Angi Marie: Thank you so much! I'm glad it's legible! :D
Sophi: soon. ;)

*Warning* I reread this chapter a bajillion times and I can't get it any less boring. But griffins gotta do what griffins gotta do... so... bear with me :)
Thanks for reading!

Professor X and Dr. McCoy sat across from each other, staring intently at the little baggie that Kitty had brought down to the lab just a day ago. It stayed there on the table,
Motionless.
Oblivious.
Sinister.
Wicked.
It was possibly the most diabolical and abhorrent thing to ever exist on this planet. It was so ugly and brown; it was so nonchalantly evil that just looking at it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It was so horrendously vile, that on a scale of one to rotten it was at least a seven.

"This brown bag," Dr. McCoy spoke loathingly, "Is possibly the foulest thing I've ever laid my eyes upon."
Professor X lifted his gaze to Dr. McCoy's furry face. It had worry lines etched into it, and made Hank look much too old. "We must dispose of it quickly." He told his friend.
Dr. McCoy nodded, alarmed. "What of the children?"
"We mustn't frighten them, we-"
"Hey… Hey guys." Bobby's head slowly rose over the side of the desk, and stopped when he was eye level with the little bag. "Guys… hey. Hey guys. He-"
"ROBERT! What are you doi-"
"Guys. Hey. I was just passing by and… well. Ahaha… *ahem* well… I was just wondering…"
"Robert Drake, you leave this instant!"
"I was wondering if that was cra-"
"GET. OUT."
"Can I touch it?"
"DRAKE!"
"Just a tiny tou-"
"Drake you will leave this instant or you will be grounded for a week!"
"FINE!" Iceman stood up abruptly and left, kicking over a trashcan on his way out.

"…The mansion has already begun its descent into chaos." Beast whispered, ominously.
"I fear for our very lives." Professor X murmured.
"Remy fears for whoever does da laundry dis week, I got jam all over my suit."
Professor X looked over to Gambit, who had squeezed a jelly donut just a bit too hard and made some filling dribble out the back end. "…We're not going to make it out of this alive."

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Stillman slammed the phone down. "Goddamn Americans."
"Trouble in paradise?" Ava Stillman asked disinterestedly, picking at her crochet blanket.
"No, just Michigan."
"Drugs not working out?"
"Yes… and no. I asked someone to send a little shipment over to New York but-"
"Are you stupid?" Ava looked up, furious. "The drug isn't ready. Garvey didn't finish it, we don't even know if it works. You've moved before we've set up the second attack!"
"It does work, dear." Ernest retorted. "They were drawn to water and-"
"It doesn't matter," she hissed, "We don't know if it'll work on all mutants. What if there's a mutant in New York who's immune to its effects? The X men will know we sent it! They'll come after us and we have no way of even defending ourselves! Lorelei's gone, your stupid head machine is gone, Garvey is dead, people are bailing out on us-"
"Ah, yes my love," Mr. Stillman grinned mischievously, "I do have some good news in that respect; I've made a new friend in the States. Some magnet guy, he has a-"
"Is he a mutant?"
"…Yes."
Mrs. Stillman stared at her husband, astonished. "You dumbass..."

Mr. Stillman sighed and hung his head. He was in a bit of a pinch, and was looking for any way out. This Magnet… Magnet-o… whatever; he said he could get the drug to the X men no problem, 'you won't have to worry about a thing', he'd said. Mr. Stillman covered his head with his hands and rubbed his face tiredly. He didn't have the heart to tell his wife that he hadn't even sent a live version of the drug to the X men; he'd given Magnet-o a placebo in the hopes that – if Lorelei was indeed kidnapped – she would eventually catch wind that the Stillmans had sent the drug to the X men. Maybe she'd realize that they were looking for her; that they weren't afraid of attacking the X men to get their daughter back.

Well, Ernest Stillman wanted her back; she was their only external alarm system. "Little Siren" he had called her when he'd first heard her wail when they were attacked once. She'd screamed so loudly that the cliff outside retained her echo for a couple of days after. She wasn't able to scream that deafeningly again, but the name stuck – especially since she was named after a siren. Who… had a cliff named after her.
It's cute, Mrs. Stillman insisted when the girl was born.
Mr. Stillman smiled sadly. Well it certainly was an apt name… it still is if she's alive.

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

"Now Kitty, I want you to tell me exactly what happened."
"I've already told you guys," she whined, "Professor was in his office and called me in. He gave me the bag and told me to give it to you."
Beast looked over to the professor, who shook his head. "I didn't give you anything yesterday. In fact, I didn't see you at all."
"Well that's what happened."
"It was definitely Kitty," Logan cut in, "I woulda smelled it if she wasn't."
"So someone impersonated the Professor…" Beast mused.
"Someone?" Logan snorted. "Don't beat around the bush – it was Mystique."
"We don't know that for sure-"
"We do."

