Treble Clef
By Silver Falcon
Chapter Six
Todd rushed down the stairs, still clad in only his camouflage shorts. He hopped high into the air and landed on Fred, who was just about to bring him a glass of water and a ham sandwich. He dropped the glass and plate and caught Todd's semi-flying body before the small freshman could leap over him.
"What are you doing?! You're supposed to be injured?!" Fred said, holding Toad in front of him.
Todd waved his arms around madly. "Exactly! I'm not hurt anymore! Look! My black eye's gone and everything!"
Wanda and Lance ran down the stair, but, unfortunately for Lance, he was going to slow. Wanda shoved him about half way down and he crashed at the bottom of the staircase.
"What the hell?!" Lance said, staring in awe at Todd.
"Pixie did something! She said she would do something and she did!" Todd yelled.
Blob put him on the ground, and he hopped around excitedly to prove that he was as good as new. Lance stood up and looked at Fred. Wanda grabbed Todd's arm when he hopped past.
"Did you hear music?" she said, her eyes dark and serious. "Tell me!"
Toad nodded his head. "Yeah, sweetums, but I didn't know it was real. I thought I was dreamin'!"
Wanda shook her head. "No…she wouldn't do that. She knows what she would risk…"
"Wanda, what are you talking about?"
Wanda stamped her foot on the cold wooden floor. "Everyone, get clothes on," she said, focusing particularly on Todd. "We have to find Pixus."
Lance shrugged. "Who's Pixus?"
"Shut up and stick with Toad. You can smell her, right?" Wanda asked, looking deep into Todd's eyes.
Under any other circumstance, Todd would have passed out from the love, but now wasn't the time. Wanda seemed too nervous to tamper with.
"Yes. She smells like a dragonfly," he said calmly, looking into her eyes
"Freddy, I need you to stay here and wait for Pietro. When he comes, tell him to get his butt into Bayville and search for her. You come then. I will go with Toad and Lance now. Come on."
Todd immediately hopped after her, but Lance remained where he was. "What are we looking for, a fairy?!"
Wanda threw a Hex Bolt in his direction. It slammed into him and began to pull him across the floor and out the door. Todd, Wanda, and Lance got in his jeep and drove into town. Once there, Todd smelt the air for any spicy traces of dragonfly.
"Well?" Wanda growled from the passenger seat of the car.
Todd shook his head. "Nothing yo. Keep drivin'."
"Damnit!" Wanda spat as she looked at the road ahead.
They drove around the city going down every road that they found, driving countless circles around Bayville. Finally, Todd's eyes opened wide, and he jumped out of the car, landing on the sidewalk and hopping down an alley. Lance veered the car around and let Wanda out while he went to park the car in the closet place available.
Toad hopped down the alley towards the smell, but the closer he got to it, the closer he got to another smell: the smell of burning hair and skin. He stopped and waited for Wanda. She ran up next to him and looked ahead.
"Why did you…oh my god!" she said, holding her nose. "That's even worse than you!"
"Do you know what that is?" Todd whispered in a hushed, frightened voice.
Wanda looked at him with puzzlement and shook her head.
"That's the smell of burning flesh," Todd said, hopping forward another few feet.
Wanda gasped and ran forward, following him. He eventually stopped and backed into a wall, turning his head and whimpering loudly. Wanda walked up to him and immediately she felt the urge to throw up which she promptly did. She felt Todd's hand on her back. Wanda regained control of herself and looked up again, this time keeping her lunch down or what was left of it.
The body was almost nude and most of the garbage bags around her had melted. The left side of the body was covered with blisters while the right side was completely white with the hilts of two swords sticking out. All of her hair was gone and there were blisters on her head. She was lying on her side facing them with her head resting against melting trash bag. What little clothing she had left was near her waistline, but the rest had been burned away, A few feet away lay the blue flute, and it had been unharmed by the fire. The Hex Mistress grabbed the end of the sword and grimaced. She gave it a hard yank and pulled it out. She immediately threw up afterwards. She wiped her mouth and grabbed the hilt of the second sword, yanking it out as well. Wanda took off her trench coat and wrapped it around her, taking care to cover her completely.
