"Girls, I'm afraid I have some bad news." Wesley said slowly as he gave out butterscotch mousse with strawberries. It was always good to soften them up with dessert first.
"Great...how much better can this day get?" Renee said dolefully as she ate the sweet pudding gratefully.
"A lot worse..." Kikki groaned as she saw Elliot pull down the slideshow board and start clicking on his laptop furiously. "He's got the power points up again."
"Stop complaining and listen up." The blonde hair teenager retorted angrily. "I've no mood for this useless chatter." He clicked his laptop once and they saw an image of Dren. But this wasn't sexy, smoking hot Dren. This was the scrawny, lanky alien that was a pest to their world. "This is the footage Mini Mew recorded before, the lab pretty much exploded."
"Where's Mini Mew now?" Corina asked and he twitched an eyebrow in impatience.
"He's down in the lab recovering, but the most important thing today is that-"
"Where's Dren today?"Bridget asked him softly and the other murmured in agreement.
"If someone will let me finish!" Elliot snapped at them all, and he pointed to the slide show. "Dren here is undergoing his transformation. Watch closely...there! Did you all see that!" He demanded viciously and the Mew Mews team recoiled slightly. The whites of his eyes were bulging slightly, and the bags under his eyes were sagging darkly and his hair was dishevelled beyond belief.
"No..." Was the quiet collective reply.
"Elliot lay off them a minute and maybe then they can focus on your video as opposed to you snapping at them." Wesley replied good naturedly with a smile. "Not to mention you look rather scary."
"Fine." Was the stroppy reply. "Look again, it's for a split second. Over there in that corner." An dhe pointed at the board.
"I don't see it." Kikki said aloud. But Zoey did. It was an image of a man.
"Now look at where that beam of light was projected. If I magnify that area of light..." Elliot muttered to himself. And a few moment later those beams of light were broken down into pixels, and within those pixels were minute images of stuff. There were houses, human children, trees, landscape...it was all there in those crystals of light. "Do you see how this is so amazing?" He demanded his audience and they feebly shook their heads.
"Take a break Elliot, you've been up all night." Wesley said with a sigh as the blonde genius rested his forehead on his laptop.
"What you just saw was pure magic from Dren's body, what this shows is possibly crystallized images of Dren's past manifested through his power. A memory leakage if you will. This suggests the Cyniclon race developed from a race of humans on a distant planet, wherever they were from and that image of the man, could very well be Dren's personal transformation into a human. Another hypothesis is that the raw Fluorine of our planet ignited his own ancestral roots, showing us all these images." The chef explained gently and a little "Oh..." of understanding spread across the group.
"So?" Corina asked him, "He's possibly part human, what's the bad news then?"
"Well...It appears that Dren's gone back to the Cyniclons, apparently the temptation of a museum visit with Zoey wasn't strong enough. He must not have liked living here as much as we thought." Wesley muttered quietly.
"Thanks to Zoey." Elliot added unhelpfully. "Dren told Wesley all about how Zoey didn't need him." He added scathingly.
"WHAT!" Was the united response. An almighty clamour erupted from all directions from the team, Zoey desperately defending her involvement and the others demanding and accusing ruthlessly. It forced Elliot to retreat outside, leaving the charming chef to calm them down. After a few sundaes and slices of cake, the girls finally sat down to take a deep, calming breath whilst Elliot slunk back in.
"He's gone." Renee said almost sadly, "No more smoking hot Dren to distract us all from work." She added quietly.
"Nope." Corina agreed. "Thanks Zoey for getting rid of the only piece of eye candy in here."
"Oh shush Corina! You stare at Elliot and Wesley long enough every day!" Kikki said cheekily and the blue haired girl gave her a sharp look coupled with a blush on her face.
"Okay girls, not having Dren to look at is an issue, but the even bigger problem is that we don't know what'll happen the next time we see him. Is he going to be returned to the same looking Cyniclon as this?" Elliot said and clicked his laptop to bring up the teenaged Dren, "Or this?" And it was a smoking hot picture of adult Dren standing in a ruined lab. His lower half concealed with a thick band of dust.
"Can we have that for our laptop wallpaper?" Renee asked innocently and Elliot face palmed with a very quiet reply of "Yes".
"Sweeeet." Was the collective reply accompanied with grins.
