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A Mew Mew Story: Chapter 13

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A Mew Mew Story

Chapter 13: Staying on Top of Everything

I decided to stay at Travis’s house for the rest of the day. I wanted to help get his mind off of everything that had happened- I myself was already fairly used to all that crap by now, because, hell, I was a Mew Mew myself, and I got over the matter relatively quickly as well. Unfortunately, I couldn’t drop the matter altogether, though, because something told me that this was as much my business now as it was Travis’s. Being so, I eventually decided that I had to go see how things were holding up back at the Mew quarters- surely the chase was over since Hannah seemed to have gotten away alright.

    Grabbing my jacket from Travis’s couch, I got up to leave with a sigh, somewhat dreading what I had actually been putting off for the entire time that I was there.

    “Where the hell are you going?” Travis asked from behind a hand of bicycle cards. Playing cards was one of the things that I’d do with Travis whenever I went to his place, ever since I was eight. I had just gotten up and left the game this time.

    “I’ve gotta go,” I told him, reaching for the doorknob.

    “Can I guess what for?”

    I tried to ignore him. I wanted to say, “Yeah, Travvie, guess,” but I wasn’t in that kind of mood then. Looking back on it, I should have been. I was probably too embarrassed that Travis now knew what I was now.

    Apparently, Travis did not appreciate my lack of response. For a second he looked as if something pent-up was about to explode; he got that gleam in his eye that he usually had when something got to him. He lowered the deck of cards from his face.

    Then he threw his hand onto the floor, scattering face-down on the rug, and got up to face me. "Come on, man, we both know," he whined a little shrilly and crossed his arms. He wasn't being vicious, though- that would have been completely out of his character; he was only irritated, if only a little.

    I rolled my eyes at him. “Jesus, Travis. It’s not that big a deal,” though I wished that I had actually believed that myself.

    “The hell it is!”

    “Alright, alright!” I held up my hands in parlay. “Yes, I’m going to the freaking Mew building. Okay?”

    Travis nodded as if satisfied, but then his face sobered up. “Are you going to fix everything?”

    “I’m not sure if I can. It’ll be all right, Travis, it will be,” I tried to assure him. Travis nodded and sat back down. I opened the door and stepped over the threshold.

    “One more thing, Justin?”

    I looked back at him. “What?”

    “Don’t think you should be embarrassed about being a fucking superhero,” he grinned in his usual wide grin, back to his normal self again. “It’s so freaking cool.”

    “Of course not,” I said after a moment’s pause and shook my head, grinning softly back at him, then left.

----

    The Mew building was bustling. Even from the entrance I could hear Burnett shouting into the loudspeaker from his office, “Get everything you can on her! What are you lazy assholes doing!?”

    Had letting Hannah get away been that bad for him? I didn’t see Ryou, who also turned into an animal instead of a Mew, in chains- so what really made Hannah Burnett’s prime target? There had to be more to it, I figured.

    I hesitated at the door to Burnett’s office. I heard the voices of the other Mews, excluding Luna, who had soccer practice, coming from inside. For the most part, they were all speaking quietly amongst themselves, which was unusual. It also seemed rather odd that their usual guardians, Ryou and Kiichiro, weren’t present- at least not that I could hear.

    “Who’s at the door?” I heard Cream ask, obviously utilizing her hearing, which might very well be even better than mine because of the DNA she was infused with.

    I sighed and entered the room. Everyone turned around and looked at me.

    “Justin,” Burnett said dryly, smirking at me. “How nice of you to come. Are you done coddling your little boy?”

    “Shut up,” I growled, but I did not let him aggravate me. Burnett wasn’t worth the effort.

    Burnett chuckled gravely, dismissing me and addressing the girls. “Quiet, quiet!” he shouted. “You all know that we currently have a… problem.” Right then, I knew, or had a pretty damn good feeling, what this “problem” that he mentioned was, considering what had happened the day before. The other girls didn't miss it, either. Of course, it was Hannah.

    All of the the girls looked puzzled, as if they thought that it hadn't been a big deal, except Meringue, who had an unusual twinkle in her eye- a look of interest and devotion to a cause. I could understand their nonchalance, though; they work with someone who turns into a cat. But Burnett, noticing this, used his look of intimidation on them, and they immediately sobered up. “The horse,” he continued, “I know that Hannah goes to Justin and Luna’s school. I want you all to freaking hunt that bitch to the ends of the earth if you have to, but common sense must tell you that you should not do it in school. I want you all to find her, and bring her here. She is a government fugitive” -at this, a gasp from two or three of the girls- “And she must not get away.”

