Chapter One: Deadpool's English Lesson
Sneaking away had been the easy part. Jeannie hadn't noticed anything. It was staying hidden that was hard. Naomi sneaked through the shadows, ducking under boxes, weaving in between alleys. She'd done this a million times before. But tonight was different; she wasn't going to go back.
Naomi was heading for one of the old gas stations. It'd been abandoned years ago, when she was little. With its paint peeling off, and the broken pumps, it looked almost haunted. Inside, there were old game cards, and a few empty milk cartons, maybe a small number of old car parts. The windows were boarded up, nobody ever came there, and most thought it would collapse sometime soon. But Naomi was still small enough to fit through the hole in the garage door.
She climbed over the fence that surrounded the old, abandoned gas station, slipping along quietly, like a mouse. Naomi knew she couldn't attract any attention, not now. She ran across the empty lot, the moon shining across her black hair, reflecting every inch of light off it. She pulled her hood over her greasy hair, not wanting it to get caught on anything.
Sliding silently next to the gas stations wall, Naomi ducked into the little hole in the garage door. Pushing a few pieces of wood aside, she made her way through the tunnel she'd built a year ago.
One last squeeze and she was through. Standing up in the small, decaying store front that made up most of the gas station, Naomi looked down at her body. She'd grown, she realized. She'd outgrow dad soon.
Bending down, she unzipped her black backpack. There was a couple days worth of clothes, $200 dollars worth of baby-sitting money, cat food, some jerky, her favorite knife, and all her arrows. Naomi took her bow off of her shoulder, and unstrung it. She ran her hand along the smooth wood, feeling the inscription on it that was written in Japanese.
Attempt is sometimes easier than expected. Naomi remembered the words by heart. She laid the bow down. Turning around, facing the open room, she stared into space for a moment. She thought about her time in Japan when she was little, and then remembered her cat.
"Selene," she whispered. "Selene!"
A house cat, spotted like a cheetah and about as lean as one, crawled out from under an old crate. Prancing quietly over to Naomi, the cat rubbed against its master, and then stuck its head in Naomi's bag, searching for the cat food.
"Okay," whispered Naomi. "Okay! I know you're hungry. What, you didn't catch a mouse this week?"
Selene glared at Naomi, telling her everything she needed to know about her cat's week. Pulling out one can, Naomi pulled the tab and opened it for Selene. After it'd been laid on the ground, Selene pounced on it before Naomi had pulled her hand away.
Giggling, Naomi picked up her bow again. She treasured it more than anything else in the world. It had been made in Japan. Naomi first learned of the "Way of the Bow", or Kyudo, when she'd gone to Japan at age four. After begging for lessons from her parents, Naomi excelled at Kyudo. She even entered an international competition. If she wasn't studying, eating, or sleeping, Naomi was shooting her bow.
Finishing her food with a very satisfied look, Selene turned back to Naomi and leaped into her lap. Stroking her cat, the one that wasn't allowed in her apartment building, Naomi wondered if Jeannie had looked into her bedroom. It wasn't like Jeannie didn't.
Slumping against the wall, Naomi pulled out the jerky she'd brought. It was dumb of her not to eat dinner, but most people would think running away was dumb, so they canceled each other out.
Gnawing at the jerky, Naomi planned what she would do next. She could always go to some foreign country. But that would cost money. A lot of money. That meant she'd have to get a job…
Reaching back into her backpack, she pulled out today's news. Her dad always thought it was weird that she liked knowing what was going on in the world. Jeanie always thought it was fine, as long as it was appropriate.
That was another thing; Naomi always called her mom "Jeanie".
She'd always heard her dad call Jean Grey that, and when Naomi was little, she always did what her dad did. That's how she started reading the news to begin with.
She flipped through the articles, looking for something that would pay decently for about two months. After scanning several articles, Naomi discovered that nothing was on there that wouldn't want a legal guardian's signature.
Shoving the paper back into the bag, she tried to remember Molly Hayes' stories of when they were runaways. Molly twelve than, and never managed the finances of the Runaways group.
Mewing quietly, Selene nudged Naomi's hand. Stroking the cat, Naomi knew she had to think of something fast. She was sorting through every corner of her brain, trying to find some recollection of a story that would help her.
BUDDA-BUDDA-BUDA-BUDDA!
