A/N: I promised more action in this chapter, but I couldn't find a good way to put in a darkling fight, since they're in the middle of a suburb, so I hope a fistfight and finding out what Mick's power is will be enough.
Mick
Mick felt annoyance stab through him at the sound of someone knocking on his door. Why bother knocking? One of my creepy new 'friends' fried the lock; anyone can just barge right in. I'm glad this is a relatively crime-free neighborhood. The knock sounded again, harder this time. "It's open!" Mick hollered.
He switched off the TV and got off the couch, thinking that if it was a burglar, he probably shouldn't just sit there like a lump. But if it was a burglar, I doubt they would knock. He found the flying guy in his entrance hall. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to get Jessica."
"Jessica is the redhead who disappeared in my kitchen last night, right? So are you here to fly her somewhere?"
Flying-guy scowled. He seemed oddly touchy about the redhead. Mick wondered idly if Flying-guy had done something that had led to her getting trapped in that one hour. "Why is it your job to fly her around, anyway? Are you like, her chauffeur, or her boyfriend? Isn't she a little young for you? I mean, she's what, fifteen?"
Mick didn't even see Flying-guy's fist until it crashed into the side of his head. "Shut up! You have no idea what you're talking about! From now on, you just keep your mouth shut, you meathead!"
While shouting, Flying-guy grabbed the front of Mick's shirt and hauled him closer so he could slam his fist into Mick's nose. More than likely, he would have continued pummeling Mick, except that headlights flashed through the windows, announcing that a car had pulled into the driveway.
Flying-guy let go of Mick's shirt and went to the kitchen, presumably to wash the blood off his knuckles. Mick swiped a hand across his face, feeling the wetness that meant the blood on Flying-guy's hand wasn't from his knuckles bleeding. Damn, what's his problem? The redhead must be his girlfriend; why else would he be so touchy about her? Don't know why he'd wanna date down that far, but whatever floats his boat.
Mick opened the door to get a look at the new arrivals. He didn't recognize the car, which looked like standard-issue rental crap. Melissa was getting out, accompanied by a guy in a long black coat. Mick ran a speculative eye over the pair. Melissa looked unhappy; Black-Coat-guy looked like her unhappiness was confusing him. Wonder what's up with those two? They look like people coming home from a bad date. Huh, maybe they were on a date. Yeah, right. That mindcaster chick is such a tight-ass, I can't imagine anyone getting up the nerve to ask her out. She sure is hot, though. I wonder if she gets less scary when you know her better…
Melissa's head swiveled toward Mick, who remembered what she told him about how she could read minds. Oh, crap. "Hello, Mick," she said, her inflectionless tone giving no clue as to whether she had heard his thoughts about her. "This is Rex. He's going to help you find what your power is."
"Hey, man. What's up?" Mick held out a hand, but Rex didn't offer his, just gave Mick a weary look, as if he had had too many handshakes in the last few weeks. Oh, right, Mind-Reader-girl did say his dad just died. I guess that makes 'what's up' a pretty stupid thing to say to him.
"It really does," Melissa said.
"Right," Mick stuffed his hand into his pocket.
"Why is your nose bleeding?" Rex asked.
"That Jonathan guy punched me. You wanna come say hi to him? He's in my kitchen, waiting for that Jessica chick to come back. Will she really appear at midnight in my kitchen?"
Neither Rex nor Melissa bothered to answer him; they just brushed past him into his house. Apparently my new friends aren't big on small talk. Mick hurried after them; if the redhead did reappear at midnight, he didn't want to miss it.
Sure enough, as the eerie blue light swept down the street, Jessica folded out of the air, right where she had vanished the night before. "That is so cool!" Mick exclaimed.
Jessica gave him a rather sour look. "Yes, I get thrills down my spine every time I do it," she said dryly. "Hey, Jonathan, Melissa, and… whoa. Rex Greene, is that you?"
He gave her a forced-looking smile. "Yeah, it's me. Temporal dependence aside, how have you been, Jessica?"
"Better than you, I guess. Have you been sick or something? No offense, but you look like crap."
He shrugged. "Had the flu about a month ago. I'm fine now. Let's get down to business. Mick, do you have any idea what your power could be? Have you noticed anything different about yourself since you first experienced midnight?"
"Yeah, until you midnighters came here, nobody ever beat me up." He shot a baleful glance at Jonathan, who shrugged unrepentantly.
"You beat him up?!" Jessica raised her eyebrows at Jonathan.
"Yes, I beat Mick up. So, Jess, wanna fly to the top of the water tower?" he asked quickly.
"Sure, why not?" Jessica opened the sliding door to the backyard, and she and Jonathan stepped outside; he took her hand, and together they jumped and went soaring into the sky.
Mick stared in amazement. "Wow, that dude really can fly," he murmured.
"Yes, Jonathan can fly," Rex said impatiently. "Can we please focus on you now?"
"OK, well, I can only think of one weird thing that's happened since this blue time spread. It took me a while to remember it, 'cause until I met other midnighters, I had only seen midnight once and thought it was a dream, but here it is: I was out walking in that nature park place way out at the edge of town, and I kind of forgot about how late it was getting and conked out on the bench. When I woke up, it was midnight, and I saw this weird-ass animal, like a panther, but on steroids, you know? I mean, it was way too big. Anyway, it scared the shit out of me, figuratively speaking, and I wished I was back home. Next thing I knew, I was back home, lying on my bed, and all the creepy blue light was gone. I thought I had just been a crazy dream, so I rolled over and went back to sleep."
Rex absorbed this, frowning in concentration. I guess I can see why he used to be the leader; he has a knack for looking like he knows what's going on, although I bet he really has no idea what to make of my little anecdote. I sure as hell don't know what to make of it, and I'm the lucky sucker who lived through it.
However, Rex knew more than Mick expected. "Sounds like a teleporter to me," he said.
"Teleporter?! That sounds like a porta-potty with a telephone in it!"
Melissa laughed at Mick's outraged expression. "No, no, being a teleporter is a good thing. Isn't it, Rex?"
"Yeah, it's a really cool talent. All I know about teleporting is that you can bend the space/time continuum. It lets you travel to any place on the globe with zero time elapsing. I don't know exactly how the continuum-bending works; you'd have to talk to Dess about that."
"Who's Dess?"
"Dess is someone who understands the space/time continuum much better than I do; she's very good with numbers. How'd you like to meet her?"
"Sounds good. Can I teleport to wherever she is?"
"Yeah, she and our lock-melting friend Alex are at the inappropriately named Riverview hotel." Rex raised his eyebrows, so Melissa explained, "there are so many trees in this town, you have to go outside city limits to see the river."
"Okay, I know where Riverview is. But just in case this teleporting ends up sending me to Japan or someplace, I'm taking you two with me." Giving them no chance to protest, Mick grabbed Rex and Melissa's arms and focused on the hotel. Instantaneously, Mick's kitchen disappeared and was replaced by the hotel lobby.
"Whoa, this is freaking cool. Now, which room is this Dess in?" Mick bounced excitedly to the reception desk and dinged the bell. "Hey, miss, you know where I can find a girl called Dess?" he asked the frozen receptionist.
"Quit playing with the stiff, you big goof," Melissa admonished. "We need to get out of the lobby before midnight ends, or she'll think we appeared out of thin air. Also, the elevators don't work in the blue time, so we're taking the stairs."
"Aww, man, the stairs." Mick followed Rex and Melissa up the long staircase, grumbling every step of the way.