The Normal Mutant by Eternity's Voice
***
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men Evolution...yet. Marvel, there is no use resisting. Your property will soon belong to me.
.
Duncan (AN: Yes, I know I wrote Duncan. Get over it.)
. .
Duncan drove towards school. The leaves were just beginning to fall, and it seemed that most of them were content to fall into his passenger seat. Red leaves instead of a redhead, it was a change. He hadn't really taken time to stop and say "she's gone now." It still hit him sometimes, being without her. Duncan was a people person, he didn't hide that. He was a team player. He laughed.
"Just go and say it, Duncan. You're a jock, an attention junkie." He flashed a smile into the rearview mirror, and then let out a disgusted sigh.
Eyes back on the road, Duncan berated the reflection he knew was waiting for him. "You're a sight, you know that? Tall, tan blond..." He ran a hand through his hair and spared a glance at the golden strand that came loose. It was a rich toned and thick hair, glinting in the morning light before the October wind carried it away.
"...blue eyed, muscular, handsome, rich, a star on both the academic and football field.yeah. And do you know what else you are: arrogant, conceited, and self-centered. Whenever you start thinking about someone else, it always comes right back to you.
"Jean's gone now. It's your...my fault. She needed support and I went and turned into my dad. Her problem...right. I had no right to say that, of all people.
The leaves rustled, as if in agreement. His teeth clenched. Jean would have been quiet. She was like that: a study in serenity. Her words were never useless chatter, but important and worth noticing. Jean didn't fidget or bounce around like some girls. She just slowly toyed with a pencil or some other small object absentmindedly. Duncan never minded the quiet.
There was a presence to Jean that filled up space and silence. Maybe it was an effect of her mutant power; maybe it was her personality; maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, it was calming.
Unlike the leaves, which were doing a credible impression of rats scrabbling around behind a wall. A stop sign appeared up the road. "Oh, finally!" At the four-way intersection, Duncan dumped out the leaves. They spilled onto the side of the road, leaving the seat empty...again.
He watched a car on the other street drive by him, and then another. With a groan, he sank back into the seat. Twenty minutes down that road was school. Classes were a breeze and football made him feel alive. It was all those moments in between. The dirty looks and the jibes, the fear, it was all unbearable.
.
"Hey. You aren't going to Bayville High School, are you?"
The wind had masked the sound of the motorcycle's arrival. It wasn't a Harley, but some quieter foreign machine. It still startled Duncan to see a girl on a motorcycle next to him, for all appearances showing up out of nowhere.
"Where else do you think I would be going?" He despised the sarcastic tone of his voice.
The helmet clad girl cocked her head. "There's no need to get snippy with me. I just need directions, being the new girl. If you don't mind, I'm going to follow you."
Duncan couldn't make out her face through the visor, but her voice was pleasant. It sounded a bit silvery, if such a thing was possible. "Yeah...yeah, I don't mind. I'm Duncan."
"Anita," was her reply. He started driving again, and, instead of following behind, she brought the motorcycle to the other side of the median and drove along side his car. Seeing his look, Anita laughed and brought the bike closer. A car appeared around a curve down the road and she edged back behind him, let it pass, and then returned to the wrong side of the road.
"You're going to get yourself killed!" She popped a wheelie and shouted back, "Your point? I hate following behind people and I can't very well go ahead of you. Besides, this way we can talk."
"About what? How you're going to get me killed too?"
"Well, we have to start somewhere. Do you want me to hit you, or will the car that swerves to avoid me do? Really Duncan, you are such a baby."
She avoided the oncoming car and swung back over again.
"Tell you what. When we get to curves and hills, anything where I can't see ahead too far, I'll get back behind you. Does that make you feel better?"
"No, but I can't see getting you to do any less."
"How do you know? We've only known each other for two minutes."
"I know, but that's hardly enough time to know I'm a baby either."
"You have a point. How about a truce? I'm only reckless and you're only cautious. We'll rub off on each other and become nice, normal people."
"Deal! As long as it isn't our paint jobs we're rubbing off."
'What the hell are you doing, Matthews? You don't even know what this Anita looks like and you're acting like best buddies.'
He glanced at the rider. Whatever was under the leather was shapely. The helmet at least showed that Anita had some sense of being mortal. A glimmer caught his eye. Her hands were covered in some shiny material.
"Those are interesting gloves."
Her head swiveled. "What?"
"I didn't say anything." Duncan hated repeating himself. It made him feel weak and insignificant, that people weren't listening to him the first time on purpose.