About that time, Lance ran up behind them and gasped, uttering a horrified squeak. With a look of disgust on his face, he walked over to Wanda. She didn't look up at him, but she drew her coat to a close in front of the body and buttoned it.
"Go get an ambulance, you dumbass!" She yelled, causing a trash bag to fly at Avalanche.
Lance took off down the alley, disappearing into the street. Wanda backed off, and Toad gathered the broken spirit in his arms, holding her as close to him as he could. The Scarlet Witch looked around for the flute and found it again. She bent down, took it into her hand, and then grabbed the two swords. Todd had already started to walk towards the jeep. Wanda followed feeling very lightheaded and dizzy. She saw Lance in the shop across the street, yelling frantically into a phone that was behind the counter. He put the phone back on the receiver and ran outside.
"They're on their way!" he said, making his way across the street.
By this time, pedestrians had begun to stop and stare. Wanda put the flute and swords under the floorboard of Lance's jeep and waited. He leaned against the hood and stared at the hairless red and white body that Todd had in his arms.
They heard the sound of an ambulance in the distance, causing all of them to look. It swerved around the curb and pulled up behind Lance's jeep. The men in white jumped out, pulled the stretcher from the ambulance, and hurried to the freshman who held the wounded. Todd put her on the stretcher, and they wheeled it to the ambulance before sliding it inside. One of the men was standing outside with a clipboard. He came towards them just as they closed the ambulance doors to begin pumping her with antibiotics.
"Do you know the victim?" he asked with a squeaky voice.
"Her name is Pixus Raise," Todd said. "She lives with the owners of the Night Sun. She's seventeen. She's uh new here."
The man jotted what he knew down and called someone over to him and gave them orders to go alert the people at the Night Sun. Suddenly, a door in the back of the ambulance opened and a man stepped out. He walked over to the man with the clipboard and whispered something to him. The man with a clipboard looked at them and sighed.
"Are you aware that the victim has wings?" he said in a confused tone.
Wanda nodded calmly while the other two stood there with wide eyes and round mouths.
"Do you know how the accident happened?"
"No, we just found her," Wanda lied.
The man nodded and walked back to the ambulance. "You kids go home. What's a phone number I can reach you at?"
"421-2341," Lance answered.
"Okay, expect a phone call tomorrow. We'll tell you her status then."
He jumped into the passenger seat of the ambulance and the men and woman went in the back and drove off, leaving the three teenagers on the curb.
Todd turned to Wanda. "You knew she had wings?"
"Of course she has wings. She's half fairy, you moron," Wanda hissed, deciding that they would find out anyway since Pixie's cover had been blown.
The awkward silence that occurred after that was frightening. Wanda jumped into the car and barked at Lance to come drive it. Lance did, and Todd hopped into the back of the car.
"But…there's no such things as fairies, is there?" Lance whimpered.
Wanda shook her head and looked at him. "They just exist in a different world. Now, shut up and don't talk to me. I think it best if we left this alone for tonight. We don't even know if she's alive."
Todd bowed his head, and Lance could see it through the rear view mirror. "Toad, you gonna be okay?"
"It was my fault, wasn't it, Wanda?" His words pained her, even though she didn't show it entirely.
Todd knew it was his fault, and nothing that she said would drive him from that. He bowed his head again and lied down on the backseat, curling into a fetal position and closing his eyes. Wanda knew he was crying, and she knew that no insults or crude remarks were needed right now. His emotional wound was cavernous, and she knew it would take a long time for him to heal. She realized that he cared for her, maybe in the same way that Pietro cared for her. Was her little slave going to leave her and follow someone else? Was she playing too hard to get? Sure, Toad wasn't her idea of the perfect man at all—quite the opposite, in fact—but he did care for her. Didn't he? Even if he did leave her and go after Pixie, Wanda knew that she could never hate her. Pixie had been there through her most lonely years, and she even stayed with her past puberty, which was usually against her rules of regulation, but she knew Wanda needed it. So, every night, she was there for a few hours, and even during the day too. She had always been there. She had even been there for Todd during his infancy. Lance, too. Even Pietro. She had known every baby that was born. She had watched over them. She kept watch, but only a few remembered her. Wanda had been the selected one and probably the only one that she had stayed with until past the remembering age, which was usually twelve. Pixie had left her halfway through her fifteenth year, and here she was again. Wanda had been upset that she had left, but then Pixie told her about the assassins, and Wanda understood.
