Disclaimer:I don't own X-Men:Evolution, just myself (Called Molly Callum in 'fics.)
and any original characters/background characters that might pop up from time to time.
"Didn't you say you wanted to and pick up something for Dylan this afternoon?" Remy asked as they boarded the elevator.
"Oh. Did I say I wanted to do that today? As in...today?" Molly looked blank again.
"Yes Sweetheart, today. Something wrong?" Remy said.
"No, I just can't believe something so important slipped my mind," Molly looked surprised, crossing her arms and staring at the floor, "Maybe there _is_ something wrong with me."
"You're fine, Molly. You're probably just getting stressed out like everyone else. We're all feeling it," Remy said, hugging her. Since they'd learned that there was a bounty on their heads, the team had been extra careful. The 12 o' clock curfew they usually had was rolled back to 10. No one went anywhere alone, but in groups of two and three. The younger kids had chaperones when they went and came home from school, no more bus rides. The mansion's security was increased even more and there was talk of getting the phones bugged or turning them off all together. As if the kids didn't have enough problems as of late.
"I guess so," Molly said as Remy let her go, "Uh, anyway, where should we go?"
"The toy store or something. I think the kid has enough clothes," Remy smiled. In the first week without Dylan, Molly had wanted to buy out half of the local store's baby clothes, but Remy had put a stop to that. Not to mention all the pictures of Dylan in different outfits his parents had sent them through e-mail. The baby was well dressed, and that made Remy feel like a proud parent. Dylan was going to grow up to have style, just like Remy. (Never mind that they weren't related.)
"That's a good idea," Molly said. They got ready and arrived at the toy store a short time later.
"Try not to go too crazy. Remember that you have to support yourself, too," Remy warned as they walked side by side.
"Me? You're the one that bought him those shoes," Molly scoffed, poking Remy in the arm.
"Those were some nice shoes!" Remy protested.
"They were expensive," Molly shot back.
"He deserves the best. I think we can both agree on that," Remy finally smiled.
"Oh fine," Molly gave in.
They started looking in the section reserved for baby toys, trying to decide what Dylan would enjoy the most and what he didn't already have. He was a little spoiled, being his parents first child.
"Excuse me," a big, burly man in a hat and a sweatshirt came up to them, "What do you think of this teddy bear?" The man held out the toy bear for Molly to observe. Molly took it, handling it.
"It's really-" Molly found herself stiffening up. The bear suddenly felt like a 50 pound lead weight in her hands. Molly struggled to hold it up, quickly sinking to the ground. All the weight had left her out of breath, beyond winded. "Remy-it's them," She gasped.
Remy didn't need to be told twice. He took out his cards and quickly shoved them against the man. The Black Bishop went flying back as the cards exploded, knocking over the entire shelf of toys as he then skidded against the linoleum floor. Molly finally had the good sense to let go of the bear, pulling herself up from the floor and shifting into tiger form.
"Are we sure we want to fight him?" Remy wondered, "We might be better off retreating."
Molly morphed halfway so that fur covered an almost human shape, except for a tail, and she regained the use of her voice. "He wants us dead. We turn our backs on him, he's going to strike."
"Good point," Remy agreed. Besides, he was no coward. Remy made his way across the fallen shelf and to the man that called himself The Black Bishop. The guy was old, Remy noticed, most likely in his fifties, but somehow still spry. However, he seemed to have a lot of weak points that were easy to exploit from lack of any training like the X-Men had. Remy tried to trip up old man with the quick use of his staff, but it was quickly avoided. Instead, The Bishop placed a hand on Remy's arm. Remy sunk to the floor like a two ton weight had been placed on him. "It's appropriate," Remy said, "A big guy like you...getting powers...to make anything and anyone feel as...heavy as a...thousand ton weight." Remy felt so weak, it was a little hard to get the words out. In his opinion, it was fine to make fun of the bad guys for being fat since they were bad.
"That's not all I'm doing," The Bishop sneered, "The more power I exert, I slowly crush your bones and organs, resulting in a most agonizing, slow de-."
He was cut off from tiger-Molly pouncing down hard on him, effectively knocking him to the ground in a heap.
"What took you so long?" Remy chided.
Molly growled loudly, motioning behind the three of them to the huge, muscular Black man in a brown Animal Control uniform carrying an empty tranquilizer gun along with a couple of the store's employees and a few policemen. Remy looked over to see an empty tranquilizer piercing Mollys stripey orange behind.
"Ugghh!" Remy rolled his head so that the back of it hit the floor as he lay flat, "This again?!" He then quickly got up. "Listen, it's not what you guys think."
"Sir, please step away from the tiger. You could be seriously injured," The Animal control officer said.
"She's not-" Remy started to say.
Suddenly there was a loud "WHUMMPH!" sound as Molly collapsed on top of The Bishop. He struggled under her, pinned down beneath about a 400 pound frame. How ironic.
"She's not a tiger, we're just mutants," Remy went on to explain, "Maybe you should check your security tapes."
"We'll have to keep you detained for a while," one of the policemen said.
"That's fine," Remy said. He wasn't sure how to explain the Bishop. 'Officer, arrest that man for trying to kill me because my friends and I are trying to stop a crazy guy in a helmet from overthrowing the government?' Mutants we're hard enough trying to explain. Besides that, the security footage probably wouldn't show anything since his powers weren't visual, only physical. It wasn't a solid case against him.
Remy helped the men haul Molly off of The Bishop. As Remy expected, with this sudden attention, the man quickly fled the scene. Remy couldn't say much as they locked Molly up in a cage outside and kept him inside to get checked out, making sure he hadn't suffered any injuries against a "wild animal".
"What's wrong with your eyes?" a male EMT asked as they checked Remy for a concussion.
