Question Mice in the Churchhouse Completed

Jack leaned his head back, eating shoe leather like jerky, wishing the little brat behind him would find something else to do, or maybe just drop dead. The kid had been kicking his seat for the last hour, ever since he'd gotten on in Hicksville, Wisconsin. The A/C had died two hours before that, and for a Northern Saskatchewan boy, having no A/C in a packed bus driving under the glaring hot sun of Wisconsin, it was the next thing to hell.

“Why did we decide to take the bus?” he groaned, wishing he could take his bandanna off and let the tiny hing of a breeze cool off his ears.

His twin sister, Pepper, stopped munching on her sunflower seeds, crunching on the shells and all, glared at him. It was surprising how identical they were, they each had a little snout that was just this side of baseline, with big sharp mouse like teeth, glasses so big and thick they could be mistaken for dinner plates, and she was wearing a light scarf on her head which covered her ears and most of her hair where he had a bandanna. About the only difference was that she was only five foot one, compared to his towering five foot three, and she had a few very small curves.

“Because someone thought that after all the fun we had last time we got on an airplane, it made more sense to take a bus,” she said. “Think of the money we'll save! We can get our dorm rooms at Whateley done up right. It'll only take two and a half days, but we'll leave in the evening and sleep most of the time, and there's no stupid check in.”

“Ok, ok, I'm an idiot,” he groaned, before she could really get into it. She had to be mad, letting her emotions show like that rather than just pulling a prank on him. Pulling out his Nintendo DS, he tried to forget the sweaty armpit of hell they was traveling through, which their grandparents called home for some godforsaken reason.

Just as he was getting into the game, and the sun was fading away promising at least get rid of the horrible, mind numbing heat, the bus squealed, thunked a few times and shuddered to a stop on the side of the road.

“Everyone please stay in your seats, while I give it a look see,” the driver said, making his way down the stairs.

Jack turned to look at his sister. Her eyes promised a slow, humiliating death.

* * *

Pepper sat their and glared at her brother. She didn't know how the bus breaking down was his fault, but it had to be. Everything on this godforsaken trip was his fault, it had to be, he was the one who came up with the idea. Now she was getting ideas of her own, for all the little ways she could kill him, like rat poison that would be suitably ironic. Not only that but she could take his body and leave it in a bus, with a note saying 'I was put on a bus,' probably with a reference to what that meant so people could laugh at her joke.

At least she had a nice view of the road from her seat, being relatively near the from helped with that. It did not however help with making the road any better. The mother behind her at least got some relief, she had been quietly complaining about motion sickness for the better part of trip. But maybe it wasn't a relief for her, as now she had to deal with a rambunctious child who no longer thought he had to be sitting down.

The heat was really getting to Pepper. It might not be so bad if she didn't have to wear the stupid scarf on her head, but people weren't to friendly to mutants around these parts. At least it was getting cooler with the setting of the sun. The it was a lot cooler around her head and she felt her ears unfold.

"Mommy, mommy, she has funny ears."

The little brat had pulled the scarf off of her head. She didn't know whether to thank him or kill him for that. Pepper started to get up to get it back from him, then had the horrible realization that people could clearly see her ears.

Grabbing her bag and her brother she was already bolting for the door at the first cries of, "Mutant!"

Luckily they had sat close to the front of the bus, otherwise they might have been grabbed by the passengers once they had gathered their wits. She hoped her brother, idiot that he was, had grabbed his own bag. They might have enough food between them for a few days even if it was just the stuff they had on the bus, it is not like the jerky and nuts would go bad. The next town couldn't be to far away could it?

She hating leaving their travel cases but there was no way that they could open the side of the bus without getting caught by someone. Not only was she losing her clothes and school supplies but also her flute. It was a beautiful old model Gemeinhardt, the ones before they started using softer metals, silver coloured and polished to the point of practically being a mirror. Their father had gotten it for her on her their birthday after they discovered her powers worked better when she was playing music. She was probably never getting it back now.

She wasn't totally defenceless though. Since it was hard to hide the fact that she was a mutant she had gotten into the practice of carrying a set of pan pipes with around school and other public places in case she needed to defend herself.

They could still hear the yells. Some were saying that they had wrecked the bus with their evil powers. Others were going on and on about how they should go after them, in that aspect the heat helped them as many were unwilling to chase after them in the heat.

It was getting dark now. The sun had already been setting when they had broken down. That meant it would be harder to find them if they did send a search party. Pepper didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing, but it meant that they were safe from H1 for tonight.

After ten minutes of running through the fields as fast as their tired legs could carry them, they finally stopped, collapsing on the ground beneath them. Then with all the power of a tired, hot, and hungry mouse she yelled at her brother, "this is all your fault Monty. Your fault!"

* * *

Well he was officially dead, Jack thought to himself. If Pepper didn't kill him, their dad would. He let Pepper yell at him, it would help her get rid of some of the tension and he may just survive until morning. As they sat in the field of... something green and growing, he kept looking at his sister. She was looking pretty down, most people couldn't tell from the slight frown on her lips, but for her that was a shower of tears. He couldn't blame her, they'd left everything back on the bus.

He didn't really care about his stuff, all he had were some comics, clothes and... actually that was about it, he liked to travel light. But Pepper was a girl, so she had to take her entire life with her, including the super expensive flute she loved so much. If she lost that, she'd never forgive him.

Heck, he wouldn't forgive himself.

They sat in the field for a while watching the sun go down, both wondering what to do next. Pepper laid back cradling her head in her arms, she'd pulled a scarf out of her bag and had it wrapped around her head again. A minute later he heard his sister snoring a little. That was his cue to get into action. Taking a last look around the field to make sure no one was around, he pictured a location about two hundred meters away, and ported. Crouched down at the very edge of the field, he looked and listened for signs of trouble. Still nothing.

In a series of 200 meter teleports, he made his way back to the bus. Crouching in some bushes by the side of the road, he warily eyed the bus. It was surrounded by men and older teens armed with sticks, pocket knives and makeshift weapons, while the women and children huddled inside. He shook his head at the stupidity of it all. Like he and his sister were such big threats.

Now for the hard part.

He closed his eyes and calmed himself as much as possible, using breathing exercises he'd learned from the internet. The websites he'd checked out had said it would take at least a month of training to become an any good at calming yourself down in high stress situations, he'd done it in a week as a survival technique. Teleporting without any control when he became excited, distracted or really felt anything other than calm had been embarrassing when he'd be going to the bathroom and suddenly be in the middle of the street. And he never wanted to remember what had happened when he'd been looking through his Dad's magazine stash in the privacy of his bedroom and there'd been a knock on the door.

With his emotions under control, he pictured the luggage compartment under the bus. He had looked inside it when handing their bags to the driver, and even though it had just been a few seconds, he could see it perfectly in his mind. His mutation hadn't helped him with his homework, but any place he'd seen he could remember as if he was looking right at it.

A second later he was jammed inside, his back pressing painfully into the ceiling and his nose crushed against a hard shelled suitcase. Well that was one bit of luck at least, grabbing his sisters suitcase, he ported back to the side of the road, placing it well back in the bushes. Now if only he could just take off, but he needed to get his own stuff. He didn't want any of his things with his name on it being found by the asshats on the bus.

He didn't know exactly where his own suitcase was, so he ported back to the same spot inside the luggage compartment. His own suitcase was actually a ratty, old hockey bag. Carefully and quietly he inched around, the cramped space, for once thankful for being so small. His fingers brushed over a wide variety of bags and boxes, until he found a bag that seemed almost exactly like his.

Digging his hands down to get a grip on it, he heard movement outside and was suddenly blinded by the light as the hatch opened up, and a scream tore itself from a woman’s throat.

He ported before he could think of a location, and came out just a few meters from the bus, right in front of several big men. “Osti de tabarnak de calice!” he cursed in french.

“Careful he's casting a spell!” someone shouted, causing people to scream and jump away.

Well that was interesting, he thought. “Stay back! Or I'll blow up the bus and everyone here!” he cackled. Putting his hockey bag on the ground, he opened it up and acted like he was putting something together, glad they couldn't see his Heavy Metal magazines at the top of the bag, he was going to miss those.

The braver men in the crowd started edging towards him, weapons raised, any second now they were going to rush him. But if he timed it right, he'd have them too busy running away to bother him or Pepper. He started laughing again.

“YOU FOOLS! You've gotten in my way for the last time! Prepare to DIE!” he yelled. Following it up with, “Criss de calice de tabarnak d'osti de sacrament! Mon tabarnak j'vais te décalisser la yeule, calice!” Then he ported the bag by itself straight into the engine of the bus, and threw himself to the ground.

There was a terrific bang, as his bag and the engine shared a space for all of a quarter of a second and decided they didn't like each other very much. Smoke billowed out of the hood, and a bit of shrapnel hit the men closest to the bus. It was pretty spectacular without being deadly unless someone was actually standing right on top of it, and it was exactly what he needed.

A couple of the potential attackers ran onto the bus to save their girlfriends or kids, most of them threw themselves to the ground or took off running, with pants that suddenly weighed quite a bit more than they had a second ago. For the two guys who were actually brave enough, or stupid enough to attack the vicious mutant, they found themselves tackling the air, as he ported away.

Jack staggered as he appeared beside his sisters suitcase, sweat dripping from his face. Teleporting something like that wasn't easy, it felt like he'd just run a marathon. Taking a second to catch his breath, he picked up his suitcase and a handful of gravel. Porting back to the bus, which had been emptied, he let out a few more curses, making sure that everyone could see him, and began porting the the bits of gravel into the bus and the road, causing much smaller but still scary and smokey explosions all around the panicked crowd. In seconds the people were fleeing. A few started heading towards where his sister was sleeping, straining himself, he sent more rocks in front of them, sending them heading away in a safer direction.

With black spots dancing in his eyes, he ported once more down the road to get some distance between himself the bus. The police would be there soon, and he and Pepper had to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible.

He waited, hiding beside the road and waited for a car to come, munching on some more jerky from his backpack to stay awake.


# # #

Jack cursed his luck. The road had been deserted for a while, there hadn't even been a horse and wagon, and then a police car came out of nowhere. There was just enough light to see that there was only one driver, and his sirens were on. The car began slowing down as it came to the still smoking bus.

This was not good, they'd start a search soon and discover Pepper. There was only one thing to do.

He ported to a spot close to the bus, and then ported again straight into the empty police car. Putting Peppers bag on the seat next to him, he took a second to look around. He'd driven his Dad's car on some back roads before, this shouldn't be too different. Fortunately the car was still running, with the lights on and someone talking on the radio. Carefully putting the car into drive, he did a slow three point turn, he'd seen a dirt road close to where Pepper was sleeping, if he could find it, he could grab her and take off without too much trouble.

The police officer came back from the front of the bus, scratching his head in confusion, and then he saw Jack. Without thinking, Jack hit the gas, sending the car fishtailing down the road, leaving the yelling police officer well behind.

The radio came to life, making him scream in terror and almost going into the ditch. By the time he calmed down, the message was half over, but he heard the important bit. “- young teenage female, with limited English, is at Berkins' farm, presumably a runaway.”

The rest of the report was telling a car to go pick her up, and saying things that a police officer would presumably understand.

“Well, now I know Pepper is safe,” he muttered to himself, trying to see over the steering wheel. A mailbox came up on the side of the road. He slowed so he could see the name on the side, Berkin. The car almost went off the road again as he turned down the road. He kept it at about ten miles an hour on the long dirt road, when the radio came back on.

“All units, suspected mutant is in police car 54. Use extreme caution, MCO has been notified. Considered armed and extremely dangerous, lethal force is authorized. Last seen on highway-”

Jack didn't hear the last part, as he hit the gas and sent a rooster tail of gravel shooting out behind the car.

A minute later he was at a farmhouse. The brakes squealed in protest as he slammed them to the floor. Turning off the car, he ran inside not bothering to knock. “PEPPER!” he hollered.

He turned to see a family sitting there looking shocked at his entrance, and Pepper was playing her pan pipes. She glared at him for a moment, then began playing a lullaby which made everyone in the room sit back down half asleep.

Running over, he grabbed his sister. “Pepper, we have to go! Now!”

* * *

As the night got darker and colder Pepper was getting more and more frustrated. Though you wouldn't be able to tell, from the look on her face she was merely mildly annoyed with everything that had happened.

(She had her scarf back, one of the things Monty had managed to grab,)She had another Scarf, she had stuffed it into her carry on bag last night before going to bed, she had put it on to fend off the chill that was rapidly setting into the summer air.

After hours of walking, no that sounds to happy, after hours of trudging through the fields Pepper felt they were either safe enough to stop or to tired to continue. She didn't care which she just needed a break. Her legs were stiff from lack of use during the half week long bus ride she had just endured.

Even as she sat on the hard ground she felt the exhaustion overcome her and she soon collapsed further as she fell into restless uneasy sleep.

# # #

John was a simple man. He enjoyed the simple things in life, like taking a stroll through his fields in the hours of sunset. Walking back to his home was no trouble as long as he took a flashlight and minded his feet, and the habit tended to stop teenagers from bothering his farm.

Which was why he was surprised to find a sleeping girl in the middle of his field. Find might be the wrong word as he tripped over her. Come to think of it sleeping is also the wrong word as she woke up when he kicked her in the chest.

Now on the ground John looked at the girl. She was small probably not that old, barely into puberty. Her clothes were ragged, her shorts covered in dirt and her blouse torn around the edges. The glasses she wore had almost fallen off of her face in her scramble to get away from whatever had attacked her. She wore a scarf as makeshift turban to keep her head warm in the night air. Beneath the scarf was shoulder length hair, it was hard to tell the colour in this light but it looked light brown.