The sound of a machinegun echoed outside of the gas station.
Jumping, Naomi scrambled to her feet. Selene was tossed off her lap, yowling. She was obviously quite annoyed by the recent turn of events.
Wondering what had just occurred, Naomi rushed towards one of the boarded up windows. Peeking out, she saw a flash of gunpowder and ammunition.
The owner of a machine gun was a short, ugly little man wearing a tattered vest. He looked like he had a bad foot, or that could have possibly been due to the fact there were several bullet wounds in his leg. He was positioned behind a concrete barricade, with his machine mounted on top. Next to him was a large bag filled to the brim with ammunition.
The short, ugly little man with the machine gun was apparently shooting the crap, or at least that's what it appeared like to Naomi, out of another man dressed in a red and black jump suit.
The man in the red and black jumpsuit, who appeared to be holding two pistols, was hiding behind a dumpster that was being torn up by the onslaught of bullets being fired at him. The dumpster was positioned up against an opposing wall, so the man in the red and black garb couldn't sneak away anywhere and save his hide. Naomi thought she recognized the man in the red and black jumpsuit from somewhere, but was still a little unsure.
Watching the events unfold. Naomi almost panicked, but remembered two help little words that were on the front of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: DON'T PANIC.
Snatching her bow and a few arrows, Naomi rushed back to the window. She nocked an arrow on her bow string, just in case things got out of hand.
Outside, the man with the machinegun seemed to be gaining the upper hand. At least, what appeared to Naomi to be the upper hand; the dumpster was nearly shredded to bits by the blitz of bullets, and the man in the red and black jumpsuit had maybe what appeared to be a hundred different bullet holes in his jumpsuit.
Naomi, now not heeding the words of Douglas Adams book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, aimed her bow at the head of the short, ugly man with the machine gun. She didn't want anybody innocent to get killed, and the man in the jumpsuit looked a lot more innocent at the moment than the ugly guy with the menacing machine gun.
Watching as the man with the machine gun neared the man in the jumpsuit, Naomi tried to focus on other options.
However, her mind didn't seem her own. The little evil voice in our heads Naomi liked to call her Immorality had started to shout, but more like chant, in the back of Naomi's mind. Even though deciphering what her Immorality said isn't the easiest of jobs, it sounded a little like this:
"Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! KILL IT!"
Naomi tried reasoning with her Immorality, telling it that severe consequences normally ensue when people kill other people. Her Immorality countered that it was bad when you let people that weren't that innocent kill people that seemed a little more innocent than the person who was attempting to kill them.
And Naomi was extremely well known for not being able to win debates with her Immorality.
. . .
Hey! What happened? Eric Poulioette stopped shooting the #$& out of me!
Deadpool peered over the edge of the mutilated dumpster. Did he care about the wounds that he'd received in his chest? No. Did he care that there was suddenly a long, dangerous looking arrow sticking through Eric Poulioette's head? Yes. So Deadpool stood up and went over to investigate, like the curious kitten that he was.
He stood right above the dead man. He smelled the air. It smelled like bologna. Deadpool always thought that dead people always smelled like Bologna. So that must mean the man was dead.
Pulling a pen and a notepad out of his pocket, he checked something off of a little, scribbled list. He reached down and picked up the machinegun and the bag of ammo. He could use this!
He put the pen and notepad back, and pulled out his car keys. Pressing a few little buttons, he programmed the Wade-Mobile to come pick him up. This was, of course, 2025, so why couldn't he get a little lazy and have his car pick him up instead of going a picking the car up himself.
Deadpool thought about how Sabretooth made fun of the name he gave his car. He remembered Victor clearly laughing that when you "wanna maintain a secret identity, ya don't put yer name in yer cars name." He never liked it when Sabretooth mocked the Wade-Mobile.
"Hey! Are you okay!" squeaked a young person.
Spinning around and pulling out his two pistols at once, which was harder than it looked, Deadpool aimed them directly at the head of a girl probably no more than 14 years old. His eye twitched, and Deadpool tried to come to terms with what had just occurred.
Waving her hands in front of his face, the girl tried gaining Deadpool's attention again.
"Um… Are you okay?" asked the girl again. She had a black backpack on, a bow over one shoulder, and a cat on the other. Her hair was black and shiny, and she was about 5 feet 4.
