Playing With Fire (EDITING)

Ambush

Kitty's following scream temporarily blew out the hearing in my right ear. Falling to her knees, she grabbed large fistfuls of sodden leaves and trembled from head to toe. "Wh- why?" she gasped. When she lifted her head, her normally sweet brown eyes flamed with insatiable anger. "You monster!" she screamed in accusation at Megan.

"No! He's the monster! Look!"

Kitty shot to her feet and pounded on Megan while screaming profanities until I could intervene to separate them. Shoving Kitty down, Megan was able to regain her balance and test her bleeding lip. Already her left eye was swelling and her nose didn't look quite the same.

"Cool it!" I shouted at Kitty. Whirling on Megan, I added, "You too! The both of you!"

They eyed each other with immense aggression built up over the course of a tense three months. Shoulders heaving, breaths coming in erratic gasps, hair falling in sweaty faces- Megan and Kitty faced each other in fierce, bitter hatred. This had to stop before they killed each other.

"Megan." Her dark eyes relaxed when they found me through the grey haze of falling dusk. "Tell her."

"She won't listen," she snapped.

I wouldn't stand for this, not my team. "Tell her!"

"It wasn't Peter!" she shouted, wings throwing rainbow hued sparks into the wet leaves. "Kitty, just think. If that really was your boyfriend, what would he have done?" Her arm pointed in the direction of the body that lay half hidden in the mouldering forest debris.

"How should I know?" Kitty blubbered. "You didn't give him a chance!"

"Just think! What has he always done when he sees you after a trip?"

She sniffed and wiped her sleeve across her eyes. When she spoke, her creaky voice was quieter, more thoughtful. "He's opened his arms and called out 'Kitten' and- and hugged me until I thought I'd burst. But that doesn't prove anything!" The hatred and anger were seeping into her words like dye on cloth, a large drop first, then poisonous tendrils spreading outward. "You didn't give him a chance! You didn't give him time!"

In a flurry, she dodged my outstretched arm and tackled Megan to the ground. "You witch!" Kitty screeched. "You heartless, emotionless excuse for a living being! How dare you call yourself a hero?! How dare you!"

Helpless to end the chaos, I could only avoid the thrashing pair and wait until Kitty either passed out or bashed her head on a tree stump. It so happened that my uselessness was even more...well, useless. Han marched over, angry as all heck, and scooped Kitty up with a single arm around her waist. "Stop it!" he bellowed. "You're both acting like toddlers!"

Slinging Kitty down beside the body, he used his toe to roughly roll her to face directly what Megan had been trying to explain. "It's not your Peter, just a replica," Han pointed out, tone calmed yet blazing just beneath the surface. I'd learned long ago not to cause trouble of any sort when he got like this; he was in his mama-bear-mood and to poke the grizzly got your face ripped off and the rest of you filleted alive.

"Take a look," Han encouraged Kitty after she'd wiped the silt from her eyes.

Without the curtain of unrelenting rainfall, the face and proportions of the creature were scrutable. It's face was gnarled and twisted with heavy brow ridges and a mastiff-like droop to the mouth area. The skin was grey and leathery with a bluish tinge, and the lips, though crusted with black blood, were thin and malformed. It- for it was neither male nor female at first inspection- had shrunk down to half Peter's height and less than a third his muscular bulk. How had Kitty mistaken this thing for her boyfriend?