The alarm rang the next morning far too early for Zydane's liking. Why was he getting up this early again? The shop didn't even open till ten on Fridays, but here he was getting up at 6:45.

Leave it to Alex to make his life difficult.

He yawned as he smacked the alarm clock a few times until the buzzing stopped. He sat up and stretched, almost knocking a half-full glass of soda off his bedside table with his long arms.

Zydane swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, taking a swig of the warm, flat soda, and headed to the bathroom, gathering relatively clean clothes off the floor of his apartment along the way. He wasn't going to go out of his way to find actually clean clothes for Alex's sake. She wouldn't care anyway. And besides, she had taken just about all his clothes with her to the Institute. She had claimed that the only reason she had taken them was because he was a much cooler dresser than she was. They both knew though that if he really wanted them he would come join her at the school and learn how to use his own powers.

After getting a shower, Zydane got dressed and shaved. He examined his face in the mirror, making sure the bruise he had gotten from running into a tree on his mother's lawn mower a few days before wasn't very visible. If Alex saw it, she would hound him until he told her what had happened, and then she would hound him for being so clumsy. "You race dirt bikes and wheelers through the woods at forty miles an hour with no problem, and then you run into the only tree in your mom's yard on a lawn mower going two!" She would say, falling over from laughter.

Zydane decided that the bruise wasn't noticeable enough for someone to see it without knowing where to look. He glanced at the clock. 7:15. He switched on the news to catch the weather while he got himself a bowl of ChocoSugar Crisps and poured a can of root beer over it. Alexia had come up with this recipe, saying it tasted just like a black cow (an ice cream float made with root beer and chocolate ice cream). She was right. Zydane didn't understand why the makers of the cereal were considering discontinuing the product.

"We're going to be getting a ton of sun today," the weatherman on the TV was saying, putting on an over-sized pair of sunglasses. "And the beautiful weather will continue until Sunday morning when a huge storm system will be moving in over the region. We can expect thunderstorms starting mid Sunday morning and continuing through the early part of the week--"

Zydane clicked off the television, having all the information he needed. The weather would be good enough for Alex and him to get plenty of trailing in over the next few days. His watch beeped, telling him it was time to leave to get Alexia. He tossed his plastic bowl at the huge stack of dishes already piled in and around the sink and sighed in exasperation as the whole mess of plastic dishes and metal pans crashed to the floor.

"I'll pick it up later," he told the rest of the mess in his apartment as he grabbed his Aussie hat off the back of the couch and headed out the door.

Zydane Maylor was 20, a good age to be in Chanceton, Lockview, or Streder (where his apartment was). Tall, a little over six feet, and thin, with wiry blond hair and sharp blue eyes, he wasn't what one might call handsome, but he was definitely dashing, and what he didn't have in looks he made up with the best smile and personality this side of the Hudson River. He didn't know all this himself, but he had been told over the years by Alex and his other female friends. And they all agreed: his car definitely added about five hundred points to his Overall Attractiveness Score--a ranking system Alex had made up one rainy day while hanging out with him at Patterson's Motor sports Shop.

And Zydane had to admit, his car was almost hot enough to make him want to go out with himself. It was a little black sports car with two doors that could seat four. Painted on the sides and the hood were lightning bolts in bright blues and yellows, and the break lights had lighting bolts on them too. A working moon roof was Alex's favorite aspect of the vehicle--next to the sound system that was so expensive that it just had to be turned up way too loud.

It was no fun for Zydane to drive his car that early in the morning because there wasn't anyone to turn and stare at it, almost drooling, as he drove past. The drive to Chanceton was one he didn't make too often unless he needed something from the mall or he wanted to see a movie, which wasn't too often. It did feel good to be going somewhere besides the shop or the Bungalow or church. He realized his life had been caught in a rut the past few months since Alex had left, and that bothered him. He was twenty, for goodness sakes, and here he was, relying on a sixteen year old--no, seventeen year old, her birthday had been last month--to have a good time.

He took that thought back as soon as it was created. That wasn't true at all. Alex was his best friend, and had been since she was eleven and he was almost fifteen. He wasn't sure when he switched from hanging out with Alex's older brother Luke to spending most of his time with Alex, and he wasn't sure why. It didn't really matter though, he and Alex had more in common than he and Luke had. They always had a good time together, whether they were racing around the back roads on their bikes, or just lounging around at his apartment talking.

He pulled his car into the bus station's parking lot and parked near the platform where passengers got on and off the busses. He had parked in the same spot five months before when he had dropped Alex off at the bus. She had been sitting in the seat next to him, holding her video camera in front of her, pointed at herself.

"Alright world," she said to the lens. "Look out. Here comes trouble with a capital A-l-e-x-i-a." He turned the camera to Zydane. "Mr. Maylor, what are your opinions on my debut to the world outside of Chanceton and the surrounding villas?"

Zydane remembered vividly the grin spreading across his face as he answered, "I think the world is going to find it needs more padded walls."

Alexia had looked up at him over the camera with a disapproving look on her face and mouthed "Come on Zy!"

In response, Zydane had turned back to the camera. "The world is going find out the secret that these mountains have been hiding for the past sixteen years."

Alexia had grinned and whipped the camera back to face her. "Yeah, world. Look out! Here comes ATOMICA!!!" And she had made a ball of light in her hand and zoomed in on it with the camera while she gave a fake maniacal laugh.

Zydane opened his dashboard and pulled out Alexia's camera. Of course, after making her debut video, she had left the camera in his car. He had been driving around with it in his car for the past five months. She could be an airhead sometimes, but that was one of the many things that made her fun to hang out with.

About twenty minutes after Zydane arrived at the bus station, a bus pulled in. Zydane watched as a few old women got off, followed by a couple of kids Zydane recognized as kids he had graduated with. They were coming back from some college down state. Then, after the college kids and old ladies had cleared out, a familiar figure stepped off the bus, her brown hair in a loose braid down her back and her green eyes flashing excitedly. Zydane watched as Alexia turned and said something up the stairs inside the bus. Then a boy her age stepped off. He had long-ish black hair and was wearing a short-sleeved button up shirt over a long sleeve shirt. He looked around curiously as Alexia handed him a backpack.

Zydane hit the horn lightly and rolled down his window. "Hey, you! Girl with the rat nest for hair! You and your boyfriend need a lift?"