Molly, Marius and Catseye (w/Special Guest) - Saturday Afternoon

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Marius and Sharon run into Molly while playing around in cat form. Molly wants to play too.



"It's mass, right?" Marius shrugged. "I can go quadruped without issue and tinker a bit with density and that, but I can't say as life has prepared me for 'different species minus majority of body weight'."

Catseye cocked her head as she tried to decipher what Marius was saying. Physics was definitely not her strong suit. She was sort of regretting the decision to stop and see exactly why he was in BigCat form inside the mansion, now that she knew he was struggling to figure out how to become a regular-sized cat. To try and help herself think, she sank down onto the floor of the sunroom and stretched out as if she was planning on making a snow angel, staring up at the ceiling. She stretched and yawned, eyes closed, flexing her fingers and toes, trying to get in touch with her body. She did the changes, going from her regular cat form to BigCat and back again, ignoring her stomach pangs as she tried to figure out just how she'd done it, exactly. "Mass?" she mumbled as she pondered it a bit more. "Gah, I don't know!" she finally said, sounding frustrated. "I just do it! And it's so weird that you can do BigCat without being able to do LittleCat." She changed a few more times, trying to pinpoint something she could tell Marius that would help him.

The Australian gave another awkward shrug. He too was on his back, but he'd propped himself half-up on his elbows to watch his teammate. He'd allowed himself to be sidetracked after a Danger Room session by an inviting patch of sunlight. It wasn't normally his thing, but he'd decided as long as he was training with Catseye's powers he might as well see what the fuss was about. When Catseye had found him he'd dozed off while taking up approximately half the floor.

"But you've never not done it, right?" he said, idly flicking his tail as he regarded her. "You could shift from birth, that is. I'm just borrowin'. And since the first mutation I ever borrowed was Rahne's, in terms of size and shape it wasn't so much reduction as rearranging. That was my template." The Australian yawned. "Maybe come at this from another angle. How'd you figure out to go big?"

"Uhh... I didn't really figure it out," Catseye admitted, observing his tail flick and flicking her own tail so it bumped his playfully. "I just did it one day when the Reavers attacked. It was self-defense, I suppose. Or..." she thought of a better term to try and help Marius, "I guess I could say it was necessity? Could we try that with you?"

She rolled to her feet and gestured to one of the windowsills, which was only a few inches wide. "Can you try to make yourself small so you can sit on this window? And maybe pretend there are killer robots that are going to eat you if you don't make it onto the windowsill?" she suggested helpfully. "Perhaps. Necessity tends to be my prevailing method of learning as well." Whilst Marius appeared to turn his attention to the windowsill his tail crept up to poke her in the ribs. Then with an innocent grin he rolled onto his feet, consequently whipping away the appendage too quickly for reprisal.

"Doubtful I'd be able to perch," he commented, moving over to the window. "Works best with adrenaline. However...." Marius fiddled with the latch and prized open the glass, then the screen. They were sticky with disuse and the mysterious grit that tended to accumulate in the crevices of both. He opened them to leave approximately a foot and a half of space and backed away a considerable distance.

Catseye narrowed her eyes at the scenario he'd just set up, skeptical. She moved a cushion from a chair in the room underneath the window on their side of the wall, and then placed another one under the window on the outside, not wanting him to hurt himself no matter what happened. "Okay, let's see what you've got," she said encouragingly.

"Right." Marius rolled his shoulders, stretched his legs, and sprang forward.

The plan had obviously been to shift, jump to the couch and rebound through the window. Steps 1 and 2 went without a hitch.

Step 3 was a technical success, but only because the window had not been installed against a head-on collision with almost 200lbs of big cat.

After a long, glass-tinkling moment an unseen voice on the other side of the window said, "Ow."

