Christmas Kiss [Open]

Kardus hadn't noticed the mistletoe that was on Kristen, but now noticed she held one. "If this is a prank it's one that took a lot of work to prepare. Engineering a parasite like this is no small feat. If someone is responsible for this then they are either a prankster with more talent than they know, or this is simply a test for something bigger." Kardus looked at the mistletoe Kristen had. "Either way, a mind controlling parasite is not something to be taken lightly. If these were created then the creator needs to be found, and sorry but a blurry image of a face isn't enough to go by." he added to Melissa. "The most likely other explanation is that they're either aliens or a creature that has been dormant for a long time up until now. I'm not sure yet; but it's already being looked into." Even now the two mistletoe's were being examined and their DNA reverse engineered in an off-world lab.

((OOC: I am disappoint. o-o Into the second page and none of your characters have kissed anyone. You're wasting good comedy potential! Although it's very nice to hear the nameless NPCs in the background are having a good time. Think about that. The NPCs are having more fun than you are.))

The door to the women's bathroom opened in the wake of Kardus' departure. The lad may have searched everywhere and sundry in pursuit of mind-controlled victims, but there was one location in the theatre he had not been able to venture. Iskra had found the sudden amorous practices of the Americans to be lacking in common decency, good morals, and proper consent. It was awesome. She could only conclude that their equivalent of a cinema was less family friendly than the ones in Russia. And she was feeling the love.

Ambling around a lobby of distressed souls she approached the gathering of would-be heroes. Without pause she enveloped Kardus in her arms and tipped him back. Iskra dipped in to kiss the teen, holding on their embrace for a moment before separating with a gasp. Helping him find his feet again the girl let go and turned to capture the expressions of his companions. At this point it might be nice to note that there was no mutant mistletoe on her person.

"What? They were all doing it."

Kristen smiled at Melissa's joke and took in the theories that Kardus had proposed; they all seemed very likely. When Kardus said it was being looked into, Kristen's human mind wondered dumbly if Kardus had a hidden research lab inside the men's bathroom.
Suddenly, a Russian girl ambled out of the women's washroom and wandered over to the group of heroes. After noticing all of the kissing going on, she decided to suddenly kiss Kardus. Kristen raised her eyebrows; this stranger was just kissing another person she didn't know out of her own free will. There was no mutated mistletoe plant on her head.
How confusing.

After the girl finished kissing Kardus, she looked over to Kristen and Melissa to see their reactions. After explaining that she was doing it because everyone else was, it was obvious to Kristen that the new girl had no idea what was actually going on.

Melissa was flustered that the girl just kissed the cyan boy. At first Melissa thought the girl was under a mistletoe's control, but there was no evidence of that. Melissa then felt small bits of jealousy in her heart. She barely knew the boy, but she had some sort of affection. Trying to ignore it, Melissa greeted the girl. "H-hello," she smiled weakly, "Are you two familiar to each other?"

Melissa couldn't stop herself from feeling a bit jealous of this girl kissing freely. It was obvious she was jealous to some, but she quickly hid it in her sweet smile.

Kardus took another look around the room after making his statement, soon being approached by a woman just out of the ladies restroom. Before Kardus knew she was up to anything he found himself being pressed against, tipped back, and kissed passionately by the woman. Blinking and confused, the man neither kissed back nor returned the embrace during this time, and for a few seconds stood motionless after being lifted up again. After hearing her reasoning he replied simply, "Um...yes..I suppose they were..."

Kardus looked over to Melissa to answer her. "No, in fact I've just met her. Who are you exactly?" Kardus asked to Iskra.

The identity of the stranger was something that Kristen wanted to know as well. Anyone who had enough nerve to walk up to and kiss a random stranger, despite the circumstance, was definitely an interesting individual.

Sweet. No one ran away. That meant she had successfully blended in. Russian High Command -or whatever epithet they wielded this week- wanted Iskra to settle seamlessly into Californian society. Once she was ingratiated it would be easy to get to know some metahumans and learn their secrets. What made them tick, what factions existed, how divisions may be exploited. So when Kardus asked who she was - Lieutenant Demidenko was ready. A detailed transcript had been written for her by the finest minds in Russian Espionage for this exact moment. It was on her coffee table. She might finish reading it tonight, "Exactly? Let's see if I remember this right..."

"I was born in Mississippi. Or that other state that began with an 'M'. Erm - Missouri! That's the one. My single mother raised me all by her lonesome, bless her soul, then she died. Burned in a house fire with all my birth certificates and that. I'm about twenty. Or, hang on - what's the drinking age around here again? Whatever it is I trump it. I just remembered it was my father who raised me. My good for nothing mother abandoned me before birth. So I was brought up right - to hail the President and all that. Then Indians attacked my village and I moved out to California. Where I work as a translator of foreign literature." Iskra realised just in time that they would expect a name. She couldn't be Iskra, that was suspicious. "I'll have my name in a minute. Bare with me. Erm. Isabel. Unless that sounds too Spanish." Nailed it.

Melissa brain just exploded. The amount of information she got was too much. However, she managed to catch a few statements. It was rather odd that she spoke as if she was reading from a script. Something was off for Melissa and moving forward she questioned the girl, "You bless your mother then send her off as 'good for nothing'. That's rather peculiar. Plus, Indians haven't attacked villages in decades. Do you have memory loss?" Melissa asked after being serious for a moment.

Melissa then realized she had her Arc Barrier on the entire time from preventing any more mistletoes from controlling her. She then wondered if anyone noticed she had powers.

Ivan Dyavol, 2nd in command of TG-55, walked into the cineplex just in time to hear Iskra screw up yet another back story. He was sent just incase Iskra pulled something like this, he took a deep breath and walked over, "THERE YOU ARE! My dear sister, I was wondering where you got off too, telling your stories again I see," Ivan looked at Melissa, "Terribly sorry about this, my sister is so imaginative, I'm Christopher, and this is Isabel. The truth is we come from New Jersey, Atlantic County region, a small town right outside of Atlantic City called Bargaintown. I don't know what she told you, but she's been watching a lot of Wild West movies recently, probably went off about Cowboys or Indians or something." Ivan chuckled, "Quite the eccentric one isn't she, but we have no money to get her thoroughly checked out."

Kardus stood and listened as the woman told him 'exactly' who she was; however her explanation was sketchy from start to finish. She was obviously either lying or making this into a joke. It seemed that Melissa shared his suspicion. Just then another person arrived on scene; a boy that seemed to know 'Isabel'. A large imagination? Not likely; possible but not likely.

Not that he made his thoughts own. Kardus nodded to the boy. "Very imaginative indeed. Not always a bad thing...but for someone her age I think she's got a biiiiit too much." He looked back to 'Isabel', secretly scanning her over to record her form, appearance, and genetics for future reference and examination. "You should probably stay with your brother a bit more." Kardus didn't forget about the Mistletoe situation but deliberately didn't bring it up.

Kristen frowned as the told her skeptical background to the group. She wasn't skeptical of the woman at first, but the poor delivery of information and contradicting statements definitely increased the skepticism. As a guy who apparently knew the woman came into the conversation and explained a completely different background story than the woman had previously attempted to tell, Kristen began to wonder if this fellow was in on whatever was going on with the woman.

"It seems that you have quite the interesting background, however contradictory and strangely put. I'm sure that it must be quite difficult to recollect you're whole life story in such a short amount of time and present it to strangers, however." The sense of suspicion washed over the group like a wave of uncertainty; it seemed that Kardus and Melissa also shared Kristen's feelings about this pair.

Kristen kept her guard up as the situation progressed.