And now, ladies and germs, the moment you've all been waiting for! Iris Musicia presents Catnip, chapter 5: Bejeweled!

Kitty was standing at the kitchen counter playing on her new iPod app, Bejeweled. It was a normal day. Bejeweled, for anybody who has ever played it will know, is highly addictive, and Kitty was playing on a particularly addictive timed version of it, called Diamond Mine. She was highly absorbed in her game, so she didn't notice when a puff of smoke appeared in the far corner of the kitchen, accompanied by a pianiss-iss-iss-imo (super-super-super quiet) soprano cackle. It sounded like a rusty gate hinge squeaking.

Kurt scanned the room, eyes huge, pupils incredibly dilated, hints of catnip wafting on his breath. He wrung his hands and crept on tiptoes over to Kitty, peering creeper-ish-ly over her shoulder. He took in the iPod game, observing brightly. The pretense was simple, easy to understand, even by Kurt's catnip-addled high-as-a-kite mind. Match the same-colored gems in groups of three next to the ground at the bottom of the screen and blow up chunks of the ground to a certain point to earn 30 more seconds in the round.

"Blue, blue, blue left," Kurt muttered in Kitty's ear, staring at a group of blue gems. Kitty afforded him a quick glance and moved the blue gem. "Yellow up. Up!" Kurt whispered excitedly, reaching for the iPod. Kitty smacked his hand away and scooted down the counter.

Kurt whined softly and trailed after her, continuing to gibber advice in her ears, no matter where in the kitchen she moved. Finally, Kitty paused the game and wheeled around, confronting Kurt.

"Will you quit being such a backseat player?" She demanded, affronted. Kurt gave a small, bunny-rabbit-like grin. "I'm trying to beat my high score of a million, and you're being very annoying."

Kurt leaned slightly around Kitty, eyes fixated on the softly tinkling iPod. He licked his lips. Kitty got nervous. In a split second, they lunged at the same time. Kurt flailed at the small, unassuming electronic device, Kitty dragging back on his arm while reaching for it with her foot. Kurt was warbling like a strangled bird, and he grabbed the counter edge with his toes, pulling himself closer to Bejeweled heaven.

He whipped his tail up and smacked the iPod, making it jump a few inches farther, but finally succeeded in kicking it off the counter so violently it smacked him in the face in retaliation. Whining, Kurt picked it up with his tail, Kitty hauling on his arms, his toes in a vise-like grip on the counter so that he was suspended, horizontal to the floor.

Kitty released his arms and Kurt went catapulting into the cabinets, caterwauling like a wet, angry tomcat. He scrambled up, slithered off the counter, and scuttled out of the room, maniacal staccato cackles following him like wafts of smoke.

Through the entire mansion, the cackling blue cat-crab scuttled, passing many of the people too embarrassed to admit to knowing him on a personal level. He plowed down Scott's door and completed a lap of his room, oblivious to Scott's horrified, open-mouthed silent scream. The high blue . . . thing . . . played himself into a frenzied Bejeweled oblivion.

Out in the hallway, Kurt mowed down Jean like a lawnmower takin' down an overgrowed weed. She was left confused on the floor with the sheer what-the-heck factor of the situation, as Kurt disappeared into the blinking, dim sunset of fluorescent lights.

As he ran (or rather, scuttled, because running on two legs and a tail, but only a few inches from the floor really has no good classification), he started frothing at the mouth, his score approaching 500,000. He passed Ororo and Evan and Rogue, loosing a shrill shriek of excitement as he blew up the whole screen. Ororo's eye started twitching, and Evan whipped out his camera-phone. Rogue started ripping her hair out in sheer, utter defeat.

Kurt's cackles grew more insane as he played on and on, bounding in a crab-like fashion past Professor Xavier, who nearly dropped the saucer and teacup he had been so peacefully and poshly sipping out of. Doing a double take, the Professor twisted around in his chair to watch Kurt disappear, only to choke on his tea as the blue elf did a perfect, almost instantaneous U-turn. He was headed straight for the Professor.

Fearing for his life, Professor X desperately dove out of his wheelchair, flying in slo-mo as Kurt crashed into the chair, shattering it like a little kid kicking a dandelion so gleefully.

The Professor, incapacitated on the floor, could only watch as Kurt barreled like a steam locomotive of utter insanity towards the wall.

"Kurt, no!" The Professor cried in unison with Scott and Jean, who had appeared at the top of the stairs. Almost miraculously, Kurt flew up the wall like he was in an asdfmovie, leaning back like he was in a hammock, enjoying his stolen Bejeweled addiction as his disjointed legs motored ahead, turning into a blur.