    I could tell right away that he was indeed hiding something- the look in his eyes gave that away. Perhaps what he was hiding was what he really held against Hannah. If so, I didn’t know what it was, though.

    Tangerine raised her hand nervously. Burnett glared at her, said in an icy-cold tone, “No questions,” and then she put it down. Yeah, he definitely wasn’t going to give us the whole story.

    The other Mews, however, all gullible as long as an adventure was promised, nodded.

    I backed away towards the door. “Currant?” Burnett said, catching my attempt to make a getaway.

    “I have to leave.”

    “Do you? Don’t worry, you are certainly not needed here,” he responded in a dictating tone.

    I walked out of the door, facing him the entire time, not breaking his gaze, not trying to betray any ulterior motive in my leaving. Was there an ulterior motive, you ask? Of course there was. I was going to make a bee-line straight to Travis’s and tell him all of this, however little information it was that I caught.

    As soon as I closed the door to the room, it opened again, almost meeting with my face. Kiwi came out from behind the door.

    “Justin, let’s talk,” she announced quietly but deliberately as she walked past me, her arms crossed behind her head. I followed her, figuring that was what she wanted me to do.
Soon enough we were outside in the secretary’s garden. Kiwi turned to look at me and shoved her hands in her hoodie pockets.

    “Look,” she said, “I know that I helped you that one time with Hannah. I don’t know if I could do that again. The others would find out. Can you dig that?”

    “Sure,” I replied, eyeing her.

    “Cool. But I still want'cha to know that I won't be hunting Hannah, 'kay? That's just uncool, not my thing. I will pretend to be, though. You get me? Either way, if you need me, like, really,"- Kiwi stretched heartily- "-really need me, I’ll be there. Okay?”

    “Okay,” I replied, offering a nod. I appreciated Kiwi’s frankness in our short discussion, but I really did have to get back to Travis’s.

    “Hmm... That’s all I had to say, then.” Kiwi winked, shooting me a thumbs-up, and then strolled away casually with her hands in her pockets.

    “Thanks,” I called after her. She waved back at me as she left.

    I waited for her to go back into the Mew building, and then I turned to get back to my business. I turned around and ran back to Travis’s house.

----

    I made it back in a matter of two or three minutes- I was going that fast. I tried the main entrance to the house- it was locked. Deciding not to try the second-story window to Travis’s room, I rapped on the door impatiently and looked down at the floor, brushing a strand of blonde hair out of my eyes and panting a little from sprinting.

    I heard the unlocking of the door from the other side, and finally Travis’s head appeared from a crack in the door. Then he opened it wide when he saw that it was me waiting there. “Jesus, Justin! Did you just sprint through a freaking five-K?”

    “No,” I said as I walked in, catching my breath.

    “Did you take care of everything?”

    I shook my head somberly. “They want her, Travis. They are all going to look for her.”

    Travis’s eyes widened. “They’re going to take her from school?”

    “No,” I repeated, “that would arouse too much suspicion.” Mew or not Mew, kidnapping was still illegal. “But apparently Burnett still wants her found.”

    “So what do we do?” Travis pushed up his glasses and a look of concern crossed his face.

    “I will protect her, I guess. Also I could warn you about what they are doing and what they plan so you could avoid it. Just keep an eye on her too, alright? You’ll still be in contact with her?” I knew that Travis was not the type to go abandoning his friends, but hey, I wanted to walk out when I first became a Mew Mew.

    “You go, Justin!” Travis beamed, confirming his compliance.

    “Um… Actually, on one condition.”

    “What the hell would that be?”

    “Stay out- I mean, don’t get involved with my fights, especially not with Burnett. The other Mews would be fine to be friendly with as long as I am, because otherwise that will make them suspicious, I think. Meringue is pretty damn sharp.” It was an easy decision to make for me- don’t get Travis killed- but I wondered how disappointed the excitement-loving Travis would be.

    His face did not drop as I thought it would; I supposed that he also valued his life. “Alright, man,” he said. “I’ll stay out of your way. Just kick ass for me, ‘kay?”

