Okay, thanks for reviewing. I still would appreciate suggestions for POVs.
Enough me talk. Now its Pietro's turn.
***
Pietro
***
"Are we there YET?" The ground rumbled and Wanda sent her death glare from the back seat. .
"Get out and walk, Pietro. You'll be there in two seconds."
".398 seconds, but that's beside the point."
'The point is my bag weighs fifty pounds. I am not running 3 miles from here to school with a boulder on my back. Yeah, I can get there in less than a second, but I'll be sent to the morgue because my heart burst.' The mini-quake started again.
'And let's not forget the Alvers Factor. This road should be renamed San Andreas Fault Street. I'm agile, but nobody can keep balance when Lance is ticked off. Tripping at 100 miles an hour is like getting thrown from a car at two hundred...without the windshield to slow you down.
Pietro winced at the potential bloodbath, quickly so no one could see. "The point is I am too cool to show up on foot."
"And the fact that you're sitting in the passenger seat?"
"Negligible. You're hardly one to talk though, Miss Kiddy Section."
"Dude, why can't Wanda sit up front?" asked Blob. "I'm sick of Todd sending his tongue past me to lick her neck." Pietro glanced in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, Toad's tongue was extended behind Fred's back and was trying to score on the Scarlet Witch. And not the just the neck, either. Normally he would be dead, but Fred was an unwilling barrier between the frog and his soon to be murderer.
Pietro shook his head and groaned, "Tolensky."
The boy swallowed his tongue. "Yo...Aagghhh!"
"Thank you, Pietro."
"Wanda, what are big brothers for, except to squash toads trying to long- distance French kiss their sisters?"
Dukes looked down at Quicksilver in awe. "I didn't know you could hit someone that hard with a reclining seat."
"Force equals mass times acceleration, Fred. I'm no heavyweight, but I can do serious damage if I move fast enough."
"Yo, Speedy, can you, you know, let me out of here?" squeaked Todd from under Pietro's fully tilted back chair.
"Maybe next week, if you're quiet. Can't you see I'm talking here? Where was I anyway?"
"I don't know," Lance growled. He changed a few lanes and was finally able to speed up to fifteen mph. The road stopped shaking, for the moment. "It was something about why you sit up front."
"Thanks, Man. Back to before the Toad Tongue interrupted: Sis, who do you think pays for the gas that this hunk of scrap knocks back faster than I can say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?"
"What the Hell was that last word, Mr. Mile a Millisecond Motor Mouth?"
"My point exactly. I fork out the cash; I get the perks of sitting up front without the headaches of maneuvering through traffic. I could drive, but I prefer to be chauffeured."
Pietro sat up and looked around. 'Didn't we pass this point already?'
.
"Alvers, quit driving around in circles and get us to school already!"
The ground on either side of the road rippled as Lance put a death grip on the steering wheel. "Pietro, you said that two seconds ago!"
Quicksilver missed the rest of Lance's rant.
'Damn. I did it again.' He leaned back, and sure enough, his seat was there in its normal upright position. 'I never slammed this baby into Todd or talked about paying for gas for Lance's heap of junk. I didn't even think about why I don't run to school. Wait...I did...or did I just think about thinking about it? This is too confusing.'
It was happening all the time now. The world around Maximoff would get too slow and his mind ran on ahead. Then world caught up and he got yelled at.
'I don't even know if I'm going in real-time or daydreaming again right now. Dreaming...no, I shouldn't....' Pietro thought about it for a millisecond. 'Oh, what the Hell.'
In a swift motion, too quick for the others to see, he swallowed a Nyquil gel tablet. It hit his stomach and oblivion started to come immediately. Any drug Pietro used worked fast and hard. It was so bad, he sent out a little prayer every time he drank at parties that no one had "spiced up" the coke.
As sleep took him, Fred muttered, "He's asleep again. How does he do that?"
Wanda's voice was distant. "I don't know, maybe mental training. Just be glad he's finally shut up."
The rumbling stopped and Lance sighed. "Here's to that. If he said I was driving in circles or "Are we there yet" one more time, this whole town would be nothing but rubble."
...
"Pietro, we're here." Fred gently bludgeoned him out of sleep. The giant loomed above him with a concerned expression on his round face. "Man, I'm worried about you. Every time something doesn't happen every second, you fall asleep. You must be getting sixteen hours of sleep a day, twenty plus on the weekends."
Quicksilver wanted to reply, 'I only fall asleep because the world is too damn slow and dead boring,' but Blob was really bothered by his sleeping patterns.
"Don't worry about it, Fred. It's just a high metabolism. I burn energy too fast and have to sleep it off. No biggie, it just comes with being a mutant." He patted Dukes' shoulder and zoomed away.
'You're a Goddamn liar, Pietro, and a soft one at that. You should have busted Fred's overlarge chops back there, but you actually tried to relieve his fears. Why should you give a damn? He's expendable...what am I saying?
'He's important. Father, you're wrong about Fred, the Brotherhood. I can't just sacrifice them. They're the only friends I got.'
...
Pietro stopped dead to look at the court in front of the school's main doors. He leaned against a tree's trunk and stared.
