell Gumbo from a mile away."

Jamie's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw Wolverine and X-23 round a row of slot machines.

His first instinct was to wet himself and run screaming the other way, but fortunately the tank was empty due to this being his return trip from the men's room. Nonetheless he had to think fast!

Granted both had their backs to him, but there was still cause for concern. On false move and he'd find himself pinned to the wall with Logan offering to piece his liver for him. This needless to say was not a scenario that Multiple wanted to play out.

He was a little than 4 meters from the shoe room but he couldn't risk a mad dash giving away his position.

So close and yet…so far (to steal an old and drastically overdone cliché).

That's when Jamie noticed he was standing next to a door that was slightly ajar.

Wasting no time Jamie created 8 multiples and sent them all in different directions, telling them that they would all rendezvous in the workout room of the Luxor at 11:37 later that night.

(Now, now I know what you're thinking, "11:37, where in the 7 hells did that come from?!" Well I'll tell you-midnight as a meeting time is entirely played out and I just used a cliché three lines ago, so there!)

Any who, the plan was quite simple and Jamie put it into action immediately, he dove through the slightly open door at his side and closed it with a BANG!

At the same time the 8 multiples split into two groups of 4 and ran in opposite directions then completely separated once they had made it out of the casino part of the hotel.

There was just one small flaw with Jamie's plan-

CRAK!

THUD!

He wasn't expecting anyone to be standing behind the door.

"Oh, crap!" exclaimed Jamie as he towered over the caped figure he just leveled.

"Oh no, Alejandro!" shrieked a showgirl in a red, orange and yellow sequin leotard, spike high heels and a black top hat, "You broke his nose!" She bent down over the unconscious form of the magician.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to…I mean come on, lady, who hangs out behind a door?!" stated Jamie incredulously.

The woman would have responded only some paramedics came in, apparently they had been called by a quick thinking stage hand. They proceeded to load the passed out performer onto a stretcher placed an oxygen mask over his face then headed out to a waiting ambulance, leaving the showgirl holding Alejandro's cape and a speechless Jamie in their wake.

"So…I guess the show is cancelled then," ventured Jamie to break the unnerving silence.

"Think again, chicito (little boy)!" said the showgirl taking her top hat off and putting it on Jamie's head.

"Isn't there some kind of a back up act for situations like these!" Multiple nothing less than pleaded.

"Generally yes, but you, unfortunately, picked the same night to take out the head magician as our back up is being used for emergency entertainment on the convention level. He'll be tied up for at least another half an hour…"

"And we don't have time to stall," the stage manager broke in, "the crowd is getting rowdy, another 10 minutes and their liable to start eating each other!"

"But I don't know the first thing about magic!" protested Jamie as the showgirl wrapped Alejandro's cape around his shoulders, which was far too long and trailed onto the floor.

"Don't worry about it, kid," assured the stage director, "I'll give you all the cues and blocking via earpiece."

Jamie gave a defeated sigh, "You're really going to make me do this aren't you?"

"Kid, we have a saying here in Vegas," explained the stage manager, "'The show must go on!'"

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Yay the 5th chapter! I know, I know you were probably beginning to draft my obituary.I havebeen gone along time (Damn Homework!), but I'm bakc for now and I'm planning to try and finish this story ASAP!