Professor X stayed quiet, contemplating the baggie. It had Stillman written all over it. Literally, the name Stillman was engraved in gold lettering on the side. "Hank you ran an analysis on this didn't you?"
"Yes. It's all feldspar, quartz and mica."
"In English, please." Logan growled.
Doctor McCoy sighed. "It's sand and granite. No new drug."
Professor X nodded to himself. "He's threatening us then."
"Stillman is?" Beast asked.
"That's my guess."
Remy looked up from the jam mess on his chest. "It's a pretty bold move don't you think? Even for Stillman."

"What's their motive?" Dr. McCoy wondered. "What are they getting out of all of this… besides the ear of a couple governors and the death of innocent bystanders?"
"As of right now; nothing but amusement… unless this whole thing goes deeper than it seems."
"It usually does…" Scott muttered from the door

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

Lorelei peeked out from the metal cave she was hiding in. I swear to God if I die again I'm going to kill my biographer. She clawed her way up the side of what looked like a giant fridge. At least I have my head back… no sign of my freaking ear though. She grunted and pulled her griffin-y form over the side of the freezer and stood atop it. Nice view from up here-"

"Oh God."
This isn't a fridge.
This is a fucking toaster.

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

Forge rummaged through his box of nuts and bolts, trying to find the right size to fit the hole he'd just drilled. He kept the box with the rest of the danger room junk so he didn't accidentally give a broken kitchen appliance a death ray, or a frozen computer a tiny chainsaw. He was just about to fix a mangled floor turret when he heard a high pitch scream.

Forge looked up, surprised by the sound. People didn't usually visit him down in his workshop, and they definitely didn't scream. Well, unless he smelled. He lifted an arm and sniffed tentatively. How long have I been down here? He heard the sound again, and his curiosity won out. He got up and wiped the bits of metal shavings off of his cybernetic leg and looked for the source of the noise. "Hello?" He asked. He pushed aside a headless robot, and a girl suddenly appeared out of thin air and landed in front of him, scattering toasters and broken can openers everywhere. "Jeez-" Forge tripped over backwards onto a cardboard box and was buried under styrofoam.

Lorelei watched the man attempt to claw his way back out from under the foam. She noticed the little X on his buckle catch the light when he… just… made it… out of theeeee... nope. He fell back into the box.
Sigh. X men. I should've known they'd keep a piece of me. Baldie really doesn't want me to leave, does he?

After watching the man struggle for a couple more seconds, she grabbed him by the lapels and heaved him up.
"Are all you idiots this useless?"
"Ehm." Forge started, "I just fix things mostly… you're not a bad guy are you? I'd have to… uh… apprehend you… if… you are."
Lorelei snorted. "Right. Listen, vhere's Baldie? I've got some colorful words to say to him."
"Professor X? He's probably in his office." Forge froze. "Uh… I shouldn't have told you that. I have no idea where he is, I can take a messa-"

Lorelei dropped him back into his box and turned around to find the exit. "Nein."

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

"I'm telling you Kurt, blue is the new bla-"
Lorelei interrupted the conversation by slammed the office door open, knocking over Scott and a potted palm in the process. "You're all fucked."
"Lorelei!" Kurt shouted happily. "I thought you were de-"
"Alright Baldie," She seethed – ignoring Kurt's happy greeting. "Vat type of sick game are you playing at?"

"Game?" Charles queried, surprised by her entrance. "I'm not sure what you mean, but I am certainly glad to see-"
"VHY ARE YOU KEEPING PIECES OF ME EVERYWHERE YOU SILLY BILLIARD BALL?!"
Logan suddenly laughed very loudly. "That's a good one!" He turned serious just as quickly though, "you'd better be respectful though, or I'll cut that other ear of yours off."
"Screw you und your stupid claws! Vhy are you hiding-"
"Lorelei I think I might have an answer to your question… tell me where you just came from." Professor X steepled his fingers and looked intently at her, as if he just realized he could read her mind. Which he could – she was human at this point.
"I don't know," she said and turned to face him. "I vas in the basement somewhere. Some dummkopf with a metal leg tried to sneak up on me."
"His name is Forge." Professor X corrected. "He can fix just about everything… and create just about everything as well. He's quite brillian-"
"Ja, wunderbar. Vhere's the rest of me?"
"Pardon?"
Lorelei chuckled quietly and moseyed up to professor X's desk. She sat on the edge of it and leaned in close, "Herr Cue Ball," She started, "YOU'VE MADE ME FIVE INCHES TALL!"
"Nein, Lorelei." Kurt corrected. "You've messed up your metric system. American's use the-"
"I KNOW VAT AN INCH IS!"