"Sorry, my mistake. How far are we from this school of yours?"
He'd been driving on autopilot. Duncan looked ahead and spotted that familiar, cursed bend in the road far in the distance. "That turn up ahead will put us right on the school's street."
"Shouldn't there be more traffic? This lane is nearly deserted. But on the other hand, yours is deader than highway road kill."
"It's too early for people to be driving to school. Most kids, they don't show up for another half-hour. They tend to avoid this route anyway."
"Why? It's a nice road: no sharp turn, decent speed limits, and its in good repair. It should be crawling with kiddies. What else could it be? Someone didn't die here, did they?"
Duncan stared.
"Okay, no pedestrian corpses. Is there some story about a curse?"
Her voice grew a little reminiscent.
"Back home, there is this stream, gorgeous thing really, but nobody goes near it. People even avoid talking about it. Everyone knows the legend though, somehow. Years ago, a demoness' baby slipped from her arms as she fled from the demon trying to destroy it. The babe fell into the stream, damning the waters. Instead of drowning, it floated down the stream and came to the home of a married couple with no children of their own. They were blind to the child's devilish features and took it for to raise as their son. The people of the town learned of the unholy adoption and went to take away the child from the deceived couple. When the townspeople reached the cottage, the three were gone without a trace, as if they had turned to smoke and blown away. Even though they were gone, the house was set ablaze and the stream set off limits.
"Anyway, the point is the stream is "cursed" and no one will go near it because they think it will turn them into demons."
Duncan led the way through the maze of campus roadway to the student parking lot.
'Creepy story. Some towns have their legends, fine, but they don't so far as to include demons and a freakin' unholy river. We certainly don't have anything like that around here. Things are exciting enough with the Muties.'
The one thing they did to make life more peaceful -for Duncan, anyway- was to take the route they were driving on. Kids, and quite a few adults, acted like taking the same asphalt as the Institute kids would infect them. If that were true, after his contact with Jean, he was already 100% mutant. He saw no reason avoid something as convenient as an empty road straight from his house to school. Even when distraction popped in out of nowhere (Anita), it was so much quicker.
What was confusing was that lots of students took the same route as that Brotherhood. The stretch of road was close to being declared a national disaster zone, due to frequent earthquakes. If Duncan had to take one of the two mutant routes, Xavier's bunch it was. It seemed the obvious choice with Tolenski catching breakfast "on the fly," the witch having PMS 364.9 days a year, Albino boy yelling "Are we there YET!" every two seconds, Fatso threatening to bench press every car that passed theirs, and (Duncan's favorite) Lance being a road rage driver...hence the earthquakes.
Duncan pulled into the "first-class" section, a shady area between two overhanging tree branches where leaves didn't like to fall. Anita took her motorcycle to the shade giving tree itself. She locked it around the trunk with a chain from her saddlebag. Turning around, she walked over to Duncan and outstretched her gloved hand.
"It's nice to meet you Duncan. I would have done this sooner, but you would have killed me if I tried it at forty miles an hour." Duncan took the handshake. He blinked and looked at the hand dumbly. It had to be gloved, but it felt like skin...almost. There was a smooth feeling to it like metal, but it was warm and fleshy. She withdrew from the shake and placed both hands on her helmet.
"I just wanted to say thank you, Duncan..." Anita lifted off the helmet and removed her jacket.
.
'Metal. Metal. METAL...'
The word shot around his head like a rubber ball at 100 mph. Metal...that summed it up. Metal skin, metal hair, metal eyes, metal... Her gloves weren't gloves at all, but skin. Anita was bluish silver. She looked like a statue, but she...gave. The metal moved like flesh; there was a tracery of veins beneath the outer shell. Duncan felt like he could crush her without trying, like aluminum foil. God, she looked fragile. Anita was alive through all of that tin scrap though. Her face modeled sadness that was heartrending, and then gave a smile.
"Thank you, Duncan. Thank you for making me feel like a normal human being for twenty minutes. I'd forgotten what it felt like entirely."
Anita walked towards the building. "See you at school."
REVIEW!!!
(AN: No, it is not told entirely from Duncan's view, thank you. I want to tell it in that "get in their head" 3rd person, but only for Evolution Characters. I thought Duncan was a good character to introduce Anita, whom will have no say in the story. I am entirely open to suggestions for viewpoint characters, but I will bash nobody while I am "them." If you want to get someone bashed, I might do it as a rant in someone else's head. Just give me lots of ammo.)