From her appearance John could clearly tell that she was a run away. They turned up every once in a while. Normally he would just call the police and wait for them to show up and take the girl home or to a halfway house, but the night air was cold and he didn't want to wait the hour or so it would take them to get someone out here.

"Hey there little one," he said reaching out for her, she flinched away from his hand clearly scarred of him. He didn't blame her, a strange man out in a field happens upon a young girl with no form of protection, there weren't many ways that it turned out well for the girl.

"No, no, no," he said as she started to crawl backwards, "I'm friendly, see," he said making a silly face that always got his kids laughing. She didn't laugh but John thought he saw her smile, though it was hard to tell with how small it was.

"Come on, I'll bring you over to my house," he said pointing in the distance where you could see lights faintly coming out of a darker shadow, "my wife will fix you up some dinner and then we can get you home to your parents, doesn't that sound good." The girl didn't seem to want to go but she nodded her head anyway.

As they headed to his house John tried to ask the girl some questions. None were answered to his liking, or at all really, she would just grunt, or squeaks, or shake her head. As the girl flinched and stumbled he started to feel a strange urge to protect her. He had children of his own and he cared for them but it was clear someone hadn't been caring for this lass for a while. He wanted to make sure she was alright, people didn't run away fro no reason. His wife might complain about the extra mouth to feed but she wouldn't be heartless enough to turn away the poor girl.

Speaking of which the girl was clearly worried about something, always craning her neck to try to see over the corn or looking back to see if anyone was following them. Whatever she was afraid of it wouldn't come for her while on his field, that he was sure of, nothing much ever happened out here. Coming across the girl in the middle of his field was the most interesting thing that had happened for a month or more.

As they came up the drive to his house he told the girl to wait for a moment as he went inside. "Marge, I need to talk to you," he called from the door.

His wife called back from the kitchen, "if you need to talk come in here I'm putting away the left overs."

John walked the short distance to the kitchen, "well that's good because we may have an extra mouth to feed," this stopped Marge. She turned around and gave him the look, the one all wives give their husbands to tell them there will be hell to pay if there isn't a good explanation. "Now don't look at me like that, I found a stray out in the field. Scared little thing, I think she's a runaway, and I promised her she could have dinner here and then wait here while we call her parents or the police to come pick her up."

Marge grumbled a bit but told him to go get her.

# # #

Pepper was not having a pleasant dream, but she would have preferred it to the unpleasant awakening she got. Then again most dreams were better than a kick to the chest. She grabbed her bag and scrambled away from what she could only assume was one of the people from the bus. She looked around for the rest of the mob or possibly Monty for support. Not seeing anyone else she finally looked at the man who had attacked her.

He had fallen on the ground. This was surprising. What was more surprising was that he definitely wasn't from the bus. She wouldn't have recognized everyone from the bus but she would have known if he was there. To say he was rotund was both understatement and overstatement. It wasn't that he was fat it was just that his belly seemed to expand more than the rest of him. His hair was dark black and his face looked friendly enough.

If he wasn't from the bus he didn't know she was a mutant. She reached up to check her scarf just to be sure it hadn't slipped in the intervening time, which it hadn't. So she was safe, maybe more so, her powers were subtle much like her expression of emotion, she could probably get him to help her. She would have to do it without music though, it would be odd to just start playing randomly.

"Hey there little one," the man said reaching for her. She flinched away from the hand as she was still in panic mode. She also noticed how large his arms were for the first time, they were thick and strong from many days work out in the field, probably this field come to think of it.

Pepper finally registered his words, she hadn't even started working on his protective instincts yet so this was natural. He probably wanted to help her already, it would be easy to push him along.

"No, no, no. I'm friendly see," he said making a face. Pepper actually had to laugh a little at the face, there was not getting around it, the face was hilarious. It was one of those dad faces that all dads learned to make their little bundles of joy laugh in the crib.

"Come on, I'll bring you over to my house," he said pointing in the distance where you could see lights faintly coming out of a darker shadow, "my wife will fix you up some dinner and then we can get you home to your parents, doesn't that sound good." Pepper wasn't sure if this was her powers taking affect or what he always did for random kids he found in his yard but she was sure it was helpful. He seemed to respond to the scared kid act so she decided to act the part, not hard considering her situation, and hopefully she could latch onto that as a focal point for her powers.

As the walked the long path to his house he asked her questions about who she was and what she was doing in the middle of his field. She didn't answer any of them with more than a grunt or a squeak, she didn't want to have to come up with a convincing lie on the spot. She wanted time to think up a cover story so that she could use this situation to her best advantage. This may seem deceitful or underhanded to a baseline, but to a weak mutant deceit was the best defence against the world. That is when you couldn't hide from it.

Every so often she would crane her neck to try and see over the (corn, grass, or other plant which the field may be planted with) to check and see if she could find he brother. Every time she didn't see him, which was every time she looked, she would break a stalk and mark the ground giving Monty a trail of bread crumbs to follow. Where was he? As far as she knew he was there the whole time she slept. It was safer together, they learned that in school. Never get separated if you could help it, especially in a strange field in the middle of no where. There must have been something super important for him to leave her there out in the middle of a field.

When they reached the house the man had her stay outside so that he could clear her coming for dinner with his wife. Why he didn't call ahead on a cell phone she didn't know but she was sure he had his reasons.

Marge didn't like having an extra mouth to feed. She had enough to deal with, with 2 sons and 3 daughters, most of which were teenagers, to feed she didn't need another one coming in on no notice. Though her husband wasn't the type to do things like this spur of the moment, he probably had a good reason for wanting to protect the girl.

Then, just as parts of her were warming up to the idea, she saw the girl. She was a sweet little thing that looked like she had been through something terrible. Her face was covered in mud and dirt, the stuff practically caked her hair. Her blouse was torn about the edges and one of the buttons had popped to show a bit more skin than the girl probably wanted. Her shorts were just as rough and her legs were scratched up as well. The only thing that looked intact end were the giant pair of glasses the girl wore and the scarf wrapped around her head.

She couldn't hold it against her husband for wanted to help the girl. Poor thing looked terrified, flinching slightly at every sound and movement, even in the safety of their home. Though it wasn't her home so she probably had an excuse.

"Oh come here darling," she beckoned, coaxing the girl forward and pulling her into a hug, "John go get Abby." As her husband left to fetch their eldest daughter she continued to comfort the girl, crooning as she brushed her off.

Once they had arrived back in the kitchen she ushered the girl over to her daughter, "Abby this is… John what was her name?"

"If she told you that would be more than she said to me all night."

"Bell," said a soft accented voice, that neither of the parents heard.

"Anyway your father found her in the field. We're pretty sure that she is a runaway but we decided to feed her while we wait for the police to come pick her up. I want you to go help her get cleaned up and more comfortable."

"Okay, come on Bell lets get you cleaned up, how does a shower sound, hmm?" Their daughter said as she led the girl off.

John chuckled as the two girls left, "There she goes, naming her like she does all of the strays we find." He then left himself to go phone the police so that someone could come take the kid home. Not that Marge would have minded keeping her even if it was an extra mouth to feed.

# # #

From outside the house Pepper heard him call to a Marge which she assumed was his wife. Bit didn't take long for him to come back out, which was good as it was getting colder outside. He brought her to the kitchen where she started 'pushing' his wife's protective instincts as soon as she saw her.

Though maybe she shouldn't have pushed so hard. The woman's husband's attitude along with her own strong maternal instinct had done most of the work for Pepper. Pepper's powers were subtle but it didn't take much to knock over a deck of cards.

"Oh come here darling," Pepper probably wouldn't have take that first step forward had the man not given her a slight push, she wasn't even sure he knew he had pushed her. As soon as she reached the woman the woman hugged her and started crooning and cleaning her off.

"John go get Abby," the woman, who Pepper finally connected to being Marge, said to her husband whom Pepper now know was named John. Odd that he hadn't mentioned that when questioning her about her own name.

# # #

Abby was sitting in her room reading when her father came in and called to her mom. It really broke her pace and she was at a good part of it too. She sighed and put the book down. If dad was calling mom after his walk something had happened, and then they would come to her. Not her older brother, the eldest, no, they would come to Abby, the responsible one, why did her brother have to be such a flake.

She got up and went to her phone. She put it on silent when she was reading, her friends knew that she had terrible reception out here in the middle of nowhere and had long ago given up on her giving them speedy responses. As she was looking over the texts she had missed someone knocked on her door.

Her father was there, "mom wants you in the kitchen, we have a guest so be polite."

"What? You didn't say anyone was coming over, did one of Charlie's girlfriends try to sneak in again?"

"No not this time. Just a stray this time. Found her out in the field, asleep."

That was odd. Who would choose to sleep in the middle of a field? It wasn't the most comfortable place, she should know, she tried to run away once. Hopefully this girl had thought further ahead than she had, though, she would have had to have gotten all of the way out here from the city.

The girl had clearly seen better days. She looked like Anne after those boys had gotten to her, they didn't come round after she'd set Charlie on them, she wished she could set Charlie on whoever had done this. Her hair was coming out from the scarf around her head at odd angles and what wasn't was caked in mud from the ground. Her clothes had been grabbed at and unsettled by something or someone. Not only that but the pitiful little thing was scared out of her mind of something.

Abby's Mom was doing her best to comfort the little girl. She pulled her along until they reached Abby, still fussing over her all the while. Abby could see the reluctance in the girls eyes, so many new people at once when she was already running from something probably spooked her. She was probably worried about losing what little she had left as well. Every time someone reached for her she would clutch her bag tighter.

Once Abby's mom had gotten the girl to her she said, "Abby this is… John what did she say her name was?" That was strange, mom would never fuss over a person so much without even getting her name. Something about this girl must have really rattled her parents.

"Bell," the girl said quietly. Her accent was thick and clearly not from around here. It almost seemed like she could barely understand what was being said around her earlier. She was probably far from home, lost in a place where she didn't even speak the language.

She was like that dog that fell off a truck a while back. He had been from California and all of the commands he knew were in Spanish.

"Okay, come on Bell lets get you cleaned up, how does a shower sound, hmm?" She made sure to speak slowly and clearly so that Bell could understand what she was telling her. Even as she was following her it took Bell a moment to ponder over what Abby had just said. As they went upstairs Abby wondered about the little girls clothes, they were clearly dirty so she shouldn't wear them after the shower. But it looked like that was all she had, and if they weren't, there weren't going to be many changes of clothing in the bag she was carrying.

Once the got to the bath room Abby pulled Bell into the room and said "Come on let's get those clothes off you." She reached for the scarf around the girl's head only to be surprised at the sudden swat that struck her hand. "What was that for?" Abby exclaimed on surprise, "Oh you are shy, aren't you?"

At the girl's hesitant nod Abby chuckled, "okay, I will be outside the door. Give me your bag now and hand your clothes out once you are done. The scarf included, you do not want it to get wet."

Bell nodded more firmly this time though was slow to hand the bag over. "If I promise not to look through your stuff will you give me your bag?" That seemed to be enough for Bell as she did hand the bag over.

Once outside Abby's curiosity about the girl sky rocketed. Mom was treating her like a long lost daughter, dad was treating her like babe to be cared for, and she herself was treating her like a lost puppy. Not that the girl didn't need help or that they were normally inhospitable, it was just that this girl seemed to be getting more than normal. Maybe it was just that the girl needed more than normal.

Her name was Bell, had to stop thinking of her as a puppy or 'the girl.' The girl, crap, Bell was more like a mouse than a puppy anyway. She was little, cute, quiet, and obviously blind if the glasses were anything to go by.

An anonymous arm reached out from the bathroom door holding Bell's clothes. Abby plucked them from the girl's hand and was surprised when the door didn't close immediately. A second later the hand came out again this time holding her glasses. That made sense, you wouldn't want them steaming up in the shower.

# # #

Pepper submitted to being treated like a lost child while they waited for John and whoever this Abby was. It wasn't that she didn't want to get clean but Marge got fairly close to removing her scarf a couple of times. Luckily before that happened John came down the stairs with Abby.

Abby as it turned out was a very pretty girl. Tall with long jet black hair reaching to the small of her back and delicate features. Her eyes were a piercing blue that contrasted her fathers dull green eyes.

Her plan had been good so far, endear herself the couple who lived out here, maybe enlist their help. Admittedly she ran into a few bumps without the precision and power music provided her powers. Now she hit her first road block, the other people in the house. Specifically their daughter who noticed her parents weren't acting quite the way they normally would.

She had to make a decision fast on how to get the girl. On her side she needed a name first of all even playing field with a girl around her age. Crap she had had a name before she panicked, oh well best to go with old standards, she had hated the nickname as a child but desperate times.

"Belle," she said quietly, her voice slipping heavily into her Québécois accent. That was a stroke of luck as it turned out, the girl warmed instantly upon hearing the accent. The lost little kid routine really helped with this family.

As she was led upstairs she heard Marge comment something about naming lost puppies. Great now was she not only a mouse but a puppy as well. Who knows maybe someone will add cat in there just to make things extra confusing.

Once they got up stairs Abby came into the bathroom with her. Pepper was fine with this, they were both girls so there was no need to be over modest. Then Abby started reaching for the scarf around her head. The reaction was instant, she needed the scarf to hide her identity, so she swatted the hand away.

"What was that for?" And Pepper knew that she blew. It had been going great but if someone found out she was a mutant or even suspected it everything was out the window and she would have to run. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, there wa-

"Oh you are shy, aren't you?" And just like that emotional whiplash. She was safe as long as she agreed. She didn't trust her voice so she just nodded her head.

"Okay, I will be outside the door. Give me your bag now and hand your clothes out once you are done. The scarf included, you do not want it to get wet." The way the girl was talking to her slowly was starting to grate on Pepper. It wasn't like she could pretend to suddenly not to speak English poorly but it still felt like she was being talked down to.

