Time for chapter 7!

And to all of you who are reviewing this - keep it up! There's nothing more inspiring to a writer than to know that there are others out there who are reading.

To Jasmine (leggy_fanfirl@hotmail.com) - that would be interesting to write a rob/kelly sequel, or if you wanted to go ahead and write one, that would be great, too. Though I've already got this story planned to about 40 chappies right now (and does the action pick up!) and Kelly has other love interests to come...

To Guin, there will be a lot more of Rob interacting with other students, especially now that he is in school. I'm glad that you like the story so far!

To remnants_2011, I'm glad that you liked Kelly's and Rob's powers. Of course, in this point of the story, we don't really know the full potential of Rob's powers, but that's more action to come ; ) I was a little unsure of how people would take to Kelly's powers - so it's really nice to see that people like it! And, there's going to be even more characters introduced later on that have other original powers as well.

To Wolvie's Gurl - so happy to see that you're enjoying the story! And that I keep updating!

To Snitter_in_Rivendell - of course your reviews make me the happiest. You actually tell me exactly what parts you enjoyed, such as dialoge and whatnot. The dialoge is the part that worries me the most, and so your reviews always make me smile. And they're so long! yeah!

To everyone else who I've forgotten, thanx!

And now on with chapter 7!

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Brittany Ontalvo smiled as she looked down the hall, or more accurately, as she looked through the wall of her classroom and down the hall. Rob Vincennes and Adrian Nickels were late for class (once again), and they were sprinting for the classroom like the whole building was on fire. Even if they were late, they still were laughing to themselves, finding a way to make a game out of everything.

Rob, of course, couldn't run nearly as fast as Adrian. If he didn't keep his mind on where his feet were, he'd trip over them and fall. This time, however, he kept his mind on maintaining balance, and he made it to the door without crashing to the ground.

Adrian opened the door to the classroom, and smiled. Of course everyone knew they were going to be late. They usually were.

Storm turned around from the chalkboard and gave them a disapproving stare. That was about as much power as she could hope to invest in to make the boys feel guilty about interrupting class - they had been late to class too many times before to put much more emotion into it.

" Find your seats," Storm told them, for she had long ago abandoned the task of scolding them.

Rob smiled at her, because she was one of the very first mutants he had ever meet - in fact, if he hadn't met her, he might still be sitting in New York City cursing it's filthy water. Storm managed to smile back - it was far too hard not to be angry with two teens who were so optimistic - and she continued teaching the class.

" At least we're late for history," Rob whispered under his breath as he reached his desk and started to take out his books.

Next to him, Adrian managed a silent laugh. He might have said something to follow up on the insult of history, but Rob couldn't hear it. Sometimes Adrian forgot just how quiet he really was.

On the other side of the room, Brit smiled at Rob. He was completely oblivious to the fact that she was even there - staring off into space while nonchalantly sipping on a bottle of water. She didn't know why she thought he was cute, after all, who could be attracted to someone with bright red skin? He was cute, though. And caring, and funny, and honest...

Brit shook herself - she had been daydreaming again. She rolled her eyes to herself and tried to concentrate on the class.

" And even after the First World War had ended, the Spanish flu reached epidemic levels, and millions more people died," Storm was saying.

" They probably would have stayed alive if the 19-teens were actually interesting," Adrian whispered to Rob. Rob tried not to laugh at the remark - it wasn't really that funny of a joke, but simply the fact that he couldn't laugh in class made it more the funnier. Rob buried his head in his arm to stifle the sound of his laughter.

" Rob," Storm said as he interrupted the class for the second time today.

" Sorry, Ms. Munroe," Rob said, while still trying not to laugh. Storm went back to teaching and Rob punched Adrian in the arm for getting him in trouble again. Adrian smiled - he had been laughing, too, but no one heard a sound.

Rob looked up for a moment, which was rare in this class, and met eyes with Brit. He quickly looked away. He always felt scared when he noticed that she was looking at him - that being due to his reasoning that if someone could look through walls, they could look through anything.

" Dude, you're being stupid," Adrian would say whenever Rob brought it up, " She probably just likes you, though I don't know why."

" No," Rob would correct, "I'm serious, I mean, have you ever seen the way she looks at me? There's something going on there."

Adrian would always roll his eyes after that, refusing to make the connection that was obvious to Rob.

The history lesson dragged on and on about the importance of World War One that the students refused to acknowledge, until the time ran out. Then Storm made an announcement that caused the room to quake with excitement.

" Okay class, next week we are going to be going on a field trip to the Nature Museum in New York City...," Storm began. She continued on for a while longer, but Rob couldn't hear her anymore. A museum? A field trip?

At first, Rob was just about as excited as the rest of the students - okay, sure it was a museum, but when was the last time that the whole school was out in the 'real world?' It would be great!

