Chapter III: Waking up in Arizona
It was already midnight when Harvey, Joey, and Mushi woke up in the Arizona desert. It went without saying that the trio was confused. They were thankful for the freedom but were kinda hoping to be somewhere in Virginia.
"Harvey, where are we?" Joey asked, the six-year-old getting a little scared of his unfamiliar surroundings.
"I don't know, Joey..." Harvey admitted, "But it's a godsend that we're clothed again..."
"No kidding..." Mushi said, making herself known to the two boys.
"I think we should start looking for a town..." Harvey said. "You know, so we don't starve to death in the desert?"
"Well, how do we know which way to go?" Mushi asked, getting more than a little scared, starting to shake. Harvey noticed this and walked over to Mushi and enveloped her in a warm and comforting hug.
"Mushi, it doesn't matter which way we go as long as we follow the road..." Harvey said as pet the head of the frightened ten-year-old.
"Yeah, I'll agree to that, Mate..." Joey said, already walking down the road with Mushi and Harvey the following suit.
However, after a few hours of walking and resting, they, er, rather Mushi and Joey began to notice some changes in them, Mushi now had a long, frog-like tongue, her body started secreting a slime-like mucus and she could now jump up high as a frog could, and Joey now had heightened senses, an impressive healing factor and he also had developed five claws that were located in his fingers and his thumbs. This startled both of them. While Joey quickly grew fond of his powers, Mushi hated hers for obvious reasons.
"I'm RUINED" Mushi yelled to the heavens as she began to bawl her eyes out as she realized how much her new frog-like mutation changes her entire life.
"Mushi..." Harvey said as he made his way over to the crying Japanese girl and gave her a comforting hug. "Shh, shh," He shushed her as he proceeded to gently dry her tears. "Dry those tears, Mushi..." He said gently as he helped Mushi up to her feet.
"I want to go home..." Mushi said as her sobs started to die down.
"Hey, I want to go home, too, Mushi..." Harvey said, petting her head like she was someone special to him or a kitten. "But we have to be strong..." He said, comforting the Japanese girl. "Maybe you and Joey can use your new powers to help us survive until we can find a way to get enough money to call our parents..." Harvey pointed out ad he started to notice that Mushi, well, she looked so pretty. She was pretty as a picture, he started to blush a bit. He had to admit that for a ten-year-old, she was so beautiful. This could be the beginning of an interesting romance.
"I guess..." Mushi groaned as she started to notice how handsome Harvey was. It was making her blush as red as Harvey was. She couldn't help it. He was just so hot to her, it was making her feel very pervy. She wanted him to be her boyfriend, but how was that even possible when her name may as well have been Toad. She figured her chance at love was utterly eviscerated by that psycho whore Medusa. But he was so handsome, it took everything she had not to kiss the hunk in front of her right then and there.
"Hey, guys, can we get going!" Joey whined, not picking up on the fact his companions were starting to develop a bit of a crush on each other. "I may live in a shit neighborhood, but I'd like to get home to my mum's cooking for my first meal!"
"Joey, I don't think we're anywhere close to Virginia..." Harvey pointed out to the six-year-old Aussie who merely pouted in response.
That was when Mushi noticed the lights of a city and called it to the attention of her comrades. The trio was overjoyed. They excitedly ran to it. When they entered, that was when they got scared.
"H-H-Harvey..." Joey stuttered to the bucktoothed teen, scared as he realized just how far his home was. "Ain't this..." He started to say.
"Phoenix, Arizona..." Harvey finished, completely and utterly pissed off.
"How are we going to get back home to Virginia, Harvey?" Mushi asked, getting scared, clinging onto Harvey, taking a listen to his heartbeat, the sounds calming her down. She was not going to openly admit to it, but she thought Harvey just looked so handsome, he was making her blush bright red. Am I falling in love? she asked herself as she looked on at Harvey as he decided to hug her, too, comforting her and calming her from her woes about their current situation, a situation that had ensnared them and ripped them away from any semblance of normalcy.
"We'll have to tough it out until we can find a way home…" Harvey said kindly to the two kids who were with him, hoping to keep their spirits up. "We need to stick together, guys, at least until we can find a way to call our families and get home..." He said to the two kids as they wordlessly agreed to Harvey's idea for surviving and getting home. Harvey's stomach growled, signaling that he was getting hungry. "Oof!" Harvey said as he felt that this hunger was stronger than any hunger he had ever felt before in his whole life. "I'm getting kind of hungry..." Harvey said, and he started feeling dizzy after that like he hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch at all. He probably didn't.
