Treble Clef

By Silver Falcon

Chapter Four

"Detention?!?!" Marcie squeaked. "Second day and you got detention?!"

Pixie raised her hands. "Yeah, yeah, I know. It's pathetic, but I was standing up for one of my smaller friends."

Marcie rubbed her hand. "Still. Darlin', don't you think you could have solved it another way? I mean, look who you have to serve it with!"

She pointed at the name on the piece of paper.

"Ms. Dubbles?"

Marcie cringed and sank to the floor. "She was still teaching when I was in school. No one liked her! No one can like her! She's the wife of Satan!"

It was distantly amusing to see a grown woman act in this manner, but it was still shocking.

"Surely this woman isn't that bad," Pixie said, putting her hands on her hips.

Marcie stood up and shook her head. "She's horrible. Just wait. You'll never want to go to detention again."

Pixie nodded. "Well, I thank you for your concern. Can I go to my homework?"

Marcie sighed. "Yes, so I guess I won't be expecting you home at five tomorrow?"

Pixie shook her head. "But I'll be home as fast as I can. Plus, the boys said they were going to take me out for pizza."

"Pizza? I know I'm not your mother, but that's a little lenient. What about being grounded?"

Pixie shrugged. "You're the guardian, and I'm not going to argue. If you want to ground me, fine, but allow me a trip to the library so I won't die of boredom."

"But that's what you're supposed to do when you're grounded."

Pixie nodded. "Oh, right. Well, I'll see you at dinner, okay? I'm gonna do my homework now."

With that, Pixie opened the door to her room and walked in. Her room wasn't very big, but it had its own bathroom and a closet just for her. It was rather plain looking since she hadn't been there that long. To her right was her bed, to her left, a small dresser and chair. The bathroom wasn't that large, either. It had a shower, toilet, mirror, and sink. It too was really plain, but this was her home for now.

She sat down on her bed and pulled out her notebook. Pix didn't bother bringing her Biology book since she practically memorized it anyway. She took out her pen and wrote down the twenty questions and answers on page 411. It wasn't hard, just something on osmosis and water.

It was boring as crap. After Biology, she did Trig, and, after that, social studies, and literature.

Finally, she retired to the book that she had been loaned by Rogue. During the day, she had read the first three chapters, and she was eager to finish it. She really wanted to go to the library, but she had a feeling that she would be in trouble with Marcie.

She had forgotten what it felt like to have a mother. Marcie was a good mother, but she didn't have any kids of her own. Pixie knew that Marcie wanted kids, though. The maternal instinct was as clear as a bell in her eyes. Poor Marcie. She would be a good mom, but she needed to practice a little first. That's what Pixus was there for.

The pain came from her forgetfulness of her mother. She remembered a very faint trace of her father, and almost nothing of her mother. It was too long ago. How was it that she could remember every child that she had ever come in contact with, but she couldn't remember her own mother?

It…hurt.

More than anything that a human could imagine.

Cautiously, she poked her head in detention. She had been surprised that hardly anyone spoke to her that day. Pietro must have been skipping, Toad was in the hospital with two broken ribs, bruised ribs, bruised bones, and bruised everything.

Jean and Kitty had been too afraid to speak to her, and she didn't see Rogue at all.

"Well, well, well. Here's my next victim. You're the hot shot who beat up the football stars, huh. SIT DOWN!"

The woman who was yelling was a very thin lady with black hair and green eyes. She looked like she was in her late thirties.

Grinning, she bowed and took a seat in the nearest chair. The teens close to her immediately rose and moved to the other side of the room.

"GET BACK TO THOSE SEATS!"

The kids feared Ms. Dubbles more than they feared her, so they obeyed without any words. She had known worse. This woman was just troubled.

"PINKY, TAKE OFF THE BANDANA!"

Pixie shook her head. "Ms. Dubbles, I don't think you want me to. I might scare people."

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR BAD HAIR DAYS! TAKE IT OFF!!"

Pix sighed and reached behind her, untying it. She let her fingers grasp it and draw it away from her face. Since her eye was closed, it appeared that she had a tattoo on her forehead consisting of four triangles. If she opened her eye, there would be two on each eyelid. The quarter sized hill on her forehead protruded ever so slightly, but it was there. She just had to pray that her eye didn't open on its own.

"Now," began the teacher, calming her voice to a normal roar, "we shall begin to copy words out of the dictionary. Take out paper and pencil and begin to copy NOW! I expect B's to be completed before you leave at five. YOU HAVE ONE HOUR!"

Pix reached under her desk and drew the thick book out. She put it on her desk and wrote. Thirty minutes went by, and she found herself at the last word. Fancy that. She had developed into a quick writer over the years.

