A/N: This story is set after the first movie and before the second. I don't own X-men and I am definitely not getting any richer by this. That's it.
Colorado, 4 A.M.
"Get out of this town and don't ever come back," he said to her. It was strange to him, thinking that the girl had been one of them all along and he hadn't even known it. Then the stories had started floating around, about weird things that people saw or heard about her. News about weird things travels fast in a small town, and there was no denying that the girl had something weird about her. She didn't seem afraid of the man in front of her at all, all he could see in her eyes was resigned acceptance. There was another hitch, though. She wasn't leaving.
"I said, get out of my bar and don't show your face here again, missy." Still no movement. Sweat started to bead up on his forehead and stain his wifebeater. If she was anything near as dangerous as the news said her kind was, he was in trouble. He considered his situation. After hours, he was alone in the bar except for his gun, and that was behind the counter. He flicked his eyes nervously towards where it was.
She noticed and smiled slightly, still staring directly at him with calculating gray eyes. His palms started sweating. What kind of powers does she have? he wondered.
"I mean it, freak!" he said loudly, his voice breaking. The girl snorted with laughter and walked toward the door. He almost breathed a sigh of relief, but his breath caught again when she stopped next to his sign. She pulled the plug and flipped it into her hand. She stared at him again as her fingers touched the metal and the sign lit up again. The neon light gave her face a less-than-human look, reflecting off her piercings in an impressive way.
"I'm not going to apologize for being born different. I can't help being a mutant any more than you can fix your natural assets being..." she paused for a meaningful look downwards, "somewhat lacking. Come on, Bob. No secrets here. I have control over electric currents and charges, you have a tiny wang. We've all got our crosses to bear in life, eh?" She laughed and dropped the plug. Bob watched her leave nervously. Once she was out in the parking lot, he opened the dingy curtains and watched her walk to her truck. She leaned against it for a second, lighting a cigarette. She got in and turned up her music loud enough to hurt Bob's old barkeep ears and started to tap a beat on the wheel. She added a move every few seconds and revved the ancient diesel engine in time to the beat until she peeled out of the parking lot, yelling something along the lines of "Fuck this town!"
"Damned freak," he muttered and sat down wearily.
The freak that Bob the ill-equipped barkeep had so easily rejected was named Evelyn Morrison, though the tiny mountain town knew her as Monica Sutton. She'd been to and been chased from plenty of towns just like this one, and had learned that there were times when a girl just didn't use her real name. She stopped for supplies at the general store, which was old fashioned enough to have an aged gas pump out front and a tiny grocery store too. Evelyn loved these. They were one-stop shopping for the road-tripping mutant on the run. For the first two years of her post-college life, she had the silly notion that she was an aimless drifter, but she had since figured out that as long as she had to lie about who she was and what she could do, she was on the run. The times when she got a job in a town and stayed for more than a day were just brief rest periods until the next sprint.
To make herself enjoy the mad sprint a little more, she had developed a ritual which she had already begun. The car dancing and supply run were the first two, and Evelyn came out of the store with her usual provisions; frozen pizza, whiskey, cigarettes, and a new pack of water. She set her stuff down on the driver's seat and flipped up the passenger's seat. She pulled out the tin foil and wrapped the pizza carefully. She stowed the whiskey for later and threw the water in the trunk. She thanked whoever was listening that most of it was on sale and the smokes were free. Then again, she mused, that might just be that the clerk has a secret thing for tattoos. She felt bad that he had to hear all about it tomorrow, though.
Either way, Evelyn had enough money for the last part of the rejection sprint, but she had to complete the next two steps first. The third was easy enough. Making a noisy exit was one of her sole sources of joy. She wasn't lying to anyone and she got to burn rubber the whole way out of town. Preferably to earsplittingly loud rock music. This night, she succeeded in grand style with Appetite For Destruction. Some of the elderly residents even shook their fists. Step three was complete. Step four was simple, too, though it was harder than usual to find a used-car lot with an open space where Evelyn could lay low and pretend that her truck belonged there. By the time she found one, it was 5:30 in the morning and she had had to drive to a larger town. She was too jacked up on the excitement of leaving to sleep. That's where my friend Jack Daniel's here comes in. She opened bottle and took a swig, sighing as her nostrils burned and her mind blurred. She managed to get a few pieces of pizza down and had a few more drinks until she was fast asleep in the used-car lot.
Evelyn woke the next morning with a cold face and a cold half-pizza. She rubbed her eyes and waited for her head to clear before she tucked the bottle underneath the passenger seat again. She looked around and saw that the lot wasn't open yet. That was a relief. One thing that Evelyn knew was that no one loves a squatter except other squatters. Especially a hung-over one with an open bottle. She sat in the car for a second, pondering who came up with a word like 'squatter' until she remembered that she had one step left in the sprint. This one was to change her appearance somehow. Depending on her mood, this could mean a new pair of Wranglers or a new piercing. Another variable was her available funds. This time, Evelyn had something big in mind. Another ink reminder that nothing is as good as it seems sounded like a good idea. Evelyn started the car and looked at her tattoos on her ankle and arm. Both were there to remind her not to trust anyone, but she couldn't help getting her hopes up about every town she drove into. She already had a good idea of what she needed to stop being so trusting, all she needed now was some hair dye and a good tattoo parlor.