"Don't you see the gravity of the situation!" Elliot snapped to them, "Tarb and Sardon could transform him into a powerful Cyniclon adult, assuming his magic has increased with age, and by then it'd be too late for any of us to stop him. And we'd have to call in another team of Mew Mews, which probably don't exist!"
"So is there anything we can do?" Zoey asked him tentatively as the blonde teen held his head in his hands.
"No." Was the gruff reply and he looked up at her, "There's nothing we can do." He added grimly.
"Except eat sundaes and have a good rest." Wesley interrupted and popped a lovely caramel sundae in front of Elliot. "We just need to be at our best now girls, so go rest and I'm sure the Cyniclons will be up sometime." His attempt to defuse the situation was successful and the tension decreased slightly between Elliot and the team. "When we see Dren, we'll be able to assess the situation more and act accordingly."
"Yes Wesley." Was the chorused reply and the group stood up and began to leave the lab.
"Here's Mini Mew back Zoey." Elliot said tiredly. And he threw the pink object towards her where she caught it easily.
"Thanks El." She muttered and toyed with the ears of Mini Mew who cooed with happiness as she returned to the cafe. "It's all my fault." She whispered sadly.
A few weeks had passed and many people were used to Dren's absence but Zoey was still staring at the floor. She dragged her feet when she moved, all the way to the museum where she'd arranged to meet Mark which gave her a foul taste in her mouth. The Cyniclon was resting heavy on her mind, and Renee did nothing to help by constantly reminding her of her guilt. "What's up with you?" She looked up and found herself staring into the puzzled expression of Mark.
"H-Hi..." She muttered attempting a weak smile. But that smile never made it to her face, instead a great big wail came from her and tears poured down her face. It'd been contained for such a long time, and burst out in a flood of emotion. "I wish Dren were here." The back of her mind whimpered sadly, which only added to her bawling.
"Woah Zoey, are you alright?" Mark asked her dumbly as she threw herself onto his chest, hugging him tightly. People were starting to stare at the commotion and he hugged her tightly, resting his chin on her head. "It's alright...come on, we'll sit down and you can tell me all about it."
She allowed herself to be led towards a bench and he gently wiped away her tears and her streaming nose with a pocket tissue. "Whatever it is Zoey, we can work through this." He said softly and held his hands over hers. "I'm here for you."
"Dren would have been here too." And her breath kept catching in her chest with every passing moment she thought of Dren. The way his smooth skin felt against hers when they brushed hands together... the loss of him was too hard to accept..."It's-it's-it's..." She mumbled between sobs, "it's Dren's brother."
"Oh? What about him?" Mark asked quietly, his expression creased in confusion. As she hid her expression in his chest.
"H-He's dead." Zoey blurted out. Instantly thinking it was a highly inappropriate comment, but still there was no easy way to go about explaining this without revealing too much.
"Oh no..." Mark said softly and pulled her close to his chest. "What happened?"
"He...got involved with the wrong gang and I-I didn't stop him, I didn't do- I could have stopped him!" She cried in a thin voice. It was a vague truth and avoided any more details of her involvement. "I just don't know what to do..." She mumbled and composed herself slightly. "I want him back."
"There's nothing you can do...it wasn't your fault either." Mark said to her quietly.
"I feel so horrible...If only I could have gotten to him...if he listened..." She whimpered and the rest of her words were drowned into the fabric of his chest. Mark procured more tissues and held her tightly for the next few moments.
"You shouldn't blame yourself." Mark murmured after a while. "Here...I'll make you feel better..." He embraced her tightly, his head resting against hers. They were so close...she'd waited for this moment for a lifetime, but right now it felt emptier than the palms of her hand which Dren used to hold.
She tilted her chin up to him and he leant forwards. It was inevitable. Their soft lips pressed against each other, Zoey could taste her own salty tears and the hot wetness of his tongue as it slipped into her mouth drawing them even closer and the kiss deeper. It was exactly as she'd imagined his kisses to be soft, loving and princely. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. His touch was warm and loving, full of care, comfort and gentility. Her second kiss within weeks. It was too fast...first Dren and now Mark was trying to claim her lips. But Dren was gone...
