From:  Keith Davis <mkd@mkdavis.net>  
 To:  Rahnelist@yahoogroups.com
 Subject:  [RahneList] Sometimes 2 Beers Is All It Takes
 Date:  Fri, 06 Sep 2002 02:35:04


 "Sometimes Two Beers Is All It Takes"

 Starring the New Mutants

 M. Keith Davis will never have to return to the audio/video class, as today
 was the practical final, and he is doing a little celebratory
 drinking-on-an-empty-stomach writing exercise.

 Fall.

 Hell yeah, thought Sam, and almost didn't get the mental image of his old
 Baptist preacher immediately afterward. I love Fall.

 Sam pretended not to be aware that he was wearing his Daddy's old flannel
 shirt, his Daddy's old boots, and his Daddy's old hunting cap. He was Sam
 Guthrie, woodsman of old. School had given him the opportunity to forget
 the notions of adulthood and responsibility that were prematurely thrust
 upon him, and he felt a joy that ran from his head to feet. He was
 blissfully ignorant of time and care, and just happy to be alive.

 He strode through the small but beautiful wooded area of the school
 grounds, admiring the multi-colored leaves and hoping that he still had
 some ammo for his .22 rifle. There were just a few too many squirrels at
 this school, he thought. They had yet to fear the name of Guthrie, but by
 cracky, today would be a day of reckoning.


 Dani wished she were a deer as she took enormous leaps down the hill. Her
 lungs burned from all the running she had done on this cool afternoon. She
 stopped to lean against a tree and watch the squirrels playing in the
 lavish Autumn tapestry above her. Beautiful, she thought as her
 sweat-soaked chest heaved up and down. Her jog bra was drenched, and she
 took note of her erect nipples poking the fabric outward. She regretted the
 fact that in her current situation she had to be mindful of such things.
 Though she was not raised to go around naked, she disliked clothes for the
 most part, and wished she could be like the tree she leaned on, dressed
 only in deep green ivy and russet leaves. Too many times she had used her
 power to secretly find out what the guys were thinking about after they
 crossed in the halls, and almost always the result was a three-dimensional
 illusion of her own body.

 Gotta go in the back door tonight, I guess. Where the guys won't be
 drooling. Sheesh. But I will certainly be back to see these squirrels after
 I've cleaned up.


 "Is that tiny gun all you're taking?" said Berto with smug
 self-righteousness. "Are you sure you're a hunter?" Berto thought of the
 exotic trophies his father had always brought back from safari.

 "Ah've taken down more deer than ah can count," replied Sam, "but all we're
 going after is squirrel. This is the right gun for the job; I don't care
 what your rich Daddy killed elephants with. The point is for us three to go
 have a little fun without waking the whole school. So let's try to keep it
 down until we're in the woods. The girls might find out and ruin it for us."

 "I'm game!" Doug said with exuberance. He had never handled a firearm
 before, and the thought of sneaking out for a fun evening of shooting with
 the guys was thrilling to him.


 "I hate squirrels," said Illyana. "There were small demons in Limbo that
 were a lot like them, only they were smarter and stole things from you when
 you weren't looking. When you were looking, they would try to look innocent
 and beg for food. We even called them squirrels. I hate squirrels."

 "Well, you can stay here then," said Dani as she pulled her shirt on over
 her head. "While Rahne and I get some fresh air. It's gonna be a gorgeous
 night tonight, and the moon is supposed to be full. I want to go out where
 I can let my hair down and just be me, without the boys...being boys! Wanna
 take the sleeping bags, Rahney?"

 "Aye," replied Rahne. "And maybe some sandwiches in the cooler." Rahne was
 already in transitional form, and her tail wagged with excitement at the
 thought of spending a night under the stars with her best friend.

 "Waitaminnit," said Illyana coyly, as her horns made a slight, quick
 appearance. "Did you say cooler?"


 "Now the thing is Doug, there's two things you need to know about guns
 before ya ever even touch one."

 "Ugh, here we go," moaned Roberto. "Ever the leader, eh Sam?"

 "You kin learn from this too, Berto. If ya wanna shoot with Sam Guthrie,
 you'll either know gun safety or you kin bring your own rifle. Number one,
 the gun is always loaded. Ya treat a gun like it's always loaded, even
 after you unload it, an' you'll never shoot anybody on accident."

 "Gotcha," said Doug enthusiastically, ignoring Berto's eye rolling.

 "Two, the only time you point this at something--the ONLY time--is when ya
 plan to kill it. Not wound it, hurt it, scare it, or make it stand still.
 Ya point a gun when ya plan to end a life--no other time. Got it?"

 "Okay," said Doug humbly. "I've never shot anything before, ya know."