***
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men Evolution...yet. Marvel, there is no use resisting. Your property will soon belong to me.
.
Duncan (AN: Yes, I know I wrote Duncan. Get over it.)
. .
Duncan drove towards school. The leaves were just beginning to fall, and it seemed that most of them were content to fall into his passenger seat. Red leaves instead of a redhead, it was a change. He hadn't really taken time to stop and say "she's gone now." It still hit him sometimes, being without her. Duncan was a people person, he didn't hide that. He was a team player. He laughed.
"Just go and say it, Duncan. You're a jock, an attention junkie." He flashed a smile into the rearview mirror, and then let out a disgusted sigh.
Eyes back on the road, Duncan berated the reflection he knew was waiting for him. "You're a sight, you know that? Tall, tan blond..." He ran a hand through his hair and spared a glance at the golden strand that came loose. It was a rich toned and thick hair, glinting in the morning light before the October wind carried it away.
"...blue eyed, muscular, handsome, rich, a star on both the academic and football field.yeah. And do you know what else you are: arrogant, conceited, and self-centered. Whenever you start thinking about someone else, it always comes right back to you.
"Jean's gone now. It's your...my fault. She needed support and I went and turned into my dad. Her problem...right. I had no right to say that, of all people.
The leaves rustled, as if in agreement. His teeth clenched. Jean would have been quiet. She was like that: a study in serenity. Her words were never useless chatter, but important and worth noticing. Jean didn't fidget or bounce around like some girls. She just slowly toyed with a pencil or some other small object absentmindedly. Duncan never minded the quiet.
There was a presence to Jean that filled up space and silence. Maybe it was an effect of her mutant power; maybe it was her personality; maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, it was calming.
Unlike the leaves, which were doing a credible impression of rats scrabbling around behind a wall. A stop sign appeared up the road. "Oh, finally!" At the four-way intersection, Duncan dumped out the leaves. They spilled onto the side of the road, leaving the seat empty...again.
He watched a car on the other street drive by him, and then another. With a groan, he sank back into the seat. Twenty minutes down that road was school. Classes were a breeze and football made him feel alive. It was all those moments in between. The dirty looks and the jibes, the fear, it was all unbearable.
.
"Hey. You aren't going to Bayville High School, are you?"
The wind had masked the sound of the motorcycle's arrival. It wasn't a Harley, but some quieter foreign machine. It still startled Duncan to see a girl on a motorcycle next to him, for all appearances showing up out of nowhere.
"Where else do you think I would be going?" He despised the sarcastic tone of his voice.
The helmet clad girl cocked her head. "There's no need to get snippy with me. I just need directions, being the new girl. If you don't mind, I'm going to follow you."
Duncan couldn't make out her face through the visor, but her voice was pleasant. It sounded a bit silvery, if such a thing was possible. "Yeah...yeah, I don't mind. I'm Duncan."
"Anita," was her reply. He started driving again, and, instead of following behind, she brought the motorcycle to the other side of the median and drove along side his car. Seeing his look, Anita laughed and brought the bike closer. A car appeared around a curve down the road and she edged back behind him, let it pass, and then returned to the wrong side of the road.
"You're going to get yourself killed!" She popped a wheelie and shouted back, "Your point? I hate following behind people and I can't very well go ahead of you. Besides, this way we can talk."
"About what? How you're going to get me killed too?"
"Well, we have to start somewhere. Do you want me to hit you, or will the car that swerves to avoid me do? Really Duncan, you are such a baby."
She avoided the oncoming car and swung back over again.
"Tell you what. When we get to curves and hills, anything where I can't see ahead too far, I'll get back behind you. Does that make you feel better?"
"No, but I can't see getting you to do any less."
"How do you know? We've only known each other for two minutes."
"I know, but that's hardly enough time to know I'm a baby either."
"You have a point. How about a truce? I'm only reckless and you're only cautious. We'll rub off on each other and become nice, normal people."
"Deal! As long as it isn't our paint jobs we're rubbing off."
'What the hell are you doing, Matthews? You don't even know what this Anita looks like and you're acting like best buddies.'
He glanced at the rider. Whatever was under the leather was shapely. The helmet at least showed that Anita had some sense of being mortal. A glimmer caught his eye. Her hands were covered in some shiny material.
"Those are interesting gloves."
Her head swiveled. "What?"
"I didn't say anything." Duncan hated repeating himself. It made him feel weak and insignificant, that people weren't listening to him the first time on purpose.
