To my reviewers: Thanks so much for your support! To my readers: Meh. Thanks for reading. A little mishap, I realized I had put Ant in five classes. XD. I completely skipped over Gov't two chapters ago.
A cool little thing: I uploaded a pic I drew of Susanna onto my bio page. Go check it out.
It had been about five days since Ant had first arrived at Xavier's, and Friday was finally here! The weekend was just around the corner, and even though Ant was new to the environment at the school, she was glad to have a break from classes.
In Susanna's class nothing much had changed. Ant had tried to do her feeling trick on the professor a few times more, but Susanna managed to doge it – not a hard feat – and sweep Ant's legs out from under her. Today Owen had found a few more openings than normal and had given Susanna a few rabbit punches to the head and a knee to the ribs before the scorpion woman elbowed him in his back, between his shoulder blades, and drove him to the ground.
Ethics was by far Ant's favorite class. Sitting next to Owen, and away from Tyler, she got a full view of the class's discussion. They had covered everything from identification to human rights to privacy, which led back to identification. Math, which should have been her best subject, only made her sick to think about. Nearly an hour next to the animator made Ant queasy. He hadn't done anything, but he was just. . . weird.
In government, Hank McCoy taught them all the general spread. The three branches, how they work together and apart and the steps to passing a law. Not to mention the inside scoop on politics. It was interesting, but all Mr. McCoy did was lecture, and it got boring.
Last was Logan's class. Ant considered it her 'unwind' time. Nothing happened, nothing was assigned, nothing was checked. Every now and then Logan would growl at the class to keep it down, but that was about it. Jamie, Morgan and Ant used this time to gossip with each other.
Finally the bell rang!
Jamie giggled, grabbed Ant's hand and fled Logan's classroom. She pulled Ant along the halls, her superhuman strength giving Ant no way at all to escape. They ran into their room and Jamie slammed the door, still giggling.
"We are so done!" She smiled, her fit of laughter still holding her. "Three day weekend baby!" Jamie did a fist pump in the air and Ant quickly put on her headphones. "Do you know what this means?"
Ant shook her head.
"I get to go take pictures!" Jamie said happily, on her hands and knees on the floor. She was digging through the space between her bed and the carpet. She pulled out a camera, a sleeping bag, two rolls of film, and a lunchbox.
"Just me, the woods, and my camera." She sighed. "Two whole nights." Jamie glanced over at Ant.
"So I won't be here tonight, or Saturday night. If I'm not back by," Jamie squinted, thinking. "Sunday evening, send Owen out after me."
Ant nodded. In their rooms she was able to keep her music down low enough to just barely hear Jamie. The girl quickly packed some essentials in a bag. Toothbrush, toothpaste, styling gel and a few extra pairs of clothes got stuffed into a little messenger purse Jamie had.
Ten minutes later, Jamie had her camera in hand and was climbing through the window.
"Be good, okay Ant?" Jamie said. "See you later!" A hop, skip, and a jump and Jamie was off and out the window, bouncing along towards the woods as if a trampoline was following her shadow.
Ant shook her head. This was not going to be a good weekend. She stayed in her room for a bit, did some homework, listened to some music and then sighed. This was boring! She was back in school with people who understood her, for the most part. What was she doing inside?
She decided to try to find Owen. For the past two days he and Shogun had been hanging out a lot, and shot Ant dirty glares whenever she came upon them alone. Ant had no idea where to start looking, but they seemed to show up in any place she wound up so anywhere around the school looked like a good idea.
Logan's classroom was always a good place to start, so Ant cranked up her music and shut her door behind her. Walking through the halls, she saw a group of girls. Still wary about large crowds, she tried to avoid them by walking on the other side of the hallway.
"Isn't that her?"
"She is! She's the one who-"
"No way!"
"But she's not even cute!"
"She's such a-"
"Slut!"
Ant, lucky for her, couldn't feel any of the emotions that were coming off these girls, but she realized something was wrong when the group, about five teenagers total, blocked her way.
One of them grabbed her arm and another pulled down her headphones.
"Where do you get off, huh?" One of the girls asked, a freckled blonde with big brown eyes. "Thinking you can just march in here and get any guy you look at?"
"What are you-"
Another girl stepped up. "Owen was my boyfriend a week ago, ever since you came here, he's latched onto you!" Ant opened her mouth to say that if Owen was ever the girls boyfriend, then she should know that he was easier than most rock stars. "Don't even say anything!" She shrieked her high-pitched voice cracking.
Well alright then. Ant shut her mouth, fully doubting the cruelty of a pack of girls.
"What about Tyler?" asked one of the shyer of the herd, a pretty little redhead in back.
"Yeah? You want Venus to kill you? You know that if you mess with her brother at all, then you are dead meat."
"Not to mention that Tyler almost never talks to anyone. Then you come around and all of a sudden he's in love with you?" A different girl with blue wave tattoos that stretched across her arms reached out ant grabbed Ant's chin, looking at her like a prime steak in need of an inspection for rot. "You're not even that pretty."
Ant's eyes began to fill. What did these girls know? She hadn't even done anything! At the last comment, the two girls who were holding onto her felt as if someone had punched them in the gut. They gasped and let go, Ant barely having time to put her headphones on.
