**I don't own anything.Except my original Characters.nothing else.not even
my dignity**
It had been a long time since Alexia had been on a dirt bike. She had to think for a moment, actually, before she could say exactly how long it had been. Seven months, she decided, as she turned her bike onto a different road and started to head toward McKinley's field.
Yeah, she could remember now, it was almost seven months, maybe a little longer or shorter - right before Halloween. She had been doing jumps with Zydane in a field just down the driveway from the Bungalow. She had been trying to jump over a bunch of logs, but had a nasty spill because her bike didn't go far enough and landed on the logs. She had had to dump the bike and went rolling end over end across the ground. She had only bruised a couple of ribs and hurt her tail bone (not that she reported any injuries to her mother), but her bike's chain had caught on one of the logs and the sheer velocity that she had been traveling had ripped the chain in half. Zydane helped her order a new O-ring chain to repair the bike, but that didn't come until she had gone to the Institute.
Alexia could tell Zydane had done some other minor work on the bike he hadn't charged her for. He had cleaned the air filter and gave the bike an over-all tune-up, which it probably needed pretty badly after her crash. She wondered in the back of her mind if that was his way of apologizing for their break-up a year and a half before, because before and during that period when they were a couple, Zydane charged her at least half price for any work she had him do. Now, only special work was charged. Not that she cared. Zydane was Zydane, and Zydane did what Zydane wanted when Zydane wanted.
It never really seemed he had much cause to do something outside the two options that it was either something God wanted him to do, or it was something that did not go against God's will that he wanted to do.
McKinley's field was named after the old man who had once owned it, but left it to the state in his will. The state didn't really have much to do with it, so they left it alone. It had become a favored racing and mucking-around spot for all of Alexia's family and anyone associated with the Bungalow who rode any type of recreational vehicle. It was partially flat, partially inclined, making it ideal for both trick jumping, and off- road trail racing. As Alexia pulled into the field, she could almost see the phantom images of her older brother John teaching her how to handle a dirt bike. She could almost hear his calm, soothing voice say "When you make a left turn, don't clutch the right handle bar too tight, or you'll give yourself more throttle than you'll ever want...Slow and easy when you're releasing the clutch, Alex, you don't want the bike to stall out..."
Alexia shook her head to clear her mind. She hadn't seen John for ages, and he wasn't talking to her now. She missed him horribly. Not the way she had missed Zydane and her dirt bike while she was at the Institute, this was more of a missing that was deep in her being, and while she didn't notice it too often, she knew it was there, and it would take more than just time to make it go away.
She increased the throttle and let up on the breaks, sending herself flying out into the middle of the field. She made a wide right-handed turn and started heading up the slope. She found the path that had been dug fresh this spring by many races, and she traced the course around and around the field, up and down, back and forth, breathing in the exhilaration of the speed and the vibrations of the bike beneath her. She could feel the energy everywhere about her, and the more excited she got, the more energy she felt, charging the air, beckoning to her, begging that she play with it, make use of it. She refused to give into the temptation until Zydane arrived.
After a few short minutes, a familiar red bike charged into the field, followed by a four-wheeler with a driver and a passenger. Alexia grinned and turned her bike so she would be able to catch up with Zydane. They raced along side of each other, grinning from ear to ear as Kurt and Luke watched from the four-wheeler. Alexia suddenly broke from Zydane, turning a sharp right. Zydane followed suit, banking so hard in the turn that he nearly lost his balance.
Around and around the field they zoomed, until Alexia, hyper from all the energy she had managed to absorb, pulled up next to Luke's four-wheeler.
"Let's go trailing," she said, more commanding than requesting.
Her older brother nodded. "Sounds good. Kurt here has the camera. You want him to film it?"
Alexia grinned wildly inside her helmet. "Yeah. Make sure you've got a good hold on it Kurt. I don't want my favorite thing after my dirt bike to get smashed on a dirt road. I'd prefer it to be done by some government agency."
Kurt nodded and took out the camera, making sure the strap was tight over his hand, and he could get a good grip on it with his three fingers. His other hand was curled around the bars of the rack on the back of the four- wheeler.
Seeing that her blue furry friend was secured to his ride, Alexia revved up and tore out of the field and on to the road.
