A/N: Second in this series. I spent a bit more time on this one, so it's longer and probably darker than Pietro's. Lance belongs to KidsWB and Marvel, but the other kids belong to me. So THERE!

It's Not So Bad: Lance
by GypsyJ

It's not so bad. Being a mutant, I mean.

Okay, so it kinda sucks in some ways. Like getting a headache whenever I use my powers. Like having no where to run, no one to turn to. Having pretty much no choice but to join the Brotherhood. I hate that kinda shit.

Don't get me wrong, I love my power. But sometimes I wish I had something more useful... like super-speed, or that mind-reading thing. Or phasing through walls. There are some pretty cool powers out there.

Whatever. Thanks to my power, everybody knows not to mess with Lance Alvers.

Well, maybe not *everybody*, but you know what I mean.

If I went back home right now, I'd get killed in five minutes. Pretty much everyone there knows that I made the school collapse and all that. I didn't even do it on purpose, but I gotta admit... seeing the walls crumble, the ambulances, the blood... It's pretty cool.

There are a lot of thing I think are cool that a lot of people would think are evil. One thing in particular.

When I was eleven, kids picked on me a lot. You should probably know that I was a lot smaller then, one of the smallest in my grade, and that I was homeless. My most recent foster parents had beaten me nearly to death, so I ran away and had been living on the streets for two years. I kept going to school, though. I've only really got one moral, and it's that *everyone* should try their hardest. Never give up. Stay in school, if that's the case. Which it was.

So there I was, out on the playground in my ragbag clothes, having not bathed in days, with some big bully kid making fun of me and a bunch of other kids standing around and laughing. "Don't make fun of me!" I said. "Make me!" he said. I balled my little fists and closed my eyes shut tight, and after a few seconds their laughing blended into a deep, steady rumbling and the sound of crumbling pavement. I opened my eyes and there he was, hanging onto the edge of a deep crack in the earth for dear life. "Somebody help me!" he said. I smiled. "No," I said and stepped on his hands. I ran away, but not to quickly to hear him scream like a little girl.

So, yeah, there are parts about being a mutant that I hate. But I wouldn't give it up for anything.