Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own imagination, Bianca and Neon, credit for other characters where it's due!
I'm so unbelievably sorry for taking so long! I have reasons…most of them aren't interesting or fun, but mainly I've started work at a wildlife rescue centre, and have had hedgehogs on the brain ! I'm gonna keep trying though! I have some fun things planned!
Maximum Fallout: 11 Family Proposals
By the time the herd had been running for a good few hours, they were soaked. It wasn't really a problem, they were kept warm by the running, and they'd been through worse. However, fatigue was beginning to set in.
Their speed had slowed down as they tired. Taco and Zenia were struggling especially. Taco had been 'designed' for agility and aerobatics, and Zenia for fast running, but over long distances they were fairly badly adapted, for mutants anyway.
Ant, although younger, faired better. After all, wolves loped for miles, so he and Ash had little trouble with the distance. Neon and Jessie would have managed better in the air, but with the sky still cloaked with darkness and the strong wind and rain, it was far too easy to get separated.
They didn't dare stop for fear of the erasers catching up to them, although they did slow to a walk to save their legs.
"How much further? I think my feet are about to fall off." Taco complained loudly, a whining tone to her voice.
"I think we must be further away then I thought, it should have got warmer by now."
"Warmer! How far away do you live exactly?" Zenia moaned in horror.
"Well it's not far from the sea so, quite a way away." The herd failed to disguise their looks of horror at the thought of such a long journey. Sure they'd gone way longer then this before, but that was without knowing.
"We should never have crashed that bus." Groaned Neon as he attempted to flick his soaping fringe from his eyes.
"How did you manage to live somewhere hot? You've got wings! Surely someone would have seen some feathers?" Jessie smiled slightly at Kuro's question.
"Well I just made sure never to go to the beach or swim in public, I don't really like water anyway."
"I like water." Neon commented absently.
"I wanna see the sea!" Ant's excited tone sent dread through Bianca; she knew what would come next…
"Aw yeah me too! We could have a beach day!" Sure enough, Taco had leapt on board, hopefully they would never, ever, see the sea. Or there'd be no stopping them. They'd be exposed in a minute with their tails and ears and other oddities.
"So we're going somewhere actually warm! Thank god!" Jason exclaimed, he disliked the cold.
"Just how hot are we talking, I'm not built for heat!" Bianca complained, her long, hick furred tail was built for a cold climate, and although in summer she moulted slightly, it wasn't enough to make a difference when it got properly hot.
"Hmm quite hot I'm afraid, at least at this time of year."
"Great, I'm gonna melt, or shrivel into a prune."
"Maybe you'll get a tan, I'd like a tan." In Bianca's mind, Taco was far too happy about their impending doom.
"Sigh, guess we'll find out the hard way."
::Fallout::
Surely enough, the temperature had risen an alarming number of degrees by morning, the landscape had changed from rolling green hills to scrubby rocky and sandy slopes, pine trees had turned to palm.
Even though the heat was driving her insane in her thick winter coat and clothes, Bianca was still amazed by just how far the herd could travel these days when pushed.
"I can smell the sea!" Ant cried out jubilantly, his head was thrown back as he sniffed in apparent rejoice. Ash's wolf form was posed in a similar manner, but looked slightly more wary. Taco giggled and snorted slightly.
"You don't even know what it smells like! You've never even been to the sea!"
"I do too know! It smells like salt, and fish." Taco looked suitably impressed, Jason however, rolled his eyes impatiently.
"Come on can we hurry! I can't wait to get sunbathing!" Bianca shuddered again, the very thought made her feel hotter.
"Isn't anyone except me even vaguely worried that we'll either have to be discovered as weird mutated experiments or swelter in way more layers then is necessary for this level of heat?" By the complete feeling of being pointedly ignored as talk raged on about sunbathing, yes, she was the only one thinking that.
"I'm not too crazy about it either…" Kuro muttered conspiratorially.
"And I wouldn't mind being a little cooler…" Ash added uncertainly. Bianca smiled in a hopeless sort of appreciation, however, the remaining herd members appeared oblivious to any of their inconveniences.
Dawn was just creeping up over the dunes as the herd approached the town, thankfully warily.
They watched from the ridge of a rocky slope that sat a little way above one of the main roads leading into the town.