"But we don't have any money, Harvey!" Mushi childishly exclaimed to Harvey. "How are we going to even get food?" Mushi asked as tears welled up in her eyes.
"Ah, don't sweat it, guys!" Joey said with a smug, cocky, and confident smirk plastered across his face. "I'll get us some bread and we can all get some grub!" Joey said as Harvey and Mushi both wondered how the Aussie was going to pull that off. They got their answer when he started picking people's pockets out of their hard-earned cash!
"Joey!" Harvey exclaimed in a whisper, catching the Aussie's attention without alerting the people he was stealing money from. "What the hell are you doing?" Harvey asked, whispering.
"What do you think I'm doing?" He asked incredulously. "I'm getting us some money for food!" He said as he picked a few more pockets to make sure they had enough money to get some full-course dinners (or something close to them) to fill their tummies before he dragged Harvey and Mushi into an alley. "Hey, I'm a thief, alright?" Joey explained to them. "I live in a ghetto neighborhood and I'm dirt poor!" He told them as they looked surprised. "I'm just getting us some cheddar the only way I know how, guys..." He told them as they started to feel bad for him. "Let's just get something to eat, then we can brainstorm ideas for getting home." He said as they decided to go to a restaurant for some food.
Later, as they walked into a restaurant called Ultra Burger, Mushi was grimacing at the thought of ordering greasy, fast food, it was going to ruin her girlish figure, however, she understood why she had to eat a cheap, processed, calorie bomb. Because there was nothing else for her to eat. It was either eat this or starve, and she didn't want to starve.
"I hope it's only one meal..." Mushi said to herself, hoping that this was only one meal for her and her new companions as they walked up to the counter, deciding to let Harvey go in front of them to not get questioned why two kids were in a restaurant all by their lonesome.
"Hi!" A cheerful, chubby teenaged girl with a seriously bad case of acne greeted them from behind the counter. "Welcome to Ultra Burger, may I take your order?" She asked the trio.
"Yeah, we'll have ten number one combos, no onions, with eight Pepsi's," Harvey replied after a moment of contemplation and asking Joey and Mushi what they wanted to eat. Although his stomach had growled and he felt so hungry at the moment, he ended up ordering more than he had intended to.
"That's ten triple patties Super Mega Burger meals with no onions and eight Pepsicola's. Would you like us to Ultra-Size those for you?" She asked as she wrote down the order.
"Yes, please!" Harvey answered cheerfully, much to Mushi's chagrin.
"I am so gonna pack on some extra pounds, aren't I?" Mushi asked herself under her breath. No one heard her comment. After paying for their meal, they decided to wait for it, and Mushi and Joey could tell that they'd probably need Joey to pick some more pockets if they were going to call their parents on a payphone or something. However, the minute they sat down, the pimply cashier called out to them.
"Uh, kids, I'm sorry, but I need to get my manager to see you..." Ziterella said before dashing into the back, presumably to get her manager to speak with them, this greatly annoyed the trio and made them worry that they were busted for paying for a meal with stolen money. Mushi wanted to bolt, Joey wanted to get that money back to call his folks, but Harvey wordlessly shot those ideas down, giving them a look that seemed to freeze them in place as the manager came to see them. The manager was a balding, pot-bellied man in his mid-forties who had a huge smile on his face and was holding something in his hands that appeared to be one of those giant checks from Publisher's Clearing House.
Before either of the kids could speak, the man chimed in, joyously greeting the trio as he unintentionally told them they weren't in any trouble whatsoever.
"Hello, and welcome to Ultra Burger!" He exclaimed brightly. "I'm happy to inform you three that you are our one-millionth customers!" He informed them with a big grin on his face. "What are your names?" He asked jovially.
"I'm Harvey McKenzie!" Harvey said.
"My name is Mushi Sanban..." Mushi told the man as she looked confused as to what was even happening at the moment.
"Joey Beatles," Joey said simply, also wondering what was going on right now.
"Well, Joey, Mushi, Harvey, for being the one-millionth customers at this location, you have won free meals for life at any of the Burger Queen restaurants around the globe! You three can order anything on the menu, as much as you want, any time!" The manager said as the trio had mixed reactions, Joey was ecstatic because he LOVED fast food and was now being told he could eat it for free, Harvey was starving so he was indifferent, Mushi, however, was unsure of this being a good idea, she wanted to stay thin, even if she was similar to a real-life Tsuyu Asui from My Hero Academia, she did not want to get fat.