She turned her head to the side, just enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. "She knew what she was doing when she did it, Toad. She knew what could happen. She did that because she…cared…for you. That's what she does. She protects people. Humans and Mutants, she protects us."
Todd sobbed and curled into a tighter ball, whimpering. "She's going to die, isn't she?"
Wanda felt a tear roll down her cheek. "I…don't…know."
Toad fell deathly silent and didn't say another thing for the rest of the trip. When they got back home, he just walked upstairs and went into his room, locking the door. Walked! Toad didn't walk! He hopped everywhere!
Wanda explained to Blob what had happened, and she was surprised that Pietro still wasn't home. Everyone went to bed except Wanda, who felt enough remorse to stay up and tell Pietro what had happened to his girl while he was out.
It was quiet, and she began to doze off on the sofa watching the news to see if they had put the horrible burn victim story on the air yet. They hadn't. Pietro was definitely going to get a Hex Bolt when he came home. She thought about knocking him out the window, or maybe locking him in his closet and barricading the door for the night.
She heard the door open and shut in one motion, and she sent a Hex Bolt flying in the direction of the kitchen, hitting Pietro where she had wanted it to. He fell on his face, and she stood up and walked over to him.
"Ow... Wanda, we have to get the guys up. Pix was taken by some guys and…" he said, standing up.
"I know," she growled. "We already found her body. She's in the hospital's intensive care unit."
The Hex Bolt disappeared, and Wanda began to make her way upstairs, concluding that the emotional pain would be enough revenge.
"What?!" Pietro asked, speeding in front of her.
"Your girlfriend's in the intensive care unit. She's got second and third degree burns over 80 fucking percent of her body," The Hex Witch said, getting not even an inch away from his face.
Pietro's arm shot to the side, attaching itself to the wall. He slumped to one side, his legs barely useful now. Wanda looked at him as his eyes stared at the floor without any emotion at all.
"They're going to call us tomorrow and tell us how she's doing, so answer the goddamn phone the first time it rings," she growled, walking up the stairs.
Todd heard Wanda's door close, and for the first time, he heard Pietro's slow footsteps coming up the stairs. He went to his room in front of Wanda's and closed the door.
Todd knew that Pietro liked her. Todd liked her too, but he wasn't sure what Wanda would do to him if she found out. Pixie had even kissed him. As of now, he was farther ahead of Pietro for once at something. It was a little kiss, probably out of sympathy, but it was a kiss nonetheless. He wondered what it felt like to be kissed on the lips. Sure, he had kissed Wanda, and, if Kurt hadn't been there, would have been dead before he could blink. But he wondered what it felt like to have the girl kiss back. He knew it had to felt good because Kitty and Lance did it all the time, and Pietro had even had make out sessions with girls at school that Todd saw, but he had never felt it.
She was the first girl to actually kiss him now that he thought about it.
And he had caused all this. If he hadn't been pick pocketing that night, those jocks wouldn't have gotten mad, and they wouldn't have jumped him at school. He wouldn't have gotten so hurt, and she wouldn't have healed him and gotten into whatever she had gotten into.
What would she do if he had kissed her?
Would she be like Wanda and freak out and threaten him within a hair of his life?
Or would…she do something else?
Toad had no clue what, but he kind of wanted it to be something that the girls that Lance and Pietro kissed did. He wanted her to like it too. He really wanted it to be Wanda, but it was clear that she didn't like him, but Pixie had chosen to put him in front of Pietro. Not like he was ever going to tell Pietro that she had kissed him or anyone for that matter.
Here he was conversing with his romantic side while she was in hospital. She didn't even look human now. He didn't even know if she was going to make it through the night.
She had to.
For the first time, Todd dropped to his knees and prayed, unaware that it was God who had saved her from shattering her fragile body on contact, and it would be God who would raise her in five days time and bring her out of the hospital one week later as a walking miracle.