She was reluctant to give over her bag. It had her MID in it so if it was searched she was likely to be found out. She did end up handing it over at the promise of it not being looked through though.

Once she was alone she took the time to examine the room she was in. It was small but not constricting. She had enough to room to get undressed without bumping into thing. There were two big mirrors, one full length one on the inside of the door and a wall size mirror behind the sink. The shower itself was old but looked perfectly serviceable.

Sighing she stripped off her clothes, including the scarf, and handed them to the girl waiting outside. She then handed her glasses out, she wanted to be able to see after she had finished showering.

# # #

Marge started working on a dinner for the girl, wondering what her other children would think of the stray. Luckily the girl was young enough that their eldest son wouldn't hit on her, they wouldn't want to scare her off even more. Their younger daughters probably wouldn't want to give up any of there clothes but they might have to depending on the condition of the girl's. There other son-

"Eeeeeek! Froide! L'eau est froide!"

Marge could here her husband charging up the stairs to save the girl from whatever scared her. Well now everyone knew that they had a guest in the house. At least the girl could speak, though possibly not in English. She had been worried that the girl was mute from what her husband had said.

# # #

As Abby took the clothes from Belle she wondered if she should explain how to use the shower controls. They weren't that hard to figure out but the old plumbing took a while to bring the hot water up to the bathroom. So you normally wanted to start showers off with full heat then lower once it started to warm up.

But at that point it was to late, Abby heard the water running and a cry of, "Eeeeeek! Froide! L'eau est froide!"

Her father came running up the stares while heads poked out of their respective rooms. First her younger sisters Anne and Alice popped out of their shared room. They were two of a kind, light hair, hazel eyes, and round faces, Alice looked like a younger Anne, they would be identical once Alice was finished growing. They both took after their mother unlike Abby. Next her older brother Charlie, tall and lean with slick black hair and the school's resident heart breaker, most thought he was just a pretty face but a lot of work went into what he did. Finally her little brother Chris who like her sisters took after their mother.

"What happened?" Their father asked looking at the youngest siblings first assuming that they had screamed.

"Bell started the shower and I forgot to warn her about the hot water," Abby said before her father could panic anymore.

"Ooo so her name is Belle, I can't wait to meet the French girl."

"What are you talking about Charlie?"

"She screamed, 'the water is cold' in French at the top of her lungs when it hit her. It is only natural to presume that she would default to her first language when shocked like that," Charlie said, he had studied French for years calling it the language of love. He used it on girls when he wanted to seem cultured.

"She's to young for you Charlie," Abby said smirking, "unless of course you would go on a date with one of Anne's classmates."

Speaking of which, "Anne could you go fetch some clothes. The girl is about your size and father found her lying in the field so her clothes are filthy."

Her sister reluctantly agreed to get some of her summer clothes, but none of her nice ones. Alice chased after her to make sure Anne didn't end up giving away anything that she wanted to "inherit."

They got back with a suitable outfit just before Abby heard the water turn off. There were enough towels in the bathroom for the girl to dry off. "Knock when you want me to come in with the clothes."

A few minutes later she heard a knock on the bathroom door. Abby opened the door carefully not wanting to scare Bell.

Once she could see Bell she thought her initial impression of Bell's age had been wrong. Yes the girl was small but from the way the towel clung to her figure was quite clearly developing. Yes the girl was still much to young for her brother but maybe not Anne's age. Or she could be an early bloomer. Abby would never know if Bell didn't tell her her age.

Bell had a towel wrapped around her head to dry off her hair. Once she had her glasses back she looked expectantly at the clothes. She frowned for a moment, the most emotion Abby had seen her on her face since she had stopped being scared, then Abby brought the scarf out from behind her back, "this is pretty important to you huh?"

When Bell started nodding slowly reaching for it, only to have Abby pull it out of her reach. "Nope, your not getting this until you answer some questions. With your voice. Now, is this important to you?"

"Oui."

"Do you speak English fluently?"

Bell hesitated before saying, "I thought I did," her eyes never leaving the scarf.

"Why were you out in the field?"

"I was running away."

Abby relaxed slightly as this was going well, "what were you run-" she stopped mid word as the scarf was snatched from her hands. "Well good for you you have the scarf, but what about the rest of the clothes?"

"What about your answers?" Bell said her accent very thick over the words, "we both have something the other wants. One answer for one piece of clothing?"

"You could have gotten that deal earlier."

"You would have kept my scarf till the end."

"Are you that mistrusting?"

"Not normally," the girl's slight smile tipped Abby that something was off, "clothes now."

"What? But I didn't ask a question."

"You asked 'Are you that mistrusting' and I answered 'not normally' that is what I was talking about. Now two clothes."

"This is a game to you isn't it?" Abby said recognizing the signs of someone playing with her.

"Yes, and I am very good at it. Three clothes, only one more question."

"What do you want from us?"

"Nothing, a phone call, bus fare home, a place to sleep for the night anything that helps me get home really. Now all clothes mine. Leave so I can get dressed."

Abby left the clothes and went outside to find Charlie standing there snickering at her. "She really played you in there."

"Yeah, she did, what of it."

"You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

"I'd like to see you do better."

"Maybe I will," Charlie said as the door opened revealing Bell now in a black Brass-Monkey T-shirt and knee length pale blue skirt. The scarf still wrapped around her head but the hair hanging out from it was less frazzled, now reaching straight down to just past her shoulders. Her glasses now obscured her face again but not enough for Abby not to remember the odd shape it had. "Ah you must be Belle, a pretty name for a pretty girl," Charlie said something in French in an obvious ploy to get Bell to like him.

Bell merely raised an eyebrow at this display. She the turned to Abby and said in even more fractured English than normal, "you should get him a tutor. He speaks French worse than I speak English," turning back to Charlie she responded in French, "Do you really think no one has ever tried that line on me? The pun is so obvious I don't go a day back home without hearing it."

Abby laughed at Charlie's stunned face as she lead the girl away. Screw getting rid of her or figuring out why she was here, Abby wanted to keep this girl around. Not many people left Charlie speechless with a single line.

# # #

Having handed her clothes to Abby, Pepper stepped into the shower and turned on the water onto hot. Only to find that it was extremely cold. Which she proceeded to tell the entire world with her shriek of surprise. She practically jumped out of the shower and waited for the water to warm up a little or her body to get used to the cold. Throughout the shower she could hear muffled conversation on the other side of the door.

After she had turned off the shower she heard Abby call in, "knock when you want me to come in with,the clothes." So she proceeded to dry off wrapping a towel tightly around her body once she was done, but she didn't knock yet. She wiped off a bit of the mirror before wrapping a towel around her head. She carefully checked the towel to make sure you couldn't see her ears beneath them, which was difficult to do without her glasses but she managed, then she knocked.

Abby was smart enough to hand her her glasses first. Once she had them on she noticed that Abby didn't bring her scarf in with the new clothes. Pepper was confused at this, she had clearly been protecting the scarf earlier and it wasn't the kind of thing that you just would throw in the wash with the rest of her clothes. Abby seemed smart enough to figure out that she would want the scarf, so why wasn't it there.

Then Abby brought the scarf out from behind her back. The girl was testing to see how important the scarf was. Pepper thought it was redundant to ask the question when you already knew the answer but nodded anyway. She reached forward trying to get the scarf from the taller girl only to have it pulled from her reach.

"Nope," the girl said waving a finger back and forth in front of Pepper, "your not getting this until you answer some questions." Pepper wasn't quite surprised at this, she knew someone would get suspicious at some point, she just wasn't expecting it so soon. Her powers normally left a more lasting effect on people, one more problem of not having music to help her.

"With your voice," Abby prefaced before asking her first question. "Now, is this important to you."

"Oui," Pepper didn't see the point in antagonizing the girl. She was already using her powers to try to make her relax enough to get the scarf from her.

"Do you speak English fluently?"

She might as well play up the clueless foreigner thing that Abby liked so much. She switched to broken English and played up the accent that had slipped out earlier, "I thought I did."

"Why were you out in the field?"

"I was running away," there was no point in lying about that, it might even help regain some trust from Abby. Abby was relaxing bit by bit bringing the scarf within reach.

"What were you run-" there the scarf was within reach. Instead of reaching slowly as she had last she grabbed hold of the scarf as quickly as possible and pulled it towards her. She even made the 'my precious' stance around it like golem from lord of the rings, not that Abby appeared to notice.

"Well good for you you have the scarf," Abby said raising her other hand and shaking the clothes she was holding, "but what about the rest of the clothes."

Pepper's mind raced as she searched for a solution. The girl wanted information, she wanted clothes, considering she was naked except for a towel that seemed like a fair trade. "What about your answers? We both have something the other wants. One answer for piece of clothing," Pepper said hoping the ploy would work.

"You could have gotten that deal earlier."

"You would have kept my scarf till the end," hey it was a better excuse than, 'I just thought of this now.'

"Are you that mistrusting?"

"Not normally," Pepper answered almost flippantly, then realizing she had been answered a question she said, "clothes now."

"What? But I didn't ask a question."

She had asked something in that statement but where. The closest Pepper could get was what are you talking about so she answered,

"You asked 'Are you that mistrusting' and I answered 'not normally' that is what I was talking about. Now two clothes."

"This is a game to you isn't it?" Yes, and a very fun one at that.

"Yes, and I am very good at it. Three clothes, only one more question," Pepper stated noticing for the first time that there were no socks in the outfit provided. That might prove to be uncomfortable but it wasn't like she was going to need shoes in the near future.

"What do you want from us?"

This stopped Pepper for a moment. What did she want from these people? Finding no answer that satisfied her own curiosity so she doubted

"Nothing, a phone call, bus fare home, a place to sleep for the night, anything that helps me get home really. Now all clothes mine. Leave so I can get dressed."

At least the bra and panties were hers, she didn't want to be wearing some uncomfortable ill fitting underwear from someone else's drawer. There was more muffled conversation outside as she got dressed. This time she check the scarf more thoroughly, both because she could do it more easily with her glasses on and because it would have to hold up for more than a minute.

Upon coming out of the bathroom her hand was grabbed and pulled into a kiss by an admittedly very attractive man. His hair was jet black like his sister's but it was short where hers was long. His eyes were the same piercing blue and his face had sharp. His slim body was very muscular from all of the work he did in the fields, and he was tall. Taller than his sister by a good six inches which made him more than a foot taller than Pepper. Though his attractiveness wore off as soon as she heard the phrase she had learned to hate whenever her old nickname came out, "Ah you must be Belle, a pretty name for a pretty girl.."

She absolutely hated when people called her Belle for this very reason. Not only was that one of the worst pick up lines in the world, but it wasn't even the common way of saying that sentence. There was no functional difference but this guy wasn't fluent enough to pull it off.

She the turned to Abby and said in the most fractured and accented English that she could, "you should get him a tutor. He speaks French worse than I speak English," turning back to incredibly attractive nuisance she told him in the clearest French possible, "Do you really think no one has ever tried that line on me? The pun is so obvious I don't go a day back home without hearing it."

By the dumbstruck look on his face he wasn't used to striking out. (Some might have overlooked the cheesy line and bad French for his looks but Pepper had met enough exemplars to look for more than looks in a possible suitor). Abby laughed and pulled Pepper into a slight hug before leading her downstairs for dinner. Abby may be suspicious of her but she was clearly warming up to the idea of having her around for a bit.

# # #

"Sorry about dinner dear, it might be a little tough," mom said as they got downstairs, "I would have made more if I had known that we'd have a guest. You'll have to make do with some left overs"

Dinner with Bell was interesting. Most of the family came down to see her. They were curious about the girl and vice versa. The fact that she would barely speak and when she did it was in broken thickly accented English did not help. It was even funnier whenever she dropped all pretence of figuring out what to say and just asking Charlie in French. What made it all the better was that Charlie couldn't pretend not to understand because we all knew he could speak French. The one time Charlie pretended not to understand Bell leaned over to Abby and said, "his French is worse than I thought," causing him even more embarrassment.

# # #

Coming down from the shower was the first time Pepper saw got a good look at Marge. The woman was not unattractive. True she didn't meet the unrealistic Hollywood standards of beauty, she was to stocky for that, but there was no way to consider her ugly. She had clearly noticed this at some early point as well and just started living life to the fullest. It showed in the laugh line in her face and the way she held herself. Her long braided hair was straw blond bleached by the sun from the work she did in the fields during the summer and her hazel eyes always seemed to be smiling form the laugh lines on her face.

"Sorry about dinner dear, it might be a little tough," Marge said as they got downstairs, that was fine with Pepper she chewed the raw pistachios , "I would have made more if I had known that we'd have a guest. You'll have to make do with some leftovers." That could be a problem though. She had been her powers near constantly since meeting John out I the field. The bus hadn't even stopped for lunch so the most she had had was jerky and sunflowers seeds.

Pepper tried very hard not to stuff her face but it was clear that some of the family noticed. Especially with the way they kept handing her food.

The family was an interesting group. Marge and John acted as mediators between the kids. Neither of them took sides but both of them calmed the kids down when they started arguing.

Charlie, the attractive boy from earlier, was the oldest at 16, he was known as the school heart breaker because of his good looks, talents, and a knack for remembering everything a girl ever says to him. Abby was taking shots at him with the way he had struck out with Pepper, prompting Pepper to force him into using French more often. The one time he tried to feign ignorance as to what she was saying, she said it slower. When he still feigned ignorance she caught onto his game and leaned over to Abby to say, "he's worse than I thought."

Abby had quickly learned not to associate with her brother because most of the girls who found out they were related would try to get close to her as an in with her brother. She hated this, so she started moving in different circles. Turns out hiding in the library leads to reading a lot if you have any interest in books. She soon became one of the most well end people at their high school merely out of boredom.