"Okay, I know you're all excited, but I catch so much as a tail hair from one of you go into the ocean there'll be issues. We find Jessie's father, we see if this is a safe place, then well decide what to do next, got it?"
There were nods of agreement all around from the herd, even the youngest members could be serious at times.
Eventually a large truck carrying hay came trundling along the road. The assembled mutants leapt a one into the concealing and scratchy substance and took turns poking their heads out to scan the surroundings for a safe drop off point.
"Remember, keep your clothes on, I don't care how hot you get." Bianca instructed as she fought the hay to take a look out turn. There was a clenching feeling in her stomach that screamed at the snow leopard what a bad idea this whole goose chase was. Every sense she had was yelling at her to get out, now. But somehow she once again found herself unable to deprive her herd of some well-earned excitement and happiness. She really was too soft.
Sticking her head out of the hay, she saw a large gate with security guards getting further away from them.
Her stomach dropped like lead. She knew what that was, they all did, they'd all seen enough films to recognise a checkpoint when they saw one.
The city was on lock down.
::Fallout::
"Well we're in now, might as well stay."
"Yeah its not like we can leave after all!" Bianca did so hate it when Jason stated the obvious. Only a couple of them appeared concerned, the rest seemed to think that this was either fate or just a better reason to stay.
Could they not see what she could? The giant wire mesh entrapping them in a cage? A cage of gigantic proportions, a boiling trap where they would surely melt or be discovered, with endless streams of people and dead ends, a cage by the beach…but a cage nonetheless.
Jason must have read the barely contained tension below her icy glare.
"Just go with it, what's the worst that could happen?" She turned to him, incredulous.
"Do you really want me to answer that? Besides its not like we have a choice!" He merely rolled his eyes and moved over to talk to Taco, Kuro was watching them anxiously, and sidled over when the older mutant moved.
"What do you want to do?" The lynx questioned softly. Bianca looked into his electric blue eyes, laced with a nervous gold light. She knew in that instant that if it came down to a fight, he'd be beside her in a millisecond.
"I don't want to do what we're going to have to… Which is try to blend into a distinctly normal city, which wont happen because we're at the beach, but decked out for the tundra, all to try and find some girl's father who may or may not be alive or even still here… And then get back out, through a series of security guards and gates and cameras, without loosing anyone to the draw of the ocean or shops or suburban life. And if none of that gets us caught then I'm a sheep." She finished grumpily, and Kuro 'baa'd' in solidarity.
She heaved a sigh.
"We'll just have to wing it." She concluded.
"Shame so few of us have wings." Kuro added darkly.
::Fallout::
The herd abandoned the hay truck on Jessie's instructions, and begun sneaking through the waking city.
About the only thing keeping Bianca sane was the pre-dawn darkness, hopefully they would reach somewhere safe before there was too much danger of being seen.
She hurried the herd through the city, all of her senses on hyper-alert, and at least the others seemed to be picking up on her caution, for now.
Eventually Jessie begun to slow with trepidation, and although the snow leopard couldn't blame her, she wished the bird girl would speed up.
They rounded a final corner to see a street of perfectly domestic houses. Two story buildings with sizeable gardens aligned in perfect symmetry with their fences and hedges, lawns a state of manicured bliss for a gardener.
The sight made Bianca's hair stand on end. This was all just too normal, right out of a movie set, if the inhabitants knew there were nine child mutants walking down there street they'd surely be out with the torches and pitchforks. Vicious Chihuahuas at the ready.
Looking around Bianca saw Jessie streak ahead to a particular house, one just a little more overgrown then the ones next to it, but only just. There was a look of incredulous joy on her face. It took Bianca a few moments to realise that the girl had tears in her eyes.
Jason, Taco, Ant and Kuro were surrounding her curiously, Kuro met her gaze and nodded behind her.
Zenia, Neon and Ash were lurking a little way behind Bianca, they weren't going to approach this suspicious house unless she did.
It was hard to tell which of them was the most tense. The four hesitant mutants jumped severely when a thunderous knocking sounded from Jessie pounding the door.
"Daddy? Daddy are you there? It's me! Daddy open up!" Bianca beat the nearer mutants to the bird girl, dragging her from the door and covering her mouth, panic stricken at the shouts being heard.
"Shhhh! Be a bit quieter alright!" Bianca pleaded in undertones. The herd swung around to see if they were about to be discovered.