 "S'okay. Ya like hamburgers don't ya? Same thing. We're gonna have squirrel
 over the open fire tonight, boys. Maybe we better bring some Cokes."

 "I have a better idea, Sam," grinned Roberto.


 "Where on earth did you get THAT???" Rahne gasped in shock. Fear put her
 back into human form.

 Illyana giggled as she held up the frosty six-pack of Canadian beer that
 she had just teleported back with from the kitchen. "It's a small portion
 of Wolverine's very large stockpile. I go down and sneak some all the time.
 Especially when Magneto's being a dick."

 "Hmmm...I always wanted to try this kind," Dani said with a wicked smile.
 "But you know us Indians and firewater--I might get a little rowdy."

 "Now," said Illyana with delight, "we are aiming for a fun campout!"

 Rahne bit her lip with concern. This was already not turning out to be the
 kind of night she had expected.


 "Berto, you just jumped up three notches in my book," said Sam. "I never
 would have figured you for a Miller drinker."

 "It's okay when I'm slumming," teased Roberto. "When I can't have champagne."

 "Where'd you get it?" asked Doug. His stomach churned as he thought of how
 the Hellions had tricked him into drinking himself sick that one time.

 "Duh," mocked Roberto. "Money has its privileges. Just don't drink any if
 you're gonna york your guts out like last time."

 "Hey, that wasn't my fault!"

 "Yep," interrupted Sam, "it was. Ya mixed beer, wine, and who knows what
 else. Just a couple of these will do ya real good. C'mon guys, let's go
 'fore it's too dark to see anything worth shootin' at."


 Dani laughed until she was snorting while Rahne tried in vain to cover
 Illyana's mouth in desperate efforts of keeping her excited wailing from
 being heard.

 "Stop it," she hissed at Illyana. "Stop it or someone'll hear and we'll be
 caught and Magneto'll be cross and we'll be grounded and"

 "Woooohoo!" Illyana shouted over and over. "Bark at the moon! Wake the
 dead! Raisin' hell with the X-Bitches baby!"

 "Don't say such things! That's ugly!"

 "Stop it you two before I piss my pants!" pleaded Dani. It had already
 gotten darker than she had wanted, but she was having fun. She actually did
 feel like howling at the moon, even if her reasons were different than
 Illyana's.


 "Did I get it? Did I get it?" asked Doug repeatedly.

 "I can't believe Sam let you have the first shot," said Berto as he drained
 his first bottle. "We may not see another, and it's getting dark."

 "As a matter of fact," replied Sam with great amusement, "Yep. Ya got it
 alright." He held up the squirrel's body by the tail to reveal a head that
 dripped blood from one very well placed shot.

 "That," said Sam as he took a long swallow of beer, "was a great shot,
 Dougger."

 Doug jumped high into the air and shouted. "Alright!"

 "So we won't go hungry tonight after all." Roberto opened his second beer
 and gave one to Doug with a dramatic gesture of congratulation. "I suppose
 one of you peasants know how to cook this rodent?"


 "Did you hear something?" Rahne asked with a near-panic. "It sounded like a
 gunshot, and then shouting!"

 "Rahne, for Pete's sake, will you calm down?" asked Illyana in frustration.
 "Unwind a little. Who in the world would be out here right now? Does it
 look like Dani is scared?"

 Dani was naked to the waist and dancing in a circle around their campfire.
 She was chanting a song that Rahne couldn't understand. Her second beer was
 half-spilled onto the ground around her.

 "Relax, Rahney. We're out here to have a little fun and just enjoy Mother
 Earth," Illyana said as she put a beer in Rahne's hand. "No villains, no
 killer robots, no aliens, no Magneto and no boys. Just girl's night out."

 Illyana pranced away to join Dani in the chant. She tossed off her shirt
 and mimicked Dani's dance, not caring if her action might be considered
 offensive by anyone.

 Illyana never called me Rahney before. Maybe she just wants to be my
 friend? Rahne laughed at her funny, half-naked friends as she twisted the
 cap off the bottle and took a sip.


 "Is the rat done yet?" asked Roberto.

 "The kill is nearly ready for our bellies, men," joked Doug. If there was
 such a thing as three sheets to the wind, Doug was a good two and a half.
 If he didn't eat something soon, he would be full-out drunk by the time he
 finished beer number two. "Y'know, the Greek had a word for this kind of
 meal. It was-"

 "Fascinating," interrupted Berto. "Who's tending bar at the moment? Are
 there any left?"

 "'Bout four, ah thank," Sam mumbled. He laughed because he could hear how
 strongly his accent was creeping back in as warm alcohol raced through his
 veins.