'What is this, a whisper convention?'
The entire student body huddled in groups, glancing toward him every now and then. It was almost laughable how they tried to look at him and then turn away too quickly for him to notice. He kept an eye on every student in the yard, easily. No one could pull a fast one on him. Funny as it was, however, Maximoff couldn't help but wonder what was going on.
"Okay...Pietro, Mutant about Town, hardly news to these kiddies. What are they staring at me for?"
"They aren't." A voice above him said. "They are all staring at me, and doing a poor job of hiding it."
Pietro turned around a looked up. A girl lay sprawled over a tree branch. The sun came through the leaves and reflected off her silver-blue skin in swaying patterns. She seemed to be a creation of some master sculptor, not of random genetic luck.
"You don't seem shocked." There was a bit of confusion her voice. Apparently she wasn't used to people not gawking. Pietro regarded her calmly. "I'm more intrigued than surprised. Kids with physical mutations they can't hide were bound to show up in the school system eventually. Why not Bayville? It already has a Homo superior population anyway."
She laughed darkly, cutting him off. "Homo superior, what an egotistical way of putting what I am. No less arrogant than "Freak," I guess, but from the other side of the equation...You look like you agree with me."
"Homo superior, it's just a saying I had ingrained into me. The truth is I envy them, the normal people. Everything's made for them, just their speed. They never have to think about staying with the rest of the world, they just are. It's so hard for me to be there, in their world. They don't even try to help me, just the opposite."
She sighed and sat up. "For me the problem isn't being in their world, I always am. I'm in their sights and I stand out. I stand apart. The problem is they push me away when I just want to be with them. But that's not going to happen. At least not this school year."
"Enough moping?" Pietro flashed a bright grin and her own forlorn smile morphed towards happiness. Her teeth appeared to be made of platinum. Pietro silently hoped no one would try to knock them out for spending money.
"Enough moping."
"There's a girl. I'm Quicksilver, Pietro. So...what's your name, Silver, Metallica, maybe Ironheart?"
The girl's smile plummeted into a glare. She dropped off the tree, scooped up her bag, and walked away. Ten feet from Pietro, she stopped and turned around.
"My name," she growled pointedly, "is Anita, just Anita."
***
Another chapter finished...whew! These things really take a lot out of me, but I can't stop writing. Thank you for reviewing, those of you who did, but I really need some advice here! Voices cannot write on "I like it" alone. Give me some meat here: advice for improvement, suggestions for future chapters, spelling mistakes, anything!
Yeah, I know I'm off on a rant with the review thing. Anyway, "Thank You for Reading."
***
Pietro
***
"Are we there YET?" The ground rumbled and Wanda sent her death glare from the back seat. .
"Get out and walk, Pietro. You'll be there in two seconds."
".398 seconds, but that's beside the point."
'The point is my bag weighs fifty pounds. I am not running 3 miles from here to school with a boulder on my back. Yeah, I can get there in less than a second, but I'll be sent to the morgue because my heart burst.' The mini-quake started again.
'And let's not forget the Alvers Factor. This road should be renamed San Andreas Fault Street. I'm agile, but nobody can keep balance when Lance is ticked off. Tripping at 100 miles an hour is like getting thrown from a car at two hundred...without the windshield to slow you down.
Pietro winced at the potential bloodbath, quickly so no one could see. "The point is I am too cool to show up on foot."
"And the fact that you're sitting in the passenger seat?"
"Negligible. You're hardly one to talk though, Miss Kiddy Section."
"Dude, why can't Wanda sit up front?" asked Blob. "I'm sick of Todd sending his tongue past me to lick her neck." Pietro glanced in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, Toad's tongue was extended behind Fred's back and was trying to score on the Scarlet Witch. And not the just the neck, either. Normally he would be dead, but Fred was an unwilling barrier between the frog and his soon to be murderer.
Pietro shook his head and groaned, "Tolensky."
The boy swallowed his tongue. "Yo...Aagghhh!"
"Thank you, Pietro."
"Wanda, what are big brothers for, except to squash toads trying to long- distance French kiss their sisters?"
Dukes looked down at Quicksilver in awe. "I didn't know you could hit someone that hard with a reclining seat."
"Force equals mass times acceleration, Fred. I'm no heavyweight, but I can do serious damage if I move fast enough."
"Yo, Speedy, can you, you know, let me out of here?" squeaked Todd from under Pietro's fully tilted back chair.
"Maybe next week, if you're quiet. Can't you see I'm talking here? Where was I anyway?"
"I don't know," Lance growled. He changed a few lanes and was finally able to speed up to fifteen mph. The road stopped shaking, for the moment. "It was something about why you sit up front."
"Thanks, Man. Back to before the Toad Tongue interrupted: Sis, who do you think pays for the gas that this hunk of scrap knocks back faster than I can say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?"
"What the Hell was that last word, Mr. Mile a Millisecond Motor Mouth?"
"My point exactly. I fork out the cash; I get the perks of sitting up front without the headaches of maneuvering through traffic. I could drive, but I prefer to be chauffeured."