Along they flew, Alexia and Zydane on their bikes, and Luke and Kurt on the four-wheeler. The dirt roads, rough from the years of neglect and hard New York rains passed beneath them, as though giving in to the teens' wild abandon.
Kurt filmed the trip with the camera, switching from Alexia to Zydane to the scenery around them and then back.
After a while, Alexia thought she spotted something up ahead on the road. She motioned for the others to slow down, curious as to what it could be. As she neared it, she realized she was seeing a man, walking down the road. She thought this kind of odd, a person being this far from any civilization without a car. The man spotted her and waved at her to stop. Alexia slowed down and stopped next to the man, and the other followed suit.
"May we help you sir?" she asked, trying not to sound too cautious.
He was tall, with crew-cut blond hair, and a serious looking face. "Yes, actually. Can you tell me how to get to Lockview? I decided to go for a little stroll and I seem to have gotten myself lost."
Got yourself lost my foot, Alexia thought to herself. A little stroll ten miles away from the nearest town...what bull. But, she just simply smiled and said "Well, sir, you turn, go back down this road the way you came, take the first right, then the second left, and you'll be down in Lockview in no time."
The man smiled - a disturbing sight, Alexia thought - and thanked her.
Without anymore reply to the man's thank you than a shrug, Alexia started down the road again and motioned for her friends to follow.
-----------------------------------------------
As the sun began to set and shadows began to get too deep to penetrate safely, the group returned to the Bungalow to figure out what to do during the night.
As soon as Kurt walked into the door, he could see this wasn't any normal house.
First off, the furniture was anything but new. Most of the couches (and there were a lot of couches) had holes in the upholstery and stuffing was coming out. Many of the wooden chairs around the kitchen table had been patched up some how, whether with duct tape or nails. The kitchen appliances didn't look in the greatest of shape, but the dozen or so kids in the house seemed pretty well happy and fed.
"Who are all these people?" Kurt asked Zydane has the whole lot ran over and started hugging Alexia and talking all at one. Most of them seemed to be a few years younger than her.
"They're the permanent residents of the Bungalow," Zydane explained.
"Vhere did they come from?"
Zydane shrugged. "A lot of them don't know. They just found themselves wondering around somewhere. Most of them were runaways, they could remember that much, but then there was just a blank spot in their memories. Other kids just ran away and won't tell us where to take them back. We have a website. When they search the website looking for help about their powers, they ended up finding our site. They contact us, and we help them if we can."
"Their powers?" Kurt asked as we watched a few younger kids drag Alexia up some stairs. "You mean they're all mutants?"
"Yep, everyone here is a mutant except Alex's brothers Josh and Luke. You want something to eat?"
Kurt shrugged. "Vhat to you have?"
Zydane opened the ancient refrigerator and poked his head inside. "About the only thing I'd trust would be the hot dogs, only cause they're only a few days past the expiration date."
"Ach, vell, all right. But you vill have to answer to Alexia if I die."
"You won't die!" Zydane laughed. "Death by rancid hot dogs, yes, like anyone's had that. Heck, you heat anything hot enough and you'd be able to eat it." He threw a few hot dogs into a frying pan and turned on the stove. "So, what's with you and Alex? She suddenly deciding to keep secrets from me? She hasn't mentioned anything about you two being together."
"Ve're not...vell...not really together. Ve both like each other, ve just haven't gotten around to making it serious," Kurt explained, taking a seat at the table. "Vhat will ve do tonight?"
Zydane grinned. "I saw a whole bunch of Molotov cocktails and fireworks and stuff poorly hidden under the porch. I think Josh made them up for a little bash later tonight down in the rock quarry after all children under the age of 15 are in bed."
"Vhat kind of bash?"
Zydane's grin widened as he tossed the hot dogs on a plate and handed it to Kurt.
"An explosive one."
"An explosive what?" Alexia's voice sounded from the kitchen door way.
"Oh, just a little celebration. You know, the kind where we set an age limit," Zydane said off-handedly, winking at the end of the sentence.
Alexia's green eyes sparkled. "Their bedtime's still nine, right?"
Zydane nodded and handed Alexia a hot dog, which she ate in two bites, oblivious to the heat of it. "We'll leave around ten thirty."
Alexia nodded back. "This will prove most interesting. I haven't been able to play for a long long time."