That wouldn't be happening with Anne and Alice, who could be twins if Alice wasn't a year younger and a bit shorter. They also looked completely different than their older siblings, where Abby and Charlie had received jet black hair, blues eyes, and an easily tanned completion from their father, Anne and Alice had gotten the fair hair, green eyes and pale completion of their mother. They would yammer on about different people in their class, trying to get advice on how to manipulate their classmates from both of their older siblings. This had sparked most of the arguments between Abby and Charlie, though it seemed like this was a common occurrence. Pepper didn't dislike them, they were certainly interesting people, but she found Anne annoying. There wasn't a logical reason for this, it just grated on her that the girl was two years younger and her clothes were still a bit big on Pepper.

The youngest child Chris seemed to not care for all of the school politics. Pepper couldn't tell if this was because he went to a different school or because he was to young to understand them. The eight year old was certainly the most bored with the table conversation, leaving well before anyone else considered it.

Abby knew something was off when Chris excused himself from the table and went upstairs. Incidentally we had left Bell's bag upstairs. So she was the least surprised when they heard a strange high pitched noise upstairs, that sounded almost musical. She didn't know what it was but she knew Chris was at the centre of it, so was Bell apparently as she stood up upon hearing the sound and marched up stairs.

Abby, of course went after her. She didn't want Bell to hurt her little brother. She also wanted to know what the sound was.

She found Bell standing over her brother giving him a lecture in French. The girl was clearly quite angry as she didn't seem to realize that with how fast she was talking not even Charlie would be able to understand what she was saying.

"Bell, a lecture works better when they know what you are saying."

The girl actually blushed a little when she realized she had given a lecture in French to a English speaker. Or it could be how the light was hitting her face, it was hard to tell when the girl barely emoted anything.

"As for you young man," Abby said directing her gaze to her little brother, "when mom finds out you were looking through someone else' stuff without permission…"

"You'll be grounded for two weeks with double chores," their mom said from behind her, "and don't go giving me that look or I'll make it four."

"What is that thing anyway."

"Flute de pan, or a pan flute as you would say in English," Bell said, "I could play if you like."

Her expression didn't change at all, it was the blank emotionless stare she had defaulted to once she had stopped being afraid of everyone. Her voice was totally neutral. There was nothing to give away how much she wanted to play, except for how her eyes lit up at the prospect.

Abby wasn't the only one who noticed because her mom answered almost immediately, "sure dear, I can't see the harm in it."

They assembled downstairs in the living room. The whole family was there in the living room, for much the same reasons they showed up when she was eating. The parents because they wanted to see Bell happy for that had yet to happen, she had cracked jokes but barely smiled at the table. Abby was there because she was still suspicious of the way her family acted around the girl, no matter how much the girl had endeared herself to her. Charlie was still annoyed at being spurned and wanted to find a way to impress the girl who eluded him, Abby still though Bell was to young for him but that wasn't coming into play as this girl had struck a blow to his pride, he never cared about girls who did that except so that he could turn them down when they wanted him. Anne and Alice were there because they wanted to know more about the new girl who had become a new part of their lives. Abby had expected Chris would not be allowed to join them but Bell had insisted upon him being there. Abby had joke that the little brother was better at picking up chicks, which annoyed Charlie to no end.

As the song started Abby felt a strange buzzing sensation. It quickly faded as did her suspicions about the girls origins. Why wouldn't her parents want to protect such a sweet innocent girl? She certainly wanted to protect her. The world was to harsh on some people.

# # #

Soon after Chris had left Pepper heard the sound of someone failing to play the pan flute. She got up from the table instantly and headed towards the sound. She was absolutely sure that it came from her pipes. That meant someone had gone through her bag, which meant they could have found her MID. Her secret could be outed by an eight year old who could keep his hands off her stuff, again!

Once she found Chris her bag was surprisingly in order, with only the pan flute removed so far. She double checked the bag to be sure her MID was still there before snatching her pan flute from his hands. Instead of scolding him she started explaining the proper technique for playing the pan pipes, it was a fairly simple instrument after all.

"Bell, a lecture works better when they know what you are saying."

Pepper jumped at the interruption. Abby was standing behind her in the doorway, smiling at the pair. Pepper felt her face flush when she realized what Abby meant. Not only had she been lecturing a small child using music terminology, which was a complicated form of jargon that outsiders had trouble with in their own language, but she had been speaking in French the entire time.

"As for you young man," Abby said directing her gaze to her little brother, "when mom finds out you were looking through someone else' stuff without permission…"

"You'll be grounded for two weeks with double chores," Marge said from behind Abby. This time it was Abby's turn to jump as she hadn't heard her mother coming. When Chris started pouting at the punishment Marge continued with, "and don't go giving me that look or I'll make it four."

"What is that thing anyway," Abby asked, recovering her usual demeanour much faster than Pepper had.

"Flute de pan, or a pan flute as you would say in English," Pepper said an idea dawning on her, "I could play if you like." This was the perfect chance to have actual control over what her powers were doing to their heads.

Once Marge had consented she was about to send Chris to his room. Pepper didn't want that. "The boy should learn what the pan flute was supposed to sound like," she insisted.

The fact that he wronged party was insisting on a delay on the punishment seemed to confuse Marge. In a lot of cases where Pepper insisted that someone listen to her music it was so she could influence them. In this case it was honestly because she wanted them to hear how the music was supposed to sound.

Once they were downstairs the family arranged themselves on the couch and across recliners. There were spats over who got which spot between a Charlie and Abby, and Anne and Alice but they resolved so quickly they seemed rehearsed. Pepper could guess that such arguments were common given her relationship with her own brother.

Once everyone was settled she started working on her pan flute. She started with a warm up to test both how in tune the pipes were and the response she got from each note. She didn't really have any receptive powers but she could normally tell how well she was affecting someone. Then she played. The pan flute was almost limited to melodies by its very nature, but melodies were what most remembered from songs anyway. By the end of the songs she had them thinking of her as one of the family. Not that she wanted to join this family, she had her own which she wanted to get back to.

* * *



* * *

Then Monty showed up. Not only did he show up he crashed through the door at full force screaming at her in French about why they had to leave.

Pepper, not knowing what else to do, quickly shifted her song to a lullaby. She already had her powers affecting the family in full force so they fell asleep almost instantly. Abby was able to hold out longer but still fell over onto her armrest.

"Why Monty, why did you do that? They were helping me, even before I started influencing them. I could have gotten us a place to stay while someone came out to pick is up," Pepper said, exasperation coming out full force on her brother.

"S-sorry I didn't know," he replied in English, then switching to their first language, "why are we speaking in English? And when did yours get so bad?"

"Habit, I've been speaking in it all night. It was part of the act to get them to treat me like any other lost little kid," Pepper said switching to French herself. "We should leave. More police will be arriving at some point."

"About that… I kind of stole a police car and that is how I found you…"

"What."

"And there may be more on their way because I blew up the bus… but hey I got your stuff back."

Pepper didn't reply to that at first, she didn't know what to say to 'I just blew up a bus to get some clothes and your most prized possession.'

"Monty, I say with all the love and car that I have for you but that may have been the stupidest thing you have ever done!"

Pepper didn't yell. Most people doubted she could speak above a whisper. Her philosophy was if someone wanted to know what she wanted to say they would listen. So when she spoke at normal volumes it surprised and shocked some people. When she spoke above them it scared Monty. Especially when she marched forward while doing so. Which left him utterly dumbfounded at that hug and the whispered, "thank you," in his ear.

"We should leave the police car here, it is to easy for them to trace. I don't like stealing from these people but I know they have a pick up. We can drop it off at a police station once we hit a town, I think I'll leave these clothes with it, I don't want to steal anything from these people," Pepper stated as she left the house.

# # #

Abby didn't know what was happening there was a new kid who looked like a male Bell with mouse ears. Then she started feeling drowsy and the lullaby Bell was playing wasn't helping. So tired, did they just say something about cars? They were leaving now, but Abby couldn't do anything other than drift to sleep.

The next thing Abby knew the police had arrived and Bell, along with her sister's clothes and the old pick up were gone.

# # #
On the admittedly rather jerky drive from the Berkins' farm into town Pepper double checked some points with her brother, and maybe get back at him for leaving her alone in the middle of a field.

"So when you decided to destroy your stuff did you remember to take your MID out of your bag?"

"Uh, no. Why?"

"Because now you will have to go through testing again. You'll have to go back to the MCO so they can reissue it. Not only that but they might say that you can not prove that you are who you claim to be and you'll need a new code name."

Each statement dropped like a ton of bricks onto her brother.

"Or you could get a new one issued at Whateley, they have the facilities to do that."

She loved watching his reaction. Despair, turned to joy, turned to rage, and finally abject terror as they nearly drove off the road. That wasn't what she had wanted but it was a result none the less. Not all pranks involved physically going after the target, sometimes you could get them with a few well placed words.

[align=center]# # #[/align]

Pepper came out of the bathroom wearing her own clothes. She carried the clothes she had borrowed from Anne in a plastic bag. Pinned to the outside of the bag was a note telling the police who to return the pick up and clothes to. She didn't want the stuff she had taken to be put into a police auction.

"Okay, let' drop this stuff off at the police station."

[align=center]* * *[/align]

Monty looked around the street nervously. Pepper was getting changed in a nearby bathroom while he watched the stolen pickup truck. A baseball cap he'd taken with the truck was too large for his head, but he wasn't going to complain, he was kind of a wanted fugitive after all. And as his sister had gleefully reminded him, he didn't have an MID anymore so if he tried getting back into Canada it could cause problems.

"Okay, let's drop this stuff off at the police station," Pepper said.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, wondering how he was going to steal another car. “I'm going to drop you off a bit before we get there, if something goes wrong I don't want you around.”

“Fine.”

They drove a few blocks, and he let Pepper out at a strip mall, then kept going to the police station. After making sure no one was watching, he taped a sheet of paper to the window telling them that the car was stolen and ported to an alley he had seen close by. Walking calmly to the sidewalk with his head down, he started looking for a new ride.

He was halfway back, with nothing good showing up when someone shouted. “STOP kidnapper!”

People looked around pointing, shouting and cheering as some guy stepped out of a big armoured car with what looked like a satellite dish on top. The man was dressed in a crazy way, his body seemingly covered in circuit boards and LCD lights, it would be almost funny if the guy wasn't holding an oversized pistol that ballooned out at the end and hummed ominously even from 20 meters away. “Where is the girl?” the guy demanded.

“Girl?! Kidnapper?!” was all Monty could manage to say.

“The girl you kidnapped!” the superhero shouted. “It wasn't enough to destroy a bus in your attempt to kill innocent people, you had to kidnap an innocent girl?”

Pepper, Dad and Mom were going to kill him if he made it out of this alive.

“Hey, I can explain everything,” Monty said, holding his hands up trying to placate the obvious hero.

The hero pressed a button on his gun, the humming increased and sparks began to fly from the barrel. “Hand over the girl now, and you'll get a fair trial. Otherwise you'll answer to Mr. Fix.”

He ported. He realized it was probably a mistake as he did it, but since there was no way he was dragging Pepper into this mess any further than he had to, there wasn't much choice. Landing two hundred meters away, unfortunately right in the middle of the street, he got ready to port again to a place that might be a bit better hidden.

Looking back at the hero, he saw Mr. Fix moving his pistol, which had suddenly developed a scope, right at him. He ported blindly, and appeared thirty meters farther down the road, in the middle of a crowd of gawkers. There was a roar of energy and the spot he'd just left was covered in sparks that jumped and buzzed excitedly before fading away. The hero pressed a button on his wrist and little drones flew off from his suit in all directions.

The drones weren't needed however as everyone around Monty began screaming in terror and running as far from the crazy, mutant terrorist as quickly as possible.

“Osti de tabarnak de calice!” he swore, as he ported again, actually feeling his body tingle as the hero shot him.

Landing on a nearby roof, it felt like his legs were asleep. Falling to his knee's, he tried to rub some feeling back into them. As he did that, he kept an eye out for Mr. Fix, hoping that the hero had lost him. Rolling to lie on his back, he took a second to catch his breath. All of this running around, porting like crazy, and driving with very little sleep was for the birds. Forcing his eyes to stay open, he saw what looked like a humming bird hovering over him. Rubbing his eyes, he realized it wasn't a humming bird.

There wasn't time to swear or do much of anything, the roar of a jet made his ears twitch, and the now flying hero was shooting at him a second later. Unthinkingly Monty ported.

People down below screamed as they saw a boy begin to fall from the sky. Monty was screaming to, looking for something soft he could port above and land on before he got going too quickly. Unfortunately, everything nearby looked very solid and in some cases pointy.

Solid arms embraced him. Without thinking Monty threw his arms around his rescuer. “Merci! Merci! Merci!”

Mr. Fix growled in his ear, while holding him as tightly as possible, “Tell me where the girl is, and you'll get mercy. But if you've harmed-”

With a yelp of fear, Monty ported away, landing on the street at a fast run. He ported again, and again, wondering how he was going to get out of this mess. Then he saw the hero's car, it was sealed up but that shouldn't stop him. Picturing the inside of it, that he'd briefly seen two minutes before, he ported into the drivers seat.

There was an amazing array of buttons and switches. A small tv activated showing six pictures, from all around the car. Mr. Fix was steadily growing larger in one of them, his mouth, which was the only visible bit of flesh on him was set in a thin, angry looking line. The hero tapped some buttons on his wrist and the car began driving towards him.

This was going to be bad.

Not sure what any of the buttons meant, since they were labeled with symbols rather than helpful words actually explaining their purpose, Monty began pressing all the buttons at random. The radio started, the video changed to infrared, a speaker blared out, “Stop in the name of the law!”, a husky woman's voice said, “Forcefield activated, stud muffin,” and beams of energy began firing at everything that moved.