Aghast, the helpless onlookers watched as Kurt smacked into the ceiling like a wet rag and fell, still looking very much like a wet rag, but landed in a perfect crab position, concentration unbroken, unlike a wet rag (thank God, unless you live somewhere where wet rags do such things. If so, I recommend you flee, like Professor X).

"He's heading towards the Danger Room!" Jean pointed out pointlessly, as everyone could see the big, steel doors marked "Danger Room" at the end of the hallway, right in front of Kurt, who was rapidly approaching Mach 1.

The X-Men assembled and watched, hoping the elf, who was now gobbling and cackling like a turkey, would be stopped by the three-foot thick steel and adamantium and concrete (with a hint of titanium and Kevlar) doors.

No such chance.

Kurt blasted a hole through those bad boys like it was tissue paper and he was Spock's laser gun. (Well, the laser that came out of Spock's laser gun, but I'm going to stop before this turns into a sick joke).

Inside the Danger Room, Kurt broke the sound barrier and marched through the ranks until he was moving at a swift Mach 5. The X-Men crept cautiously to the hole and peered through (the Professor dragged himself, demonstrating Chuck-Norris-like strength and speed).

"Where's Logan?" Kitty asked. Just then, though, the Danger Room came alive, and they could see Logan's determined (if slightly deranged) face in the window of the control booth. Electrified tentacles shot out of the walls, and by sheer dumb luck Kurt avoided them.

His luck nearly ran out (or he nearly outran it) when a tentacle cropped up right in front of it, but his uncanny, if mildly creepy, agility and province allowed him to run along the tentacle like it was Route 66 and his destination was bust. Mind you, he was still sitting back like he was in a hammock, his legs circling furiously in front of him, his tail acting like a third leg under his back.

Kurt's insane, frantic gobbles chased him around the DR, reverberating out of the mansion and into the forests of New England . . .

But back in the DR, Kurt's face stretched into wide-eyed, drop-jawed psycho-concentration as his score broke the 950,000 mark. His fingers flew like they'd grown wings (or that might've been the fur forming little turkey wings) and jewels lined up for him to blow up. The score blazed past him almost as fast as his legs.

The X-Men were completely silent, watching this amazing display of skill that would put ninja masters to shame. Even Logan went still, and the DR became a showcase of Kurt's magical high-ness. Nobody but Kurt dared move or make a sound.

His gobbles were the only thing they could hear, apart from their heartbeats, hearts in their throats as they watched the elf-cat-crab-turkey imitate Speed Racer playing Bejeweled.

Suddenly, though, the unthinkable happened.

Kitty sneezed.

Kurt's concentration was shattered like Professor X's wheelchair. The timer on the iPod tinkled lightly and Kurt stopped. Dead stopped. And fell like a wet rag. And stuck the landing like a wet rag. And was silent . . . like a wet rag.

Kitty inched towards the wet rag, aiming to retrieve her poor, abused, frightened iPod. Then she saw the score.

"999,999 . . . he didn't beat a million." Kitty said just loud enough for the X-Men to hear.

Kurt didn't even breathe, he was so shocked. The X-Men came to pick him up and console him, but when their fingers were only millimeters away from his fur, he went absolute Defcon-4.

But this Defcon-4 made the entire mansion blowing up look tame, like a dandelion wafting into the wind.

This Defcon-4 was a true supernova of the catnip kind. Kurt leapt up, gobbling at the top of his lungs, limbs flying in every direction, tail smacking Professor X across the face, and teleported.

He didn't just disappear, though. He reappeared everywhere in the mansion, almost simultaneously. Kitchen, rec room, bedrooms, bathrooms, greenhouse, basement, office, even the roof—no place was left untouched.

Every place heard the pain and desperation in the gobbles of the mighty Kurt the High.

And from every place within a 50-mile radius, they answered their leader's calls.

XXX

Buh-buh-buh-baaaaaaah! *failed horror music* I'M BAAAAACK! So, didja miss me? Huh? Huh? Huh? I betcha did! I'm too dang lovable! This chappie was fun to write, so I hope y'allz review (even you wondeeful anony-moose reviewers—I'm an equal opportunity review-lover). It would make me happy, almost high-Kurt-happy, minus the high-ness. :)

The titanium and Kevlar DR doors is a nod to my fantastical boyfriend, who loves titanium and Kevlar (sometimes I suspect more than me ;P ). And the asdfmovie thing—if you haven't seen all 5 asdfmovies, I COMMAND, I COMMAND YOU to go watch them right now! I promise it won't waste your time at all. They are genuinely funny!

The next chapter of Catnipff (already written, holla!) shall be posted when my twisted mind and overinflated ego is stroked by enough reviews. How's that for a mental image? I just love doing that to people! XD

So YOLO and laugh a little!

Love,

Yours truly,

Sincerely, but I'm too hyper to be sincere,

TTYL,

Might get there eveeeeentually,

IRIS MUSICIA