The Bird Chick: Yeah, I know it's shorter than the others, but I had lots of big paragraphs in it. I'll try and get up some more chapters, but it'll be a few days. Thanks for the reviews!! :D
By Silver Falcon
Chapter Six
Todd rushed down the stairs, still clad in only his camouflage shorts. He hopped high into the air and landed on Fred, who was just about to bring him a glass of water and a ham sandwich. He dropped the glass and plate and caught Todd's semi-flying body before the small freshman could leap over him.
"What are you doing?! You're supposed to be injured?!" Fred said, holding Toad in front of him.
Todd waved his arms around madly. "Exactly! I'm not hurt anymore! Look! My black eye's gone and everything!"
Wanda and Lance ran down the stair, but, unfortunately for Lance, he was going to slow. Wanda shoved him about half way down and he crashed at the bottom of the staircase.
"What the hell?!" Lance said, staring in awe at Todd.
"Pixie did something! She said she would do something and she did!" Todd yelled.
Blob put him on the ground, and he hopped around excitedly to prove that he was as good as new. Lance stood up and looked at Fred. Wanda grabbed Todd's arm when he hopped past.
"Did you hear music?" she said, her eyes dark and serious. "Tell me!"
Toad nodded his head. "Yeah, sweetums, but I didn't know it was real. I thought I was dreamin'!"
Wanda shook her head. "No…she wouldn't do that. She knows what she would risk…"
"Wanda, what are you talking about?"
Wanda stamped her foot on the cold wooden floor. "Everyone, get clothes on," she said, focusing particularly on Todd. "We have to find Pixus."
Lance shrugged. "Who's Pixus?"
"Shut up and stick with Toad. You can smell her, right?" Wanda asked, looking deep into Todd's eyes.
Under any other circumstance, Todd would have passed out from the love, but now wasn't the time. Wanda seemed too nervous to tamper with.
"Yes. She smells like a dragonfly," he said calmly, looking into her eyes
"Freddy, I need you to stay here and wait for Pietro. When he comes, tell him to get his butt into Bayville and search for her. You come then. I will go with Toad and Lance now. Come on."
Todd immediately hopped after her, but Lance remained where he was. "What are we looking for, a fairy?!"
Wanda threw a Hex Bolt in his direction. It slammed into him and began to pull him across the floor and out the door. Todd, Wanda, and Lance got in his jeep and drove into town. Once there, Todd smelt the air for any spicy traces of dragonfly.
"Well?" Wanda growled from the passenger seat of the car.
Todd shook his head. "Nothing yo. Keep drivin'."
"Damnit!" Wanda spat as she looked at the road ahead.
They drove around the city going down every road that they found, driving countless circles around Bayville. Finally, Todd's eyes opened wide, and he jumped out of the car, landing on the sidewalk and hopping down an alley. Lance veered the car around and let Wanda out while he went to park the car in the closet place available.
Toad hopped down the alley towards the smell, but the closer he got to it, the closer he got to another smell: the smell of burning hair and skin. He stopped and waited for Wanda. She ran up next to him and looked ahead.
"Why did you…oh my god!" she said, holding her nose. "That's even worse than you!"
"Do you know what that is?" Todd whispered in a hushed, frightened voice.
Wanda looked at him with puzzlement and shook her head.
"That's the smell of burning flesh," Todd said, hopping forward another few feet.
Wanda gasped and ran forward, following him. He eventually stopped and backed into a wall, turning his head and whimpering loudly. Wanda walked up to him and immediately she felt the urge to throw up which she promptly did. She felt Todd's hand on her back. Wanda regained control of herself and looked up again, this time keeping her lunch down or what was left of it.
The body was almost nude and most of the garbage bags around her had melted. The left side of the body was covered with blisters while the right side was completely white with the hilts of two swords sticking out. All of her hair was gone and there were blisters on her head. She was lying on her side facing them with her head resting against melting trash bag. What little clothing she had left was near her waistline, but the rest had been burned away, A few feet away lay the blue flute, and it had been unharmed by the fire. The Hex Mistress grabbed the end of the sword and grimaced. She gave it a hard yank and pulled it out. She immediately threw up afterwards. She wiped her mouth and grabbed the hilt of the second sword, yanking it out as well. Wanda took off her trench coat and wrapped it around her, taking care to cover her completely.
