Chapter 2: Exercise
He kissed me! Ace kissed me! The words were like a catchy song, stuck in her head with no chance of being forgotten in the near future. She reached the hallway to her room and started dancing down it. It didn't matter who saw her, she was too euphoric to care.
So what, if her first kiss was in a closet where she was hiding from a super-powered duck because she hid his My Little Pony? It didn't bother her, seeing as the person who issued it was the one person she loved most in this world. And any other world, at that.
Even though she had sworn off feeling more than friendship for any male, she couldn't help it this time. Ace was so much different than that other guy had been. He understood her when no one else did. And he kissed me!
She could barely contain squeals of happiness, so when she reached her room, she threw herself onto her bed, buried her face in a pillow and screamed in pure joy. She thought about him, and the way he looked when he held her. His deep blue eyes glittered like sapphires, and she thought she could just drown in them. She got up, a huge smile on her face, and undressed from her uniform, trading it for her usual colors and a training outfit, consisting of navy shorts and a matching tank top. She walked over to her dresser, and popped the earphones of her iPod in. When she pressed play, the song "Roll With It" by Easton Corbin was first on the playlist. She turned it up, and skipped on down to the training room.
She blasted apart targets and kick-boxed dummies to their deaths as she starred in her own little concert. Her songs kept playing, and she just kept on singing as she headed toward their track to work on some endurance running. Well, running with some jazzed up dance moves.
"What you've got, boy, is hard to find…I think about it all the time…" she sang doing cartwheels, back-hand springs, and flips. "I'm all struck out, my heart is fried…I just can't get you off my mind…" Handstands followed, and she walked on like that, finally tossing her feet over to a backbend and lifting herself up.
On it went, and after a while she got some company.
What-on-Acmetropolis-could-that-be?-Did-Duck-leave-his-stereo-on-while-jamming-in-the-shower? Rev wondered, hearing some great singing coming from the distance. Wait-a-second-that's-not-the-direction-it's-coming-from-it's-more-like-the-training-room… who-could-be-in-there?
He sped off to the training room, and found his only female teammate in there, running and dancing to her own singing. He then noticed her headphones. Ah-so-it's-not-her-own
-singing-she's-dancing-and-working-out-to-but-still-she-sounds-really-good-I-should-bring-the-rest-of-the-team-and-show-them!
Rev raced to the lab, where Tech was working diligently on some sort of super-hi-tech gizmo. "Tech!" Rev exclaimed, "It's-Lexi-she's-got-such-a-beautiful-voice-and-she's-singing-now-only-she-doesn't-know-that-I-know-and-that-I'm-telling-you-and-the-rest-of-the-team-and-she's-in-the-training-room-and-ohh-you-gotta-hear-her!" With that, Rev was off again, headed to the kitchen.
"Slam!-go-to-the-training-room-Lexi's-singing-and-it's-to-die-for!-she's-amazing!-hurry-hurry-before-she-knows-you're-there!" And again, he ran away.
Knockknockknockknockknock. "Duck!-it's-Lexi!-she's – " the door opened to reveal a groggy Duck. Apparently, he had been taking a nap to relieve him of his stress from losing his pony toy.
"GO AWAY!" yelled Duck, slamming the door in Rev's face. Rev rolled his eyes, and went on his way to Ace's room.
Knockknockknockknockknock. "Ace!-it's-Lexi!-she's – " Again, the door opened, but a more wide-awake teammate greeted him with worry written plainly all over his face. "Is she okay?" Ace asked. Rev nodded rapidly and carried on with his message. "Anyways-she's-in-the-training-room-and-she-must-be-happy-about-something-cuz-she's-dancing-and-singing-love-songs-and-she's-really-really-really-good-at-it!" He raced away to go to the training room, with a stunned Ace left to follow at a much slower pace.
She's…happy? Dancing? Singing love songs? Could it be that…it was because of him? Ace shook his head, not only to clear his mind, but to answer that question. Nah, there wasn't any way she could've been happy about what happened between them.
Unless she wanted it to happen, a little part of his heart whispered. He ignored it and went to the training room, to see if what Rev said was true or not.
For the most part, he wasn't lying, that was for sure. Yes, she was in the training room, and yes she was dancing around the track. But she wasn't singing. Anything that sounded as heavenly and as beautiful as that could not merely be classified as just plain singing.
"Because your love, your love, your love, is my drug…" she sang out, grabbing her high school baton and twirling it, doing amazing moves. She tossed it up, spun three times, caught it, and kept spinning. Why didn't she ever show me that? he wondered.
He saw that she was wearing the navy outfit she got on her last trip to Nike Outfitters. It looked good on her, highlighting her facial features, abs, and muscular legs. He belatedly noticed the rest of the team was there too, ogling her and her talents. He felt an odd pang of jealousy, because that was his Lexi they were watching.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. His Lexi?
Well, yeah, he had trained her in the beginning. Now she was so strong that she really could make him actually work to win. Sometimes, it even happened to end up that he had to give up, cuz she just kept coming at him. But did that make her his?
No, not really.
But then there was the kiss. And these feelings he'd been fighting for some time now. The ones that made him crazy possessive and protective of her. If he couldn't see where she was in a battle, he completely freaked. It had gotten to the point where he didn't even care what happened to Zodavia, as long as Lexi was okay. That definitely wasn't how it was supposed to be.