"Cool!" Joey exclaimed at the top of his lungs, feeling like he was on cloud nine at the moment.
"Awesome!" Harvey said simply, just wanting to get his tummy filled and maybe call his folks up and see about them picking him, Joey and Mushi up.
"Uhh, thanks?" Mushi said, unsure how to respond. She knew she would probably never use the prize, and wondered desperately to herself if there was a cash option instead.
After that, the trio of mutants all shook hands with all of the staff and taking a few pictures while wearing the 'Official Ultra Burger Crowns and Tiara', they were given their meal (free of charge, of course), as well as some envelopes containing their prize and they were allowed to sit down at their table. Once they arrived back at their table, the trio contemplated what to do as they waited for their food to arrive when Harvey decided to open up his envelope to take a look at the prize. The enclosed letter read as follows:
Dear Customer(s),
Thank you for being a loyal member of the Ultra Burger family, and congratulations on being the one-millionth customer(s)! As the winner(s) of the fabulous prize, you are now officially entitled to the perks befitting your new prize. Enclosed in this/these envelope(s) is the Ultra Card, which can be used in any of our over restaurants worldwide. The card can be used as often as you'd like and will cover the cost of as many of our delicious menu items as you'd care to order. So enjoy, and as always, have an awesome day!
P.S. – As a family-restaurant, we feel the winner(s) of the Ultra Card should be able to provide for his/her/their family(s) and friends, as well, so we've included seven additional Ultra Cards to distribute as you see fit. Thanks again for your patronage!
Harvey, Joey, and Mushi emptied the contents of their respective envelopes to discover that they were the owners of a total of twenty-one Ultra Cards. The cards were golden and shiny, glistening in the light as they toppled onto the table. They noticed that they looked like credit cards, but were a little heavier than normal credit cards were, signaling that they were made out of metal. As they finished examining their prize and pocketed their respective Ultra Cards when their number was called and Mushi went up to get their meal over to the table they were sitting at. Mushi may not have wanted to choke down the calorie bomb she was given, but she did anyway, and she had to admit, this may not be good for her, but it was delicious! She had eaten her share daintily, like a lady, as opposed to Joey who gobbled his up like a messy animal who hadn't eaten in days, but that PALED in comparison to how Harvey ate his share of the meal, he was practically INHALING his food until there was none left and by that point, Joey and Mushi were completely stuffed to the gills. But then, Harvey did something that shocked them both as well as himself. He got up and ordered more fast food! Using the prize he had won with Joey and Mushi, he ordered enough food to feed a big family and made an absolute pig out of himself! He kept this up until he was too stuffed to move another millimeter. Joey and Mushi were visibly shocked at the sheer amount of food they had witnessed Harvey cram into his body. It was a smorgasbord of fattening patties, greasy fries and ice-cold soda, and when he was finally immobilized by all that food in his gut, he had a large, globular, tightly packed and extremely distended food baby with reddening skin, showing that the skin of his stomach was being stretched and overtaxed by its contents.
"Oh..." Harvey groaned miserably. "Why did you guys let me eat all that food?" Harvey asked as his food baby gurgled loudly, indicating that the contents were starting to dance around in his stomach.
"Sorry, Harvey, we were just speechless..." Joey explained as Mushi was just staring at the bucktoothed boy, completely slack-jawed, unable to form a single syllable. "You never mentioned you had a big appetite!" He said to him, completely flabbergasted at the bout of gluttony he and Mushi had witnessed from the thirteen-year-old boy.
"Because I didn't, I think Medusa's experiment might have done this to me..." Harvey admitted, albeit under his breath.
"Well, that does make a little bit of sense, there, mate..." Joey said as he thought more about it.
"Yeah..." Mushi said simply as she noticed a girl around Harvey's age with blonde hair done up in childish pigtails and her massive gut seemed to make her look like she was around seven months pregnant. She was with a boy who was presumably the same age, a boy who was clad in cargo shorts and a blue shirt with an orange stripe on it and the sleeves. The boy sported black hair and was playing with a yo-yo when he noticed the trio and spoke to his companion.
"Yo, Sonya, look at those kids!" The boy said to Sonya as she looked over and saw the MASSIVE amount of food wrappers at the table and gasped. "They're eating more than you!" He exclaimed as he and Sonya walked over to them and Harvey, Joey and Mushi filled with hope that they'd be reunited with their families sooner than anticipated.
"Holy..." Sonya said in shock as she stared at all the accumulative trash, her jaw slack. "Lee, doesn't the one with the buckteeth look familiar?" Sonya asked as Lee squinted his eyes before widening them in shock.