Professor considered the livid German on the edge of his desk. "Lorelei…" he started softly, making her lean in more to hear what he was saying. "I didn't make you small." Professor X tried to keep her attention away from the little bag he was motioning for Scott to take discreetly. "A piece of you must have remained after the laser hit you…"
Scott gradually came to a stop next to the desk after nonchalantly inspecting the broken clock.
"What must have happened…"
Scott slowly reached out to the bag.
"Was that a piece of your skull remained when your head was vaporized."
He pulled gently at the string.
"It was swept down to Forge's workshop with the broken turret – or any session after that."
Crap. The baggie spilled a little.
"And you finally awoke down there."
Scott managed to take the bag without noticing it, and he quickly left the room.
"Obviously there wasn't enough of… you… for a full comeback, which is probably why you're small."
Lorelei stared at Professor X, she hated to admit it but it made sense. There was an awkward silence as the group stared at Lorelei, waiting for some swears or some sort of comeback. Nothing.

"Vell, now that we're all back together I say we get ice cream to celebrate!" Kurt shouted from the bookshelf he was sitting on.
"Why not?" Professor asked. "My treat."
"Ice cream?!" Bobby and Kitty shouted from the doorway.
"Ice cream?" Hank asked unhappily.
"ICE CREAM!" Remy shouted happily.
"Everyone stop your GODDAMN SHOUTING!" Logan yelled.

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

A small group of X men… and Lorelei… eventually sat down at a tiny ice cream stall.
"This is the most random place for an ice cream shop." Lorelei looked about. They were surrounded by forest on all sides, and about a mile down a very shoddy road. "I swear I saw a pothole inside of a pothole."
"There's a lake and a bunch of trails further down." Kurt explained. "People take a break from hiking and swimming und come here in the summer, and in winter they get hot chocolate. This is the best place for a random stall! Plus the owner's a mutant, so they're okay with us."
"You eat like a pig." Lorelei stared, offended at the sight of the chocolate ice cream smeared across Nightcrawler's face.
Kurt shrugged. "At least I'm enjoying mine. Yours is messing all over your hand, vat a waste."
Lorelei looked down at her vanilla covered hand and watched as some of the sticky syrup dripped onto her jeans.

"I hate everything."

Professor X joined the two and they all watched as Iceman attempted to reproduce the ice cream. "What's the point of having ice powers if you can't even create ice cream?!" he howled after his fifth failed attempt.
"You could just eat it." Kitty said.
"No that makes too much sense."
Logan sat down in between Rogue and Remy to "keep the creepy to a minimum" and grumbled about being dragged to places he didn't want to go and babysitting.

After the group had finished scoffing down their one to three ice creams, it was decided that it was "nature walk time".
Kill me now. Lorelei slammed her head onto the picnic table.
"It'll be enjoyable!" Hank insisted. "We'll see so many interesting things! There's poison ivy and lambs ear and…"
Lorelei tried her hardest to ignore Crazy Bear as they got up and walked into the forest and he explained the importance of watching your step. She ignored him right until she slammed into a tree. She didn't bother trying to pull her face out the trunk of it, and stayed there hoping that it would fuse with her and the X men would forget she was there.
They'll all be like, 'OH! Where's Lorelei?' And I won't say anything because I vill be a tree, and they vill search for me but they vill not find me because I vill fall upon their house AND CRUSH THEIR SOULS.

"Lorelei, you coming?" Rogue called from the back of the pack.
"Nein. I am tree."
"You can't be a tree Sugah, you're a human."
"I am a mighty oak…"
"Come on." She tugged at Lorelei's arm.
"I vill drown you vith my leaves of heartlessness and whip at you with branches of fear and agony."
"Well that's awfully morbid Sugah, but let's do it some other time."
"I vill crush your soul with roots of-"
Logan had enough of Lorelei's shit and picked her up roughly by the back of her jacket when he passed. He set her down in front of him and pushed the back of her leg with his foot. "Move. Faster you walk, faster we get home." Logan knew molding with trees didn't work, he'd tried it the first time he went on a nature walk as well. He forced her to walk, and even prodded her with a stick once.

"So… you're only five inches tall?" Kurt asked, slowing down to walk besides her.
Lorelei sighed. "Ja." Leave me alone.
"You're joking."
She looked over at Blue Monkey, and considered punching him into the berry bush they were passing. She remembered Logan was behind her, and figured it wasn't the best idea. "Nein… but if you carry me I vill show you."
"Carry you?" Kurt laughed. "I know I look ripped…"
Yeah right, Lorelei sneered.
"… but I can't-"
"Nein stupid, vhen I'm little."
"Carry griffin you?"
"Ja."
Kurt thought about it. If she was really only five inches tall, he could easily carry her. And he'd get that revenge he was still looking for... the drowning didn't count because she was still alive.

