Agent Ryan tapped her desk top, taking very slow, deep breaths to keep from yelling at the incompetent excuse of an MCO agent who was standing shamefaced before her. She'd had to send an intern to pick up Agent MacArthur, from some little no nothing town on Christmas eve, and now when she should be reading “The Night Before Christmas” to her youngest, she had to deal with a total mess.

“Now let me make sure everything is perfectly clear, agent MacArthur. One week ago, you and your partner Agent Anthony, went to Sunnydale, after hearing from the police that there was a violent mutant. You discovered it was a newly manifested fourteen year old female, who can manifest small animals. You attempted to apprehend the girl who had run away from home, she initially got away thanks to manifesting cats and a small horde of rats. This caught the attention of the media, and I had to work very hard to keep the situation quiet after the initial reports. Is that correct so far?” she asked.

“Overall yes, but the mutant can manifest the animals at a distance of ten meters. The horde of rats was manifested... in my pants,” he said, blushing and shuddering at the same time.

She just gave him a very flat and unimpressed look. “Duly noted. You then heard of another potential mutant, a teenage male, most likely a Sidhe, with white hair, wearing a blue trench coat, white scarf, and black boots, who calls himself Chris Kringel. He was first witnessed donating over ten thousand dollars worth of food and toys to the local food bank, and asking about the female mutant. Three days ago, you witnessed both mutants together and attempted an arrest them with your partner, whereupon, you found your guns missing, and the mutants teleported away. Rather than notifying us about the entire situation, you told me on the phone that there was a second mutant but you could handle it, downplaying my concerns, and not describing Chris Kringel in any real detail.”

“Well ma'am, they didn't seem to be friendly, and they are only teenagers. We thought that he wasn't a serious threat.” He shut up as she scowled at him.

“Now where was I? Ah yes, you then used the back up gadgeteer weapons, which are only suppose to be used for dire threats and began tracking the mutants with the unwilling help of the police. According to the long phone call and even longer email from the chief of police, you and your partner went well beyond the bounds of civility and legality, resorting to, and I quote, 'bullying, threats and exceeding any legal authority you had as MCO agents operating in the United States of America.' During this time, you found the mutants singly or together seven times, and in the process of attempting to arrest them, destroyed two civilian vehicles, set a house on fire, caused thirty-two thousand dollars worth of property damage at the local G-Mart, and caused over 50,000 dollars in damages unrelated to those previously stated incidences.” She turned her scowl into a glare, she was in hot water and it was only going to get worse once the superiors of her superiors got back from holidays.

“Those were not entirely our fault, we were in pursuit of the mutants and-”

“Shut up. This morning you finally managed to tag Chris Kringel as he was dressed as an elf handing out toys to children as their parents took them to the skating rink.” She looked at him in disbelief. “You shot Santa's elf in the arm in front of fifty children?”

“He was a mutant, who knows where he got the toys and what he was going to do to the children!”

“That is a mitigating factor. But shouting that you're the MCO, and firing wildly at a known teleporter when there were children and parents in the line of fire? Stupidity. That seems to have angered him. You attempted to continue your search, and discovered that he had stolen your keys, the spark plugs, all the equipment in your trunk and your phones. Using the information in your wallet, he then went to your hotel rooms, stole all of your clothes replacing them with elf suits, took every one of your possessions including your laptops, and filled your suitcases with a mix of coal and pig feces. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Yet despite all of that, you did not call me. You continued to pursue the mutants using only your sidearms and the credit card you keep for emergencies in your inside pocket to replace the spark plugs. When you found the female mutant, you both tried to apprehend her, almost running her over. When you came to a stop Chris teleported behind the car, grabbed it and teleported you both twenty feet above the local swimming hole. Not deep enough to drown either of you, but it finally knocked the sense into you to call and ask for assistance. You'll be happy to know that Agent Anthony should be out of the hospital soon as soon as they're sure he isn't suffering from hypothermia.”

Agent MacArthur got to his feet. “This just proves how dangerous he is! We need to cover the town with power armour and agents until they're caught!”

“Sit down!” She pulled a Christmas card from her desk. “Neither mutant is in Sunnydale anymore. I received this two hours after you contacted the office. I'll read it for you since I'm no longer certain you're intelligent enough to read. 'Seasons Greetings Rebecca Ryan! Thank you for all your agents help, I couldn't have convinced Melody to come with me if it wasn't for you. She was actually thinking of running off to LA at first. Don't worry we'll keep her safe and out of your hair. Merry Christmas, Chris Kringel. PS: I'll know if you're harassing her parents. Let's keep this nice and civil and you'll never see me again,.'”

Agent MacArthur had grown very pale by the time she was done. “now that we know about him, we- we need to stop him!”

“The MCO already knows about Chris Kringel. He's scooped mutants away from us before. Usually we only know about it after the fact, or we'll see him once or twice as he teleports away too quickly and tries to avoid contact with authority. You pushed him just enough to annoy him without putting him at any real risk. If you had informed me of all the details from the start we could have dealt with him effectively. Instead you ran our good name through the mud, lost both mutants, and cost us a a large sum of money in fines, damages and damage control. You're on leave until further notice, you should probably start working on your resume. Now get out, I'm going to be covering the MCO ass, and kissing ass all night and tomorrow because of you and your partner.”