Until Rob's heart sank. Just wait, he thought to himself, how can I go? I'm red, for shit's sake. Rob listened for a moment to what Storm was saying, "...and it's everyone's responsibility to be able to control their powers. The world beyond this school is still very hostile to mutants - I've had to do a lot of convincing to be able to arrange this field trip - so everyone has to be on their absolute best behavior."

Well, that practically ended it for Rob. How could he go to the museum if he was red? Instead, he'd have to spend the whole day just sitting in his room, while everyone else actually got to leave for once.

Rob groaned aloud at his situation.

" Okay, class is over," Storm was saying as everyone got up from their seats, " Rob, can I see you for a moment?"

" Great," he muttered to himself, " Trouble again. How much shittier can this day get?"

" Much shittier," Adrian whispered back (Rob had forgotten that even muttering under his breath couldn't go unheard), " Just imagine - the museum."

Of course Rob probably would have agreed with Adrian if he could have gone - the museum probably would be dreadfully boring - but now that it was obvious that he couldn't, Rob desired it even more.

" I'll meet up with you later," Rob replied as he dragged himself to Storm's desk.

" Yes, ma'am," he said in the most depressing voice he could muster, which sounded funnier than it did serious since he was hardly ever upset about anything and wasn't skilled at making a believable 'sad voice.'

" About the museum, you know it's-," Storm began, but Rob cut her off.

" No, don't worry about it, I'm not going to go," Rob said. Storm was slightly relieved, because she knew that it would be very hard to let Rob go - she wanted to think of way that he could hide the fact that his skin was bright red. But even if Rob had reached the conclusion without anyone having to tell him he couldn't go, it was still upsetting to hear him say it.

" Next time you plan a field trip, though, maybe we can go to a Red Sox game," Rob concluded, " So I can look like a crazy fan instead of just crazy."

*

Rob couldn't help but dwell on the fact that the whole school was going out on a field trip that he couldn't go on. He tried to put it out of his mind, but seeing that he did a lot of day dreaming in class, he was helplessly drawn to the subject.

Classes dragged on for the rest of the day, every hour making Rob and Adrian more sleepy than the hour before it. They probably should stop going on midnight adventures, but they were far too fun. Before they knew it, school was over, they were free, and they began to make their way back to their rooms to plan what to do with their evening.

Rob did his best to put the whole field trip thing behind him, and for the most part, he was successful in at least suppressing the fact that he was upset about it.

" Hey guys," Bobby said as he joined them. He was eating Doritos out of a super-sized bag and making it as obvious as possible.

" Hey!," Adrian said when he noticed.

Bobby only smiled at them in a pleasing sense of victory, and rejoined his girlfriend, Rogue. The pair made their way towards the opposite side of the school, leaving Adrian and Rob standing as though in defeat.

" The nerve!," Adrian said in a voice that would have been more appropriate for a much larger lie.

Rob could only roll his eyes - he didn't want to get involved in another chip-kidnapping that would result in him becoming frozen.

*



Brit made her way back to her room as quickly as possible. She had a lot of homework to do before the evening rolled around, because at six o'clock her friends were going to try to sneak out of the school to go to the nearby mall. That is, only if they could convince Professor Xavier that they would be good (which wasn't too hard since all of them knew how important it was to hide their real identities) and only if they could convince one of the teachers to drive them.

Brit reached her door - looking through it, she could tell that her room mate was already back from classes. She opened the door.

" Hey Kelly," she said warmly.

" Hey," Kelly replied, balling up her hand and forming another little version of herself. She closed her palm again - the girl was gone.

" How was classes?," Kelly asked, even though she got the same answer every day.

" Good, good," Brit said, and smiled, " Did you hear about the field trip?"

" Yeah," Kelly cracked a smile, " It's going to be weird, you know, going back...to the world."

" Tell me about it," Brit replied, " At least I'm not from around here, I'd hate to have to run into someone that I knew."

" I wasn't from New York City," Kelly corrected, " I was from Delhi."

" When you're from Idaho, everything in this state is New York City," Brit corrected. The girls giggled about it. Brit smiled as she sat on her bed, and started to unload the books and paper and pens that she would need to do her homework. Kelly continued to create little people in the palm of her hand. At one point, there were five of them walking around on her bed before she gathered them all back together.

" I guess Rob's not going to go," Brit said, even they had already stopped talking about the museum.

" Would you stop freaking about that guy?," Kelly said, " He's sooo not worth it. I went to school with him, remember?"

" Tell me - he was absolutely gorgeous when he looked normal, right? - if he ever did look normal."

" Look honey, if you want him, you can have him," Kelly replied, reaffirming the fact to her room mate that just because she knew Rob it didn't mean that she was interested in him.