About that time, Lance ran up behind them and gasped, uttering a horrified squeak. With a look of disgust on his face, he walked over to Wanda. She didn't look up at him, but she drew her coat to a close in front of the body and buttoned it.
"Go get an ambulance, you dumbass!" She yelled, causing a trash bag to fly at Avalanche.
Lance took off down the alley, disappearing into the street. Wanda backed off, and Toad gathered the broken spirit in his arms, holding her as close to him as he could. The Scarlet Witch looked around for the flute and found it again. She bent down, took it into her hand, and then grabbed the two swords. Todd had already started to walk towards the jeep. Wanda followed feeling very lightheaded and dizzy. She saw Lance in the shop across the street, yelling frantically into a phone that was behind the counter. He put the phone back on the receiver and ran outside.
"They're on their way!" he said, making his way across the street.
By this time, pedestrians had begun to stop and stare. Wanda put the flute and swords under the floorboard of Lance's jeep and waited. He leaned against the hood and stared at the hairless red and white body that Todd had in his arms.
They heard the sound of an ambulance in the distance, causing all of them to look. It swerved around the curb and pulled up behind Lance's jeep. The men in white jumped out, pulled the stretcher from the ambulance, and hurried to the freshman who held the wounded. Todd put her on the stretcher, and they wheeled it to the ambulance before sliding it inside. One of the men was standing outside with a clipboard. He came towards them just as they closed the ambulance doors to begin pumping her with antibiotics.
"Do you know the victim?" he asked with a squeaky voice.
"Her name is Pixus Raise," Todd said. "She lives with the owners of the Night Sun. She's seventeen. She's uh new here."
The man jotted what he knew down and called someone over to him and gave them orders to go alert the people at the Night Sun. Suddenly, a door in the back of the ambulance opened and a man stepped out. He walked over to the man with the clipboard and whispered something to him. The man with a clipboard looked at them and sighed.
"Are you aware that the victim has wings?" he said in a confused tone.
Wanda nodded calmly while the other two stood there with wide eyes and round mouths.
"Do you know how the accident happened?"
"No, we just found her," Wanda lied.
The man nodded and walked back to the ambulance. "You kids go home. What's a phone number I can reach you at?"
"421-2341," Lance answered.
"Okay, expect a phone call tomorrow. We'll tell you her status then."
He jumped into the passenger seat of the ambulance and the men and woman went in the back and drove off, leaving the three teenagers on the curb.
Todd turned to Wanda. "You knew she had wings?"
"Of course she has wings. She's half fairy, you moron," Wanda hissed, deciding that they would find out anyway since Pixie's cover had been blown.
The awkward silence that occurred after that was frightening. Wanda jumped into the car and barked at Lance to come drive it. Lance did, and Todd hopped into the back of the car.
"But…there's no such things as fairies, is there?" Lance whimpered.
Wanda shook her head and looked at him. "They just exist in a different world. Now, shut up and don't talk to me. I think it best if we left this alone for tonight. We don't even know if she's alive."
Todd bowed his head, and Lance could see it through the rear view mirror. "Toad, you gonna be okay?"
"It was my fault, wasn't it, Wanda?" His words pained her, even though she didn't show it entirely.
Todd knew it was his fault, and nothing that she said would drive him from that. He bowed his head again and lied down on the backseat, curling into a fetal position and closing his eyes. Wanda knew he was crying, and she knew that no insults or crude remarks were needed right now. His emotional wound was cavernous, and she knew it would take a long time for him to heal. She realized that he cared for her, maybe in the same way that Pietro cared for her. Was her little slave going to leave her and follow someone else? Was she playing too hard to get? Sure, Toad wasn't her idea of the perfect man at all—quite the opposite, in fact—but he did care for her. Didn't he? Even if he did leave her and go after Pixie, Wanda knew that she could never hate her. Pixie had been there through her most lonely years, and she even stayed with her past puberty, which was usually against her rules of regulation, but she knew Wanda needed it. So, every night, she was there for a few hours, and even during the day too. She had always been there. She had even been there for Todd during his infancy. Lance, too. Even Pietro. She had known every baby that was born. She had watched over them. She kept watch, but only a few remembered her. Wanda had been the selected one and probably the only one that she had stayed with until past the remembering age, which was usually twelve. Pixie had left her halfway through her fifteenth year, and here she was again. Wanda had been upset that she had left, but then Pixie told her about the assassins, and Wanda understood.