Across the street a curtain twitched open. The herd was bathed in orange light.
In an instant the herd leapt to Bianca and Jessie, trying to disguise themselves in the unhelpfully short shrubbery.
Bianca could hear talking from the houses, footsteps to windows as curtains were being drawn back, beyond the rooftops, an entirely natural gold glow was creeping up to reveal the hiding mutants.
"Dammit!" Bianca hissed. There was only one possible avenue of escape, and it needed to be fast. Neon and Zenia were tensed for fight and flight, against normal humans. If these people really did take their torches and pitchforks to even those two mutants, it would be a massacre. 'Never cage an animal' she found herself thinking.
In split second timing, the oldest mutant swung to look at the only door that could offer potential sanctuary, and that could harm them the worst. But against the threat of a whole street, she'd pick one man.
"Guys, action!" Bianca grabbed the frozen Jessie round the waist and charged the white wooden door, she could take it.
The slam might have woken even more people. But in the seconds that followed the lock breaking, not a single human would have caught the other mutants sprinting over the threshold, before the door was kicked close.
::Fallout::
Zenia glanced up and into quaint suburbia. The calmly indistinguishable wallpaper colour, wooden varnished floors, ornaments sitting on dinky tables that vanished down a dark hall...
A slightly balding middle-aged man in a dressing gown staring blankly at them.
Zenia flinched along with the rest of the herd, and leapt backwards as she felt the subtle movements of her family doing the same thing.
Eight of the nine mutants slammed into the front door and each other, trapped against the threat outside and the threat within.
Next to her she could feel Neon shaking slightly, his thoughts swirling too fast for her to catch. Taco was pressed against Jason, Ant clung to Bianca who had positioned herself in front of the rest of them, Ash was pressed flat against the door, partly out of nerves, partly because there were seven other mutants pressing against her.
Zenia tried to ignore the thoughts of her family pressing against her mind, she'd gotten better at controlling her powers over the years, but in times of stress her control seemed to wane. She focused instead on the man in front of them.
"J-Jessie?" The stuttered question hung unanswered in the air, Jessie's eyes were bright and wide with conflicting thoughts.
Tension hung in the air for a few long moments. The herd waited silently to see whether they would be ruined or welcomed.
"Daddy!" Jessica threw herself into her father's arms, tears poured down both faces as they hugged for the first time in years.
The herd relaxed slightly, but remained in their positions by the door, unsure where they stood in this reunion.
"B-but how? When?" The baffled man glanced over to the frozen mutants invading his hall. "…Who?"
"These are the people who helped me escape… Without them, I'd be…I'd be…" Jessie trailed off as her voice choked, covering her face with her hands as memories consumed her.
Zenia turned her head away from the broken words coming from her mind, as if that would help. She could already feel a headache building up.
Jessie's father held her close as she sobbed, unshed tears in his own eyes as well.
Eventually, after herd had gotten uncomfortable with intruding on the scene, the man looked over at them.
"You set my daughter free, I don't know how I can thank you enough!"
"Not calling the cops on us would be a start." Zenia heard Bianca mutter. The man started to laugh, before he realised that the blonde was serious.
"I would never knowingly turn a child over to them! For today you can stay here, and I'll find homes for you."
"What!" The herd yelped as one…but in several different minds.
The puma girl looked around to meet Bianca's eyes before they turned to look at Taco and Ant, both of who had cried out in joy, rather then horror. Neon had shifted behind her, moving away from Jason, who was turning red at also having been with the 'joy' crowd.
Ash looked petrified, rooted to her spot plastered against the door, Kuro looked shocked, as though for once his brain had failed him.
"Urm, aha, we can't stay..at least not with people…if you haven't noticed, we're not exactly human." Bianca stuttered, allowing her beautiful, patterned tail to swish noticeably through the air.
"I don't care about that!" He sounded affronted, and drew himself up proudly whilst Jessie smiled.
"And neither will the families that I can place you with. There are more of us out there then you think that know all about those sick labs. And for some reason this town has quite a large percentage of people 'in the know' and parents of experiments."
"Are you sure that that's not just because they're trying to keep you all in one nice safe controlled area?" Zenia nodded along with Kuro at Bianca's suspicions.