"_Nothing_," Remy snapped, "I'm fine. Are you finished?"
"I just have to take your temperature," The EMT held up a thermometer with a plastic sheath, ready to go. Remy swiftly grabbed the instrument out of the mans hand, clicked it on and put it in. A minute later it beeped and Remy practically threw it back at the EMT. "Normal," Remy said angrily, stalking outside to check on Molly and contact the team.
Molly was still sound asleep-as a tiger-in a huge cage on the back of a truck. Remy took his communicator out of his pocket and clicked it on. "Scott? It's Remy. We have a little situation," He informed Scott.
"What did you do this time?" Scott practically groaned on the other end.
"Why do you always assume that _I_ did something?" Remy felt offended.
"Because that's usually the case with you," Scott said.
"Whatever. We're at the toy store. Molly's in a cage and we need some kind of proof that we're mutants because the security cameras were cut. Oh, and we were attacked, so it wasn't my fault, thanks," Remy said.
"Who attacked you? When? How many?" Scott was incredibly upset in no time. Uh-oh. Hopefully this wouldn't mean even tighter security measures at The Mansion.
"Just The Black Bishop from Shaw's team. Almost an hour ago. We're not hurt, but we need you guys down here before they put Molly in a _zoo_!" Remy was starting to get snappish. He didn't like being attacked, but worse, he didn't like things that were out of his control.
"Okay, we'll be down there as fast as we can," Scott said.
Remy leaned against the truck, letting out a loud, exasperated sigh. If Molly wasn't a tiger, it would be child's play to just charge the bars, pull her out and drive home. Forget the police. (Even if doing that would lead to trouble later.) A while later, everyone showed up. "This isn't good," Jean looked at Molly sleeping.
"We just need a little power display and I'm sure they'll let us go," Remy said.
"I'll do it," Kitty volunteered, "I'm sure you didn't because, well, your powers aren't-"
"Yeah, yeah. If _I_ did it, we'd probably both get locked up," Remy rolled his eyes. In actuality, the idea hadn't occurred to him, but he was right. With his powers, showing off to the police could probably lead to trouble.
The five of them went inside, talked to the police and a few minutes later, Molly and Remy had permission to leave. Of course, there was the huge matter of trying to get Molly home. "She's not light," Jean said, telekineticly loading Molly into the back of the newest X-Men vehicle. It was a huge van, about the size of a motor home. Plenty of room and an infirmary inside for emergencies. They drove off with Remy knowing this wasn't going to be the last bit of trouble.
When they arrived back, it took a couple hours for Molly to get back to human form, but she was still asleep. "I thought her healing power might kick in by now," Remy said to Hank in the infirmary.
"Normally, yes, but she has about 100 cc's of Xylazine running through her system. Even with a healing factor, it's not enough to kill her, but she may sleep until tomorrow afternoon at the most," Hank said.
Remy rubbed his face in frustration. "When she wakes up, that's it. No more tigers. She can turn into a big dog or something. Wild animals seem to keep getting her into more and more trouble." Not that Molly would take such a suggestion into consideration, being stubborn, but it was nice to think about.
Remy made himself something to eat and borrowed a laptop from the computer lab to start doing research on Sebastian Shaw while he stayed with Molly for a little while. You had to know your enemy, and in this case, it was crucial. While Remy was at it, he was going to try looking up everything he could on the Inner Circle. There had to be some records of them somewhere.
After a couple hours, Remy had found very little. Shaw was a famous wealthy CEO, a known mutant, but he had no outstanding warrants and no real dirt that Remy could see. There had to be something to give away that he was running a team of assassins for hire, but from the looks of things, he was putting on the act of being a great humanitarian. Remy wanted to blow up the laptop after finding so many dead ends, so instead he settled on quietly letting some playing cards disintegrate into the air.
"Remy," Kitty came in, clutching Molly's phone to her chest, "Molly's phone was ringing. It's her family. What should I do?"
This was unexpected news for Remy. It was rare that Molly didn't talk to her family, and now she was knocked out. Remy had the feeling that if Kitty told them to call back and Molly was _still_ asleep, that would just make them worry, or worse, they might come out to check on her. Remy had to think fast. Remy knew he might live to regret what he was going to do next.
"Give me the phone," Remy felt his mouth become dry, "I'll talk to them."
"Okay," Kitty smirked, then talking into the phone again, "Uh, Molly's boyfriend wants to say hello."
"Uh, hello," Remy said, "This is Remy. Molly's sleeping. I'm sure you know how she can sleep for hours." He couldn't believe he was _actually_ doing this, but he stayed calm.
Remy was politely informed that he was on speaker phone, then there were, naturally, a few questions after the usual, "She talks about you all the time". What kind of work did he do at The School? Did he have another job that didn't involve The School? How old was he? (Because they couldn't remember), What was he up to right now? How was his week going? Just what were his powers again? Where was he from again? How exactly did he get his unusual eyes?
Then there were all the questions about him and Molly. How long had they been going out? How did he _really_ feel about Molly? How did she compare to some of his old girlfriends? And, finally, just what _were_ Remy's intentions with their daughter?
Remy had a small heart attack on the last question. "I just want to make her happy and keep her safe," Remy answered slowly. Afterwards, he was told they appreciated his honesty, but they were just kidding around. Remy relaxed a hair, suddenly deciding that he kind of liked Molly's family. They seemed relaxed and easy going, and weren't giving him the fifth degree (yet). After some small talk, they exchanged goodbyes, saying Molly could call them anytime, there was no rush. Remy hung up the phone, feeling relieved. He'd survived it. Now he was just going to have to figure out how to tell Molly that he'd talked to her family.
AN: Don't ask...because I don't know why I wrote that. Just something funny to break up the tension/action I guess.