It had been a long time since Alexia had been on a dirt bike. She had to think for a moment, actually, before she could say exactly how long it had been. Seven months, she decided, as she turned her bike onto a different road and started to head toward McKinley's field.
Yeah, she could remember now, it was almost seven months, maybe a little longer or shorter - right before Halloween. She had been doing jumps with Zydane in a field just down the driveway from the Bungalow. She had been trying to jump over a bunch of logs, but had a nasty spill because her bike didn't go far enough and landed on the logs. She had had to dump the bike and went rolling end over end across the ground. She had only bruised a couple of ribs and hurt her tail bone (not that she reported any injuries to her mother), but her bike's chain had caught on one of the logs and the sheer velocity that she had been traveling had ripped the chain in half. Zydane helped her order a new O-ring chain to repair the bike, but that didn't come until she had gone to the Institute.
Alexia could tell Zydane had done some other minor work on the bike he hadn't charged her for. He had cleaned the air filter and gave the bike an over-all tune-up, which it probably needed pretty badly after her crash. She wondered in the back of her mind if that was his way of apologizing for their break-up a year and a half before, because before and during that period when they were a couple, Zydane charged her at least half price for any work she had him do. Now, only special work was charged. Not that she cared. Zydane was Zydane, and Zydane did what Zydane wanted when Zydane wanted.
It never really seemed he had much cause to do something outside the two options that it was either something God wanted him to do, or it was something that did not go against God's will that he wanted to do.
McKinley's field was named after the old man who had once owned it, but left it to the state in his will. The state didn't really have much to do with it, so they left it alone. It had become a favored racing and mucking-around spot for all of Alexia's family and anyone associated with the Bungalow who rode any type of recreational vehicle. It was partially flat, partially inclined, making it ideal for both trick jumping, and off- road trail racing. As Alexia pulled into the field, she could almost see the phantom images of her older brother John teaching her how to handle a dirt bike. She could almost hear his calm, soothing voice say "When you make a left turn, don't clutch the right handle bar too tight, or you'll give yourself more throttle than you'll ever want...Slow and easy when you're releasing the clutch, Alex, you don't want the bike to stall out..."
Alexia shook her head to clear her mind. She hadn't seen John for ages, and he wasn't talking to her now. She missed him horribly. Not the way she had missed Zydane and her dirt bike while she was at the Institute, this was more of a missing that was deep in her being, and while she didn't notice it too often, she knew it was there, and it would take more than just time to make it go away.
She increased the throttle and let up on the breaks, sending herself flying out into the middle of the field. She made a wide right-handed turn and started heading up the slope. She found the path that had been dug fresh this spring by many races, and she traced the course around and around the field, up and down, back and forth, breathing in the exhilaration of the speed and the vibrations of the bike beneath her. She could feel the energy everywhere about her, and the more excited she got, the more energy she felt, charging the air, beckoning to her, begging that she play with it, make use of it. She refused to give into the temptation until Zydane arrived.
After a few short minutes, a familiar red bike charged into the field, followed by a four-wheeler with a driver and a passenger. Alexia grinned and turned her bike so she would be able to catch up with Zydane. They raced along side of each other, grinning from ear to ear as Kurt and Luke watched from the four-wheeler. Alexia suddenly broke from Zydane, turning a sharp right. Zydane followed suit, banking so hard in the turn that he nearly lost his balance.
Around and around the field they zoomed, until Alexia, hyper from all the energy she had managed to absorb, pulled up next to Luke's four-wheeler.
"Let's go trailing," she said, more commanding than requesting.
Her older brother nodded. "Sounds good. Kurt here has the camera. You want him to film it?"
Alexia grinned wildly inside her helmet. "Yeah. Make sure you've got a good hold on it Kurt. I don't want my favorite thing after my dirt bike to get smashed on a dirt road. I'd prefer it to be done by some government agency."
Kurt nodded and took out the camera, making sure the strap was tight over his hand, and he could get a good grip on it with his three fingers. His other hand was curled around the bars of the rack on the back of the four- wheeler.
Seeing that her blue furry friend was secured to his ride, Alexia revved up and tore out of the field and on to the road.