"Sorry, my mistake. How far are we from this school of yours?"
He'd been driving on autopilot. Duncan looked ahead and spotted that familiar, cursed bend in the road far in the distance. "That turn up ahead will put us right on the school's street."
"Shouldn't there be more traffic? This lane is nearly deserted. But on the other hand, yours is deader than highway road kill."
"It's too early for people to be driving to school. Most kids, they don't show up for another half-hour. They tend to avoid this route anyway."
"Why? It's a nice road: no sharp turn, decent speed limits, and its in good repair. It should be crawling with kiddies. What else could it be? Someone didn't die here, did they?"
Duncan stared.
"Okay, no pedestrian corpses. Is there some story about a curse?"
Her voice grew a little reminiscent.
"Back home, there is this stream, gorgeous thing really, but nobody goes near it. People even avoid talking about it. Everyone knows the legend though, somehow. Years ago, a demoness' baby slipped from her arms as she fled from the demon trying to destroy it. The babe fell into the stream, damning the waters. Instead of drowning, it floated down the stream and came to the home of a married couple with no children of their own. They were blind to the child's devilish features and took it for to raise as their son. The people of the town learned of the unholy adoption and went to take away the child from the deceived couple. When the townspeople reached the cottage, the three were gone without a trace, as if they had turned to smoke and blown away. Even though they were gone, the house was set ablaze and the stream set off limits.
"Anyway, the point is the stream is "cursed" and no one will go near it because they think it will turn them into demons."
Duncan led the way through the maze of campus roadway to the student parking lot.
'Creepy story. Some towns have their legends, fine, but they don't so far as to include demons and a freakin' unholy river. We certainly don't have anything like that around here. Things are exciting enough with the Muties.'
The one thing they did to make life more peaceful -for Duncan, anyway- was to take the route they were driving on. Kids, and quite a few adults, acted like taking the same asphalt as the Institute kids would infect them. If that were true, after his contact with Jean, he was already 100% mutant. He saw no reason avoid something as convenient as an empty road straight from his house to school. Even when distraction popped in out of nowhere (Anita), it was so much quicker.
What was confusing was that lots of students took the same route as that Brotherhood. The stretch of road was close to being declared a national disaster zone, due to frequent earthquakes. If Duncan had to take one of the two mutant routes, Xavier's bunch it was. It seemed the obvious choice with Tolenski catching breakfast "on the fly," the witch having PMS 364.9 days a year, Albino boy yelling "Are we there YET!" every two seconds, Fatso threatening to bench press every car that passed theirs, and (Duncan's favorite) Lance being a road rage driver...hence the earthquakes.
Duncan pulled into the "first-class" section, a shady area between two overhanging tree branches where leaves didn't like to fall. Anita took her motorcycle to the shade giving tree itself. She locked it around the trunk with a chain from her saddlebag. Turning around, she walked over to Duncan and outstretched her gloved hand.
"It's nice to meet you Duncan. I would have done this sooner, but you would have killed me if I tried it at forty miles an hour." Duncan took the handshake. He blinked and looked at the hand dumbly. It had to be gloved, but it felt like skin...almost. There was a smooth feeling to it like metal, but it was warm and fleshy. She withdrew from the shake and placed both hands on her helmet.
"I just wanted to say thank you, Duncan..." Anita lifted off the helmet and removed her jacket.
.
'Metal. Metal. METAL...'
The word shot around his head like a rubber ball at 100 mph. Metal...that summed it up. Metal skin, metal hair, metal eyes, metal... Her gloves weren't gloves at all, but skin. Anita was bluish silver. She looked like a statue, but she...gave. The metal moved like flesh; there was a tracery of veins beneath the outer shell. Duncan felt like he could crush her without trying, like aluminum foil. God, she looked fragile. Anita was alive through all of that tin scrap though. Her face modeled sadness that was heartrending, and then gave a smile.
"Thank you, Duncan. Thank you for making me feel like a normal human being for twenty minutes. I'd forgotten what it felt like entirely."
Anita walked towards the building. "See you at school."
REVIEW!!!
(AN: No, it is not told entirely from Duncan's view, thank you. I want to tell it in that "get in their head" 3rd person, but only for Evolution Characters. I thought Duncan was a good character to introduce Anita, whom will have no say in the story. I am entirely open to suggestions for viewpoint characters, but I will bash nobody while I am "them." If you want to get someone bashed, I might do it as a rant in someone else's head. Just give me lots of ammo.)