"I cannot believe the four of you." Mr. Wales sternly scolded us, his voice didn't show it but his eyes were red and puffy. "I am disappointed beyond belief."

"Sorry." Justin mumbled into the ceiling, we were packing up, Mr. Wales had decided that was enough of  New York for a while.

I was still feeling kinda down. Will and Tui were hit the hardest. Genny told me Tui had been in the girl's bathroom ever since we got back, crying her eyes out. Will was staring into a space and looking slightly green. He was kinda acting on edge around me, it ticked me off so I was giving him space.

We started packing up, our trip to New York seemingly at an end. I know Tui wanted to go back. We hadn't planned to stay for long anyway, we needed to get back to California and look at the stuff we had found. Or at least have all the smart people look at it then dumb it down so I could understand. Sometimes I just wish they'd give it to me straight. Anne Marie would have just told you regardless if you understood or not, you know that right?

I wanted to scream 'FORGET ANNE MARIE' at my brain. No matter how many times I told myself to shut up her cranky Asian features kept popping up. It was like she was so stubborn her memory would fight tooth and claw to stop me from forgetting. I hated it so much.

"Tyler?" Justin asked me suddenly, snapping me from my thoughts.

I glanced up from my spot leaning against a wall to stare at him. "What do you want?"

He gave me an amused look. "Nothing, you're just blushing that's all. Carry on then."

He shook his head and went back to folding up clothes into a suitcase. I opened my mouth to give a snappy retort, but when none came, I decided I was above it. For the next long expansion of time Mr. Wales tried to give me a job, but when he decided I might break whatever I came into contact with (to be fair I was still slightly worked up)  I was left to brood in the corner with my Rubik's cube and mutter curses under my breath. I had already solved the darn thing a million times, so often I let one of my friends (who were not at the level of genius I was) mess with it until they gave up. That was usually a good challenge. Will was by far the worst I discovered quickly.

I was fiddling with it again when Sabine came and sat down next to me. I don't know about you but the girls here were intimidating as heck. If Sabine wanted to talk with me, I would assume my butt was about to be kicked, so you can imagine my discomfort when she tried to  initiate small talk of all things.

"Is that new? I've never seen you play with it before."

I blinked. "No, I've had this one pretty much all my life."

She nodded. "I remember you."

I wasn't sure how to respond. "I remember you too? I mean we've been friends for a while now."

She shook her head, long green and purple streaked blonde hair waving slightly. "No I mean, when you were a kid, when I was a kid. We were in the Lab together, briefly. I only just know realized it was you."

Oh. "Oh. I don't have a really good memory."

She frowned. "Do you remember Icie?"

"Not before I met her...?" I replied, raising an eyebrow.

Sabine waved it off. "Nothing, if you don't remember that's good. Just something we were talking about."

    I was about to question her further when all of a sudden I heard the sounds of screaming from outside our hotel door. The two of us were up in a flash, I stared down the hallway and spotted a dark figure disappear around the corner. The walls were shredded and there was a ripped up towel laying dismembered across the floor. A terrified room service woman was crouching in a closet with it's door hanging hazardous by it's hinges.

    "What happened?" Sabine asked. "Who did this?"

    She looked up from behind her trembling shaking hands. "I d-don't know, some animal ran through here and started tearing up the walls. I-it was like a big lizard..."

    Sabine and I shared a look. She stopped to console the woman but I was gone, I tore down the halls chasing what was sure to be some mutant. I spotted the new guy inspecting a vending machine curiously. At least I think it was a guy, I couldn't really tell. He was holding a slightly ripped up bag of Doritos and chewing on a mixture of spicy chips and plastic. He wasn't doing well well due to the amount of long, jagged, teeth this guy possessed. He looked like he was wearing some sort of wetsuit, but from what I could see. His skin was covered in thick, dark, green plates that reminded me an a crocodile.

    Then it clicked.

    I stepped out from behind the corner and his eyes looked up from his vending machine destruction and locked on me. I paused waiting to what would happen, until suddenly his eyes dilated into black slits. Then he leapt at me.

    His claws just barely scraped my nose as I jumped out of the way. He landed past me and I had enough time to close the space and give him a good punch to the nose.

    From what I could tell this mutant wasn't very vocal. I don't think negotiations would be much help.

    He reeled wiping the blood off his face, then, without warning at all, jumped towards my midsection. I slammed into the widow behind me, with unfortunately broke upon contact. The two of us spiraled through the air as I struggled to stop myself from crashing violently into any of the surrounding windows. There was some pedestrian screeching but I couldn't worry about right now.

    We slammed onto the roof of the next building and I rolled over the concrete, scratching up my skin a bit. I looked up in time to see his gaping maw of grotesque teeth before they closed around my arm.

    I let out a grunt of surprise and pain, before kicking him in to gut and rolling away. I hoped up on my feet and inspected my now useless arm, it was my dominant hand, the one I had punched him with earlier. That little-

    I jumped back as he swiped at my face, clutching my bleeding shoulder. He was incredibly fast, I barely had time to recover before he took another jab at me. I couldn't beat him, besides I couldn't do anything with the scales. He didn't appear to have any weak spots, which was frustrating I'm not gonna lie.

    The crocodile mutant paused, breathing heavily. We locked eyes for a second, and I thought maybe I had seen this guy somewhere...

    Then he tore his claws through my shirt and left another bleeding gash on my chest. It stung badly and I tripped and fell against the edge of the concrete roof, groaning as my head spun.

    The mutant dropped to all fours and ran towards me, looking like he was gonna take another bite out of me. Then stopped short, looming over me threateningly.

    I winced waiting for more pain. When it didn't come I opened my eyes with hesitation.

From this position, I could see his face a little better. His dark brown eyes bore at me with a mixture of confusion and fear. He let a small noise, that might have been english, but honestly sounded like a small animal crying out, before he back away slightly.

Then all of a sudden he was kicked over the edge of the building. Sabine stood over me breathing hard. I pushed myself up despite the pain and stared over the edge of the building. The mutant lay motionless a few fire escaped down, I watched as he got up and slicked into the darkness.

"What was that?" Sabine gasped, lending me a hand and pulling me up.

"New mutant." I wheezed. "Let's get back, we need to tell the others."

Later as my midsection and arm were being tended to, and I mean it was well into the night later, Dylan and Icie decided to show up again.

"Thank goodness." Mr. Wake threw his hands up into the air sarcastically. "Anyone else want to wander away without telling me? Anyone?"

Dylan looked confused. "Did something happen while we were gone?"

"Oh yeah." I started. "I got my butt kicked. How was your date?"

He turned red and his eyes landed on my bloody bandages. "D-date...what? What happened to you?"

I shrugged, even though it hurt. "I'm pretty sure I just fought Project Dragonfire."

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CROCODOODLE IS FINALLY HERE WOOOOOOOOO