Chapter five - we're going to run into a member of the X-Men in this chapter, so watch out!

Rob wasn't having any good luck at all. He had left the house a few days ago, and yet things were not getting any better. He was properly clothed against the elements this time, he slept under whatever body of water he could find. He tried to sleep in a river, which was a terrible mistake. The pull of the current was impossible to sleep over.

Yet there was even a worse problem, and that was with food. He had money with him, and he stopped at a Taco Bell to get some food. And the people blatantly refused to serve him anything.

Rob had not thought about that, but everywhere he went, people acted the same. They took one glance at his red skin and they refused his business.

He hadn't eaten in a whole day when he tried it again at a local grocery store. He picked up a single candy bar and stood at the register. The girl running the machine stared at him.

" Can I buy this?," he asked, but the girl said nothing. Instead, she looked helplessly over her shoulder as if expecting for a manager to come and rescue her from the situation. Rob stood looking at her, waiting for an answer.

" Can I please buy this?," Rob asked.

" Uh, we're not supposed to...," the girl trailed off. She was obviously very shaken by Rob. Rob stared at her, concentrating hard.

The girl looked at Rob suddenly. He reached out and placed a five dollar bill on the counter. "There," the red mutant said and he turned and walked out the door. She picked up the bill and she put it in her pocket.

Or so she thought.

Rob stopped outside of the grocery store, looking miserably at the candy bar he had stolen. Sure, he got away with it without anyone realizing what had happened, but he felt bad. He hadn't given the girl anything for it, either.

He felt guilty, but hunger was a stronger emotion.
Rob continued onwards to NYC, walking mostly because they had refused to let him ride on the bus. But it wasn't so bad walking. He wasn't on any sort of a time schedule, and he took his time looking at things and exploring the towns that he happened upon.

Rob tried his candy bar scam at another grocery store, too, but this time guilt prevented him from doing what he had gone in there to do. Instead he just turned away from the register, put the candy bar back, and walked into the back of the store because there was a security guard by the front door that he couldn't trust. Rob reached the back of the store, and walked through the 'employees only' door that lead into the back warehouse.

He didn't run into anyone as he made his way to the back door, and then, he was out. He punished himself for not going through with his plan - he was hungry and desperate, but just then something else caught his attention. He was standing next to the dumpster, and he peered inside.

He could not believe his eyes. There had to be at least fifty boxes of Chips Ahoy! cookies in there. Without even thinking, he flung open his back pack and crammed as many boxes as he could into the bag.

Rob must have looked funny, walking down the street, munching on cookies and handing out all the spare boxes to people that passed by him. He could never have believed that so much stuff would have gotten thrown away - and even more surprisingly that the food was still good.

He had to remember that. Dumpster diving was way more better than stealing.
It took Rob weeks to reach New York City. He checked behind every grocery store he came across, most of them were a success. One had a few packages of Thomas's waffles. But the best dumpster was the one that had hundreds of boxes of Lucky Charms. He sat next to the dumpster all through out the night separating the cereal from the marsh mellows, and cramming as many marsh mellows in as many boxes as he could. He always dreamed of doing that when he was a kid.

But now he was in New York City, and things were much more different. He had no idea where he was going, and he got helplessly lost. Everyone he asked for directions gave him a different answer - and all of them sounded so ridiculous he was sure he could do the opposite of what they had told him and be okay.

He didn't know where he was going to find this school, either. Maybe he should have looked into it more before he left home, but he knew he couldn't have done that. He could never have left once his parents knew he was awake - he would feel so bad seeing them that he couldn't leave again. Hopefully, they could understand. What kind of a life could he live at home?

At least if this school existed, he would he around other mutants - as long as they weren't the crazed murderous bunch that everyone made them out to be.

After a day of searching, Rob finally reached downtown. He looked at all the sights as much as he could. Even when the city succumbed to a shower of rain, Rob was still taking in the sights. His skin was soaking up the rain fast enough, so he didn't really get wet. That was something else that Rob noticed about himself - he felt an urge to keep drinking water, to be in it and around it. The rain felt nice on his skin, and satisfied that urge.

Yet Rob had reached another problem now that he was in the city - how was he going to find out where this school was? He surely couldn't just walk up to people and ask them about it. Even people who looked like they should be mutants probably weren't. There was just no way that he could tell. He had to just hope that someone who was a mutant would see him and help him out.

Rob was almost positive that if he stayed in the city long enough, that something good would happen.

Something good did not happen. As night fell once more, Rob was alone in a city full of crazy hobos and drunks. Everywhere he went, some guy started to shout at him incoherently. If he kept moving, he'd be okay, he told himself.

But even that wasn't the case. No matter where he walked, people would keep in stride. He had hoped that someone would look upon his face and have the sense to stay away from him. Some people were, but the things with crazy drunk hobos is that you don't want to draw attention to yourself.

" Look'e, here's one-a them," a crazy guy said to Rob. Rob didn't say anything and kept walking. The crazy guy followed him, shouting to people that didn't exist.

" Look'e, there he goes, where does he think he's going?," the crazy man shouted as Rob wondered quickly if the crazy guy could run. He just nearly broke into a run, but the crazy guy suddenly grabbed Rob by the arm.