She sat patiently at her desk, watching the teacher check the day's victims. Suddenly, she looked up, and her eyes fell upon Pixie's.

"I'm done, ma'am," Pix said before Ms. Dubbles could bark anything.

It had taken most of her notebook, but there it was, in neat writing, the first A word to the last B word.

"What!? How could you be done?!"

"Permission to approach the bench, your honor?"

The woman looked stunned, but she nodded. Pix stood up with the stack of papers in hand and walked towards the desk. She placed the stack at the corner of her desk and bowed her head in silence.

"Sit down! And I better not hear a peep from you for the rest of your time!"

"Yes, ma'am."

Pixie returned to her seat and stared at the top of her desk. After a while, she began to process thoughts that she had locked away in her mind. Would it be safer if she tried to live a human life?

Would they find her?

"TIME'S UP! GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, YOU FILTHY PIGS!"

They cleared out of the room faster than lightning, but she remained.

"WHY ARE YOU STILL IN HERE!?"

"Congratulations," she said, smiling.

The teacher stared at her. "What?!"

"You are getting married in a month, aren't you? Congratulations."

The teacher fell into her seat and looked at the blue eyes of the student in front of her. "How did you know that?"

Pixie boldly opened her third eye. "Because I can see the future."

The woman shrieked and covered her eyes.

"Lady, don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you," Pix said, raising her hands.

The woman was still scared stupid. "You…you're a…mu…mu…"

"Mutant. Lady, I'm not going to hurt you. I swear." She moved to the back of the room and closed her eye. "See? It's gone."

"You…"

"I'm a mutant that won't hurt you. I wish you a happy marriage to what's his name?"

The woman rubbed her eyes as Pixie put the bandana back on. "Michael."

"Michael. And I told you that you didn't want me to take it off. But lady, I only use it for good."

"Good? You beat up two boys. I hardly call that good."

"Well, they were picking on a friend of mine that couldn't defend himself at the moment."

"Well, still. Please leave. I have work to do."

Pix walked up to her and offered her hand. "Truce?"

The woman shook her hand. "Well, no."

Pixie shrugged. "Okay, your loss. Bye."

"Wait. Have I seen you before?"

Pixie smiled and nodded. "In your dreams, perhaps."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, that's where you see the unbelievable, right?" Pixie said, her arms dropping limp to her sides.

"Wha…?"

"Future Mrs. Nelly, have a nice day. I'm afraid I have to leave now."

She picked up her bag and walked out the door, closing it behind her.

So far, she had eluded capture, but she wasn't sure how long that would last. She hadn't played her flute in a long time, and it was beginning to edge at her senses. Alas, she knew that if she did, it would put Marcie, Jack, and all her new friends in the greatest danger known to mortal kind. Pix felt the urge to be free again, but she knew that if she did and was found out, the news would spread faster than a plain fire. They would be on her in a second, ready to deal death and torture. She began to have headaches almost constantly, a signal from her extra eye that she was in danger, but if she made a run for it, they would use the people here against her.

Damn!

Why did she have to get attached to Marcie and Jack so quickly?! Why hadn't she politely turned down their offer to live with them in their underground home beneath the club? Why didn't she find some way to repulse Pietro and Todd into leaving her alone? She knew that, somehow, they would find out who they were, and she would be in a hostage situation: her life for his or hers. It had been a few decades since she had done this, and she was regretting it every second that went past. She was beginning to put more people in danger than she cared for, and she had a nagging suspicion that they would find a way to hit her in the worst way possible: putting the humans to death.

The Mutants and Humans didn't realize that they were still the same race, but they were too blind to see that the war they were fighting wasn't the war they should be. She had known the war between her mother's kind and her father's kind had lasted since long before her father was born, and it even went on today. Her father had been put to death because of his betrayal, and she had reluctantly been allowed to live in the Realm for most of her life, but since the abductions of the humans, she had been forced to live a life of hidden secrets and a forgotten past.

Her mother was long dead, and she couldn't remember anything about her except that she, too, was a mutant of the human kind. Pixie's love for music was inherited by her father, since all who live in the Realm had a keen ear for any tune that was playing. He had left her one thing: the mystical instrument that she still carried with her to this very day. Although the instrument was very old, she knew that it would stay in tact until the day that she would perish and beyond, finding itself a new owner to take care of it.

Where was she from? Honestly, truly, she knew exactly where she was from, but she had refused to answer Todd's question the other day anyway. What would his reaction have been if she told him she was born in a swamp? She had been born in a log cabin in the center of a damp, foggy swamp, but her father had made it a paradise afterwards. She knew exactly where the small paradise was in Georgia, a good bit south of the northern border, but it had been a century since she had last visited it. She had never enjoyed her life past twenty, because it was then that she realized what she was and why she wasn't aging.