Horrified that she'd just witnessed Marius killing himself, it took a moment for Catseye to react to what had taken place. And then all of a sudden she sprang into action, shifting into catform to jump out the window where he was lying among the broken glass and then shift back. "OHMYGODWHATDIDYOUDOOHMANOHMANAREYOUOKAYAREYOUDEAD?!?!" Except he'd said 'ow', so he probably wasn't dead? She was afraid to touch him for fear of causing further injury, so she just stood over him. "Why the HELL did you try to go from BigCat to little instead of going from human form?!?" she exclaimed, before realizing that that probably wasn't the most pressing thing she should be asking him right now. "Argh! Can you move? Should I go get Jean?"

Marius waved her off and raked a hand through his hair. A few shards sprinkled out. "No worries, my head took the brunt of it," he replied, leveraging himself back to his feet. "Hm. So I should have gone straight from human? Good note. I'll remember that." He glanced at the broken window, which also offered a decent view of parts of the couch. "Yes. If ever my memory needs jogging, I need only look at the bill for repairs."

Catseye couldn't resist thwapping him upside the head as a response to his comment about her note. "Yesyesyes, you can't go from one cat form to another! You need to be human first! SillyKitten!" She glanced from him to the window, then back again. Really, the damage wasn't that bad. Fred probably wouldn't yell at her too much about having to fix it? And it wasn't as if he had to come fix it right now, right? Maybe she could use this as another opportunity to get Marius to shift to regular cat form. "Can you be a small cat to get back in through the window now?" she challenged. "Pretend it's your only way to get back inside where the food is and the soft beds are!"

Marius considered this. One the one hand he could do as she suggested, seize upon the lemons of his idiocy and attempt to wring from them the lemonade of progress. On the other hand, he'd completed the day's scheduled training, was already looking at a reprimand for causing property damage, and Catseye, despite having just smacked him upside the head, did not currently have her guard up.

Really, he thought a split-second before he impacted his teammate in the form of an enormous grey panther, it was just good sense.

"WHA-" was all Catseye managed to get out before being pounced on by MariusTheBigCat. Instinct honed by her training had her shifting the moment her brain registered the attack, though, so that by the time she hit the ground she was a BigCat too. "This means war!" she growled playfully at Marius, wriggling out from under the weight of him. Marius bounded away before she could land a retaliatory swipe. Even with his greater size he had scant chance of beating her in her own form. Considering this, he came to the only sensible strategy: roar defiantly, lash his tail in challenge, and run away.

He also noted two things: 1) The window was much easier to clear without all that glass, and 2) he would also be paying to reupholster the couch. Oh shit, he was going back inside! Fred was not gonna be happy if more stuff got broken! Still, Catseye couldn't ignore the challenge, or the chase. She bounded in through the window and set off after Marius, skidding into an end table as she ran through the sunroom and down the hall, roaring as she went.

Molly had been in her room. She was trying to see if reading upside down would make a difference in studying (it made sense in her head). After discovering it hadn't, she decided to go downstairs to get some lunch when she heard the thunder. Or at least it sounded like thunder.

She'd just rounded the corner when she saw two giant cats running down the hall, barreling towards her like a kitty freight train.

"Whoa!" she said, plastering herself against the wall to avoid being trampled. As she kept her eyes on them little flashes appeared, flashes of riding a grey cat--Marius-- fighting with a lady that made lightning, and cold, but she couldn't remember who she fought, crawling through a vent with a little purple cat. Jumping from the vent. With Meggan too. An ambulance. A jungle. Then the memories stopped.

It left her staring, blinking rapidly as she tried to figure out the pieces.

Catseye skidded to a stop when she realized they'd almost run Molly over and reversed her thrusters to head back in the teenager's direction. She sidled up to Molly, her head down guiltily, and chuffed quietly at her, tail twitching as she headbutted Molly in the side of the leg.

It took a few moments longer for Marius to realize he was no longer being pursued. A backward glance revealed the source of the interruption. He managed to stop before a wall could force the point and shifted back into a form language-capable.

"Oi, Mol," Marius said, trotting towards them. It was a good thing he'd bothered with the uniform made from unstable molecules. Not that forgoing it would have revealed anything new to anyone he'd interacted with in Genosha, but traumatizing students was generally discouraged. "Sorry, just having a bit of fun. My fault as usual. Didn't get you, did we?"