Rob tried to shake his arm out of the crazy guy's hand, but the drunk guy had a surprisingly strong grip.

" Look'e, I gots one-a them," the crazy guy said before he burst into flames. Rob disappeared into the night, and drunk guy was soon standing alone in an alley, wondering if he had just imagined that he had caught on fire.

Rob didn't like that - he didn't like having to resort to his powers to get out of situations like that, but that's how he got through the night. How many more nights could he last until he found this stupid school?
Rob's answer was currently six days, and things weren't looking any brighter. He had found out some things about the city that made his life even more miserable - there was no way that he would let himself go through any dumpster in the city, there was no way he would ever even think about swimming in any body of water around here (image breathing in that!), people were even ruder to him than he could have possibly feared, and everyone seemed to be absolutely mad crazy. People seemed to shout at him from all directions and Rob wished he could hide.

He was hungry and no one would let him eat anything - which was worse. There were few places that he could steal from in the city. Almost all the places he went to had absolutely paranoid security guards and they would follow him as close as a dog.

He even got kicked out of the library for drinking water from the fountain for hours on end.

And worse yet, he could not find anywhere to swim. The feeling was nagging at his heart for days, and he wondered if it was like breaking away from an addiction. He would shake uncontrollably for hours, his head split with a bludgeoning force. He felt weak and empty and his heart yearned desperately for water. He was hungrier than that, though, and he had to risk his safety so many times by stealing the most meager of candy bars from convenient marts too small to have hired guards.

Not only that, but he had been existing on very little sleep. How could he sleep in a place like this? He would usually find a secluded spot to rest during the day, but there was no way that he would risk sleeping at night. He stayed in downtown, fearing what kind of places he might end up if he journeyed elsewhere.

The effects of not swimming were starting to show on him - the color of his skin once again draining away. But even that seemed to be an improvement. His face was so pale that it would take someone a second glance to see the traces of red that remained, and even if it was painful to do so, Rob wanted it to remain this way.

And so Rob had a blissful day of not being stared at by everyone he looked upon, that is, until it rained. All the brilliant redness of Rob's skin color came shining out once again, and so dashed all hopes of having a somewhat normal day.

Rob walked, hands in his pockets, eyes on his feet, hoping that no one would bother him. He was being to wonder if he should even keep looking for this school at all and just go back home where things were a little bit more sane.

Rob was staring at his feet, with the hood from his hoodie pulled as far low over his face as it would go, and as a result, he couldn't really predict where he was walking. He probably looked really sad and pathetic as well, but Rob didn't want to dwell on that.

He ran into a couple of people as he walked, really just brushing against them, nothing big. One person was different. Rob ran into them so hard that it twisted him around - and the same with the woman he ran into - and they stared at each other for a few seconds before Rob continued on his way.

" Wait!," the woman called after him, but Rob only walked faster.

He didn't know why but there was something unsettling about the whole thing, yet when he chanced to look over his shoulder, he realized that the woman was following him. Rob broke out into a run.

Rob couldn't help but feel afraid. Over a span of few weeks he had been knocked down and nearly arrested by cops, chased by crazy drunk hobos, and shunned by almost every person that looked at him. He just wanted to find this stupid school, and it seemed like everyone in the world was doing their best to stand in his way.

Yet Ororo Munroe, a.k.a. Storm, was not one of those people. She had been sent to New York City to find Rob Vincennes - and by the description she received, she didn't think it would be so difficult. A red-skinned mutant with an affinity for water - she started by searching the beaches. But everyone she had asked about Rob could not recall seeing him. It would have been hard to forget a teenager with bright, fire engine red skin.

Intuition told her that a boy from the suburbs would naturally stay wherever he felt safe - the city could be a scary place, so she headed downtown. And just as luck would have it, she found him. But it seemed as though Rob Vincennes did not want to be found.

" Wait!," she called after him, but he had already broken into a run. She ran after him.

" Rob Vincennes! Wait!," she shouted, and to her surprise, he stopped dead in his tracks. She caught up with him quickly enough. He was breathing hard as if even a little effort to get away was too much.

" How do you know my name?," he asked, his voice soft and welcoming, yet obviously weary.

" I was sent to find you," Storm answered in the kindest voice she could muster because the boy was obviously afraid, " I am from the Xavier school for - "

" You're a mutant!," Rob suddenly realized with clear delight. All apprehension dropped from his demeanor.

" Yes I am," Storm replied with a smile.

" And you're from that school?," he asked, hardly able to contain the excitement that was rising inside of him. Was it true? Had he finally found a way to get to the school?

" Yes."

" I was ready to just give up, I thought Kelly was playing tricks with me or something."

Kelly? Storm thought. That was the name of the girl who had arrived at the school a few weeks ago - the one who could make miniature duplicates of herself from the palm of her hand.

" No, it's true. We do have a school, and you're welcomed to join us, if you're ready."

Rob didn't even have to consider the question, " Of course I am! What else am I going to do?"

And so Rob was on his way to going to the Xavier school, and he could not be happier.

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