This is the story of how a mouse
who used to be a boy
stole a cell phone.

It started on a Tuesday. This Tuesday. Morning. It started like a nightmare. How it started is a matter for later in our tale: right now, we have more pressing concerns.

The mouse
who used to be a boy
was hiding.

His gray-furred back was pressed against the wall of the alleyway, several inches from the alley’s mouth. The cellphone was orange, and on: the light from its screen was a ghastly beckon from the shadows, clearly visible from the street. There was only so far a small mammal could drag a cellphone, though. Frantically, the mouse was pressing buttons, with both of its little forepaws.

The mouse
who used to be a boy
did not know how to send a text message.

This, of course, was a problem. So our story begins.

C.J. Was walking through the crowd, eyes averted, staring as much as possible into uninhabited spaces. His hand in his pockets, attempting not to touch anything particularly metallic. He pondered how he came to be in the middle of New York on a Tuesday.

'What a weird world, that a person can be forced to travel thousands of miles for safety.'

He approached the next alleyway carefully, he didn't have glasses on today, it was way too dark for that, what with the clouds. As he crossed the opening he noticed a light. Just inside the alley he spied a mouse and a mobile phone.

'Score.'

He turned, bent down, and took hold of the phone, shooing the mouse with one hand, making no attempt to hide his eyes. Victory, most likely white.

The mouse
who used to be a boy
was ticked.

His tail arced out in a vicious half-moon behind him: four paws braced on the ground as he was swatted—nay, shooed—from his rightfully stolen prey.

The mouse
who used to be a boy
had woken up on the wrong side of the bed.

Earlier that morning, somewhere in the Mansion, an orange and cream tomcat had woken up on a certain young girl’s bed. Let’s not name names. He’d given a luxuriant stretch and a yawn, quite content with life: finally, finally he felt it. In the back of his mind. His powers were finally rested, after their overuse at the brawl. Most excellent. The cat readied the familiar shift in its mind: just a few heartworms; just as a bit of extra durability. The cat had stood up with a pleasant arc of its back, and

knocked itself unconscious.

Here and now, this white-eyed punk was going to pay for that cellphone. Pay in sweat, blood, and mice.

The mouse
who used to be a boy
dodged in low,

and

ran up the inside
of the teenager’s
left pant leg.

The phone in hand Cafas stood smiling, the brave mouse had been angry. It was then he felt some skittering within his cargo pants. Hurriedly he looked down, eyes shifting to a surprised pink. He began to urgently swat at his leg, aiming for the sensation. The little vermin had run up his leg.

'I must look like I'm absolutely crazy.'

He shook his leg and felt bruises begin to form on his left side from the force he had hit his leg with. Dropping the phone he shoved a hand down his pants and hoped no one on the busy street noticed. After all, they should all be too worried about possible rain and creepy mutants, not funny boys reaching down their pants.

'In a world where single people can bring down an electricity grid spanning a nation and level cities, boys doing naughty things is still weird, how funny.'

He fumbled around, reaching for the small furry rodent.

Slaps were dodged like artillery shells
In a charge
Between trenches lines

The gray mouse soldiered on: upwards and upwards, its small claws scritching for purchase into cloth and flesh, as indiscriminately as in any warfare.

That morning, the cat had woken up with a headache. A pounding headache, the likes of which it had only felt when it had been hung over (...and also a cat). Okay. So, apparently, its splintering was still offline. Good to know. Or was that just a fluk—?

The cat
was unconscious
again.

A fleshy intruder entered the mouse’s realm. It shoved aside cloth to create room for its gargantuan form; its five knobby tentacles writhed. The mouse’s small whiskers quivered. There was nothing for it. Bravely, it dodged around the back of the teenager’s thigh,

whispered a soft furry disturbance under the edge of his boxers,

and came around above the war machine.

The wrist was delivered a most mighty nip, befitting of a warrior mouse.

The scrabbling vermin ran around Alchemist's thigh and up his boxers. One hand tried to grab it but failed. Then came pain. Sharp pain on his wrist. He didn't even suppress the urge to yell, in fact, he yelled quite loudly. Eyes shifted from surprise to black pain. C.J. yanked his hand out, pulling it up to examine the damage. There was blood. Skin hung from the small wound as red liquid dripped from it, running in a small rivulet down his forearm to his elbow, dripping before it reached his Tee shirt sleeve.

