Tomorrowland, Athena and the Beast

Tomorrowland, Athena and the Beast is a Tomorrowland/Beauty and the Beast crossover fanfiction.

It was the littlest recruiter—the youngest in appearance, although of course the current batch was all equal in age—who first brought word of the problem. Athena seemed rather put out that she hadn't noticed it first. Casey thought that her irritation was exacerbated by not being able to let everybody know how put out she was (since that would have meant letting news of the problem leak out), so instead she was stuck with complaining to Casey. At length. It didn’t help that Frank was away right now. Not only did that always make Athena more grumpy, but it gave her one less target.

Casey sighed, and turned back to the littlest recruiter who discovered an enchanted rose. She was staring up at them in awe, with that meeting-her-heroes-from-history-class look on her face that had taken Casey at least a year to get used to.

Okay, so she still wasn’t used to it. She wasn’t entirely used to AA units and portals and the fact that she didn’t live on Earth anymore either, but that was life. “So what exactly makes you think one of the recruiters is an impostor?” she asked, skeptically.

“She’s been acting...well, different, ever since she returned from her previous recruiting mission. She didn’t check in until I reminded her, and she didn’t seem to have actually recruited anybody. But most of all, she slipped away for several hours in the middle of the night when the rest of us were catching up on reports, and I think she was sleeping!”

“We’ll look into it,” Athena announced. She jumped up and darted out of the room.

Casey turned back to their informant. “Thanks for your help,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone about this, and please—”

“Come on, Casey,” Athena said from the doorway Mrs. Potts stood behind her "That girl could be an optimist" said Mrs Potts the talking teacup named Chip appeared "Mama, I hear that there is a robot here" "Oh she might be here for the master". She ducked back into the room and grabbed Casey by the hand. “Stay out of trouble,” she ordered the littlest recruiter firmly, and then they were off.

“I don’t suppose you have a plan?” Casey asked as Athena dragged her down a hallway and into an equipment room.

“Stop wasting time, Casey!” Athena replied. She was throwing supplies into bags the whole time she spoke. “Our target has already returned to Earth, supposedly on another recruiting mission. But if, as I expect, she is a human impostor, she may be reporting to whoever she’s working for, or anything at all. We have to go right away!”

As luck would have it, the traffic has lessened a small amount by the time they got back on the road. Not enough to make a noticeable difference in their rate of travel, but enough to make Athena look smug. And she only looked more smug when the detector went off halfway through Camp Pendleton, and for once it wasn’t a false alarm. Another half hour’s driving—this time not so boring, with their eyes glued to the detector—and they had narrowed their target’s location down to a city block in Carlsbad, full of restaurants and touristy shops and a couple of hotels.

“Cross at the crosswalk,” Casey hissed. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

Athena was lurking outside the cafe on the corner Lumiere stood on a sill speaking to Cogsworth "Ah, yes you must be the girl that I hear about" Lumiere said, Athena was tapping her foot impatiently, when Casey crossed the street. As it had been barely half a minute, Casey suspected the impatience was feigned, but she decided not to call her on it. “Found anything?” she asked instead.

Yep, definitely not ending anytime soon. Casey stepped back to lean on a handy planter and watch the show. After all, she didn’t have anything else she needed to be doing. The impostor had presumably been apprehended, there weren’t any bystanders to need distracting from the (now full-volume) argument, and frankly the argument was kind of soothing. Athena returned to castle and is greeted by The Beast, "Athena, I saw you returned". "Thanks" Cogsworth approached. "Master, I say Athena is our guest." "Of course" said the Beast.