Along they flew, Alexia and Zydane on their bikes, and Luke and Kurt on the four-wheeler. The dirt roads, rough from the years of neglect and hard New York rains passed beneath them, as though giving in to the teens' wild abandon.
Kurt filmed the trip with the camera, switching from Alexia to Zydane to the scenery around them and then back.
After a while, Alexia thought she spotted something up ahead on the road. She motioned for the others to slow down, curious as to what it could be. As she neared it, she realized she was seeing a man, walking down the road. She thought this kind of odd, a person being this far from any civilization without a car. The man spotted her and waved at her to stop. Alexia slowed down and stopped next to the man, and the other followed suit.
"May we help you sir?" she asked, trying not to sound too cautious.
He was tall, with crew-cut blond hair, and a serious looking face. "Yes, actually. Can you tell me how to get to Lockview? I decided to go for a little stroll and I seem to have gotten myself lost."
Got yourself lost my foot, Alexia thought to herself. A little stroll ten miles away from the nearest town...what bull. But, she just simply smiled and said "Well, sir, you turn, go back down this road the way you came, take the first right, then the second left, and you'll be down in Lockview in no time."
The man smiled - a disturbing sight, Alexia thought - and thanked her.
Without anymore reply to the man's thank you than a shrug, Alexia started down the road again and motioned for her friends to follow.
-----------------------------------------------
As the sun began to set and shadows began to get too deep to penetrate safely, the group returned to the Bungalow to figure out what to do during the night.
As soon as Kurt walked into the door, he could see this wasn't any normal house.
First off, the furniture was anything but new. Most of the couches (and there were a lot of couches) had holes in the upholstery and stuffing was coming out. Many of the wooden chairs around the kitchen table had been patched up some how, whether with duct tape or nails. The kitchen appliances didn't look in the greatest of shape, but the dozen or so kids in the house seemed pretty well happy and fed.
"Who are all these people?" Kurt asked Zydane has the whole lot ran over and started hugging Alexia and talking all at one. Most of them seemed to be a few years younger than her.
"They're the permanent residents of the Bungalow," Zydane explained.
"Vhere did they come from?"
Zydane shrugged. "A lot of them don't know. They just found themselves wondering around somewhere. Most of them were runaways, they could remember that much, but then there was just a blank spot in their memories. Other kids just ran away and won't tell us where to take them back. We have a website. When they search the website looking for help about their powers, they ended up finding our site. They contact us, and we help them if we can."
"Their powers?" Kurt asked as we watched a few younger kids drag Alexia up some stairs. "You mean they're all mutants?"
"Yep, everyone here is a mutant except Alex's brothers Josh and Luke. You want something to eat?"
Kurt shrugged. "Vhat to you have?"
Zydane opened the ancient refrigerator and poked his head inside. "About the only thing I'd trust would be the hot dogs, only cause they're only a few days past the expiration date."
"Ach, vell, all right. But you vill have to answer to Alexia if I die."
"You won't die!" Zydane laughed. "Death by rancid hot dogs, yes, like anyone's had that. Heck, you heat anything hot enough and you'd be able to eat it." He threw a few hot dogs into a frying pan and turned on the stove. "So, what's with you and Alex? She suddenly deciding to keep secrets from me? She hasn't mentioned anything about you two being together."
"Ve're not...vell...not really together. Ve both like each other, ve just haven't gotten around to making it serious," Kurt explained, taking a seat at the table. "Vhat will ve do tonight?"
Zydane grinned. "I saw a whole bunch of Molotov cocktails and fireworks and stuff poorly hidden under the porch. I think Josh made them up for a little bash later tonight down in the rock quarry after all children under the age of 15 are in bed."
"Vhat kind of bash?"
Zydane's grin widened as he tossed the hot dogs on a plate and handed it to Kurt.
"An explosive one."
"An explosive what?" Alexia's voice sounded from the kitchen door way.
"Oh, just a little celebration. You know, the kind where we set an age limit," Zydane said off-handedly, winking at the end of the sentence.
Alexia's green eyes sparkled. "Their bedtime's still nine, right?"
Zydane nodded and handed Alexia a hot dog, which she ate in two bites, oblivious to the heat of it. "We'll leave around ten thirty."
Alexia nodded back. "This will prove most interesting. I haven't been able to play for a long long time."