'That little...'

With gargantuan efforts not simply keep smashing away Cafas took aim and swung. Moments too late he realised where he was actually aiming. His fist met a rather tender part of his body and he crumpled to the ground. His elbow met first, and then his shoulder, his head finding a comfortable spot on his arm. Groaning slightly he glared at the phone, eyes flickering between red and black at a surprisingly rapid pace.

'All this for a stupid phone, so not worth it, but I'm not leaving without it.'

He reached a hand out and placed it on the phone, curling his fingers around it.

The giant had fallen.

The mouse’s entire world shook, and fell to the ground; seismic groans rattled through its skeleton. It closed its black eyes and dug in as the world came tumbling down: that was all it could do.

And then it was over.
And the cell phone
was exposed.

He saw this, of course, through that sublime gap between the teenager’s body and his waistband. Nose and whiskers emerged first, both quivering; small eyes, then the spring! of ears unfolding after several hundred heartbeats of dark confinement. A minor eternity had passed, lived within the teenager’s pants.

Two paws, then four: the tail slid out last, unsheathing with the quiet sound of victory. A bulky man-arm became the conquering quadruped’s ramp to his prize, justly restored. He wrapped his forepaws around the cell phone, and started—again—the laborious process of dragging it into the shadows.

The teenager
unwisely
clung on.

Now on an even eye level with his fallen foe, the mouse did the only mature thing a mammal could do: lifting up one paw, he slowly—so slowly—curled back all of his fingers. All save one.

Interspecies
non-verbal
communication.

A beautiful miracle of nature.

C.J. had to make sure he had just seen what he thought he had. A mouse had flipped him the bird. Such insolence. Hauling back on the phone he smiled at the creature and slid it into his pocket. rolling he knelt with great effort, managing to control his stomach. gripping the handle poking out of his boot on his right leg Alchemist calmly removed the knife and aimed the point at the mouse. "Checkmate."

'This day is messed up, I better get something on this hand. And my elbow.'

Cafas stood and immaturely thrust his tongue out to mock the mouse. He knew it was a mouse, and wouldn't get it, and that the finger thing had been pure coincidence, but it made him feel better for the pain. Calmly he took a step down the alleyway, not wanting to join the crowd that had most likely witnessed his little incident. He had half a mind to kill the trash chewing thief, but didn't see the point when there were millions more people to do the job for him.

'What a bastard, I'm going to have to disinfect this.'

He turned back to where the mouse had been when he had started walking. "You're just lucky that I'm having a good day buddy, or you'd be dead right now." Then he again turned his back on his assailant and propelled himself a step further.

A step further, propelled the big man
who had to threatened mice
with knives.

Several hours ago, Calley would have sworn his day couldn’t get worse. Splintering: offline. Check. (And double-checked.) Chimeraing... also offline. That made sense for some forms: Luke had killed the puma that he used in his griffin form, for instance. But nothin’ much had happened to his manticore, and that seemed broken, as well.

Most disturbingly,
he couldn’t find
his octopus.

The shelves of the clutter were barren.

And this punk with the changing eyes was walking away from the little mouse. Limping, more like it. That’s right. Keep going, unless you wanted more of this: you don’t mess with a mouse, not in his house. He was a house mouse.

The jerk was taking the mouse’s cell phone with him, though. And that, friends? That simply would not—

>> "You're just lucky that I'm having a good day buddy, or you'd be dead right now."

—Oh. Oh, it was back on.

As the kid took an overconfident step forward, the mouse skittered on silent gray paws towards a trash bag by the alley’s mouth. Yellow cord tied it shut. Yellow cord, with a hanging string.

Bite.
Skitter.
Tripwire.

Friends, it might be appropriate to suspect that this was no normal mouse.

C.J. smiled a smug smile, eyes phasing to blue as he approached the street. Nothing more to worry about for now, no mice in his pants, no rain falling, for now, he was fine. He even had a phone. He took a final step, one that should have carried him nearly into the street, and felt something tug. He tried to stop but already had too much weight invested in the movement. A cord pulled tight against his boot and he tilted forward, face aiming for the ground."Son of a..." He hit the pavement again.