    “Sure, man, sure,” I told him. “You’re the best.”

    Travis feigned flattery and we both had our laughs.

----

    My deal with Travis had taken effect on Sunday. It worked pretty damn well, I’d say so myself, and for the most part we didn’t even need to use it: the Mews would try to find out where Hannah usually hangs out, and even where she lives- but they’d had no luck. It also occurred to them that Burnett was not bullshitting them when he ordered them to find her and capture her- so at the terrible realization that they were being told to capture kidnap and have them held hostage, they had all begun to back out of the idea because they realized how morally wrong that would be. There was that, and the fact that Ryou and Kiichiro, upon discovering Burnett’s orders from one of the Mews who seemed to slip up the point of having had a meeting without the twosome’s presence, ordered them not to lay a single finger, gloved or not-gloved, on her. Thus, they had become more of Burnett’s very inexperienced “spies,” only reporting to Burnett whenever they were told to, hesitant as they were. Either way, all I had to do was eavesdrop during practice and whenever else I happened to catch them talking about Hannah as to where and when they were planning to follow her, and from there I would tell Travis, who would tell her to take a detour or go somewhere else altogether. I never missed a beat. Eavesdropping had become second-nature for me ever since I became a Mew Mew (of course, I never eavesdropped unless it was beneficial and absolutely necessary- I wasn’t some gossip-hungry girl).

    On Monday, though, one of the Mews- yes, Meringue, as you probably could guess- noted how I was constantly reported to Travis every time the Mews seemed to speak about Hannah.

    She started her interrogation casually.

    “Justin?” she asked politely, approaching me as I was exiting the English classroom for lunch break, with her yellow backpack slung over her shoulder and carrying her AP French textbooks. I stopped and pulled over to the wall so that I could wait for her. Meringue rarely talked to me, although she was indeed warming up and showing her better self, her human self with all Mew business excluded, because when it came to that she still was just a little too devout.

    “Yeah?” I asked when she stopped in front of me.

    “Emmm, how is your friend, Travis, I believe, doing? He must be really upset about the Mew thing, no?”

    “He’s fine, I guess. It’s not him being the Mew Mew,” I replied, not yet catching onto where the discussion was going.

    “Do you support him?”

    “He doesn’t need much supporting. He’s an independent guy.”

    “Ah, I see. Girls don’t understand the, what do you call it, 'macho' thing, I guess.”

    “Nope. We’re cool like that.”

    “Has he seen Hannah outside of school?” she asked suddenly.

    I stiffened- but I couldn’t let her see my reaction. Now I was catching on- she was probably doing some sleek spy-work. But I recovered quickly. “Hannah seems to be very scared, so no. They just meet in school.”

    “Are they still dating?”

    “Would you date someone you never saw outside of school?” I retorted rhetorically, avoiding the lie that I otherwise would have told. The couple did meet on a daily basis after school, and Travis did more than just warn her about the Mews’ whereabouts when they met.

    Meringue shrugged. “I suppose not.”

    “I should let you know that Burnett is onto him,” Meringue finally said outright. “I’ll tell him what you told me.” The last of her words rang with a little suspicion. As if she wanted to believe what I said but wasn’t falling for it. Luckily, Meringue stayed true to her word, so she wouldn’t report her personal suspicions to Burnett, who seemed to be the Mews’ new boss, though of course the Mews would have to answer to Ryou's and Kiichiro's orders over Burnett's if they contradicted in even the slightest way. But what a control freak Burnett was, I thought, for stealing other peoples’ Mews like that.

    “I will see you later, at practice?” Meringue's voice drew me back in again.

    “You can count on it,” I told her. We separated.

    Stealing other peoples’ Mews, huh. I had been intending to speak to those 'other people,' too, to make the final touch on staying on top of everything that had happened over the weekend. I was all over the place for the last couple of days, wasn’t I?

----

    Later that day, I looked up from the little piece of paper that had the address scratched out on it, as I stood before the front door to a small two-story house.

    “I hoped this is the right one,” I muttered to myself as I rapped on the door. The girls were all working extra practice, as I had told Luna- who I had also recruited to my side, and had accepted the position on Hannah's defense probably just as much as out of spite regarding her excessive distaste for Burnett as out of the need for justice and what was right- to convince them to do.