"Stop." Beast called from the front. They'd hit a river that was surrounded by jagged rocks on all sides. "This is genus of moss is called sphagnum there are many species…"
Wait… isn't this… Lorelei stared at the line of rocks Blue Bear was standing by and could practically hear them shouting for her to grab them and carry them all home. "FANCY DIRT!" She screamed excitedly.
"Wait Lorelei, YOU'LL SLIP!" Beast reached out to grab her before she tripped on the moss, but he was too late. Lorelei dove straight… into the rock.
"THAT KID!" Kitty howled and collapsed to her knees. "SHE ONLY WANTS TO DIE!"

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

Lorelei swam around in the rocks happily. There were some parts of them she couldn't get into, but for the most part they were made out of… whatever her griffin was made out of. It was the same stuff Loreley Cliff was made out of – she could swim in those rocks too. Sometimes she could even create things out of the rocks, but then other times she couldn't.

She sighed and settled down, content. It felt like home here in the rocks. It was cool, and surrounded her without smothering her. She was just about to let herself slip off into dream land, when a thought went through her mind.

Can't I grow now?

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

The X men stood there, stunned.
"Didn't she just un-die?" Remy asked.
"Well. I give up." Kurt threw his hands in the air and turned to leave. "Obviously she has no regard for human life; I personally frown upon suici-"

At that moment, the rocks beneath their feet rumbled and suddenly gathered in one spot. They seemed to melt and mold together and slowly took on the form of a very large and very flightless griffin.

And she was still missing one of her ears.

"Vell." Kurt said, folding his arms, "Now you can carry me."
"Nein. You are monkey."
"I knew something good would come of this nature walk!" Beast exclaimed excitedly.
Now I can crush you all!
"I can take these stones back to the-"
"NO!" Lorelei howled and turned to Beast. "You leave them there."
Beast looked up at the griffin and frowned. It was much easier to understand her when she was little; now her voice sounded deep, rough and, well… stony. "Ah… okay. But I'm not sure what good pears will do…"

Lorelei changed back and picked up a medium sized stone, and hugged it. "You leave my stones here. Mine."
Rogue rapped her knuckles against one of the rocks near the water's edge. "What makes these ones so special from the others?"
"They're fancy." Lorelei said, rubbing her cheek on the one in her arms.
"Dat's weird." Remy whispered to Iceman. Iceman rubbed his chin and nodded in agreement. "Compared to the things I've seen the girls do when they find jeans they like in the mall though… this is nothing."
Remy frowned and thought back to when he'd been dragged along to one of the girl's many mall crawls. Bobby was right.

~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~

After much kicking and screaming, the team eventually managed to drag Lorelei back from the rocks.
"You're not putting that boulder in my car!" Remy shouted.
Lorelei had carried a head-sized rock from the pile before they'd left. "I'm not going vithout it!"
"Ah said no! Professor, tell her no!"
Professor X looked between the livid two. "It is his car Lorelei."
"Then I'll go with volverine."
"It's Wolverine." Logan corrected. "And hell no."
"I'll ignore you for the rest of your existence."

Logan looked at her. That was honestly the best deal he'd ever heard from someone he didn't like. "I don't think you can keep that sorta deal."
"I vill." Lorelei strapped a helmet around her rock and jumped on the bike. "Let's go, I hate you."
Logan growled and kicked a stone across the street. "Fine, but if you don't leave me I get to cut off your head."
"Vatever."
"Or your other ear."
Lorelei hissed through her teeth and thought about that one. "Nei… agh, alright."

Logan got on, and Lorelei was thrown into his back when his weight shifted the bike down. She wiggled, trying to get as far away as possible from him, but just kept sliding down.
"Listen kid," Logan snarled from the front, "you either gotta wiggle a whole lot less or little bit more, but this in between shit aint gonna cut it."
Lorelei picked up her rock and put it between them, "The Griffin King thanks you."
"Who?"
"Just go."

Logan kicked off, and followed Remy's bender down the pothole strewn road. It was the longest bike ride he'd ever been on. No more hitchhikers, he mentally chided himself. Especially not one's with rocks in their heads.

Will Logan stop picking up hitchhikers? Will Lorelei really crush the world? Will Iceman ever make a real ice cream? Find out... uh... maybe... in future... chapters... maybe. Thanks for reading tho! (and reviewing if it pleases you) :D