'This has to be a conspiracy, I swear. Bet some kids got a good laugh from that.'

There was a grating pain in his knees and forearms, only one of which was protected. His arms, from elbows to the side of his hands, were in a mess of cement burn, commonly known as 'skinned'. Ahead of him, past the traipsing feet of society, lay his new phone. There was treachery afoot.

'If this day gets any worse I'm going back to the mansion.'

Standing he moved toward the object which lay about a foot from his dagger, an item being observed by a tall, scowling man. Quietly retrieving the blade and slipping it into his leg pocket Alchemist turned toward the less important but more necessary mobile. He reached down, for the second time that day, toward it.

The boy
who used to be a mouse
pressed himself against the alleyway wall. Again.

There were cats at the Mansion. There were dogs in the streets. There were hawks in the city, and canvas overhangs above Italian bistro shops. There were tall, scowling men with large, black briefcases who slammed down their phones, and started yelling at waitresses. There were mice who were petty thieves. And that, friends, is precisely what our story is about.

Calley had tried one of the few remaining forms he had, suddenly unsure if that would even work. There was great relief when he found himself in the form of the little gray mouse. Katrina always left her door open; a courtesy to habitual quadrupeds such as himself. As the gray mouse looked up and it observed a cat

observing it.

Not a problem. Since his basic shifts were still working, he only had to—

--Urk. How did that shifting thing work, again? ‘Cause it wasn’t. Working.

Never before had he been on the receiving end of a playful cat’s malicious attacks. So. Much. Batting. So much dragging, proudly. So much being shoved inside of people’s shoes, then happily chased just when he thought it was safe to run and escaping outside and there was a dog—yes. A dog: salvation. The cat hissed to a stop. The mouse skittered to safety, between two large paws. The dog sniffed friendly.

And then picked him up
in the most undignified manner.
Unmouth mine tail, fiend.

Carrying, carrying, and so much pendulum swinging followed. Eventually, dizzily, he was abandoned for the shaking of a food bag. He twitchingly climbed his way back to his paw—

Oh|^he
dear|^was
Lord|^airborne.

****ing. Hawks.

Thus did the mouse arrive at the city. On the ledge, above the Italian bistro. The hawk had smiled at its prey as it comfortably settled its wings: pre-meal preparations. It didn’t possess facial muscles, but having been one on many occasion, the mouse quite recognized the expression.

An unmouselike action: sinking teeth
deeply
into that sensitive spot right below the knee.

Having been a hawk, the mouse knew right where that was, too. The resulting scream of rage was quite fantastic. The resulting fall towards the pavement? Less so.

Divine
Cloth overhang
Intervention.

And that is how the mouse landed, after a gentle roll,
into the half-eaten pasta of the tall scowling man below,
who turned to yell at the waitress,

while the mouse climbed out,
knocked his cell phone off the table,
and stole it.

The alleyway wasn’t far. And the scowling man had finally realized his loss. Fortunately, the mouse had a bipedal scapegoat.

“You,” the tall, scowling man growled at the teenager. “You picked the wrong man to steal from. I’m not having a good day, punk.”

And that is the story of how a mouse
who used to be a boy
stole a cell phone.

On with the show.

“You, you picked the wrong man to steal from. I’m not having a good day, punk.”

C.J. stood, phone in hand and glared right on back at the man with the annoyingly American accented voice. He had a predicament on his hands. He could tell the truth, be labeled a liar, even if he did omit certain parts, or he could run. He didn't like running, he was having trouble walking as it was. He stole a quick glance back to find the culprit for his trip. Yellow twine. He also noted a small grey mammal next to it, watching, with what could only be considered an arrogant stance. The big guy noticed, and grabbed his shoulder.

'That mouse dies.'

Alchemist examined the man for a moment before opening his mouth, eyes flickering dangerously from red, down the path of purplisation. "Listen you overgrown, thick skulled, brain dead oaf, get your fat hand off my shoulder before I break part of you." It was an empty threat, Cafas wasn't prepared to hurt victims of crimes. If it came to a fight however, survival outweighed morals. People were now gathering around the scene. Alchemist dropped the mobile into his pocket. "Furthermore, I didn't steal anything from anybody, I found this by change, in an alley, with a mouse on it, if you don't believe me, check my wrist." He held up the injured wrist for examination by the bumbling brute before him.