Shaking her head, Molly put her hand to her forehead. "No..." she said, glancing up thoughtfully.

"I hadda memory. Um...did I ever ride kitty you and we kicked butt with lightning lady? And there were also vents. And Meggan and lil Catseye and...." she said, then rubbed her forehead again.

"For some reason that seems out of order. But did it happen?"

Since she wasn't getting the skritches she'd hoped for, Catseye shifted back into human form and nodded at Molly. "Yes, it happened. I mean, the vent stuff happened. With me and Meggan. That was in Genosha," she reminded Molly.

Ah, right. The professor had warned them of her memory issues. Marius shifted gears.

"Indeed it was," Marius said cheerfully, "and some time after that, you and I did indeed kick multiple hindquarters. In fact, you may recall you were kind enough to lend me your un-squishability shortly beforehand. Which was incidentally much appreciated."

Molly tilted her head, then glanced down at her hand. In her memories she had a bandage on. Though she didn't remember why yet. "There was...a little girl too."

She paused, then blinked. "Oh..um...I'm sorry...I'm being rude. You're welcome!"

The memories made more sense when they explained it a bit more. It made her remember the order a little better. There were a lot of them this time, except for little flashes. It kinda made her head hurt. But not bad.

"So why were you kitties?" she said curiously. She hadn't remembered Marius turning into a kitty before she remembered that she forgot he had been a kitty.

Catseye shrugged. "Marius was trying to figure out how to be a regular-sized kitty instead of a BigCat, and I was trying to help him. Then he tried to pounce on me so I had to chase him and try to pounce on him instead!"

Marius spread his hands innocently. "What can I say, I'm the impatient sort," he said, willfully failing to acknowledge mention of the little girl. That involved a chunk of memory he didn't particularly want to relive. Instead he tossed a glance at Catseye and changed the subject. "So experience triggers memories, eh?"

Molly nodded. "Miss Frost the 2nd has been working with me so I can remember stuff...like...not all at once. Cause she said that'd be bad. She said we're building bridges um...in my brain?" she said. It seemed kinda funny to think of it like that but it kinda made sense a little. She thought of it like adding a band aid.

"I wish I could turn into a kitty. That'd be awesome!"

"Bridges are good," Catseye nodded, though she didn't really understand any of that brain stuff. "Well, you can always have a ride on my back whenever you want," Catseye offered. Sure, it wasn't the same as being a kitty, but she hoped it was a suitable substitute. "I wish I could be super strong like you," she grinned; "I think that would be awesome!"

"That it is," Marius affirmed with the perfect certainty of one who had experienced it first-hand. He shot Molly a grin. "And as long as we're offering ourselves up as rides, should you feel inclined to jog your memory further . . ."

The Australian shifted back into the form of a massive grey cat, and flicked his tail invitingly at his back. Molly smiled. "Thanks! I do like being unsquishable. It's fun," she said. She slowly grinned back with a "hmm" of curious excitement at kitty Marius (Kittius!) and Catseye.

"I have an idea!" she said, then spun on her heel and took off down the hallway.

"I'll be right back!" she yelled in her wake.

Catseye frowned at Marius, twitching her tail. "What do you think she's doing? Where did she go? And why do I have this feeling more stuff is gonna get destroyed when she comes back?"

Marius glanced back at the skewed rugs and upturned furniture in their wake, then tilted his leonine head at Catseye. It was a gesture that vaulted the language barrier altogether and arrived directly at the message At this point, what difference would it make?

~X~

One movement flowed into the next and into the next until Logan completed the series of movements that made up the form. His hearing picked up something he couldn't figure out, but it sounded like it was coming from out on the grounds. He moved over to the window and glanced outside just in time to see two extremely large cats, one grey and one purple, run across the lawn with Molly perched on...something that was being used as a sled. Logan blinked then shook his head. Well, at least he'd know why the grounds would be all torn up.

Molly let out a warrior's yell, raising her fist high as the cat sled disappeared over the hill.

"Excelsior!"