"They've taken too many children from this town," He begun darkly. "People begun to ask questions, schools loosing too many students, neighbours noticing when their pregnant friends came back from hospital without babies. There was a sudden mass exodus of scientists one year when the old hospital-turned-laboratory burnt down. Fearing a terrorist attack, the government set up the new security procedures, after all, this city receives a lot of off shore trade."
The herd gawped at his explanation, some having only understood half of it. The half that said there had been a lab right here and that if they weren't careful the government would discover all about them.
"We just can't stay here…" Bianca almost pleaded. Zenia had a choked feeling, trapped. Behind her Neon's heart had sped up past its normally fast pace.
"But you can't leave, you'll never get through, at least not all at once."
Bianca turned away from the man, her eyes wide.
'What are we going to do! What am I going to do! Can't leave all at once? What does that even mean!' Bianca turned to Zenia who had breathed in sharply after hearing the elder's thoughts. Ice shadow blue eyes met light amethyst as Bianca thought slowly and clearly, just for her. 'I will not leave anyone behind, we all go together, like always. Just be brave.'
Zenia nodded shakily, and Bianca turned back to Jessie's father.
"We appreciate this, we have nowhere else to go." The words sounded abnormal, none of them were very good at this sort of conversation (mostly because they never had it, ever). What freaked Zenia out more then anything however, was the fact that Bianca was having to hand over her control, her solo role as head of the herd was now having to be slightly shared.
And no matter how nice this man seemed, she didn't trust him, she didn't trust any adults. She well remembered what the last adults that were nice to her had turned out to be.
::Fallout::
Taco was enjoying herself. She had that wonderful mixture of excitement, adventure and happiness.
They were gong to get families! Real families! Ones that knew they were mutants, but didn't care! Sure maybe they were only families on loan, but it was better then having to change homes every other week, or day…
Taco couldn't say she was a religious person, she didn't really know what it was, but sometimes she felt sure that her parents were watching out for her, somewhere far away.
Thinking about them always made her sad, but also hopeful, as if they would look out for her no matter what. She had almost repressed the memory of that day, the day when everything had gone so wrong, sometimes she dreamt of it, of the blood, of the screams. But almost unconsciously she would prevent the memory reaching the tangible level of her cognition.
The chinchilla folded her hand around the cross around her neck. She preferred to believe that in some small way they lived on. They had guided her to meeting the herd, helped them escape, been with her through the worst experiments, the ones she still had the marks of. And now it seemed she was being guided to a loving home, if only temporarily, along with the rest of the herd, who seemed to have come under her parents protection also.
The young blonde looked across at Zenia, who was trying to sleep unsuccessfully next to her in the humungous double bed. The dark haired girl had never spent a night away from Neon after escaping the lab, she hadn't slept in the lab without drugs either.
She felt sorry for Zenia, she had no trust of adults at all, her own mum and dad had betrayed her, they had been whitecoats all along, experimenting with her from the beginning.
Hopefully, a nice family would be exactly what she needed, what they all needed, and then they could all have sleepovers like on TV and then the herd would still be like a family themselves. As that's what they were anyway, a family.
Ash was sleeping fitfully in a sleeping bag on the floor, she seemed to be having a fight with the pillow. Taco had found the softness of the bed abnormal at first, but she was too excited to sleep anyway.
The boys were asleep downstairs in the sitting room. Jason and Ant seemed to have the right idea about family life, Jason probably was going to use this as a dry run before he found his real parents.
Kuro of course still remembered his family, or at least his sister, and so was probably confused about stuff. Neon seemed scared, mostly of the herd being split up, he was happiest when they were all together.
Taco understood that feeling, but all she had ever wanted was a family, somewhere constant to live.
How cool would it be if one family adopted all of them! But then it was also good to have your own family… But if they all lived next door to each other that would be amazing!
The door creaked open and Bianca's head slipped through, a sliver of the morning light coming in with her.
She looked tired, and older then she usually did, but with a touch of vulnerability that Taco hadn't seen before.
"Go so sleep Taco, when you wake up you can use the shower okay." She whispered in a slightly monotonous voice, before retreating back to where she was sharing Jessie's room.
Poor Bianca had never had a family, even Neon knew he had parents. Taco didn't even know if Bianca had ever thought of having a family, she always seemed to have to be so completely in control of her own fate, of all of their lives. She had made herself responsible for them even before they had broken out.