'So many ways to maim a mouse. Perhaps I shall feed it to a cat, or drop it from a great hight, or poison it bit by little bit in captivity. Oh the options.'

C.J. Checked the man for a reaction, making a point of catching his eye. Not many peoples eyes were red, fewer still shifted to purple as anger grew, so it was bound to scare him.

Clark.
Clark worked at a stationary supply company.
Clark was having a bad day.

(Clark.)
(Clark dreamed of being a mutant when he was little.)
(Clark briefly considered changing his last name to ‘Kent’ during the sixth grade, by why of wishful thinking.)

Clark.
Clark had a new intern, named Tim.
Clark’s new intern didn’t understand orders of magnitude, apparently.

Tim.
Tim had ordered 1000 packages of paper for Jacobs & Jacobs Security.
Tim had written 10000 on the order form.

Clark.
Clark’s department hand single-handedly flooded the Jacobs & Jacobs lobby with paper.

Because Tim
had put
their main office address down
as opposed to
their warehouse.

Clark.
Clark had been getting unhappy calls all day.
Clark was unhappy, himself, because

Clark had not grown up to be superman.
Clark had grown up to work at a stationary supply company.
Clark could not leap tall buildings in a single bound. (But he was good at filing.)

Clark was only a penmancer.

“You have ten seconds,” Clark said, “to give me back,” taking a ball point pen out of the ink protector in right breast pocket, “my **** phone.”

C.J. saw what was happening. But it was now his phone, and he wasn't happy with the thought of giving it back. Perhaps a Witty quote, yes, it seemed appropriate. "I am disinclined to aquiest your request." He smiled a bit to himself. "Means no.". Before there was time to think C.J. found a pen being thrust toward his chest. A metal, fancy one. It melted. It vaporised. Things went wrong. Thought left.

With a powerful surge of emotion came a brilliant shade of purple, almost glowing from the nineteen year old's eyes. Then came the fist from behind the pen and Alchemist was launched backward, a welt forming near instantly. He fell on his back. The intensity of the situation caused his adrenal system to go into overdrive. Fight or flight instinct activated. Fight chosen. He forgot the weapon in his pocket and its brother in his other boot, which, due to awkward angling, was now filling with blood. Cafas launched himself at the man and struck at him with a pivoting side kick, aiming roughly for knee hight, coming in from the injured left foot. As he put himself into the action he began to line up the right cross to follow it. Thought returned briefly.

'Shouldn't be doing this. He struck first. Turn and run. Too late, attack past point of no return. Miss. Not enough distance. Knock him over and run for it. Going to kill the mouse too. No time. Plenty of time.'

By this stage it was up to the man to deflect.

When the metal casing on Clark’s pen disintegrated, it only seemed natural to slug the teenager. Clark, in full dignity, shook out his fist. Take that, teenager. From your soulless future in corporate America, straight to your jaw. That’s exactly how it would feel every time your boss called you aside to consult you on the promotion of someone else in the office.

The kick caught him off guard. Clark went sprawling; his shoulder knocked against his chair, which knocked over his briefcase. The concrete left scratches in the expensive black leather.

Clark.
Clark tried pot, once. (He choked.)
Clark went to Xavier’s school in high school, and learned how to be a well adjusted mutant adult.

Clark loosened his tie as he stood back up, a dark glower in his eyes. He took another two pens from his pocket: less classy ones. Just ordinary BIC plastic. Black.

“Give me back.”

Clark said, dropping his hands to his side. The pens rose out of his grip; they seemed to tear themselves apart in the air, shedding plastic casings and metal tips until only the black ink remained.

“My.”

The ink scattered into a hundred darts. Solidified, into a swarm of black wasps, which pointed themselves at the offending teenager. On the ground, the fallen plastic of the pens shook: one by one, they sprouted ungainly limbs, and became clear-cased insects.

“Phone.”

Clark.
Clark had clear enunciation.
Clark was used to dealing with idiots.

(The mouse was amused.)