About a dozen people watching from behind garbage cans and in doorways dropped to the ground. Mr. Fix, who was tapping on his wrist was hit to, and fell with a painful sounding thud to the ground just a few meters away from the still moving car.

Grabbing the wheel, Monty took control and drove carefully around the fallen hero, really hoping he hadn't just killed a bunch of people. He had to go pick up Pepper and get out of town.

It would also help if he learned how to open the door.

* * *

Pepper waited in a cafe for her brother. She figured as long as he wore a hat he shouldn't be too recognizable. It was a pleasant location, plenty of seats, not to busy, TV showing the news in the corner, and no ridiculous names for the drinks. Amazing how rare that last one is.

She took her order to a small table where she could see all of the exits in she needed a speedy escape, then, like any teenager, she was promptly distracted by the presence of a TV.

It was a good thing she did. Up on the screen was an alert going out about her brother the terrorist kidnapping her. Sketches were provided for both of them. She pretended to get a text then dragged her luggage out of the cafe hoping no one noticed that she was supposed to be kidnapped.

As she waited for her brother to come get her she saw a… she didn't know what to call it. It was certainly supposed to be a car, but it seemed like someone got lost on the way there and made something that gave the impression of a car instead.

When Monty pulled up in it she didn't know whether to laugh at or scold him for his choice in cars.

* * *

“Where did you get the car?” Pepper asked.

“Borrowed it from a superhero,” Monty replied. “Don't worry he won't need it for a while.”

His sister didn't yell, scream, hit him or do much of anything, it was actually scarier than if she had snapped. “Did you know you're now a wanted dark wizard and I'm your sacrificial victim?”

He jerked the wheel around, almost causing an accident before getting it back under control. “WHAT?”

“Yeah, it's all over the news. Good job. And now you're a carjacker, who, I'm just guessing here, just had a major fight with a superhero. Are you trying to be the next Dr. Diabolik? Or do you just want to build up your rep as a bad ass for school?”

“Dad is going to kill me!”

Pepper gave him a warm, happy smile. “Not until Mom is done with you, Dad will get whatever's left.”

“Just hand me in for the reward money and go to school. I'll take my chances with the MCO,” he moaned.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, his sister obviously deciding he'd been tormented enough, for now. But as they were about to head into the suburbs and leave the city, the radio came to life making them both jump.

“Kid, you're in a lot of trouble,” Mr. Fix said. “Turn yourself in now and hand over the girl, I'll make sure you get a decent lawyer. If we have to hunt you down, you're not going to see the light of day until you're too old to enjoy it.”

He started swearing in his head, having no clue what to do. Pepper hit his shoulder and pointed out the window, while putting her finger to her lips. He saw an old seemingly abandoned church, his sister nodded, pointing at herself and the door, and then back at him and down the street.

Nodding in agreement, Monty pulled down an alley and stopped just long enough for Pepper to hop out with her stuff. When she was out, he hit the gas and went tearing back onto the street. Hitting a button, he had the car shouting out commands at full volume, making sure all eyes were on him.

The cameras showed a police car coming up fast behind him, within a minute it was joined by two more. And then a helicopter showed up, along with the hero. He stepped on the gas, now he just needed somewhere to dump the car.

He looked at the small GPS unit on the dashboard as people cleared the street in front of him, which was a good thing since he was going all over the road, and saw a lake Monona coming up. Stepping on the gas, he cackled madly, relishing the feeling of speed.

The lake was coming up but there wasn't any good spot for him to dump the car, spinning the wheel and jumping onto the sidewalk, he kept going as the line of pursuers grew. Another block of driving, he saw what he wanted. Looking carefully at the buildings alongside the street for a good hiding spot, he took a deep breath, wished he had a seatbelt on, and drove the car through the metal railing right into the lake.

Just as the water was about to hit the front of the car, he ported away, behind a rack of t-shirts. Police cars raced past him, and he thought he heard the hero yelling with rage as his car sank in the water.

Smiling to himself he ported again, putting as much distance between himself and the police as possible.

They found an abandoned church and decided to make it their home base while in town. Pepper started setting things up while her brother was out getting rid of the car.

The church was a mostly one room affair without even an entrance hall, it did have two offices and a small non-working bathroom, but they were in such bad shape they didn't look safe. The windows were boarded up except for a stain glass one that faced the apartment building behind the church. It showed the apostles gathered around Christ on the cross. There were pillars supporting the roof about ever fifteen to twenty feet and several sets of pews still in relatively good order. Surprisingly there were no holes in the roof or piles of trash, although there was one pile of rotten wood that appeared to have once been the alter. The raised stage that the that the destroyed alter sat on also had a raised stand for a choir, with the way the roof was shaped it must have been beautiful when they sang.

While the church had plenty of room for them to divide up it needed a few touches. Like any form of divide between where she and her brother could change separately, and another for some privacy from the outside. Sure they had seen each other naked before, but that had been when they were really young, and it was an experience neither of them wanted to repeat.

There were dust covers on some of the pews, but not all of them for some reason. She hung some of them between the pillars that supported the roof, making a 'room' that was more private.

Next they'd need a place to sleep. Since Monty wasn't back yet, he couldn't smash the pews with his teleporting, which might be a good thing in the long run. They weren't bolted to the floor, so she set about the laborious task of pushing them apart to make a gap. She also made sure there was a clear space where Monty would teleport to easily. Again using the the dust covers she constructs crude hammocks in the gap between the pews.

Next they would need a bathroom and a kitchen… yeah that wasn't happening any time soon. Or at all really. They would have to stick to cold food and use a bathroom elsewhere for a while.

It wasn't home but it would do. Until they left the town at least. Hopefully that would be soon.

She heard some rattling at the door. They had barred it because Monty could teleport in if he needed to, and so as long as Pepper didn't leave it would stay barred.

She crept over to one of the boarded up windows and checked to see who was there. There were three of them, all with identical looks, too large pants that hung around the hips, hoodies with name brand logos on the back, and hats at odd angles for no apparent reason. Just some wannabe thugs looking for something to mess up.

Normally the flute and pan flute are not very loud instruments, they could easily be overpowered by background noise. But the church was designed to amplify small sounds coming from the stage.

Pepper knew they wouldn't get through the door, but she wanted to scare them off anyway. Better to have peace in a sanctuary than a siege at a citadel. So she climbed onto the stage and took out her flute.

She didn't have any of her music so she decided to improvise something. She wasn't a composer or anything but having the right music to affect someone's moody was practically a necessity for her powers. Once her flute was tuned she played.

It was a haunting tune, full of discords and minors. The melody was dark and slow, going from angelic highs and dropping slowly to the lower end of the flutes range. The harmony moved quickly, circling the melody like a murder of crows waiting for it to die. The end of the refrain was the sound of fear itself as the lowing quick notes stopped to be replaced by a single high pitched tone, akin to to a woman's scream, before moving into the next verse.

An abandoned building playing a song, creepy. An abandoned building playing this song, scary. Peppers powers pushing fear onto a person hearing the song, terrifying. Pepper couldn't feel emotions with her powers. Nor could she watch as they dropped their tough act and ran like little girls. What she could do was feel how well her powers were working on someone, and it was going perfectly.

To end off the final refrain Pepper switched from the high note that ended the refrain to low notes in a jerky repetitive pattern that sounded like laughter.

At that point they weren't even there to hear it though, they had run away scared.

Maybe there were rumours about this place. If there weren't they would start soon. What was the old saying? While the Vicar's away the mice will play? Yes, yes they will indeed.

[align=center]* * *[/align]

Monty laid back on the tarp, trying to relax enough so his exhausted mind and body could sleep. After everything that had happened, especially the run in with Fixit the glorified handyman, he could barely stand without swaying. But there was one thing that kept running through his head, how to get to school? They were suppose to show up a bit early, to meet a few friends of their Dad who were in the faculty, but that didn't look too likely now. And he really didn't want to call home begging for help. It would be the most sensible thing, but his teenage pride rebelled every time his thoughts drifted in that direction.

Finally, realizing he couldn't sleep without having some idea of a plan, he rolled onto his side to look at his sister. "So any ideas how we're getting to Whateley now?"

She didn't bother looking at him, just stared at the ceiling. "No, we could call them but I doubt they'd listen for something like this."

He wasn't so sure, Whateley would just ignore them, but calling them for help would be just like calling the folks. “So... we drive?”

“Yeah,” she said, sarcasm filling her voice. “How many cars have we gone through today alone, on the fact that they would have found us?”

“Well I can't port us that far. So you want to take a horse? We could probably find one in this place.” He winced at his tone, but Pepper didn't seem to realize they were in a bit of a situation.

“We could try getting on another bus, if we could get to the next town people might not recognize you.”

That would be a great idea, Monty thought. Just one serious problem. “Got any cash. I got twenty bucks in my wallet, and maybe a hundred in the bank. Dad's not giving me anymore, until I get my class schedule so I don't waste my money.”

“You really think dad trusts me with more money than you?” Pepper snorted.

He smirked, “Not after you bought enough stink bombs to evacuate the school as a prank.” That had been fairly legendary, and was still talked about in awed tones two years later.

She glared at him. “Well at least I didn't put up "provocative" posters in the teachers lounge.”

“They were tasteful! Mostly,” he retorted. The one with Mr. Scully's and Ms. Mulder's faces superimposed over top of two models about to kiss while half naked might have gone over the line, but really, the month long detention just on the suspicion that he'd done it was just being mean. “So,” he continued before they could start arguing, “steal a car, and a wallet, and drive to the next town?”

“How?” she asked. “The car part exactly. The wallet, would be all too easy for you. But we can barely drive let alone hotwire a car. Also everyone is on the look out for you and anyone who sees me will turn me over to the police, or worse the MCO, for protection.”

“I steal a purse as a woman's shopping or something, and we drive. No hotwiring. You have a better idea?”

Pepper sat up, exasperation written on her face. “Wait for the hype to die down a bit. Make them think we've skipped town. I earn some money busking. Then we steal a car jump to the next town.”

“We have four days to get to school if we want to get there when everyone else does. We don't have much time,” he reminded her. “And with the MCO sniffing around, I don't want to be near them.”

“48 hour rule.”

“You're not exactly inconspicuous. Taking off would be better.”

“What are they going to recognize?” she asked. “My ears, I was wearing a scarf over them. My glasses, I have contacts. My age is hard to guess anyway. I could even wear my chest strapped down, like when I pretended to be you for that test.”

“Medium size town, strange flat as a board girl wandering around, not showing her hair or ears, big teeth. Oh yeah you're inconspicuous.”

She looked at him like he was nuts. “Medium sized? we're in the second largest city in Wisconsin.”

“And? That's not saying much,” he said, waving his hand around at the quiet night, and remembering how calm and boring everything was compared to Montreal.

“It has a population of over 2 hundred thousand,” she said, remembering the sign on the way in.

Monty just rolled his eyes.

“I'll wear a hat instead of a scarf,” Pepper said.

“And you still have everyone including superheroes looking for the poor innocent sacrifice victim.”

“That is not my fault,” she said, glaring at him.

“Well what about me? My razor went Ka-bloey, so I'm stuck with whiskers and no contacts either. I'm living with a big target on my back!” he exclaimed. “And I didn't say it was your fault. But we kind of need to leave.”

“Okay. How? Even if we can get a car, people will be looking for that car just because we stole it. And no offence little bro but you aren't exactly the most discreet.”

Monty resisted rolling his eyes, like she was always the most discreet. “What if we steal some money, and buy a car from someone desperate for cash?”

“How many days is it going to take to get that much?” she asked.

“One day of hard work. Trust me,” Monty said, smiling broadly.

Pepper, looked at him cautiously for several moments. “While your doing that, I busk. That way we will have enough money for sure.”

“Deal!” he exclaimed. “I'll steal some phones for us so we can keep in touch.”

“First you steal clothes!”

He nodded. “Ok, first clothes, then phones. Any preferences? Prada, Guchi... I'm running out of brands here, little help.”

Pepper threw a shoe at him, but he ported out of the way, and nearly fell down as a wave of exhaustion washed over him. “Clothes for you moron. I already have my clothes,” she said.

Lying back down, Monty chuckled. “I figured since I was going to be a criminal might as well go whole hog.”

“I'm going to sleep. Try not to blow up the church or get Champion on our butts until tomorrow,” Pepper said, rolling over to go to sleep.

“Good night, Pepper,” Monty said, not expecting and not getting an answer. Putting his head on his arm, Monty fell asleep, already planning on how to rob a bank.

[align=center]# # #[/align]

The next morning, Monty walked along the street, trying to not look nervous or out of place. He'd stolen a nice outfit at dawn from a store window, and now looked like a scrawny boy trying to look cool with designer jeans, five hundred dollar sunglasses, a two hundred dollar polo shirt and an American flag bandanna around his head.

He was starting to realize why some people liked to steal stuff, it was so easy.

With the five dollars left in his pocket, he bought a chocolate bar for breakfast, a notepad and a pen. Writing a quick note in the pad, he tore it off and put it in his pocket. Heading out he looked around and saw a Goodkind Bank. Smirking, he decided that would be the perfect place to go.

The morning rush had ended, so the bank was fairly quiet, Monty still had to wait in line for a few minutes, but that gave him time to get his racing heart under control. When it was finally his turn, he walked up to the bank teller smiled and handed her the note.

'This is a bank robbery. I'm the supervillain on the news, give me all the money in your till. If you cause trouble, people get hurt. If there is a dye pack in the envelope, I'll be VERY UNHAPPY.'

When the woman looked at him in horror, he held a quarter up, shielding it from view with his other hand, and ported it right in front of her. “Is that understood?” he asked quietly.

The woman nodded, and trying to act natural she followed his instructions. Taking the thick envelope, the note and the quarter back, he calmly put everything into his pockets and left the bank, as if he'd just done a minor transaction rather than a robbery.