She watched her mother die. She had lied to Pietro about not knowing her parents, but if one really looked at it from her point of view, she didn't. They had fooled the world with their love. They had fooled both worlds with their love, so what was a daughter? Her mother had never told her what she was until she was nineteen. She watched her friends grow old and have children before dying off themselves. She watched as everything around her renewed itself after death with rebirth, but because of this rebirth, she lost her mind and became a wanderer, traveling around the states on foot and in air. She hated her life. She hated her parents. She hated everything until she met Jerry.

He was the first that she knew to understand, and, even though he looked like a child, he bordered on a century. He told her that she would have wasted her entire life and being if she did not do something with it. He changed her, and he believed in her. He believed what she told him she was. He believed everything.

Then, he was taken, for the town that he lived in was known for gunfights and murders. She took his remains and sealed them in stone, and she took the stone angel to her birthplace and to his resting place. The first one that she had known and that had known her pain was gone.

For the past hundred years, she had been doing that. Because she was not required to eat or drink, she gave nearly every cent she made to a stranger walking on the street. Sometimes it would be a homeless person, maybe a single mother with three children, maybe a little girl who wanted to buy something for her brother for his birthday. She had helped people make people happy. She did what she knew how.

But after she had been banished, everything made her paranoid for a while, and the arrival of the assassins didn't make things much easier. She eluded them for a while, but they always seemed to find her. The last time they found her, she had barely escaped with her hair. Jinn and his stupid swords.

He wasn't her problem, not really. Forez was the problem. He had a growing, passionate hate growing inside of him, and she knew that it would satisfy him greatly if it was his hand that shed her blood. The fire-breather would be the first to find her. He had the sharp senses of the three, but it was most likely Orbisus who would take it from there. He had always loved toying with her, playing with her, messing with her mind.

The High One had placed a very heavy bounty over her head, and that's what first attracted the trio. Yet, they had been unable to kill her, even after fifty years of trying. She was growing tired of running though. Sometimes she even wondered if she should just give herself up to them, but she knew that wasn't an option anymore.

Jerry would want her to live, and she knew that he would want to see her again in her swamp. Although dead, Jerry's statue was alive. She never understood how, but it would sometimes talk to her.

She missed him.

Pietro nearly ran her over when she walked out of the double doors. She wheeled over and almost fell, but he was right behind her and caught her safely in his arms. Sure, she could see the future sometimes but only when her eye was open. She kept it closed most of the time.

"Hello there, stranger," she said, looking up at him.

"Who are you calling a stranger?" He asked, grinning impishly. He righted her and patted her on her shoulder. "I heard you got in a fight yesterday."

"By who?"

"Well, Freddy told me that Toady was in the hospital for a few hours. He is now at home in bed because of those three pricks. He said you saved Toad's nasty hide."

Pixie nodded. "They won't be bothering him for a while. That's for sure."

"I don't understand how you can be so vicious. I mean, sure, I like my women with a little feistiness, but beating people up over the Toad?"

Pix nodded, and her face grew stern. "He was the first one to talk to me. I owed him that at least."

Pietro nodded as well. "Yeah, I guess so. Come with me. I'll take you to see him if you want. He would probably want to see you anyway."

Pietro rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. She took her bag off her shoulder and moved it to the other, rubbing her head.

"He's a cool, little guy, even though he smells bad."

Pietro shrugged. "You want to come to our little hole in the ground?"

Pixie nodded. "I guess. Is it far?"

Pietro shook his head and grabbed her hand. "A little, but I'll take you home again like last time, if you wish."

He lifted her off the ground and swung her around. Pixie was surprised that he didn't notice anything different, but he was too love struck to realize anything.

"Sure. Onward, Pietro!"

He grinned at her again, and in a few seconds, she found herself at an old house. Pietro put her down while she admired the house. There were nice little bushes beside the house, and she could see that it was multistoried.

Pixie thought the house was very familiar. She remembered that Jerry used to live in a house that was like that, but it was an old Victorian house. Pixie remembered seeing houses like that all the time in some areas. She loved Victorian houses.

Pietro grabbed her hand and led her to the door. He winked at her and turned the doorknob, sweeping his hand inside. She went inside hesitantly, and he followed, closing the door.

"It's big," Pix said, still taking in the view.

"Yeah, I live here with my sister, Toad, Blob, and Lance."

"Who is that?" Wanda hissed from the corner.

Pixie turned around and looked at the black-haired girl in the corner. Wanda's eyes opened wide as Pixie's eyes locked with hers. Pietro felt a shiver run up his spine as he saw the way the two girls were staring at each other.

"W…W…W…Wanda?!"