The Interview After The Job

Posted on Tue Sep 12th, 2023 @ 2:27am by Duke Drake & Rebecca McMillen & McKenna Lockhart

1,469 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: 1. Year One
Location: Ridgehaven Manor
Timeline: September 12, 1992 0800

Doc sat in the cafeteria sipping his coffee, even after the rioting yesterday and staying up late he was still up early. He had just finished watching a news report on the riots followed by another high end robbery where mutants were suspected when he saw he was no longer alone.

"The coffee is hot and the beignets are fresh, I had some delivered. I figured everybody would either sleep in, or wake up early and starving," he said with a smile.

Rebecca already had a mug of coffee in her hands, holding it... cradling it... absorbing the heat and warm. Not because her powers demanded it, but because her soul needed it. "Oh like I can sleep in these days." the mousey blonde added with a soft smile. It had been a rough..... six hours... but her heartrate finally calmed down. Time to celebrate a calmer heart with caffeine.

The first sip and the woman's body just woke up visibly, like a ripple. Went from the tip of her head to the tip of her toes, down to the end of her thin lithe tail and twitchy twitch...

Tail. Rebecca had a tail. A thin mouse tail, sure, but now that the issues were over and being a mutant wasn't the weirdest thing in the room, having a visible mutation still... certainly was a conversation starter.

"So, that was all terrible." she tried to salvage the moment.

"Yes but the coffee is hot, learning to live in the moment and enjoy the small things is how deal with the big things," Doc said trying to sound slightly philosophical.

McKenna had spent the rest of the day yesterday contemplating her life and how it was changing. She’d taken several walks around the mansion and the grounds, her mind mostly centering around how alone she felt. She hated feeling alone. At least, this time, she was the one who had left.

She entered the cafeteria wearing a pale pink sundress that came down just above her knees and billows as she walked. Seeing the two sitting there, she offered a radiant smile.

“Good morning.” She said with an enthusiastic tone, walking straight up to them.

Rebecca's first knee-jerk reflex was to coil her tail. Hide it. Protect it. Deflect. Then in the next moment she relaxed. She was safe here. This, this was home.

"Oh good morning." the mousey blonde responded, half hiding her face behind a mug of coffee. It was one of those novelty mugs that looked like a big piece of cheese. There was a good chance she bought it. There was a better chance the Doc bought it to tease her. She probably didn't laugh. She was probably pretty cheesed off about it.

Oh that would never get old.

"Hey there. Cheesed to meet'cha." she joked, in a terrible pun, before putting her coffee down. "Help yourself, and hey... thanks. I was hoping to get the chance to meet and greet and chat and coffee BEFORE the catastrophe but, well, can't always get what you want, right?" she offered, pushing out a chair for McKenna to join the pair.

McKenna lowered body into the chair gracefully, moving as if she weighed almost nothing at all and giving the impression of having a high degree of control over her body. Looking at the mousey woman, her tail, and the cheese-themed mug, her smile brightened.

"Cheesed to meet you too. As for the riot, it was no problem at all. It game me a chance to try out one of my new costumes." McKenna said and then looked between Rebecca and the Doctor. "I wish I'd known you were trying to keep low profile. Red capes and leggy leotards are great ways to draw too much attention to one's self. I might have to revamp my wardrobe."

"Fun fact, if we told you we were keeping a low profile that would defeat the purpose of the low profile." Rebecca giggled, and then reached across the space between them, "My name's Rebecca. And don't apologize for capes and legs. There's something to be said about being the distraction." she giggled.

"It's not that we were trying to keep a low profile per say," the Doc began, "But we just don't the general public associating our school with the mutants yesterday. That's why everyone except Shtorm and Rebecca were in costume. Luckily with Rebecca's cheesy abilities, she can hide in a crowd fairly easily."

"With my power set, its very easy for me to hide. I've done it all my life with the exception of the last few years. Let's just say that the group I was with before didn't care too much about subtlety." McKenna said with a slight roll of her shoulders. Her eyes drifted to Rebecca and lingered on her again. "So sorry to ask, but...what do your abilities entail, exactly?"

Rebecca got a thoughtful look, and turned to the Doc for just a moment, as though clarifying with him before she started. She put her precious cheese mug on the table. "I can assure you, they are NOT cheese themed." she offered first as clarity. "I don't sing to cheddar or shoot muenster out of my fingers or anything." she said, again, for clarity.

"What I CAN do, is this." first, she removed her slippers. Showing that the tail wasn't the only mousey thing about her. Those weren't feet, they were closer to rat paws than anything else. Four toes, elongated, clawed. If you didn't like rats, then there was another reason to ask her to put slippers on.

Scratching up the wood floors would be the other.

Then it started. Slowly, at first. Being taller than everyone made it harder to notice a shift in someone's scale but sure enough, after a few moments there was no denying it. Rebecca was shorter.

No, shorter was the wrong word. She was smaller. And getting smaller still. Down down down down the blonde literally dwindled, smaller and smaller and smaller until the trip down was done. Rebecca stood up on the seat cushion she previously sat on with no difficulty, now not even heavy enough to dimple the fabric hardly. She stood a meager two inches tall, the size of a mouse.

"Pretty gouda, huh?" she kept up with the cheese puns. "I can talk to mice and rats too, but that's slightly harder to demonstrate."

Doc chuckled as he sipped his coffee, he'd seen the demonstration multiple times, but it was still interesting to watch, especially the addition of the cheese puns. As he emptied his mug he held it in the palm of his hand. "I can do this," Doc said as the white porcelain coffee mug turned black and disintegrated.

"He's really good at controlling it, so don't be afraid to shake his hand." Tiny Rebecca joked. "But a lot of what I can do is centered around rodents. I have paws instead of feet, but don't expect to see them very often I ... I don't like people seeing my feet." she said, self-conscious. Self-Conscious and two inches tall. "I mean, I'm like high school varsity class gymnast here. Balance beam? I'm good. Running through pipes or climbing things? I'm gold."

A pause, "But, couldn't compete in school because I had a hell of an advantage. Though I guess that's the story of all our lives. We're not allowed to do the things we do, because only we can do them." she paused, then looked up, "So, ummm, you're really pretty, and really really tall. Should I stop demonstrating?" she asked, with a giggle.

“Wow, I think I’ve never been so surprised by an ability before.” McKenna said with bright, kind eyes. She radiated positive energy typically. She nodded. “I think I get the picture now, so you can…come back up.”

She turned to the man and looked slightly uneasy.

“I’d hate to find myself collapsing into a pile of dusk after a big sneeze from you

With her attention diverted, McKenna missed Rebecca's return to the normal sized world. "Oh, he's fine. He has an amazing amount of control over it." the mousey blonde supported Doc's control over his powers. Devastating, certainly, but under control.

"It's a touch thing, a sneeze won't disintegrate anything. Sadly it's like a light switch it's on or off, it's why I make sure I'm not holding anything in my other ha d when I use that ability," doc explained.

"So, umm, were there any other questions? Concerns? Requests?" Rebecca asked, looking to bring the long, awkward silence that lingered in the air to a close.

Doc waited through the uncomfortable silence before speaking, "Well let's go and grab some coffee and we'll continue this conversation in a less formal manner."

#The End

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