"Harvey McKenzie?" Lee asked in shock as Harvey then proceeded to recognize these two. Sonya Muto and her boyfriend Leonidas Ragnarök 'Lee' Uno. Two of the mutants he would always whittle down to a mass of tears and sobs. However, Sonya looked like she could use a diet, her belly was HUGE! What was Lee FEEDING her? "What on earth are YOU doing he-OW!" Lee said as Sonya stomped on his foot, causing her gut to jiggle, but Harvey noticed that it didn't jiggle as much as a gut of that size should have.
"Lee!" Sonya scolded her boyfriend as she looked at him with a gaze that would forever be christened as 'The Look'. "Be nice! They're probably lost or something..." Sonya said sympathetically, which baffled and confused Harvey, as she previously did not attempt to hide her hatred of racism (especially against the Japanese and against mutants) to Harvey, given how many times she had used her powers to control and manipulate psionic energy to barbecue his butt.
"WE ARE LOST!" Mushi exclaimed, hopping over to Sonya and hugging her legs tightly.
"Can you help us get home?" Joey said with a pleading look on his face.
"Please, Lee...I wanna go home..." Harvey said tiredly as he began to feel a little sleepy. His gut taking up a lot of energy digesting the food he ate was making him feel sleepy and lethargic, he was almost half asleep.
"How did you even get here, McKenzie?" Lee asked hatefully, not even trying to hide the fact that Harvey bullying him and his girl royally pissed him off.
"Ever hear of the Cult of..." Harvey started before he was interrupted by a very frightened gasp from Sonya.
"X!" Sonya said, feeling fear for Harvey and these other two kids. "Did they turn you into..." She asked tentatively.
"Mutants? Yeah, Sonya..." Harvey admitted to the blonde girl as he motioned to Mushi and Joey. "We're like you now...we're mutants..." He told them as he started tearing up. Sonya and Lee quickly understood what these three needed, home, love, and most importantly family.
"Um, I'll just call the Institute for a ride back to Virginia..." Lee said as he pulled out his phone and dialed the Institute's number as Sonya, Mushi, and Joey sat down at the table as Harvey got back up and used his Ultra Card to order more food. That was where he was starting to get worried, he never had this much of an appetite before! He starting to think this was a result of Medusa's experiment on him without a doubt in his mind.
"So, I'm just wondering..." Sonya started after parking her big gelatinous, jiggling butt down in a booth seat. "What are you're powers?" She asked as Mushi started tearing and Joey grinned from ear-to-ear.
"Well, I'm imbued with the powers and abilities of a toad..." Mushi said, wiping off what Sonya thought was a small film of sweat but now realized what it was. Mushi was secreting slime.
"And I got me five retractable claws in my fingers and thumbs, enhanced senses, and a powerful healin' factor!" Joey told Sonya as Harvey returned with a TON of food, like, enough to feed a whole family with. Sonya could not help but giggle and tease Harvey.
"Careful, Harvey..." Sonya said teasingly. "A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!" She said as she giggled, but then she noticed that Harvey was practically inhaling his order, quickly going from one cheap, processed caloric bomb to the next and in short and quick succession too! "Um, you're going to eat all of that?" Sonya asked worriedly as Harvey briefly paused in his eating to answer her question.
"I don't know why, Sonya, but I'm just so hungry, lately, and I know that the food I'm shoving down my throat is going to go straight to my butt, but I feel a lot better when I eat a lot, even though it's going to make me fat," Harvey admitted, noting that whenever he ate, he felt something so irresistibly alluring about stuffing himself to immobility, that it made him want to do it, even though it was bad for his waistline. "Oh, I hope that my new mutation doesn't do that to me..." Harvey said despairingly as he resumed eating his meal.
"Well, first we'll have to get you kids home..." Sonya said gently as Harvey continued to make an absolute pig out of himself. "I'm sure you all want to be with your families, right now," Sonya said to the trio who proceeded to get all happy and teary-eyed.
"Are you kidding?" Mushi asked, ecstatic by the prospect of seeing her family again after the ordeal she was just put through.
"Of course I want to see my mum and pops! Who wouldn't after what we were just put through?" Joey asked, incredulous by the idea of someone NOT wanting to see their parents after being put through those experiments like they were.
"Oh! That'll be great!" Mushi said happily and Joey wordlessly agreed with her.