Outside again, he turned down an alley and ported to a nearby roof. Changing his clothes into something a little less noticeable, he'd stolen from the same store earlier, Monty put everything into a plastic bag, and ported away. He had shopping to do.

[align=center]* * *[/align]

Pepper arrived at the church relatively early, she had something to talk to Monty about. She was hoping to meet him outside, that way he’d have to help her get in and would feel guilty for making her wait before she even started. Miraculously he was already there, she should have guessed with what she was going to ‘talk’ to him about. This might work out better in the long run though, depending on how she played this.

“Hey Monty, how was your day? Do anything interesting?” Pepper asked setting him up for the fall, if he didn’t mention anything the guilt trip would be worse, if he did she would get to start it earlier. Pepper loved the watching Monty fall into despair slowly, but there was something to be said about instant gratification.

“It was okay but pretty boring, you?”

“Oh it was nice. I found a park to play in near by. There was shade for when it was to hot, not a lot of competition, and plenty of people passing through,” Pepper said not bothering to hide her grin, Monty was one of the few people who would notice it but he was already caught in her trap, “A nice old man even bought me a late lunch.”

“You shouldn't take food from strangers,” Monty said growing worried. Whether for her or because of her she didn’t know, nor did she care.

She waved him off with a glint in her eye, “We ate at a fast food place. He felt guilty about not being able to pay because he only had a credit card on him. I had everything under control. We had an interesting conversation to.”

“What about?”

“Oh this and that. The weather, the local news, how mutants are evil, the supervillain that kidnapped me, how he robbed a bank today. You know small talk,” the trap was sprung now. She could see it in his eyes, he could try to escape all he wanted but even he must know it was futile at this point.

“You talked to an H-oner? Don’t you know how dangerous that is.”

“Not if I open the topic to test grounds to see if I should avoid them. Also not nearly as dangerous as invading one of the most highly guarded places in the area. Like say a bank,” Pepper was examining her fingernails at this point trying to look nonchalant. Monty was sinking now he knew it was coming, he had one final chance to escape.

“I’m sorry!”

“You’re Sorry? You are sorry? I don’t think that defence will hold up in court when you’ve robbed a bank. What were you thinking? No, I know what you were thinking, it is a bunch of easy money just lying there right where we can get it, its not like they can stop me. We’ve been over this before, dad explained the ethics behind our powers as soon as we got them. We could all too easily exploit them. But you weren’t thinking about that. You weren’t thinking about how I would get to Whateley when the police shoot and killed you. You weren’t thinking about what it would do to mom and dad to discover that there son, there only son, died as a supervillain. You didn’t think about how such an act would affect civil rights movements campaigning against the discrimination of mutants. You didn’t have to fight this time but what if you had? You don’t think bank have some way of defending against an attack on their own? You can’t have been the first supervillain to try a note over the counter? If we were in a place with a higher mutant population it never would have worked!”

Pepper didn’t raise her voice once during the rant. She didn’t need to, Monty could hear her the whole time, hear the anger in her voice, the sorrow. As the speech went on he slowly sunk to the floor. Then Pepper surprised him by embracing him in a hug and whispering, “I’m glad you’re alright,” into his ear.

Jumping up Pepper looked around the church to find the stuff he bought, “Didn’t you get anything for me?”

“I thought you didn’t want me to rob a bank.”

“I have problems with how you got the money, not with spending it. Now hand over some cash, I’m going shopping."

So far no one had had any luck at finding the newest Wisconsin supervillain. Actually that was wrong, everyone had plenty of luck finding him, it was getting him that was the problem. The girl was the important part of course but capturing the terrorist/kidnapper who had been able to steal Mr. Fix's car would be a notch in anyone's belt. MCO sergeant Vance wanted that notch.

The way the terrorist acted in different situations was baffling though. Sometimes he would go deliberately out of his way to make sure no one got hurt, yet the first time he showed up he was dropping bombs like candy, and he'd used the weapons on Mr. Fix's car without caring about who he hit. Fortunately Mr. Fix only had stun beams, if they'd been lethal they'd have had a double digit body count on their hands.

Like everyone else Vance had heard the summary of the witness statements but had not gone through them himself. So he decided to check them out, see if he could find anything that was overlooked.

As he skimmed through the account of events his eye was drawn to a single word, 'returned.'

"How can he return to make his first attack?" The sergeant muttered to himself.

He then noticed that there was reference to a second set of statements, also about a mutant on the bus. Since it was related he might as well check those out as well.

'The little boy pulled the scarf off of his head to reveal mouse ears, then he dragged the person sitting next to her off the bus.'

'Then I pulled off her neat scarf and she had mouse ears like Minnie. Then everyone was yelling at her and she ran away.'

'He revealed himself as a mutant and ran off the bus stealing away with his neighbour.'

Back up a moment, She? Why did the closest first hand accounts have the villain be female?

He checked over the statements, more thoroughly than before. Every close encounter with the leaving mutant said it was a she, every encounter of the attacking mutant said it was a he.

There was two of them. Two mutants with the same form of GSD riding on the same bus, that was unlikely unless they were related.

'The mutant returned to enact his revenge.'

He stuck his head out his office door to yell, someone grab me the description of the mutant and a description of the kidnapped girl. And some sketch artists. Make it quick!"

He then made up different sets of descriptions. Swapping genders, adding mouse ears, changing head gear, and making other assorted changes that didn't change the actual appearance.

Then he walked up to the white board and stuck all of the pictures up while labeling them. Everyone paused wondering what he was doing.

"This is an artist rendition of a female version of our terrorist, with some head gear to cover the ears, looks a lot like the kidnapped girl does it not?"

Everyone looked at the pictures and then started making calls or going back over what they had done, this was a brand new angle on the case.

Vance smiled as everyone started rushing with renewed vigour. He was getting credit for this catch no matter what happens because of this breakthrough.

[align=center]# # #[/align]

In the morning they were woken up by a large amount of chatter outside the church.

"Wha…" Pepper started drowsily.

"5 more minutes," Monty responded, though it came out more like cin min tes plu.

Pepper was the first to get up. She was used to getting up before her brother, since she normally had more to do in the mornings. It took her a moment to remember where she was, the abandoned church they had found.

She walked over to where Monty was lying in his hammock. For a moment she contemplated rolling him out of it and onto the floor. Then she heard the chattering outside again, she decided against letting whoever was outside know they were there.

"Wake up, someone's here."

"You deal with it."

"I dealt with the last group," which was true. They'd had a few unwelcome visitors the previous day, Pepper had dealt with the last group, much like the first. Monty had dealt with his own group by creating small explosions of dirt, dust, and mud all around them, from the screams it sounded like they were in a war zone.

"Fine," he grumbled. He tried to get out gracefully only to fall out of the hammock. At least he didn't make much noise as he did. Getting up off the floor Monty tiredly walked over to the boarded up window.

"Um, Pepper you'd better come see this. I think they're the thugs you told me about yesterday, and they brought camera's," Monty said from the crack they used to watch the yard. Pepper was sure he mentioned it to get out of being the one to scare them off, but if it really was them she didn't mind giving a repeat performance.

In the bit of yard that they could see through the crack in the window stood seven people. Pepper recognized the three 'thugs', Monty had been right about them, darn him. They were dressed better than they were yesterday, wearing their pants properly with belts even, one of them had even put on a dress shirt. The other four were new though, one girl carried a large camera, not cinematic but big enough to require a shoulder mount, another had a microphone, the third had multiple pieces of occult jewelry, and the last guy carried several devices, one of which appeared to be a Geiger counter.

The girl with the camera was the most noticeable. Her hair was black, streaked with bands of magenta, violet, forest green, and neon blue. Her ear on the side with the camera was unadorned to contrast the other which had four rings through the top and two through the lobe. Her pale skin was reddening approaching a burn in the early morning sun. She was the only person among the new ones who wore anything close to practical for the weather. She wore a black tank top that exposed her midriff over fishnet shirt that covered her torso and arms. She had khaki shorts and sandals on, unlike the long warm looking pants everyone else was wearing.

The guy holding the microphone was kinda cute. He had short, scraggly, light brown hair that he had clearly tried his best and failed to make orderly. He wasn't big or well muscled but there was a soft toned look to his body. His face was round, not chubby but not sharp or angular. His light green eyes gave off an inviting friendly feeling that made you want to open up to him. He wore old scuffed up jeans, a red dress shirt, and rather oddly a light brown rain coat.

The one with the jewellery was less interesting than what she was wearing. She had a long sleeved shirt with hundreds of hooks on it. Every single hook had a charm of some sort, one had to wonder how she put it on in the morning, you could barely tell where the charms ended and the shirt began. She also wore sunglasses, with a feather on them, no occult symbols just a feather. She had her long dark brown hair tied back in a pony tail. She seemed to be trying to stay out of the sun, probably to avoid blinding drivers with the reflection off of all of the metal.

The last one was stick thin, though not very tall. His skin and hair were greasy looking, both looking unhealthy, the later drooping with the extra weight. On his belt he had several objects, some were innocuous, like a flashlight or a phone case. Others were more unusual: one of them looked like a car battery and was attached to some of the others, another appeared to be a small sound control board, a third seemed to have a radar on it, and of course there was the Geiger counter in his hand.

Once Pepper had stopped paying attention to what the new people looked like, she realized she could hear what they were saying. One of the thugs was the first voice she deciphered, "Hey can we get this over with already?"

"I don't know," said the man with the microphone, "you ready Vi?"

The camera lady looked at him incredulously, "I've been waiting for…," Pepper couldn't quite hear what she said when she turned away, "…'cause you don't like starting without your 'experts.'" Pepper wasn't sure how you did air quotes with both hands full but the camerawomen, Vi apparently, managed to imply that they were there with her voice.

The two 'experts' were themselves rather indignant at this. Many of their comments were too quiet to be heard through the walls of the church and those that were loud enough don't bear repeating. Despite their vulgarity they did appear to be ready. Vi nodded to them, shrugging off their comments as if it were par for course, then gave a silent countdown to the microphone guy.

"Hello internet, this is Eric here with Matilda and Simon at the old church on Heffer Lane, with us today is Mathew, Kerry, and Curt who witnessed a paranormal event here just yesterday. Could you tell us what happened?"

"Well me, Kerry, an' Curt had come up here to see the old church 'cause Kerry used to worship here before it closed. Once we got up to the door there was strange sounds, something like mice running around, others like the cries of owls, then this music starts to play," the first 'thug' trails off after that, probably not wanting to explain how they ran away.

Luckily Eric saved them the embarrassment by asking a question in the gap, "So you approached this church and it started playing music all on its own?"

"Yeah but not right away…" at this point Pepper turned away not caring for how her work was perceived as much as she cared for how they were going to get out of this predicament.

"Do you think you can get rid of the microphone?"

"Not accurately. Even if he held it still I might hit his hand, and the explosion would really do some damage to him anyway." Monty always worried about accidentally hurting someone when he teleported objects, especially if he put them inside something.

"Well I don't know what will happen when they play back the recording they get from this," Pepper said as she assembled and tuned her flute. She decided to play something different than she had before, fear was what they would be looking for so that wouldn't work very well. And if the recording took her powers with it, she didn't want to make them really happy either, from a few tests she'd done with willing friends, she knew joy could be addicting. Fortunately Pepper knew multiple lullabies off by heart, after the stink bomb incident she had had to earn money by babysitting and lullabies were useful even without her powers.

As she began to play Monty approached the window to watch. He wasn't worried about falling asleep, Pepper's power didn't work on him. The testers weren't sure how she did it, since it had nothing to do with his powers, as he had proven to be average if not below at defending himself against psychic compulsions. It wasn't that she could purposefully exclude other people, everyone within range when she used music was affected. And it wasn't being used to it because, although being used to it help one resist her powers, it didn't give people the same degree of protection he had. The going theory was that since they were twins, who manifested on the same day, at the same time, they had some form of connection to each other that the testers could not detect.

He watched as the people outside talked. When one of them finally approached the door he gave Pepper the signal to start.

The first to start wobbling were the 'thugs' from yesterday, apparently they had less defence than the 'professionals,' or maybe they just had better hearing. They swayed for a moment, then fell like dominoes, the first crashing into the second who tumbled into the third. Luckily they all fell away from the door.

The next to feel the effects was the microphone guy, but instead of wobbling first he just fell.

The camera lady listened to the music for a moment, then noticed her fallen comrade and wobbling witnesses. She decided to sit down and put the camera at her side pointed at the door. Probably a good idea as it looked expensive. When she eventually fell she hit the stand and tilted the camera away from the church.

The tech guy actually fell before the camerawomen, even if he started feeling the affects after she did. He wasn't so careful about his stuff and fell on some of it. At least he didn't shock himself with the battery.

The last to fall was the one covered in occult jewellery. Maybe some of them were actually enchanted, or maybe she was having a hard time hearing the music because of the ruckus her shirt would make every time she moved.

Once the last one had fallen Pepper finished the song. She went to the changing area and quickly got dressed so that she could go busking. She wore a hat over her ears and put her contacts in so she wouldn't be recognized. It took her some time to decide on how to collect the money, she had her flute case but that was small and poorly shaped for such endeavours. Eventually she decided on taking a collection bowl from the church, it wasn't like they were using it.

They moved the large pew put in front of the doors, and exited. Once Pepper was outside Monty pushed the pew back and ported to the opposite side of the door, to give his sister one last hug before they parted ways.

As they left the yard Pepper was careful to avoid the camera, Monty was not so cautious. For a single moment, maybe a second but no more, the camera saw him. He was no more than a silhouette, a shadow passing by, but what a distinctive shadow it was. Then it was gone, no trace of movement nor sign of fading, one frame he was there the next he was gone.