With all her heart Taco made a silent wish to her guardian parents that Bianca would find some happiness in a new family. The older girl had been taking care of Taco from the first day she arrived at the lab, and as far as she knew it had been the same for all of them. She needed to be taken care of herself for once. She increased her wish to include all of her family, including Ash, who had pretty much become part of the family anyway.
Finally the small mutant girl managed to fall asleep, with dawn creeping its golden light around the curtains.
::Fallout::
It was early afternoon by the time Jason made his way downstairs after enjoying the first real shower he'd had for longer then he cared to count.
Bianca, Ash and Neon were already sitting at the kitchen table, all of them were looking disgruntled and tired. Jason knew Neon hadn't slept, and it seemed that the two girls hadn't really either.
Although he did notice that they had all used the shower too, it wasn't until now that they were clean that he realized how grimy they had all been before.
Certainly he had forgotten the exact shade of reddish brown that his hair had used to be. Neon's iridescent streaks seemed to be almost glowing in the sun, Ash's long hair looked silky and had previously unnoticed highlights as it fell strait down her back, Bianca's hair looked even whiter-blonde than it usually did, and the small silver snow leopard ears looked almost ridiculously cute and fluffy.
Their faces however, showed no expression of joy for their new cleanness. It was like a funeral had taken place in the kitchen.
Jessie and her father looked highly relieved to see him.
"Good morning! Or, well afternoon I suppose! Is there anything you'd like to eat? Cereal, eggs, toast, bacon, sandwiches…anything?" The poor man seemed almost desperate to break the morose silence, Jason noticed that none of the three at the table had had anything to eat.
"Uh, toast and eggs would be great!" Jason caught the relief of both father and daughter at his words, and immediately begun rushing around the kitchen.
Jason moved over to sit beside Neon, but felt a sharp pang when the younger mutant shifted away from him.
Both his eyes and emotions showed hurt in them, and Jason didn't need to probe further to read the betrayal the flamingo felt.
"Hey what's wrong?" Bianca and Ash switched to listen, Neon shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, unwilling to answer, but similarly compelled to.
"You don't care that we're all going to be split up." Jason felt a momentary wash of guilt. Of course in this matter, his family was in two halves. Jason just wanted some peace and quiet for a while, he thought that as they couldn't leave anyway, they deserved some normalcy, he anted to remember what it was like to have a family, so that he could see if he was ready to find his own.
Taco and Ant shared his optimism, and Kuro would go along with it for his own reasons, he would never leave the herd.
Of course Neon and Zenia, and probably Ash, had very little trust for those outside the herd, for good reasons as well. And Bianca had never known anything else. To them the herd was everything. Ash may fair a little better being on her own, although Jason liked to think that she had become emotionally attached to the herd.
"We won't be separated completely, we can still see each other!" Neon evidently didn't believe him, and curled up on his chair.
"Of course you'll all see each other! You'll all be going to school on Monday! I've arranged it all, so don't worry." If the man thought his words would bring relaxation, he was wrong.
"School!" Bianca yelped, her shock preventing her from communicating further, she merely gaped. Ash looked even more concerned now, and Neon had retreated into himself completely.
Throughout the course of the afternoon, the rest of the herd assembled and Jessie's dad made several long phone calls.
The atmosphere was a mixture of tension and excitement.
At about five the doorbell rung, Jessie's father leapt up as the herd froze in their various positions around the kitchen.
"Wh-who's that?" Bianca questioned cautiously.
"Why, I think that will be some of your new families."
Jason watched the hilarious change of Bianca's face from concerned, to downright horrified. You'd have thought she'd been grounded already!
::Just a quick note! If you have any funny ideas for different families they can get stuck with, please let me know! I have a few ideas but I always like hearing more! Similarly any school situations, shall be trying to put the spa idea that was suggested in soon. Finally as they're going to school, this is the perfect opportunity for romance to happen! If you don't say anything to me though I wont give your character any romance. Can be as serious/unserious/fickle/random/extreme as you want!
::Pst, I know the events of this chapter (and story) are unlikely, but the whole book was anyway! :P Also, next chapter may see some of the new characters! I'm going to allow them to develop though, as they will be in the home/school situation for a while and so it doesn't have to be as sudden as previous characters, that way we all get to know them better :)
::Please review, thanks for reading, shadowtheo.