"Huh? Oh… Uh—yeah, I'm fine," stated Deadpool after another minute of confused silence. He was still holding his pistols, both pointed at where the young girl used to be, even though she'd moved out of the way about three minutes prior.
"Do you know who shot Eric Poulioette?" Deadpool asked.
"Who?"
Deadpool pointed to the man on the ground with the arrow through his head.
"Eric Poulioette," pronounced Deadpool, letting the name roll off his tongue. "Rolls off of my tongue nicely, almost like diarrhea or bazooka. Do you know who shot him?"
The girl looked down at the dead man, then back up at Deadpool. She had the most confused look on her face.
"Who do you think, wielding a bow and arrow, could have shot him?" she replied sarcastically.
Deadpool paused for a moment, looking around.
"Umm…" He pondered. "That cat?"
He pointed to the cat on the girl's shoulder.
Putting her hands over her face, the girl sighed, annoyed and even more confused.
"I DID!" she exclaimed. "That's why I asked if you were okay!"
Deadpool looked at her, then the cat, then the dead man, and the back at the girl. The little hamster that ran his brain was working especially hard tonight.
"But—you—you're just a kid!" he stammered. "You couldn't shot a guy in the head with a bow and arrow and just, you know, kill him. I mean, that's just wrong! And illegal, but don't lecture me on illegal…"
"Wanna test that little theory?" invited the girl, tapping her footing and folding her arms in annoyance. "He was trying to blast the crap outta you! I mean, I couldn't exactly tell who the bad guy here was, but—wait. He shot the crap outta you! Why are you alive?"
"Good question!" exclaimed Deadpool, sarcastically, holding two thumbs up. "Bad time to answer it. I have to leave now. You can give me a call by clapping three times and shouting chimichanga!"
Spinning around, Deadpool ran straight in the other direction, down an alley. He left the girl standing there, looking bewildered.
Deadpool kept running. He then thought to himself that he forgot to put his car keys back and had dropped them when he pulled out his guns. He also then realized that the kid now possessed his car keys.
Spinning around again, Deadpool ran straight back to where the girl was standing. Only she wasn't standing any more, she was sitting shotgun in the front of the Wade-Mobile.
"Hi!" greeted the girl. "Dropped you keys."
The girl waved them in front of Deadpool's face. Cocking his head to one side, he tried to figure out exactly what this kid was trying to pull.
"My stuffs in the back," continued the girl. "I'm Naomi, by the way. So you can tell me all about your healing factor and all that on the car ride to whatever state you live in at the moment."
"Wait…" Deadpool was having a brain fart. "You wanna come with me?"
"Yeah."
"You wanna come with me?"
"Yeah," said Naomi. "You asked that already."
"No I didn't," replied Deadpool. "The writer put 'with' in italics on the first question and 'me' in italics on the second one."
Naomi gaped at Deadpool for a moment, and then resumed the conversation.
"Yes, I wanna come with you 'cause I've got nowhere else I really need to be at the moment," she explained. "And I figured out who you are: Deadpool! You're all over the S.H.I.E.L.D. files I've hacked into."
"Okay, see when you said 'And I' how you had 'and' in italics--" Deadpool noted. "Wait… You hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
"Yeah," replied Naomi.
"So, you wanna come with me? And notice how 'with' is in italics."
"Yes, in italics, I wanna come with you."
Deadpool smiled and hopped into the driver's seat. Naomi handed him the keys, and Deadpool shoved them into the ignition. Deadpool realized that this kid, sitting next to him in the Wade-Mobile—
"Okay, you see 'Wade-Mobile's' in italics?" said Deadpool as he interrupted the narrator. "Now that was because 'Wade-Mobile' is a name. Oh, $#!%, I forgot to put 'Wade-Mobile' in italics."
"Whatever," Naomi mumbled. "Don't lecture to me about English."
"Okay-dokay," chimed Deadpool. "Guess what?"
"What?" inquired Naomi.
"No, guess," replied Deadpool.
Naomi paused for a moment, which then lead to a minute.
"FIVE!" announced Deadpool.
Anyway, Deadpool realized that this kid, sitting next to him in the Wade-Mobile was probably the only person in the world at the moment that could probably pull off annoying Sabretooth worse than he or Jean LeBeau could. So, naturally, Deadpool was gonna take Naomi along to Louisiana with him.