Harvey, on the other hand, was still eating and as he finished he went to get more food, but he got a relatively smaller order, signaling that he was almost full, and started to look both despondent and scared. He didn't start eating his latest meal right away, he had something on his mind, well, two somethings, and he needed an answer to them.
"Sonya?" He asked tentatively as he swallowed his pride before he got started on his beef.
"Yes, Harvey?" She asked warmly, kindness marinating her voice. Not the tone Harvey expected from one of the mutant teens he had constantly bullied and belittled when he decided to speak to her.
"Why are you being so nice to us, especially to me?" He asked as tears began to well up in his eyes as he spoke. "I treated you and Lee worse than dog shit! How can you even consider being this nice to me?" He asked as his tears rolled down his face.
"Well, let's just call it..." Sonya said as she wordlessly brought attention to her big belly, heaving it on the table so gently, that one would think that she was threading a needle. "A mother's intuition." She said prompting faces of shock to appear on the Joey and Mushi's faces, as Harvey wasn't surprised that Lee knocked up Sonya, having known the two were dating since before they transferred to McClintock. That was when Lee came back to the table and parked it.
"Ok, Headmaster Uno said that the fastest they could be here is an hour..." Lee said as he helped Sonya up, being ever-so-mindful of her baby bump as he did so. "...we'd better get to the airport now if we don't want to miss the jet," Lee said ushering every one, and begrudgingly so with Harvey, who did his best to pocket all his food, and they left the restaurant and followed the young couple to the designated airport and waited for their flight to arrive. All the while Harvey was eating the last of his food with much gusto.
"Jeez, haven't you had enough food, you pig?!" Lee angrily asked the bucktoothed boy as Harvey finished up his latest burger, his cheeks bulging like a chipmunk.
"I can't help it..." Harvey said as he swallowed his latest mouthful of fast food before speaking again. "I've just been so hungry ever since we entered Phoenix," Harvey admitted.
Lee just scoffed as he quickly produced a fireball in his hand and started tossing it up and down like a baseball. This caught the attention of an airport security guard as he came over to the boy on his segway.
"Kid..." The man said, catching Lee's attention as he caught his fireball in his hand.
"Is something the matter, sir?" Lee asked innocently as the guard furrowed his brow.
"I'm going to have to ask you to put out your fireball, kid, it's a hazard!" The man told him as Lee just shrugged and put it out.
The guard left on his Segway as the gang of mutants resumed waiting for their flight. An hour had passed when a black jet landed and Lee recognized it as their flight back to Virginia.
"C'mon, guys..." Lee said ushering everyone to the gate. "This is our flight home..." He said as they all boarded the jet and Harvey, Joey and Mushi were surprised to find their respective siblings were on board, looking relieved to see them.
"Harvey!" Rachel exclaimed, rushing over to Harvey, giving him a tight hug, pressing against Harvey's tightly packed tummy, making the boy seethe in guttural pain. He, nevertheless, hugged her back, tears of joy running down his face.
"Wally!" Joey cried happily, tears of joy going down the tough little bandits' face as he hugged his big brother, who, likewise did the same. It went without saying that the Sanban sisters did the same. It was a very touching reunion, with the younger siblings and the older siblings discussing what the trio had been put through and how they were going to deal with these changes occurring in their very genome as they spoke.
When the jet touched down at the Cleveland International Airport in Virginia the trio's respective families were there, waiting for their missing children and they ran to them, having been worried about them for quite some time.
"Harvey!" Cried Aaron as he hugged his son as Harvey cried tears of joy, his happiness overclocked by seeing his family again for the first time in a while. "They told me what happened…" Aaron said as Harvey cried into his father's chest, hugging the man tightly. "Is it true, son?" He asked, scarcely wanting to believe it as he hugged his son back, patting him on the back, trying to do the best he could to console his son. "Are you a mutant now?" Aaron asked his son, who only nodded in response, tears flooding out of his eyes as he did so. He was not happy, and Aaron could tell that his son wanted to go home, that he wanted to go to his mother. He could also tell that Harvey needed Rosalinda right now, more than he ever did before.
It wasn't long before the trio were herded into their families' respective cars and taken home. Although, Harvey could tell that his dad was going to have a nice, long talk with him about the McClintock Institute for Gifted Children. He couldn't blame him. While Aaron McKenzie was a mutant-hating racist, his hatred was limited, he would care about his family even if they were mutants. So, Harvey wasn't that worried. The whole prospect just seemed so scary to him. And some of that fear stemmed from him not knowing what his powers were and he wanted to know. He wanted to know what he had been turned into. On account of how full he was, Harvey fell asleep during the ride home.