This is so dumb, I'm not even going to elaborate, Michelle thought.
A smoky grey cat stretched and yawned on a house's roof, and lay back down again.
"6:27pm, still no movement from the Elephant Man," Phil said, poofing in beside the cat, "Plenty of bowel movement, though."
Ew! Michelle groaned, swiping a clawed paw at Phil's combat boot, Never say that again!
"What, it's true," Phil defended, giving her two thumbs up.
Yeeech, Michelle shook her furry cat head, Can we go now? He's not going anywhere today; it's a Wednesday. Who goes anywhere on a Wednesday?
"You sure 6:28 is late enough?" Phil asked, in a low voice, "I know you don't like sitting on Scott's roof, Uriko, but if we miss something important, we're screwed."
It's already getting darker. Early October, and though it isn't chilly, it's still getting dark. Dark means that his ears will be sharper, and we stand a higher chance of being caught.
"Two and a half hours is long enough...ok, let's check in with Holly and Melissa at John G., and then we can go home," Phil said, and picking up the cat, he poofed away.
"Hi, Phil. Hey, Michelle," Holly waved, sitting on the bridge at the top of the Playscape.
"Find anything new?" Melissa asked, sitting at the top of one slide.
"Hey, and hey," Phil waved to each girl.
Nah, we got nothing, Michelle said, sitting at the bottom of the slide that Melissa was on, You wait long?
"No, just a few minutes," Melissa said, "But we did learn something. Or at least Holly thinks so; I'm still skeptical myself."
"Why, what'd you learn?" Phil asked, standing with his arms crossed.
"I think there's another morpher out there," Holly said.
What? How? Who? Michelle asked urgently.
"How do you know?" Phil asked, "Couldn't it have been Mike?"
Mike's at home, Michelle said blandly.
"He looked exactly like Geordie, only his eyes were the wrong colour," Whirl explained.
"...That could be a problem," Phil nodded, "Why are they posing as Geordie?"
"I think it was that Mystique woman that Matt wrote about in his journal," Melissa said, "Remember how he wrote about some beautiful woman-"
"More like wrote, 'hot chick with nice legs'," Phil joked, but stopped at the look the girls (and cat) gave him.
"Anyway, he wrote about a beautiful woman, and then she turned out to be all blue, or something," Melissa recalled.
"That's right..." Genie nodded.
"You guessed right," came a strange voice to the teens' right.
Out of the trees, Mystique stepped out so that all could see her clearly.
"Well done. Perhaps you kids aren't so useless after all," the mutant said, "I almost lost hope when Curly over there fell for my transformation so easily."
"I didn't 'fall for it' so easily. You still made a mistake," Whirl said in a low voice, angry at being labelled as 'Curly'.
"True...but I were really after you, I would have fought instead of just walked away," Mystique said calmly, "And you don't want to fall into a scrap with me."
"Who are you?" asked Genie, cutting in and standing beside Holly.
"You know my name already."
"Why are you here?" asked Mozart, sliding down and picking up Uriko before facing the blue woman.
"My...mentor, Magneto, wanted to know who had broken into one of his allies homes," Mystique said, shrugging.
"Any other reasons?" asked Whirl in a tight voice; she still hadn't let the 'Curly' comment slide by.
"Well...I also have a message," Mystique said in a suddenly hard voice, turning her yellow eyes to the four teens, "You're either with us, or against us. And you can't be with us and the humans at the same time."
"Is that some kind of threat?" Genie asked smoothly, but his friends could see that he was tense.
"It may be," said Mystique, holding up one hand, "Or it may not," she continued, holding up another hand, "It all depends on your group's choice. I don't know how many of you are there, but I know there are more. This...Mike must be a morpher of sorts, and this...Georgie is yet another mutant. And one of you is a telepath; you," here she looked at Mozart, "...answered an unspoken question. Perhaps you must discuss with your...teammates your answer to Magneto's offer?"
Mystique raised her eyebrows, and all of them glanced at each other. Mistake.
Mystique moved as fast as if she were a teleporter herself; she landed a hefty roundhouse kick into Phil stomach as she grabbed the back of Holly's head and used it as a boost to flip over Phil's head. She spun and hit Melissa's head with her elbow, and snatched the cat the girl had held before running a safe distance away from all of them.
"Perhaps a hostage is necessary; something tells me this cat is out of the ordinary," Mystique said, holding a squirming cat in front of her, "Let's say...one week until your answer? With all of your...teammates here-ugh!"
Genie and Whirl had glanced at each other, then Genie had teleported right behind the metamorph. Mozart and Whirl still had a link to Uriko's mutation (red thumbnails again), and Mozart morphed into a fair imitation of a black panther, while Whirl became a cross between an eagle and a falcon, and both ran/flew to help their friends, but they didn't need to. Genie hit a pressure point on Mystique's neck hard, and she collapsed, dropping the cat.
"That was for that kick," he growled, rubbing his stomach.
Thanks, guys, Uriko said, before demorphing and adding, "What the bleep are you supposed to be, Whirl?"
I was supposed to be a bald eagle, Whirl said ruefully, looking at her strangely colouring wings.
I guess you'd better either look at more bird pictures, ask Michelle for some lessons, or stick to your dogs, Melissa joked, sitting down on the grass.
"Hey, I wouldn't talk if I were you. Your proportions are all wrong," Uriko said, as Whirl demorphed and knelt beside the crumpled metamorph, "Your panther wouldn't be able to run for very long with those legs."
Oh...Mozart said, before demorphing as well.
"What do we do with her?" Phil asked, toeing Mystique's still form.
"Well...we ca-!" Michelle started, then collapsed in a heap.
Mystique had transformed into Sabretooth, and had clawed a nasty gouge in Michelle's head as she hit her, knocking her out. Phil teleported back a little, and tried to kick the now rising mutant, but Mystique grabbed Phil's boot and flipped him neatly, causing him to land onto his head. Melissa was easily knocked out like Michelle, and Mystique did the same to Holly, who was half out of her morph.
"Foolish children," Mystique said, picking up her new hostage, Holly, who was still fairly small, "Remember Magneto's offer."
As she morphed into a human and walked away with Holly under her arm, Melissa watched her through slitted eyes. She let the injuries that were more deep into her head heal right away, waiting for Mystique to be gone before totally sealing up the wound on her head.
"Not quite so foolish. You will have your answer soon enough," Melissa said, touching Phil's wrist and Michelle's head so that they might heal as well, and teleported them all to her room, which was empty as usual.
"Soon enough, Mystique."