Yet it had happened to be that way. It had started gradually, with him noticing the little things that most annoyed him about her. Like the way her hair hung in her face all the time, why couldn't she just put it up so her eyes could be seen? Or how she always seemed happy, even in the worst of situations, why couldn't she be a realist?
These things that so bothered him at first, eventually grew on him and were made more endearing. No matter how hard she tried to keep her hair out of the way, it kept falling down, and her every attempt to put it up was adorable. Her optimism, he had to admit, had kept him fighting when he wanted to give up.
And now he couldn't get her out of his mind. He noticed the even littler details, like whenever she'd skip a meal (which she desperately needed, if you asked him), or when she'd try styling her hair some other way. He was starting to read her, too. He never knew how much she kept hidden behind her cheery façade.
He could tell the exact moment when she realized that she was being watched. She must've had that thing cranked awfully loud for her not to have heard them all enter the room. She stopped, turned around, and her beautiful bright green eyes were as round as saucers. Her jaw dropped, and a pretty blush could be detected spreading across her face, since she high-tailed it to the main room, and to her bedroom, he presumed.
Oh my gosh! How long were they standing there? Did they see it ALL? Lexi pondered all of this as she slammed her door behind her. Again, she threw herself down on her bed, but from embarrassment this time. She glumly stared out her window, wondering how to escape her teammates, just for a little while.
Wait…window? Yes, a plan was forming in her head. She could use her jet-pack to sail out the window and go run in the park or something! The civilians had never seen her out of uniform before, so they wouldn't recognize her to pester her with questions.
She gave herself a once-over in her mirror. A girl can't go in public looking like trash, Lexi thought. She brushed out her hair, and flopped her ears back into a ponytail. She didn't bother with makeup and, happily noting that her blush from the scene before had mostly faded, she jetted out the window.
Okay, Lex, let's jet! she exclaimed to herself.
She flew in the air for a few minutes, then found a secluded area in a park to land. She stashed away her jet-pack in a few bushes, and jogged a while around the park. If she was thinking ahead, she would've changed into something less…revealing, she thought. She was getting some appreciative stares from the male population, and more than a few envious ones from the girls. She just turned her iPod up, and continued on her way.
She didn't notice when she was joined by someone else. A male jogger had finally gotten up the courage to accompany her. She looked over, and, when she got over her surprise, smiled at him and waved. He fainted, and she paused, having never seen such a thing from a man, but then continued on her way, thinking how odd that was. No one had ever swooned over her before. She really wasn't that pretty.
"I think so," a deep, rumbling voice came from behind her. She jumped a little bit, unaware that she had spoken what her mind said. She stopped, and turned, seeing who was here with her now. He was taller, anthropomorphic like herself. He was a bunny, also like herself. He wasn't all that bad looking, either, his muscles seeming to come from everywhere. But he seemed…familiar, somehow.
"The name's Pierce. Pierce Rabbit," he said, extending a hand to her. She accepted it and put on a radiant smile. "My name's Lexi Bunny," she returned. His hand lingered a moment too long on hers before he removed it.
"What's such a gorgeous gal like you doing all by yourself?" he asked. Lines like this made her so mad, because, so what if she was a girl? She could take care of herself just as good as or better than any boy could! She decided to let it go and just answer, "I was getting some exercise in before the day was over." She looked at her "watch", which was really her communicator.
"Oh, jeez, look at the time! It completely flew by, I must be getting home now…It was nice meeting you, Pierce!" she rushed to say, and fled. She had just grabbed her jet-pack when she felt his warm hand on her shoulder. She widened her eyes in exasperation before looking up to see who was hindering her from going back to HQ.
It was, of course, Pierce. "Hey, I was thinking, you know, to keep you safe, that maybe I should walk you home?" Even as he voiced the end as a question, he gripped her arm. She slung her pack over her shoulder, and he made a move to grab it. "That's okay, I've got it!" she laughed, so as not to show him how uncomfortable she was with the situation.
"So where to, Miss Bunny?" he asked, and she remembered that she hadn't told him no. She sighed, and said, "This way." She led, and he followed, trying to start a conversation.
"Where do you go to school at?" he asked her, obviously figuring her to be a teen. She giggled, and said, "Silly, I'm twenty! I'm out of school!" He raised his eyebrows, then looked away. She thought she heard him mutter, "Well, that's not far from twenty-one…"
She stopped in front of HQ, and said, "I'll catch a bus from here. I live very far out of town. Thank you for bringing me this far!" She gave him another dazzling smile, and waited for him to leave, still not able to shake the keen sense of familiarity off.
"The pleasure is mine, Lexi," he murmured, and he took her hand and kissed it. Eyes wide, she stared at his back while he walked away. Holy cow, was he a charmer if there ever was one. I could definitely like him, she decided, jetting up to her room again, I really could.
If only I didn't love Ace so much…
Ace watched her, and his stomach twisted whenever she smiled at her "companion". It made him sick, to see her with someone else like that.
And then he kissed her.
Yeah, it was only her hand, but she went totally gaga for that! What a creeper, who even did that anymore? Well, she didn't seem to ponder on it too long, as she flew up to her room again.
Ace would be waiting for her, to question her about her "date". Who was he? Why was he better than Ace?
But you never asked her out for anything, the little voice inside his head nagged, you didn't even dance with her at Duck's party. Why would she consider you?
Much as he hated to admit, his little voice was right. He hadn't given her reason for her to consider him as anything other than a friend and teammate. Except for that kiss earlier, he seemed romantically declined from her.
He was just going to have to fix that.