Pietro sat up and looked around. 'Didn't we pass this point already?'
.
"Alvers, quit driving around in circles and get us to school already!"
The ground on either side of the road rippled as Lance put a death grip on the steering wheel. "Pietro, you said that two seconds ago!"
Quicksilver missed the rest of Lance's rant.
'Damn. I did it again.' He leaned back, and sure enough, his seat was there in its normal upright position. 'I never slammed this baby into Todd or talked about paying for gas for Lance's heap of junk. I didn't even think about why I don't run to school. Wait...I did...or did I just think about thinking about it? This is too confusing.'
It was happening all the time now. The world around Maximoff would get too slow and his mind ran on ahead. Then world caught up and he got yelled at.
'I don't even know if I'm going in real-time or daydreaming again right now. Dreaming...no, I shouldn't....' Pietro thought about it for a millisecond. 'Oh, what the Hell.'
In a swift motion, too quick for the others to see, he swallowed a Nyquil gel tablet. It hit his stomach and oblivion started to come immediately. Any drug Pietro used worked fast and hard. It was so bad, he sent out a little prayer every time he drank at parties that no one had "spiced up" the coke.
As sleep took him, Fred muttered, "He's asleep again. How does he do that?"
Wanda's voice was distant. "I don't know, maybe mental training. Just be glad he's finally shut up."
The rumbling stopped and Lance sighed. "Here's to that. If he said I was driving in circles or "Are we there yet" one more time, this whole town would be nothing but rubble."
...
"Pietro, we're here." Fred gently bludgeoned him out of sleep. The giant loomed above him with a concerned expression on his round face. "Man, I'm worried about you. Every time something doesn't happen every second, you fall asleep. You must be getting sixteen hours of sleep a day, twenty plus on the weekends."
Quicksilver wanted to reply, 'I only fall asleep because the world is too damn slow and dead boring,' but Blob was really bothered by his sleeping patterns.
"Don't worry about it, Fred. It's just a high metabolism. I burn energy too fast and have to sleep it off. No biggie, it just comes with being a mutant." He patted Dukes' shoulder and zoomed away.
'You're a Goddamn liar, Pietro, and a soft one at that. You should have busted Fred's overlarge chops back there, but you actually tried to relieve his fears. Why should you give a damn? He's expendable...what am I saying?
'He's important. Father, you're wrong about Fred, the Brotherhood. I can't just sacrifice them. They're the only friends I got.'
...
Pietro stopped dead to look at the court in front of the school's main doors. He leaned against a tree's trunk and stared.
'What is this, a whisper convention?'
The entire student body huddled in groups, glancing toward him every now and then. It was almost laughable how they tried to look at him and then turn away too quickly for him to notice. He kept an eye on every student in the yard, easily. No one could pull a fast one on him. Funny as it was, however, Maximoff couldn't help but wonder what was going on.
"Okay...Pietro, Mutant about Town, hardly news to these kiddies. What are they staring at me for?"
"They aren't." A voice above him said. "They are all staring at me, and doing a poor job of hiding it."
Pietro turned around a looked up. A girl lay sprawled over a tree branch. The sun came through the leaves and reflected off her silver-blue skin in swaying patterns. She seemed to be a creation of some master sculptor, not of random genetic luck.
"You don't seem shocked." There was a bit of confusion her voice. Apparently she wasn't used to people not gawking. Pietro regarded her calmly. "I'm more intrigued than surprised. Kids with physical mutations they can't hide were bound to show up in the school system eventually. Why not Bayville? It already has a Homo superior population anyway."
She laughed darkly, cutting him off. "Homo superior, what an egotistical way of putting what I am. No less arrogant than "Freak," I guess, but from the other side of the equation...You look like you agree with me."
"Homo superior, it's just a saying I had ingrained into me. The truth is I envy them, the normal people. Everything's made for them, just their speed. They never have to think about staying with the rest of the world, they just are. It's so hard for me to be there, in their world. They don't even try to help me, just the opposite."
She sighed and sat up. "For me the problem isn't being in their world, I always am. I'm in their sights and I stand out. I stand apart. The problem is they push me away when I just want to be with them. But that's not going to happen. At least not this school year."
"Enough moping?" Pietro flashed a bright grin and her own forlorn smile morphed towards happiness. Her teeth appeared to be made of platinum. Pietro silently hoped no one would try to knock them out for spending money.
"Enough moping."
"There's a girl. I'm Quicksilver, Pietro. So...what's your name, Silver, Metallica, maybe Ironheart?"
The girl's smile plummeted into a glare. She dropped off the tree, scooped up her bag, and walked away. Ten feet from Pietro, she stopped and turned around.
"My name," she growled pointedly, "is Anita, just Anita."
***
Another chapter finished...whew! These things really take a lot out of me, but I can't stop writing. Thank you for reviewing, those of you who did, but I really need some advice here! Voices cannot write on "I like it" alone. Give me some meat here: advice for improvement, suggestions for future chapters, spelling mistakes, anything!
Yeah, I know I'm off on a rant with the review thing. Anyway, "Thank You for Reading."