***

Monty grabbed a free paper to read while he ate breakfast. Even with the new clothes he'd actually bought the day before, he still had almost a thousand dollars in his wallet, thanks to his bank robbery.

Of course he was front page news, now he had not only humiliated Madison's superhero Mr. Fix, but he was a bank robber to. He was almost tempted to get it framed, but his parents would probably kill him if he did that. He was already going to be grounded for life as it was.

Pepper would be busy with busking to get some extra cash, and he knew it would help calm her down. So his job was to find a cheap car. That would be easy enough. Sure.

Flipping to the classifieds he looked at used cars for sale, marking down the ones that looked useful as he ate his egg sandwich, heavy on the cheese. All he'd have to do would be steal a phone and things would be golden.

“Mommy! Look it's Mr. Fix!” a child shouted.

Monty reacted instantly, porting into the parking lot. There were screams, and when he looked around he saw Mr. Fix waiting in line pointing at the menu, while his head turned to look straight at him. Slapping his face at exposing himself, he ported away. As he stood on a rooftop, he heard the whine of jet engines. Five drones were heading towards him and ten more were flying high into the sky with big camera lenses pointing in every direction.

“You have got to be kidding me!”

Porting like a madman, Monty tried to lose the drones and the now jet flying hero. The eyes in the sky however were working a bit too well, and watching every square inch of the place. Cars slammed on the brakes and the morning crowd screamed and ran as he appeared in the middle of traffic and behind groups of people, not being able to do more than get a general impression of where he wanted to end up. At least when he was porting himself, he never had to worry about hitting a wall.

A drone managed to be within shooting distance of where he was ported and fired one of the paralyzing beams at him, catching his arm. Since he was running as he ported, even though he got away, he was thrown off balance and tumbled along the sidewalk. Mr. Fix, was right on top of him in seconds, shooting with his weird gun. Monty ported a few meters away, unable to think of a better location with his arm sending mixed signals to his brain.

“Will-” he ported two meters to the left, “stop-” port, “shooting-” port, “me!”

“Hold still! Or I'm going to have to use something lethal!” Mr. Fix yelled at him.

Lethal!

Monty grabbed a handful of flowers from a street vendor who was cowering behind her cart. Taking one, he ported it straight into the hero's gun, blowing it up, and making the hero yell as shrapnel peppered his gauntlet. Three more flowers went right into the center of the drones which were rapidly approaching.

“Sorry, I really didn't want to do that!” Monty yelled.

Mr. Fix's armour whined, and two barrels popped up over his shoulders. They did not look friendly.

“Merde!” Monty shouted, and ported back to the church.

He fell to his knee's as the church spun around him. Unable to keep his eyes open he fell on his face, utterly exhausted.

**

Pepper hadn't had a chance to scout out the area for a good busking location yesterday but she found a nice location. The location happened to be the outer edge of a park. Parks were always good for busking. People would be passing by, there was shade if it got to hot and the scenery wasn't dull grey buildings.

While she played, she pushed generosity onto the people who walked past. Even if they didn't give money to her they would help someone else. She didn't push to hard though, if someone noticed odd behaviour she could easily get caught. Unlike her brothers powers, hers didn't really give her a means of escape.

When she was packing up someone stopped her. He was wearing a business suit, not a tailored one but something off the rack. She could tell by the way it didn't fit him quite right in the shoulders. It was hard to tell if he was tall from Pepper's angle but he gave off that impression even if he wasn't. His short black hair was parted to one side in that semi formal hairstyle favoured by proper British school boys in television shows. He was clearly either a plain clothes cop or something similar.

"You know most kidnap victims don't get to go outside and play music to earn money," he said reaching to place a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged him off not wanting to get trapped.

"I wouldn't know. I have never been kidnapped," she said in her clearest English. Without her glasses on she didn't fit the description that was given by the police for a kidnap victim. Especially if she wasn't speaking broken English.

"That's good, that's good. I was actually hoping you would say that," he said, he was grinning now which made Pepper nervous. "You see going back over the reports from the bus incident there were two mutants on the bus. One was a girl meeting your description. So if you weren't kidnapped, then you must be another supervillain."

"Sleep," Pepper said. Even if she didn't have music he had been standing around listening to it for a while, so he was still susceptible to her influence.

Of course he didn't fall asleep, she couldn't change influence that fast and be very effective. What he did do was stumble a little as drowsiness overcame him, he reached out for her which was perfect.

Once his hand was on her shoulder she swung her already packed flute case, which was made of hard plastic, into the side of his head as hard as she could.

This got her a few strange looks until she forced herself to speak up saying, "Don't touch me, damn creep." It went downhill from there for the MCO agent as everyone now thought he was a pedophile who had attacked a young girl.

Pepper wisely walked off in the ensuing chaos. There were obviously more agents in the area but they were a little preoccupied with saving their friend from some angry men. One or two tried to follow her, but as small as she was, it was easy to lose herself in the crowd.

[align=center]# # #[/align]

Enough was enough. Things should be calming down, but instead they kept escalating. Pepper had been hoping that things would cool down, or someone with connections would find them. That wasn't going to happen, at least not without a little nudge.

Pepper knew the number she needed by heart. It was easy to remember phone numbers, you just had to find a rhythm to saying them or remember the numbers as if tones when counting for a chord.

Now she just had to find a phone. Monty kept getting her phones sure, but people would cancel the plans on them, usually within an hour. The best thing to do would be to find a dollar store, but they might not let her buy a burner without a credit card. It wasn't as easy as it looked in TV shows was it?

She'd never know if she didn't try.

First try: "Aren't you a little young to be buying one of these?"

Second try: "No, I'm not selling this to a little kid."

Third times the charm: "You shouldn't empty your piggy bank on something trivial like this. Why don't you ask your mom to get this for you?"

Pepper just grabbed her money and stormed out after that last one. So it was as easy as they showed in TV shows just not for young girls who didn't look their age. Not only that, she had no clue how to 'push' them to give her the phone.

How would she get a phone now? She could borrow one, but she might need to make multiple calls. She could get someone to buy the phone for her but she didn't know if she could trust anyone around here not to just steal her money. Stealing one wasn't an option because of the activation code that the stores used. How was she-

Then she saw a dollar store where the cashier wasn't some old guy who would think she was too young for a phone. It was a teenage girl. No guarantee she would let her buy the phone according to the experiences she just had she might be able to relate to her better at least.

Once she had the phone she walked up to the counter. The girl looked at her like she was crazy and Pepper expected to be turned down again, then she asked, "how old are you kid?"

"Old enough that I don't like being called kid," Pepper answered thinking she knew where this was going.

"No one likes being called kid. Now how old are you? You knew exactly what you wanted, you weren't detoured by candy, and your not acting like your just getting into a training bra. No matter what I think, you probably aren't 10."

"Bad guess, I'm 14. You're the first cashier to actually check that today."

"How many stores have you been to?"

"Enough to start hating kindly older men who think they know best."

"So at least one. What do you need this for anyway?"

"Not your business lady."

"Maybe, maybe not, but I'm the only one whose gonna sell you a phone."

Now was the time to push the girl. It was going well, if she could get rid of the curiosity she could get the phone. Was there a word for lack of curiosity? Maybe apathy applied but not really. She wasn't really pushing that anyway, she was pushing away the curiosity.

"You don't want to know why I want the phone."

"Oh but I do. Who would be desperate enough to go to multiple stores just for a phone they could ask their parents for. Your old enough that you could have one. Come on what is it? Stingy parents? Are you grounded? Or something more sinister?"

Pepper was beginning to hate the lack of control she had without her music.

"Let's just say I need to make contact with someone without them knowing its me."

"You don't know how to dampen curiosity do you?"

Her mind racing Pepper finally thought of an answer. "My parents don't like an aunt and uncle of mine. We'll be in their home town for a bit when we go on vacation and I want them to know we will be there. There is no way my parents will tell them, and I really want to see them."

At first the girl seemed suspicious but eventually said, "Now was that so hard?" Here you go, you have 2 hours, you can have a nice long conversation with your family."

With phone in hand Pepper left the store finally able to make the call to Whateley.

[align=center]# # # [/align]

Rhea watched the girl leave. She had recognized her from the sketches of the kidnapped girl. If the girl wanted to lie about why she needed a phone then that was fine, as long as she got help.

Then an idea struck her, she'd make sure the girl got the help she needed. She picked up the store phone off of the wall.

"Hello police? Yes I'd like to report some information on the kidnapped girl. I work at the 7-11 on Bridge Street. … Well she was just in here buying a burner phone. … Yeah I'm pretty sure, she was acting very suspicious about her reasons for wanting the phone as well. … The number? Sure it's…"

Pepper didn't go immediately back to the church. She didn't want the phone to be tracked to where she was staying, even if the it was a burner phone. Besides many of the people she had seen in the area complained about the terrible cell service.

Where to go instead. She couldn't just walk around, the conversation wouldn't exactly be normal from either end. The gas station she was passing had a bathroom with a lock. It was better than nothing.

Once she was in the bathroom she knew why it had a lock. Not for privacy but to keep whatever strange creatures that lived there locked up.

She hummed the tune she had come up with before typing in the number.

"Hello, is this Whateley Academy?"

"That depends deary, what do you need," the voice on the other end of the line was pleasant in that forced smile secretarial manor of someone who has had a long week.

"Hi I'm Pepper Jack, I'm a new student who will be coming in the fall-"

"If you are already coming here why did you call."

"I was getting to that! The bus my brother and I were on broke down just outside of Madison and long story short we are now being hunted down because they think we are supervillains," Pepper said as quickly as possible hoping to stop the person form hanging up.

"Oh well why didn't you say so," Pepper was now grinding her front teeth, a habit she and her brother had picked up from their father, the way this woman acted was infuriating, "I'll redirect you to security."

Pepper waited for a few seconds before a new voice came on the line.

"What can I do ya for Missy."

"How much news do you get from Wisconsin?"

"You'd be surprised."

"The new supervillain in Madison, yeah that my brother, we're supposed to be new students this fall."

Pepper waited a few moments for him to respond.

"Yeah I'm not dealing with that, this is going up the line."

Pepper sighed but didn't find this totally surprising. When stuff like this happened passing the buck was the natural response. She ground her incisors a bit more.

"Hello, my name is Sergeant Buxton," a tired male voice said across the line.

"Hi yes, my name is Pepper, my brother and I are the latest supervillain and kidnappee slash accomplice depending on who you ask," Pepper said with as much cheerfulness as she could feign; as far as Buxton could tell she was rather dour.

"Yeah that's above my pay grade, I'll send you to someone else."

"Don't worry I expect it at this point," Pepper said while proceeding to try to find a spot on the wall clean enough to bang her head against. With how much she was grinding her teeth they would look almost normal by the end of the conversation.

When the song stopped to signal she was off hold she decided to open with the harsh stuff before the other person got a word in, "Unless you can help stop a student from being hunted down just transfer me again and save us both some time."

"I take it you've been through a few calls," said a surprisingly young voice on the other end of the line.

"And spent over a half hour on hold."

"So what is the problem?"

"Long story or short story?"

"Give me as much detail as you can, but make it fast," the voice said.

"Well it all started on a bus trip from Calgary. The trip was fine until the bus broke down just outside of Madison, which resulted in a kid pulling off my scarf and showing that I had GSD. Me and my brother were run off of the bus because racism. Then I fall asleep in a field, next thing I know I'm discovered by a farmer who takes me in like one of his own children. Problem is my brother went back to get our stuff and decided to blow up the bus. So now he rushes in to the home of the farmer, I knock everyone out and we steal their truck, which we return to the police by the way. Only everyone thought I was kidnapped and my brother was a supervillain, not some idiot trying to protect himself. We though hey lay low for a bit, it can't be that bad, except things keep happening and everything keeps escalating and now the MCO has figured out that I'm some sort of accomplice instead of a kidnappee and the world is falling apart around me."

With all the nervousness and fear she was experiencing, Pepper was practically sobbing into the phone. It may have only been one day, or was it two, since the bus had broke but she had spent the time constantly worrying and stressing and bottling it so that she could deal with it. Now it all came spilling out as she finally saw a possibility of safety.

"I understand that you must have had a hard week, but I need you to stop sobbing. I'm going to need your help to get you out of this. What's your name?"

"Pepper, Pepper Jack," Pepper said making an effort to stop sobbing.

"Okay I'm admiral Sam Everheart, also known as Hive, we'll also need your brother's name?"

"Monterrey Jack," Pepper made sure to use his full name to make it easier for Hive to find him, "but he normally goes by Monty."

"You're named after cheeses?" Hive asked, and quickly negated with, "Not important, never mind, I assume you have code names?"

"Oh yeah mine is code name Le Flûtiste. My brother's is Être Agile but they are calling him Pop Rocks, since he teleports and can make things explode. Also he 'lost' his MID."

Hive muttered something that sounded like, “Was he trying to make it harder for everyone or just everyone trying to help?” A moment later speaking loudly enough to be heard, "Do you and your brother have a safe house set up? A place people don't know about where you can safely meet someone?"

"Yeah…"

"Are you there now?"

"No, it doesn't have the best cell coverage."

"Can you tell me where it is? Once I have a location I'll have a Whateley associate pick you up. They can hide you for a while and bring you to the academy, or a place near enough for you to get here yourself."

After Pepper told her the location of the church, Hive told her to go to the church and get her brother to go there as soon as possible. Then she gave her a number that would reach her directly if anything went wrong.

As Pepper left the bathroom she noticed a police car waiting for her. She knew it was waiting for her because the police approached her as soon as she left the bathroom. Unfortunately she couldn't act as if she wasn't kidnapped this time, they'd brought farmer John along.