 "You thank?" joked Berto. "Whom do you thank, senor Redneck?"

 "Ass," replied Sam.

 Doug was jealous of the friendship between Sam and Berto. They could joke
 like that all day without being offended. Deep down, those two were very close.

 "Well, senor Redneck, how about you 'fetch' another for myself and the
 mighty rat slayer?"

 "Drank up," said Sam as he tossed them each a bottle.

 Doug caught his--surprisingly--and was filled with delight to feel included
 in this group. He hadn't been with the team as long as the others, and for
 Berto to get him another beer seemed, at the time, to be quite a grand action.


 "What I mean," said Rahne as she stared drunkly into the fire, "is that I
 cannae understand why we aren't born with clothes on." She was oblivious to
 the other two girls, now dressed only in makeshift war paint and drunken
 smiles, crafting a feather-and-leaf headdress onto her head.

 "I mean...why am I naked as a wolf but not as a girl?" Rahne held up her chin
 as Dani applied war paint to her cheeks. She had no idea what the other
 girls were doing--she had drank half a bottle of beer.

 "Because wolves only wear sheep's clothing," laughed Illyana. "Not Granny
 Panties."

 Rahne turned to face her for the first time in ten minutes. She nearly fell
 over trying to keep her balance. "What's grannypannies?"

 Dani spilled beer onto the ground and held her face in her hands. She was
 snorting so loudly that her nostrils would burn the next day.

 "Granny Panties," replied Illyana, fully horned and hoofed by this time,
 "are those huge ridiculous things that you cover your bottom with."

 It took a moment of watching Dani and Illyana laughing for Rahne to find
 enough active brain cells to figure out what Illyana meant. Then, as it
 always does, the fire rose up in her.

 "I don't wear no Granny's panties! Devil girl! I'll show ye!" Rahne jumped
 up from the log on which she was sitting and began to squirm out of her
 nightgown.

 Dani still had enough of her wits to know that she had best try to stop
 Rahne from doing something she would later regret, so she tried--mostly
 unsuccessfully--to restrain her. Before long it became very difficult as
 Dani tried to calm Rahne. Illyana, of course, made no effort to help.


 The boys sat in a circle with their arms around each other like old school
 football players in a huddle.

 "No man, no, hell no," said Sam with much gusto. "You guys got the good
 powers. All ah kin do is pop off like a big firecracker."

 "You are too humble, mi amigo," Berto disagreed. "I wish I had your power.
 A strong man is never seen as a man with finer qualities."

 "You both have better powers than I do," said Doug. "The best I can hope
 for in combat is to know how to insult someone in any language."

 The boys sat silently for a moment, contemplating what Doug said.

 "Well hell, yer smart," said Sam finally.

 "Very smart, amigo. We should all be so lucky."

 "An' a good shot with a .22 long rifle," added Sam.

 There was another long pause.

 "I love you guys," said Doug.

 "Ah love y'all like brothers. Ah ain't s'posed ta swear ta God, but ah
 swear ah'd kill fer y'all. Y'all are mah brothers from this day for'd!"

 "Mi hermanos!" exclaimed Berto and he broke into tears.

 Someone farted but only the culprit will ever know who. The boys sat in
 silence for a moment.

 "I think I'm gonna york," said Doug.


 "Bitch I'll kill ye!" screamed Rahne at Illyana. It was the only coherent
 sentence she could form anymore, so she had said it many times over for the
 past few minutes. Dani was getting a better workout than her jog had given
 her earlier, because Rahne was still trying to attack Illyana, who was
 still rolling on the ground, holding her stomach cackling at the spectacle.

 It was too late to stop Rahne from undressing, as the struggle had taken
 she and the sky-clad Cheyenne maiden through mud, leaves, and eventually
 the campfire. If Dani had been able to stop laughing, she might have been
 able to better restrain Rahne, who now only wanted to rip Illyana's throat
 out. Illyana showed her appreciation for Dani's protection by occasionally
 spurting out, "my Granny, what big panties you have," and making jokes
 about the Cheyenne Mud Wrestling Federation.

 Dani was deeply regretting being naked by this time, and didn't much care
 about leaves or squirrels or Mother Nature.

 Rahne's inevitable switch to her transitional form occurred, and Illyana
 knew that it was time to get at least serious enough to not get killed.

 "Yana, for God's sake help me!" screamed Dani. "She's too strong!"

 Illyana moved toward them until Rahne's tail got just a little too close to
 the fire. It burst into flames and caused Rahne to howl with pain.

 A leaf fell off of Dani's head and down her cheek as she backed quickly
 away from Rahne and looked frantically at Illyana. The moon revealed chill
 bumps all over Illyana's body as Rahne's howl filled the night.

