Set in Jay’s Jewelers, a classy Jewelry store for the Economically Minded

Micah’s youngest mother, Nancy, sighed with dissatisfaction and frowned, deepening the wrinkles that were already starting to appear on her forty-something face. “Oh, I just don’t know Micah. I know what I like, but Cheryl’s tastes in jewelry have always been so, so different from mine. I have no idea what to buy her.”

Micah smiled, “Oh I know. The main difference between the two of you is that Cheryl actually has taste in jewelry. Do you remember that ridiculous diamond panda pendant you picked up in Chinatown?”

“Exactly. That’s why I need to make certain I’m picking out something she’ll like, even if I think it makes her look like an old fart.” Nancy returned to perusing the jewelry intensely. Nancy was normally pretty carefree, almost recklessly so. She boozed much more than she should for a woman her age, and she was perfectly content to spend the rest of her days being a waitress at some skeezy bar uptown, but when it came to taking care of Cheryl her ‘Hakuna Matata’ attitude vanished and was replaced by deep concern and meticulous thought.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine mom. Jay’s Jewelers is a great place for jewelry. I’m sure even you couldn’t find something tacky here.”

Nancy laughed. “You’re such a sweetheart, Micah.” She beckoned to one of the employees. “Excuse me? Sir? I’d like to look at those earrings.”

And the attendant would’ve come, if right then and there he hadn’t gotten distracted by being robbed.

When a mutant such as Deirdra Sykes becomes bored, anything could be on the agenda for fun. This was even truer when the blond began to get bored with her wardrobe. She had decided that ‘shopping’ should be done, though she wasn’t especially interested in clothes. She had so many, but jewelry, she didn’t have much of. So, when the fateful sigh of boredom escaped her lips, the scorpion-woman left to find herself some beautiful, expensive jewelry. None of it she intended on paying for.

As soon as Deirdra had stepped outside, she let her lower half take its favorite shape. Being a scorpion felt so much more natural than having human legs. Sure, men usually thought a woman with nice legs was attractive, but she had her stinger in this form. The blond was a big fan of luring men to her and then going her separate way, but she didn’t know many that would still find her beautiful in such a non-human state. She still had her upper half, but that could only distract from the fact that she had 8 legs for so long.

--

The woman was now climbing across the walls of buildings. There was no traffic and not to mention not as many people could see her if she stuck to alleys. Crawling on one wall, she recognized it as a jewelry store. The blond moved her body so it was placed in the street and she was no longer sideways. Taking her own, sweet time, Deirdra rammed her tail into the window of the store. She climbed in carefully through the hole and began to survey her pickings. Some man was screaming at her about breaking his window and about being a mutant, but she was ignoring him.

“Hmm, I like this.” With a grin, the woman smashed another hole into the glass of the counter. She reached her hand in and picked up a diamond necklace. ”Beautiful.” Scuttling over to another counter, she did the same thing as she had to the other glass. This time a pair of diamond earrings were plucked from the case. The man was still screaming about her being a mutant and she turned to look at him. The woman had no intention of attacking anyone, but she knew that someone may try to get involved. Actually, she was hoping someone would. Deirdra enjoyed fighting sometimes. It was a good stress-reliever.

Raising her tail up, she swung it at the man. It didn’t sting him. She hadn’t wanted it to, but it did send him flying into a wall. “Shut up. So what if I’m a mutant?” The scorpion-woman’s front legs climbed part way over one of the counters. “Shouldn’t the real issue be that I broke into your store?” Her eyes narrowed and she turned away from him, disgusted. “I could kill you no problem, but that’s not what I want. I just want something nice for myself.” Glancing around at the patrons in the store, she began to exit through the hole she had made to get inside.

Nancy, seeing an opportunity for a bit of bargain shopping herself, poked her hand into a broken display case and, being careful to avoid the shards of broken glass, pocketed a tasteful pair of ruby earrings the thief had left behind.

Micah gaped in horror. “Mom!”

“What? It’s not like the place isn’t getting robbed already. Who’s gonna notice one more pair of missing earrings?”

Micah glared.

“But it’s for your mother…”

Micah didn’t budge.

Nancy rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll pay for them as soon as the scorpion chick leaves…”

“Thank you.” That being taken care of, Micah turned his attention to the blonde woman. Oh my god, she’s beautiful! Well, she could be beautiful, if you could ignore the monstrously large scorpion legs, the wicked and seemingly deadly scorpion tail, and the complete disregard for the safety and property of others. But what should I do? Micah scratched his head. I have to do something.

Micah’s mother put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t even think about it.”

“About what?”

“Pulling any sort of hero stunts. You have a brain made of glass toys Micah. There’s no way you can confront that thing.”

Micah turned and faced his mother. “So what, you think the toughest and the strongest should just do what they please, while the good guys just watch?” Micah ducked as the scorpion sent an employee smashing into the wall over his head. “I have to try mom.”

Micah stepped away from his mom and called out to the thief. “Hey! You! Ms...um, Ms. Scorpion! Stop! What makes you think you can just, just steal things from people? Imagine what kind of world we would live in everyone just took from each other, and never gave anything in return? And why the hell did you, um, smash this employee into the wall?! All he did was get angry because you were violently robbing his store. And frankly, I completely understand his reaction. So why don’t you just, um, return all that jewelry, and apologize!”

Deirdra was on her merry way out when someone was obviously talking to her. She didn’t know anyone else that someone would call ‘Ms. Scorpion’. With a sigh, the blond turned around to face who was calling after her. He told her to apologize. She blinked and then a beautiful, white smile flashed across her face. “If I was violently robbing his store, he would’ve known.” The stinger at the end of her tail twitched slightly and she took a few steps towards the man. Not close enough to do any damage, but close enough to seem more threatening.