Brit didn't say anything, but just gave Kelly a look which easily read 'don't try to pretend you don't think he'd cute.'

" Stop looking at me like that!," Kelly protested, " You know, you'd think that he'd be cool to you if you saved his life..."

" He is cool to you," Brit explained, " You just give him the cold shoulder."

" Uh... look, if you're going to lecture me about Robbie Vincennes..."

Kelly just let the sentence finish itself, which was a poor way to end a threat. It was true though, Rob had always tried to be cool to her, but why should she care? He was a jock! He was only being cool to her because they weren't back at their old high school.

Of course Kelly was basically making all of this up to explain to herself why she didn't want to like him, and Brit knew it. Brit also had the common sense to know when it wasn't worth pushing someone any further.

They let the matter drop.

*



Brit left a little bit before six, and Kelly was alone in the room. She had strewn her homework all over her bed in an attempt to make herself remember to do it, but all it really ending up doing was reminding her how much she was trying to avoid it. She had hoped that if she tried long enough, she could create a little version of herself that was really good at biology to do her homework for her - but it seemed that there was an empty hole in her brain where 'science' was supposed to have been.

She finally gave up trying to cheat on her homework as she sat down and began.

No matter how hard she tried, her mind kept drifting back to Rob. She couldn't stop herself from thinking he was cute - of course, nearly every girl did, with or without the red skin - and that annoyed her even more. If she was going to have a crush on a guy, she wasn't willing to open up a huge competition for him - how immature was that?

But of course, she thought his brother Todd was pretty cute, too. He was closer to her age anyways - she was 14 and he was 15, and they had become good friends during the time that they had spent together. And at least Todd wasn't a jock.

Kelly rolled her eyes, as though emphasizing to herself the fact that Todd wasn't a jock.

Kelly didn't know if mutations were hereditary - but silently in the privacy of her own room, she hoped that it would. She allowed herself a giddy, girlish giggle. It would be great if Todd became a mutant, too.

There was a knock at the door, killing off all girly thoughts, and Kelly sat on her bed for a while as though unaccustomed to answering it. Brit was usually there - and she would be able to tell Kelly who was at the door before either of them opened it.

Kelly sighed to herself, crossed the room to the door, and opened the door.

It was Scoot.

" Do you really need me to open the door for you?," Kelly asked, even though she knew that the little fairy was so small that she couldn't possibly turn the door knob.

" Yes," Scoot answered as she fluttered into the room.

" Biology homework," Scoot noticed as she landed on the bed.

" Can you do it?," Kelly begged.

Scoot gave Kelly a look that clearly read 'I'm-not-going-to-cheat-for-you.'

" Okay, fine, I'll be honest, but it's a lot of work for someone who had their practical sense taken from them" Kelly said, referring to the fact that with Scoot now trapped outside of her, that part of her personality was hopelessly lost.



" You know, it's not like you're cheating for me - you ARE me," Kelly added, hoping that she wouldn't have to do her homework alone.

" No longer," Scoot answered.

Kelly pretended as though she was working on the problems, though in all actuality, she was wondering why Scoot had arrived at all. Ever since Rob had somehow mustered the ability to put wings on Scoot, the ties that had held her to Kelly were somewhat lessened as now the fairy now had bonds also to Rob.

The fact that Scoot was now very independent only made Kelly feel more rejected.

Scoot knew exactly what Kelly was thinking.

" It is a maternal instinct," Scoot explained, "To keep that which you create close to you."

" Yeah, but you weren't meant to stop coming back into me. That's my gift, and he ruined it," Kelly asked sarcastically. That was another reason for hating Rob - he had infringed upon her own abilities and ruined them.

" He didn't ruin your mutation," Scoot explained, already knowing exactly what Kelly had been thinking, " You created me in the first place."

" Yeah, but now...," Kelly trailed off. How could she voice the fact that she wanted to say that she didn't want Scoot to be detached from her? She knew that Scoot didn't have emotions - she was almost like a machine - far too factual to be hurt by anything that Kelly could say. Yet how could she say it? Kelly thought the words over in her head and shuddered - was she really that dominating?

" But now I can't return to you like I always used to," Scoot finished.

" Out of all of them, you were always my favorite, and now it's like you're not even mine," Kelly explained sadly. It was a feeling that others would have found hard to relate to - a piece of her was now bond to someone else, and he distorted her creation in a way that she could never be able to be one with it again.

" I am still yours," Scoot answered.



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Yeah, this chapter ends in a downer :( but things will be picking up in the chapters to come, so watch out!!!!!!!!! Let's see, in a few chapters or so, they will be going to the museum, and then all the real fun begins....

please review, review, review! (and no, I don't mean to review three times)