 "Oh shit," the young sorceress whispered.


 "Was it the beer?" asked Doug as he grasped his stomach. All three boys sat
 back to back with traces of vomit still on their faces.

 "I think it was the dinner," responded Berto.

 "Squirrel ain't never made me this sick," moaned Sam. "This is like...like
 voodoo or somethin'."

 "Voodoo? More like doodoo. I thought you said you knew how to skin and
 clean that rodent!"

 "Well, maybe it would have been better to wash it with water than beer."
 said Doug.

 "This night could not get any stranger, mi amigos."

 A blood-curdling scream followed Berto's sentence as if it were the
 punctuation mark.

 Then another.

 Then a third.

 Someone farted again, but the culprit would again remain forever anonymous.

 "Honest ta God, if that's the Hellfire Club, ah give up."

 The legs on which the three boys reluctantly rose were shaky at best, and
 they half-ran, half-stumbled toward the sounds.


 When they came to the clearing, their confusion formed nearly tangible
 shackles upon their wills. They would later have a conversation to confirm
 that they each experienced the same feeling of not being sure just what
 they saw first and what they saw next.

 Doug would say that he saw what looked like a Balrog trying to kill itself,
 followed by Dani, dressed only in mud and leaves, jumping in front of the
 boys and frantically blurting "RAHNE'S MAD ABOUT GRANNY PANTIES AND WE'RE
 ALL DRUNK AND NAKED!"

 Sam would say that he saw a wolf wearing flaming underwear chasing a devil
 with breasts, followed by Dani jumping at them and screaming. With breasts.

 Berto would say that he saw three naked women wrestling in the mud and a
 pile of empty beer bottles.

 After an indeterminate amount of time passed, Dani slapped the nearest boy
 to her, which happened to be Doug.

 "WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GONNA DO?"

 Almost too distracted by how well the leaves were placed around Dani's
 thighs to think, Doug shouted "USE OUR POWERS!"

 So they did.

 Dani produced images of which this writer may not speak, and called out to
 the animals of the woods for help.

 Doug babbled out noises without any obvious meaning to him.

 Frenzied by Dani's plea and Doug's call, a ferocious squirrel leapt from a
 nearby branch and landed directly on Sam's face.

 "Voodoo! Holy Lord!" Sam shouted and blasted directly upward.

 "GET THIS CRAZY WOLF OFF ME! HELP! HELP! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" shouted Illyana.

 "Madre de Dios," muttered Berto. "Illyana said 'God.'"

 He staggered over to Rahne and pulled her from Illyana, who scrambled away
 bleeding and bruised.

 "Dani! Second beer for Rahne!" she shouted. Dani threw the bottle to
 Illyana, who broke it over the Scots werewolf's head, knocking her out cold.

 "Kill it! Berto! Doug!" shouted Sam from the branches above. The squirrel
 did not know if this Guthrie feared him or not, but by cracky, today was
 his day of reckoning.

 Panicking, Doug held the rifle up and aimed it at the squirrel on Sam's head.

 "What the hell are you doing?" asked Dani and slapped Doug a second time.
 She pulled an illusion from the squirrel's mind that caused it to scatter,
 and Sam came tumbling down.

 "So, senorita," Berto leered drunkenly at Illyana, "I see that the hooves
 only go as high as the knees."

 "You smell like vomit," she sneered at him. "Enjoy the view while you
 can...I'll be covered in Band-Aids for a week at least..."

 "What in heck are y'all doin anyway?" Sam asked Dani.

 "I...uh...we...came out to enjoy the leaves!" she stammered.

 "So we see," said Doug.

 The third slap was the worst. Doug didn't remember much after that.

 The next day Rahne woke with enough headache for a bus full of coneheads.
 Dani was holding a cold compress to her forehead.

 "What...happened...?" she asked.

 "Don't worry about it right now." Replied Dani.

 Seeing that Rahne was awake, Illyana cautiously walked in and placed a
 package on the bed.

 "What's this?" asked Dani.

 "For Rahne," replied Illyana. "A few things from Victoria's Secret. No big
 deal."

 "Oh my head..." whispered Rahne.

 "Lay off the booze, Rahne," Illyana grinned. "Don't you know it's the
 devil's juice?"

 She cackled and ported away. Once Rahne was asleep again, Dani wandered to
 the infirmary to get more aspirin for her own headache.

 Sam was already there, tending to his own wounds. They didn't speak. He
 handed her the aspirin bottle, she took it, and he left.

 Once he was out of sight, she pulled an image of Sam's thoughts from his
 mind. Naturally, it was of three naked mutant girls in the woods.

 I wish I were a deer, she thought.

 Yarg.
 kd