    Kiichiro answered the door. He looked tired. “Justin?” He asked, his eyes brightening up a bit as if to make himself appear more presentable.

    “Hi, Kiichiro--- sensei?” I greeted him, unsure of the validity of the added honorific.

    Kiichiro nodded with a chuckle, confirming what must have been the semi-correct application, and held the door open a little bit more. “Would you like to come in?”

    “Yes. Actually, I would like to talk to Shirogane.” (I had given up trying to figure out which suffixes to use and which ones not to use by then).

    “Of course,” he said, and saw me in.

    I looked around at the house. Small for a two story house, but large enough to potentially host five teenage girls.

    Kiichiro broke the silence. “Have you heard from the girls?”

    “Yeah. They’re going all out in trying to find Hannah, but they're at extra practice now.”

    “I see,” Kiichiro replied with a sigh, “Thank god they had the common sense to know that no harm should come to the girl, even when we told them not to.”

    “I don’t know what Burnett would do once they get her, if they do.”

    “There’s nothing I could do about that. That would be the Americans’ business. I’m sure it wouldn’t come to that though; Ryou could be very persuasive.” Kiichiro sounded dead-serious as he said this. “As long as they follow our directions not to capture her, we’ve done the best we could to prevent them from catching her in the first place; I could assuredly doubt that any normal human being could outrun the girl, er, horse.”

    “Do you support what they are doing, then?” I asked.

    “No, we don't. It's not right, even if she escaped from the government- whatever they had her there for probably wasn't right, either. If anything, Burnett should try and help her get her dysfunctional DNA out.”

    “It doesn't sound like that's what Burnett wants to do,” I told him sincerely.

    Kiichiro directed me to Ryou’s office and knocked on the door. A voice came from the other side. “Come in,” it said.

    He opened the door. Ryou was sitting on the other side of the room, with his back facing us, by a long desk with very complicated computer screens lined along it and the walls. When I entered, he turned his chair around and looked at me.

    “Currant.” He nodded at Kiichiro to close the door after me. He did so, and I was left in the room alone with Ryou.

    “So, how are you liking your new company?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

    “A-Okay,” I said, stuffing my hands into my pockets. “Say, I’ve been meaning to ask you something... about Hannah.”

    Ryou motioned for me to go on.
    
    “And I was wondering, did it have anything to do with how you became a-” I dared to use Hannah’s term “-Mewtation too?”

    Ryou smirked with amusement. “Is that what you call it?” After a moment’s pause, he got back down to business, and his face straightened out. “Well, Hannah might have very well been a botched Mew experiment too, by your government. But I don’t think that I’m a ‘Mewtation,’ if that’s what her particular case makes her. I had the DNA directly injected into me, so the DNA was forced into someone who wouldn’t have been able to accept it in the first place; the injection was illegalized afterwards- now it is done by wave emission through air and can only be taken in by people who can accept it. Meaning that Hannah must have been compatible to a certain extent. There could be many possibilities as to why she turned out the way she did, but there is no picking a single one out.”

    “Oh. Okay.” His answer sort of disappointed me, but it was enough for me anyway.

    “Any particular reason why you’d like to know?”

    “Just curious. My older brother and his girlfriend watched the show a lot.”

    “Huh. Alright. It’s odd for a teenage male to be like that, I guess, but whatever.”

    “Yeah...,” I drew out.

    “Well, I hope I helped. I’ve got some investigations to work on for those aliens you’ve been having a problem with.

    That brought up a matter that I had forgotten about with all of the drama regarding Hannah the Mewtation. Yuriya, Carlisle, Marius, and Darian were still out there somewhere- but I figured that I had to take things one at a time.  

    “You sure did,” I told Ryou, although the information he shared was very minor and extracted simply out of curiosity’s sake- and perhaps also to try and get a grip as to what the hell would make Burnett out for Hannah’s blood the way he was. “Well, I gotta go.”

    Ryou nodded and got back to his screenings. I turned around and left the building, ready to take on the next challenge that was to come my way, whatever that would be.
AHHH I'm so sorry this chapter is all over the place ughhh I just had to clear up some things but the next chapter will be MUCH better

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DearyEm's avatar
:iconnotsureifplz:
Not sure if I ship JustinxLuna, or JustinxKiwi...