"Bell, is that you?" John asked. When Pepper dumbly nodded, he rushed over to embrace her, "I was so worried when you were kidnapped by that supervillain. No child in my care should ever be threatened like that! You won't have to worry about him though. Let's get you down to the police station where you can call your parent and get back home."

So Pepper quietly submitted to be driven to the police station wondering how she would get out of this one.

[align=center]# # #[/align]

Vance was not happy. He figured everything out, there were two of them, where the girl was, when to approach her, everything. Then she fouled everything up with her powers. Making everyone think he was attacking her was a nice trick but it wouldn't work a second time. This time they would come in force. Now they just had to find her.

"Calling all units. This is unit 541A85. Call off the search for the kidnapped girl. We have her in protective custody and are taking her down to the station on Nicholas."

Or she could be dropped into their laps by unknowing police officers.

[align=center]# # #[/align]

Hive walked through the halls of Whateley with several processes running at once. She had more to do than set up a rescue for those twins half way across the country. But she could do those from anywhere, she needed to see Mrs. Carson about the twins, which was why she was headed towards the headmistress's office.

She breezed past Ms. Hartford, from checking the surveillance she knew that Mrs. Carson wasn't busy. Well she was, but only with paperwork, she wasn't in a meeting or on a phone call, and she looked like she could use a distraction. Even if the distraction might be more stressful than the paperwork.

"Sam? What is it? I'm in the middle of something right now."

"Your just going over the arrangements for Poe, again. You've done that twice already now. I'm going to bring your attention to Whitman and Twain for a bit."

"Oh dear god what is wrong with them?"

"Nothing, they just have some students in need of rescuing."

"Who and where?"

"The twins Pepper and Monterrey Jack, in Wisconsin."

"Sam that is a terrible joke."

"I wasn't joking."

"Next you'll be telling me they are GSD cases with mouse ears."

"According to their MIDs they are. They also have special dietary needs to make sure their teeth don't grow too much."

"Unless they are from Montreal this joke has gone to far."

"How did you know they were from Montreal?"

"Because their father is an alumni. I wonder if I should preemptively add them to the list like we did with Imp."

"Which list?"

"The 'whose alibi do we check first when there's a prank' list. You know the one with Generator, Beltane, Thorne, and Whisper on it."

"They can't be that…" Sam started, then she checked their school records. "Oh."

"Yes, oh, and that was before they got powers. Just imagine what they'll do now. Hopefully they don't see their father's history as a challenge to beat," Mrs. Carson sighed, "I'll make some calls."

[align=center]# # #[/align]

They put Pepper in an interrogation room. She knew it was an interrogation room from past experience. It was nicer this time around, they weren't interrogating her this time, at least no yet.

John had left, he had no legal right to be there. She had clung to him for a bit, affecting the Belle persona so as to not arouse suspicion. He was still in the station, she could hear him speaking to some of the police officers.

She didn't 'push' protectiveness on John, but she tried to nudge the police officers as she waited. She only nudged them a little because they were already a little protective of her, probably because it was their job.

She was safe for now, but she had to figure out a way out of there. She was going to have to be at the church soon, if she and Monty were to finally get to Whateley. She couldn't expect a rescue from Monty, that would make his reputation even worse. The doors were locked from the outside, and everyone was watching her so she couldn't just walk out. If only everyone was distracted… and the door was unlocked… and she had a ride… actually if she was wishing for a way out, a helicopter piloted by Brad Pitt would be nice, and just about as likely to happen if she didn't do something.

As she waited she heard a commotion outside. She didn't know what was going on but she figured it wasn't good. Then the door burst open and the MCO officer from before came in. He tried to grab her but a police officer stopped him, demanding to know what he thought he was doing. Someone who looked like a detective, from the fact that he wasn't wearing a uniform, came in and ordered them out of the room.

A few minutes later the door was opened again, this time more gently, and the police officer from before came in. Unfortunately the MCO officer also came in.

"Hello Bell, my name is officer Jeffries, I'm a friend of John and Marge. Sergeant Vance here wants to ask you some questions. I'll be here as well, to make sure he doesn't go out of line," the police officer said, trying to be as open and friendly as possible. If he really was a friend of John and Marge then he probably wanted to protect her. In a perfect world he would listen to her and send her and her brother off to Whateley. Hey a girl could dream.

Pepper nodded her understanding and climbed onto the chair, her feet didn't even reach the ground. From there she watched the to law enforcement officer jockey for position. There was only two chairs in the room, this would be fine if Pepper was standing. The MCO officer was a higher rank, but this was officer Jeffries home turf. Whoever got the chair would be the superior for the proceedings, but neither one trusted the other to be standing and not try something. It was actually rather amusing to watch.

They eventually decided that both of them would stand. They were both pretty frustrated with each other, so Pepper decided to tip the scales a little. She started pushing anger on them. It might help her escape, but it would definitely give her some amusement in the mean time.

"I'm going to ask you some questions, but first take off that damn hat," Vance said making a quick grab for Pepper's hat. She flinched from the sudden movement almost falling off of her chair.

"You're scaring her!"

"She's a mutant!"

"You have no evidence!"

No one was really sure who threw the first punch after that. It didn't matter though, because after that it was just a brawl. Vance was choking officer Jeffries, who was beating him over the head with a flashlight.

Pepper wondered why he had the flashlight as she got up. Neither of them were paying attention to her at the moment so neither of them noticed her take officer Jeffries keys, and unlock the door.

"Hey Ane," although Vance didn't understand the insult, he knew it was an insult from her tone. He stopped choking Jeffries long enough to try to charge Pepper. Pepper jumped out of the way just as Jeffries tackled Vance from behind. Since they were struggling on the ground right in front of the door Pepper waited until Vance got on to and kicked him as hard as she could out the door. Vance went tumbling, dragging Jeffries with him, into one of the burliest policemen who was waiting around in the office.

A few MCO and police officers got in on the fight but it was nothing spectacular. Pepper watched as people left the office behind the 2way mirror. She snuck in and closed the door, as long as the brawl was still going no one really cared about her.

She examined the room. It was boring, there was nothing there not even chairs, just a phone on the wall. Then she noticed that the phone had an intercom function. She pulled the phone off the hook and placed it on the ledge. She still had her stuff, her flute case and a small bag containing money, the phone, and most importantly her pan pipes. She pulled her pan flute out of the bag and pushed the intercom button. As she expected it went off when she released it. So she pressed and held with one hand while she played the pipes in the other.

The music wasn't explicitly angry, it was hard to do that with either the pan pipes or the flute. But it did seem exciting and hyped up. It brought to mind the battle themes of RPGs. Behind the music she pushed wrath, the need to fight, anger, anything she could think of to make the brawl bigger. If everyone was distracted she could get away.

Once she had played for maybe five minutes, when she had to stop before she collapsed from exhaustion. She was a little tired from busking earlier, having spent several hours doing that. But she'd barely used her powers for that, keeping it more as a background thing, she preferred to earn money by her own merits as a musician. This wasn't a background thing, she'd been pushing multiple instincts and emotions as hard as she could. Once she could stand again she poked her head outside to see her handiwork.

Desks, tables, and chairs were strewn about the floor, tossed aside to make way for the mêlée. Everyone was under attack by everyone else, alliances were short lived and ended with new enemies. Friend or foe made no difference, the mass of people around you made it impossible to choose your targets.

John, the peaceful nonviolent farmer picked someone up by the shoulder and the waist, lifted him over his head, and tossed him into a group of his compatriots.

A group off to one side had picked up chairs and was using them as battering rams to break up some of the bigger groups.

An industrious, oddly calm, office worker had turned some tape dispensers into bolas. There were people on the ground trying to get them off without getting trampled.

Another group appeared to be dueling with the chairs, using them to block, parry, and smash skulls.

There was one guy throwing lamps while hiding behind two desks he'd pushed together to form a barricade.

One lady who had been sent staggering to a nearby wall grabbed one of the wheeled office chairs. She then used the wall to push off to drive fist first into some guys crotch.

Some people had picked up coffee mugs and were smashing them against people's faces. If the victim was lucky the mug was empty, if they weren't the cuts from the broken glass got filled with searing liquids.

Others were using the hot coffee in the mugs as a weapon, splashing the faces of people attacking them as a distraction.

One guy was swinging a stapler around like nunchucks, leaving a lot pain but not a lot of damage in his wake.

The most effective weapon appeared to be keyboards, as they could be used to block some attacks and hit harder than anything save perhaps the unwieldy chairs.

Miraculously no one had drawn their guns, they were all to busy beating people barehanded or picking up bludgeons to mêlée people with. This didn't matter to Pepper, she was mortified at the scene. This was not what she had been hoping for.

Pepper tried to stop the fight, she tried to call upon her powers to make people calm or drowsy or anything that would stop the fighting. When she did a wave of dizziness overcame her and she nearly collapsed again. Her powers had forsaken her, she couldn't do anything. She had to get back to the church.

She carefully snuck along the walls trying to avoid notice, and not keel over. Once she was outside she pulled out her phone and dialed 911.

When the phone clicked she didn't even give the person on the other end time to speak, "There's a riot going on in the police station on Nicolas road. It started as a fight between the police and MCO."

The person on the other end started asking questions but Pepper was to tired to deal with any of it and just hung up.

Next she phoned Hive and explained the situation. Hive told her that they were already working on getting her and her brother out of town and there wasn't much else she could do. Once she had dragged herself back to the church she signaled Monty with a few tones from her pan flute. Luckily he was home and he let her in.

Once they were both inside again Monty looked at Pepper and asked, "long day?" She just collapsed in his arms, to exhausted to explain what had happened.

[align=center]* * *[/align]

Pepper and Monty sat in sullen silence the remains of their supper, snack food, nuts and some granola bars sitting on a pew between them. Things were totally out of control and neither one knew what they were going to do about it.

Monty's ears twitched as he heard what sounded like a car pull up. “More thugs?” he asked Pepper, getting up to look.

She grabbed her flute, ready to put them to sleep if she needed to, while Monty went to nearest window. Before he was able to look out there was the whine of jets that he knew all too well. “Pepper, out the back! I'll distract him!” he shouted over the noise.

He grabbed up some pieces of a rotten pew, and started yelling. “Come on Mr. Fixit, I've beaten you twice, I can do it again!”

Pepper screamed behind him. Turning he saw her facing a drone, which would be totally immune to her power. The door slammed open, and he found himself facing Mr. Fix, who looked absolutely pissed, but unarmed.

“Monty Jack, and Pepper Jack, you're parents are very, very angry with you,” the hero said. “Come with me, NOW. I'll get you to Whateley, where you can discuss things with them.”

Monty cowered back from the enraged hero. “You, um, don't want to arrest me anymore?” he squeaked.

“Whateley asked me nicely to bring you in. Get your things, and get in my car.” A finger jabbed Monty's chest. “If you try anything, I'm personally handing you over to the MCO.”

They quickly grabbed their bags and followed the hero to his car, which looked to be the same one Monty had driven into the lake. As they sat down, the seats squished a little, getting their pants wet.

“Uh, Mr. Fix, I'm really sorry abo-” Monty started.

“You are not allowed to talk,” Mr. Fix snapped. “If you need anything tell your sister and she can tell me. You will not speak unless spoken to or it's an emergency. If you do speak, I'm gagging you.”

Monty nodded, keeping his mouth firmly shut.

“Now, Pepper, have you eaten,” the hero asked much more calmly.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good. Do you or the idiot need to go to the bathroom?”

Monty and Pepper both shook their heads.

“Good. Did you leave any supplies around the city that you HAVE to get?”

Again they shook their heads.

“Good,” Mr. Fix said, hitting the gas.

[align=center]# # #[/align]

Thanks to having an auto driver, they made good time getting to Whateley. And by the time it ended, Monty was fairly certain a bus ride with an H1!, fan club would have been more relaxing. When they finally reached the school, both he and Pepper breathed a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately it wasn't over just yet. They pulled up in front of Schuster Hall, and Mr. Fix frog marched Monty up to the Headmistress office, while Pepper followed along beside them. Ms. Carson was waiting for them.

“Ms. Carson, here are the trouble makers. Keep an eye on this one,” he gave Monty a light shake.

“Thank you Mr. Fix, you're help is greatly appreciated,” Ms. Carson said. “If you would like to stay the night, we have a visitors cabin you can stay at.”

“No thank you. I need to go put out some fires back home.” He spun Monty around and looked him in the eye. “Don't come back to Madison for a very long time, boy.”

“Yes, sir,” Monty said.

Before leaving Mr. Fix knelt down to talk to Pepper face to face, "Now Pepper I know you love your brother but I don't want you falling into the wrong crowd. And Monty is definitely the wrong crowd.

"He panics easily, doesn't think before acting, doesn't care about the consequences. Does the first idiotic thing that pops into his head, and when he tries to make things better he just makes them about a thousand times worse. You seem to have a brain in your head, so don't be like your brother.

"Now since your his sister you spend a lot of time with him, he MAY be salvageable, but that's up to you. To help you, here's a taser. It won't knock him out but it will give him a good shock and leave no permanent damage. If he does anything bad, if he talks about doing a crime, if you think he's thinking of doing something he shouldn't, feel free to show him the error of his ways."

"I'll make sure he doesn't do anything I wouldn't, Mr. Fix," Pepper said in her best imitation of innocence.

"I thought we wanted me avoid becoming a supervillain," Monty muttered under his breath.

"What was that!"

"Nothing sir!"

"Now I believe you have a meeting to get to," Mr. Fix said nodding towards the headmistress.

“Oh I'll talk with both of them very soon, they missed first day orientation and I believe I'll have to be very clear about the rules of this school. But for now there are some people who want to talk to them first,” Ms. Carson said, walking Mr. Fix out of her office.

Monty turned white as their parents walked in. “Can you just call the MCO? PLEASE!” he cried after the superheroes.