“I didn’t come here with the intention of hurting anyone.” She still had a smile on her face. Deirdra’s top half was covered by something that looked more like a dress than a shirt. She had it hiked up and wherever it hit on her scorpion body was fine with her. Closing her eyes, the blond’s scorpion body began to look like human legs. The bottom of her dress fell to her knees. Opening one eye, she laughed. “And for my next act…” The woman had no shoes and hadn’t brought any. The dress was just in case she had to turn into her human form.

The woman walked closer to the man. “I won’t apologize to a human who has no respect for mutants. I may have robbed him, but that should’ve been the issue. Whether or not my bottom half is human or scorpion, shouldn’t be important. Human thieves are just as bad, but you didn’t hear him shouting about my stealing, did you?” The blond circled around him and then smirked. “By the way, my name’s not Ms. Scorpion. It’s kind of close though. Same starting letter. My name’s Deirdra Sykes. You’re pretty brave. I have to admire that, though I could’ve killed you easily.” She paused. “I know people who wouldn’t have hesitated to kill you.” An image of Roland shooting cops in the head popped into her mind. There was an odd expression on her face. Shaking her head, she sighed.

“Anyway…” She held up the earrings before putting them on. “Don’t they look so much better on a real person than inside that glass box?”

Crap, why are the hot ones always crazy? If she was beautiful in her scorpion form, she was drop dead stunning when she was completely human. For just being hideous and bug-like a few seconds ago, those long legs seemed to just stretch on and on-

No Micah, forget about how hot she is and focus on the fact she just hit a guy so hard he flew into the wall. She may have also just talked about how easy it would be to kill you.

“So, um, let me get this straight Ms. Sykes. This guy said something mean about our species and you decided it was okay to throw him against a wall? I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but shattering his spine certainly isn’t a productive way to give him a better opinion of us.”

"And yeah, those earrings do look pretty hot on you," Mika added begrudgingly

The man seemed distracted, which made Deirdra smirk. She loved seeing people’s reactions to her beauty. The blond knew she was pretty and liked to use that to her advantage. She practically went around strutting and preening. She was stealing jewelry to help her appearance. It was the only thing she felt like she really had. The only thing she ever felt like she had. Beauty.

“Our species? You’re a mutant?” The woman smiled appreciatively. “That’s why I didn’t want to kill you. To be honest with you, I’m not a murderer” Deirdra Sykes glanced at the man lying on the floor. After watching him for a few seconds, she noticed him moving. She turned back to Micah. “He’s fine. He’ll just be sore. I didn’t come here to kill anyone. Contrary to what you may think, I’m not that heartless.”

The blond grinned at the compliment Micah gave her, though she already figured they looked pretty good. “Well, thank you Micah. So, what is your mutation, if you don’t mind me asking?”

He’s fine? He’ll just be sore? Not everyone has an exoskeleton Ms. Sykes. And how do you even know just by glancing at him? Are you a jewelry thief and a doctor? Okay Micah, don’t panic. Just keep talking to her. As long as she’s talking she isn’t bashing anyone’s head in.

“I have um, this is going to sound lame, but I have a nearly perfect memory, and I learn quickly.” Micah had to think of a topic to keep Deirdra interested and fast. What do beatitufl woman love to talk about?. Of course! Herself! “But what about you? I mean, you are a woman of, if I may be so forward, impeccable beauty, why do you degrade yourself with petty thievery? You should be on billboards modeling Victoria’s Secret’s fall line-up, not scrounging around jewelry stores like a common thief.”

That’s right Micah, just keep talking about how pretty she is until the cops show.

And his plan might’ve worked perfectly, if it hadn’t been for-

“Oh, just get out of here! Both of you mutant freaks!” A middle aged woman screamed. “If we had kept you abominations in the camps, you’d both be dead and in Hell with all the other perverts and monsters!”

Micah didn’t even bother to check Deirdra’s reaction. He just jumped in front of the woman. Even bigots didn’t deserve to be crushed to death.

An almost perfect memory? That was impressive. It didn’t seem like it would be useful in a fight, per say, but it would be good for the rest of a person’s life. “That doesn’t sound lame to me. It sounds useful and good for school. Not that I cared much when I was in school, but still. It’s the idea of it.” The blond tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Is it kind of like memorizing then?”

Deirdra glanced out the window and then turned back to Micah, who had just complimented her once again. A smiled blossomed back onto the woman’s face. “You say sweet things, but you want me to get caught. I can’t blame you. And modeling wouldn’t have worked well for me.” Her eyes looked sad for a moment. “I had to leave home when I was still pretty young.” While she was saying this, another woman started screaming about mutants. Micah jumped out in front of her, as if to protect her. The blond laughed. “I have no interest in hurting her. I have what I want.” She pointed to her ears.

She opened the jewelry store’s door and turned one more time to look at Micah. Deirdra winked and then blew him a kiss. “Bye, Micah. It was nice meeting you, but I need to get out of here. Maybe we’ll meet again.” Looking toward the street, the woman dashed out the door towards the Sanctuary.

Micah turned to the angry woman. “Really? You had to yell anti-mutant sentiment then? Right when there’s a huge scorpion with obvious family issues ripping holes in the wall? You're lucky you didn't get killed. If you’re going to be a bigot, you might as well be smart about it.”

Micah turned and surveyed the damage; broken class, jewelry scattered all over the floor, not to mention the giant hole in the wall.

Crap, that woman just came in here and whatever she wanted, and I could do a thing about it. She wasn’t even that powerful. Or smart.

A gentle hand on his shoulder broke him from his reverie. “You okay honey?”

Micah shook his head. “No mom, not at all. I was defenseless and powerless. I’m never feeling like that again. Learning French and geometry isn’t enough. I need to learn to fight.”