Her body was shaking when he parted and her face a cherry red. "Let's go home Zoey, at any rate...you've stopped crying." Mark laughed and Zoey gave a weak, hollow laugh letting him lead the way. And he stood up, taking the willing girl with him, and he led her back home.
A distance away, Dren thumped his fist against the trunk of a tree, sending deep rivets and cracks across its surface. His face scowled and his eyes burned a hole of hatred and envy in Mark's skull as he watched them. Once they were out of sight, he simply faded from view. Meanwhile Zoey entered her house and waved goodbye to Mark shakily.
"Honey, there's some package for you. I've left it in your room." Her mother called out from the living room.
"Thanks mum." Zoey replied quietly and trudged up the stairs slowly. She looked and felt drained of all energy. The emotional output from before was rather taxing, what stunned her mind even more was Mark...and his kiss. It nothing like Dren's. The Alien had been forceful, masculine, and left a lingering feel on her lips like sweet poison, tempting her towards him, begging her to crave him. Whereas Mark had just...given her a soft kiss. She sat on the bed, her cheeks flushed with emotion and she noticed a small object wrapped in brown paper sat on the pillow.
It had "Zoey" scrawled across the side in black charcoal, there was no address or recipient left for her. She tore it open with curiosity and there was a single apple left in the palm of her hand. It was a single red, ripe apple and nothing more.
"That's odd...Who'd bother wrapping me up an apple?..." She whispered. And his ears picked them up easily. He allowed himself a smile to stretch over his lips and he fixated his eyes hungrily on her face. "Maybe...It was...no...it couldn't have been. Why would Dren send me an apple? I thought he'd gone with the Cyniclons, he can't do these things anymore. Maybe it's a warning..." And she gave the apple a good looking over checking it for signs of danger.
"Or maybe he's just sending mixed messages." Dren suggested under his breath with a fanged grin.
The next afternoon Zoey paused in the kitchen as Elliot caught her eye. He'd just disappeared down the lab with an armful of machinery and wires without sparing her a second glance, "So what's he doing down there?" She asked Wesley quietly.
"Not so sure, at a guess I assume he's trying to re build his lab and organise what little data he has on Dren." Wesley told her with a smile, "He was more than a bit upset at losing him. Sobbing hysterically into his science papers as it were."
"I think we all were more than upset." Bridget joined in softly as she picked up plates of pie. "It's the thought of fighting him which scares me right now."
"His power increase scares you?" Wesley suggested with a raised eyebrow,
"Yes that and we'd gotten used to him as a friend..." And she hurriedly hid her expression by rushing back out to the cafe.
"Well...I can't not say that his time here didn't make him a friend of ours." The man sighed sadly, "I shall miss his rather dopey intelligence and talent for cookery."
"I miss him too..." Zoey sighed and brushed her hair out of her eyes, "I miss him so much...who knew close friendships could hurt so deeply." She straightened herself up and put on a thin smile, "Well all we can do is just wait and see."
"Exactly Zoey, so don't go missing what's not here." Elliot said coldly without looking up from his note book as he traipsed back up the stairs to the kitchen.
"What's with the attitude?" Zoey replied cattily and gave him a glare, the teenager sighed and glanced up at her.
"Nothing's wrong. It's just that the research I'm recovering from the lab is grimmer than usual." He told her and scribbled furiously on paper with a pencil.
"Well whatever, don't take it out on me." She replied and left the kitchen angrily.
"You should really stop provoking her." Wesley said gently and Elliot snorted.
"If she became any softer then the Cyniclons wouldn't even have to try to take over our world. We may as well hand it over gift wrapped and sprayed with perfume." He said sadly, "She needs to get a grip. All of them do. They've all been so busy cooing over how beautiful Dren is when really they've forgotten just how dangerous he can get. Domesticating him wasn't very successful and now we've gotta pay the price."
"Let's hope the girls are up for it." Wesley said slowly, and mixed a cake batter readily. "If not, then we'll have to formulate a way of enhancing their powers. Which would be risky to their health..."
"I agree, but let's assess Dren first. It won't be long now. It's been too quiet and they never like quiet." Elliot said darkly. Somewhere in a fourth dimension suspended over the public library, Dren spread his lips in a smile baring his fangs greatly. And he curled his hand slightly, making the image of Wesley and Elliot vanish before him.