She turned her head to the side, just enough to see him out of the corner of her eye. "She knew what she was doing when she did it, Toad. She knew what could happen. She did that because she…cared…for you. That's what she does. She protects people. Humans and Mutants, she protects us."
Todd sobbed and curled into a tighter ball, whimpering. "She's going to die, isn't she?"
Wanda felt a tear roll down her cheek. "I…don't…know."
Toad fell deathly silent and didn't say another thing for the rest of the trip. When they got back home, he just walked upstairs and went into his room, locking the door. Walked! Toad didn't walk! He hopped everywhere!
Wanda explained to Blob what had happened, and she was surprised that Pietro still wasn't home. Everyone went to bed except Wanda, who felt enough remorse to stay up and tell Pietro what had happened to his girl while he was out.
It was quiet, and she began to doze off on the sofa watching the news to see if they had put the horrible burn victim story on the air yet. They hadn't. Pietro was definitely going to get a Hex Bolt when he came home. She thought about knocking him out the window, or maybe locking him in his closet and barricading the door for the night.
She heard the door open and shut in one motion, and she sent a Hex Bolt flying in the direction of the kitchen, hitting Pietro where she had wanted it to. He fell on his face, and she stood up and walked over to him.
"Ow... Wanda, we have to get the guys up. Pix was taken by some guys and…" he said, standing up.
"I know," she growled. "We already found her body. She's in the hospital's intensive care unit."
The Hex Bolt disappeared, and Wanda began to make her way upstairs, concluding that the emotional pain would be enough revenge.
"What?!" Pietro asked, speeding in front of her.
"Your girlfriend's in the intensive care unit. She's got second and third degree burns over 80 fucking percent of her body," The Hex Witch said, getting not even an inch away from his face.
Pietro's arm shot to the side, attaching itself to the wall. He slumped to one side, his legs barely useful now. Wanda looked at him as his eyes stared at the floor without any emotion at all.
"They're going to call us tomorrow and tell us how she's doing, so answer the goddamn phone the first time it rings," she growled, walking up the stairs.
Todd heard Wanda's door close, and for the first time, he heard Pietro's slow footsteps coming up the stairs. He went to his room in front of Wanda's and closed the door.
Todd knew that Pietro liked her. Todd liked her too, but he wasn't sure what Wanda would do to him if she found out. Pixie had even kissed him. As of now, he was farther ahead of Pietro for once at something. It was a little kiss, probably out of sympathy, but it was a kiss nonetheless. He wondered what it felt like to be kissed on the lips. Sure, he had kissed Wanda, and, if Kurt hadn't been there, would have been dead before he could blink. But he wondered what it felt like to have the girl kiss back. He knew it had to felt good because Kitty and Lance did it all the time, and Pietro had even had make out sessions with girls at school that Todd saw, but he had never felt it.
She was the first girl to actually kiss him now that he thought about it.
And he had caused all this. If he hadn't been pick pocketing that night, those jocks wouldn't have gotten mad, and they wouldn't have jumped him at school. He wouldn't have gotten so hurt, and she wouldn't have healed him and gotten into whatever she had gotten into.
What would she do if he had kissed her?
Would she be like Wanda and freak out and threaten him within a hair of his life?
Or would…she do something else?
Toad had no clue what, but he kind of wanted it to be something that the girls that Lance and Pietro kissed did. He wanted her to like it too. He really wanted it to be Wanda, but it was clear that she didn't like him, but Pixie had chosen to put him in front of Pietro. Not like he was ever going to tell Pietro that she had kissed him or anyone for that matter.
Here he was conversing with his romantic side while she was in hospital. She didn't even look human now. He didn't even know if she was going to make it through the night.
She had to.
For the first time, Todd dropped to his knees and prayed, unaware that it was God who had saved her from shattering her fragile body on contact, and it would be God who would raise her in five days time and bring her out of the hospital one week later as a walking miracle.
The Bird Chick: Yeah, I know it's shorter than the others, but I had lots of big paragraphs in it. I'll try and get up some more chapters, but it'll be a few days. Thanks for the reviews!! :D