She tried to make a break for it, not actually running, but trying to push her way out of the little pack. Her mouth filled with the taste of copper, there was a pressure on her chest and Ant went back to her old habit, her right hand clutching the bruised and broken skin right above her heart.
The girls quickly closed in on Ant, the blonde being the first to say anything.
"You little whore!" The girl screeched. Suddenly Ant felt a stinging slap on her cheek. Ant stepped backward, shocked. She couldn't believe someone would actually hit her. She didn't want any trouble, she didn't even really understand why the girls were mad!
"Why. . " That was all Ant could get out, utter confusion on her face. Another slap and she was down on the ground, hand on her cheek. One of the girls kicked her and the others started in on the girl, kicking her hard enough to bruise (but not much harder, they had been slacking off in Susanna's after all) forcing Ant to cover her face.
Suddenly, with tears spilling out from her eyes, Ant had enough.
"Stop!"
A feeling just exploded from Ant, hurt, anger, fear, everything that those jealous girls had made Ant feel in the past three minutes rebounded on them, an onslaught of emotions that made their hearts feel like they were getting ripped out. Bleach and copper assaulted their mouth and nose and they backed away from Ant, who for one blissful moment, didn't feel anything. A few fell to the floor and another two retched in the hall. One girl was leaning up against a pillar a few feet away.
"I knew I would find trouble today." Owen muttered, stepping over his ex and holding out a hand to Ant, who lurched up, taking his offer. Owen pulled the girl up and then stepped out of the half-circle of tormenters. He held onto Ant's hand and then put her arm around his shoulder, leading and carrying her to the nurse.
"You are so lucky we have a healer here." Owen grunted. "She's great."
Ant rolled her eyes. Another teacher Owen had the hots for? Nurse Trimly, however, turned out to be a seventy-something lady who just put a hand on Ant's shoulder. Suddenly, Ant felt better all over. The bruises that were starting to form on her arms, where she could see them, disappeared. She put a hand over her heart. It didn't hurt anymore.
"Thanks."
It was all she could say, the smell of mint and awe washing over the three mutants. Owen led Ant out of the nurses office, muttering darkly under his breath.
"No idea what I saw in her. I can't believe they would do that."
"Owen?"
"What kind of girls are they, that they don't have any respect for others-"
Ant gave up trying to ask Owen where they were going, he obviously had his mind elsewhere, and was just walking. About ten minutes of wandering the halls and listening to Owen rant to himself Ant sighed.
"Where's Jamie?"
"Uhm. She went to take photographs." Ant said, looking up at Owen. "She said that if she didn't come back by Sunday night that you need to go find her."
"She knows she's not supposed to go out alone! Why does she always do this to me?" Owen lamented, sighing at the heavens. "Alright. Lets go to Logans. I need to ask him about something."
"Something that you're going to tell me about?" Ant said, joking around a little.
"Maybe. Actually." Owen looked down at Ant. "I think so."
They came to Logans room and without even bothering to knock Owen pushed open the door. Ant's eyes quite literally bugged out of her head, and Owen nearly died of laughter until he saw the look on Logan's face.
"Do you mind." The man growled, his hands clutching tighter around Susanna. "I'm in the middle of something fairyboy."
"Let him stay Logan." The other professor simpered, drawing her hand across Logan's unshaved face. "Maybe he'll learn something."
"Out." Wolverine snarled. It was only Ant nearly crushing his hand to a pulp that made Owen close the door to the English classroom.
"I knew I would find trouble." Owen laughed, walking down the hallways. "I found you, then Logan and Susanna. What a pair." Owen collapsed against a pillar, still laughing.
"That's great!" He was still laughing, but Ant didn't see the hilarity of the situation. "Really Ant, it's funny!" Owen sighed. "Booger."
"What?"
"I called you a booger."
Ant blinked. "If you say so." Owen smiled and pushed off the pillar, pulling Ant towards him. He twisted and they ended up on the other side of the column, Owen leaning against the wood and Ant close to him, staring out into the hall.
"You know." The boy said, the arm that wasn't holding Ant's hand now resting on her shoulder. "Now that you've seen the pros go at it, what do you say to a little test drive ourselves?"
Ant's eyes widened and the tips of their fingers tingled as Ant began to get nervous and uncomfortable, a small feeling that just nudged the stomach in the wrong direction. She tried to pull away from Owen, but he held her close to him, about a foot away. His arm that had rested on her shoulder had snaked it's way around Ant's waist.
"Owen." Ant said, laughing a little as she tried again to get away from the boy. "Stop it." The boy could tell she didn't mean it.
"What if I don't want to?"
Ant's eyes, already huge, became even large as Owen became serious for the second time she had seen. She opened her mouth, shut it and then started again.
"What if I don't want you to?"
Owen looked at Ant for a while, smiled slightly, then leaned into Ant faster than she could react. He kissed her lightly on the cheek and then let go of her waist, stepping out from behind the pillar and beginning to walk towards the garden exit, Ant in tow.
"Then I'll wait until you do."
Ant flushed a deep crimson, the smell of fresh rain and mangos invading their senses. They tasted fruit throughout their entire walk in the garden.