Oh Joy, a Joyride (Tses)

Tses was restless. Her week had been insane, and she didn't know how to cope with it. Getting stood up by her boyfriend on New Years, having a stranger help her get home, and then having that same stranger save her from an enemy that had haunted her since she was a kid. Needless to say, she just needed to chill, and what better way to do that than some slight criminal activity? True, she had promised to stop stealing, but that wasn't what she had in mind. Tses had gotten her first look inside a car, and that taste was just not enough to satisfy her growing curiosity.

First thing first, Tses had to get out of the main city. New York was awful for driving, and the last thing she wanted to do was find herself stuck in rush hour tinkering with someone else's vehicle. Taking a cab, she got a relatively fair ways away, before she finally got out at a convenience store, paid the cabby, and then started to look around for her target. It was what she would call a 'middle-aged' car, not to new, not too old, and it had a nice hum in its engine. As she approached, she couldn't believe her luck, because the car was still running, and the keys were in the ignition. Since she'd never driven, having the car started already was a plus, and her idea went from lingering flicker in her mind, to full out plotting.

She was going for a joy ride. A quick trip around the block, bring it back. No stealing, and certainly entertaining enough to give her an adrenaline buzz.

Glancing around, Tses crept close to the car, and quickly slipped inside. Skimming the control panel, her brain was temporarily overwhelmed by the options. Gears, gadgets, knobs and levers. She didn't remember Jacob messing with most of these, so she figured they weren't necessary for now. But the petals on the floor she at least had the relative understanding of. Stop, and go. She tentatively put her foot on one, and the engine revved just slightly. The car stayed still though. Making a face, she glanced to her right, and saw a sort of stick next to the seat belt. After a few minutes of test pedal pushing and wiggling, she managed to get the car into reverse, and is jerked backwards with a surprising twitch of force. Tses was about to chuckle at her success...

.... when she heard a noise from the back seat, and her eyes got wide as saucers.

Gas on the left, break on the right...or was it gas on the right, break on the left? So the R went backwards, what did the D-----

"Hey! Just what do you think you ah doing?"

DRIVE!!!!

Tses slammed the gas pedal, but never finished moving the gear shift, so they lurked even faster in reverse, a tiny car out of hell and rolling rapidly towards the street. Whirling her head around, she frantically tried to pivot the steering wheel, narrowly missing the sign on the street corner and then screeching to a halt in the end. She glanced at the rather young figure next to her, panicked again, and put the car in drive. Hopefully the sudden forward momentum would keep him distracted long enough for her to think of what to do.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm learning to drive!" She declared, and her mind had a sudden influx of memories of a rather botched up coffee shop robbery she'd conducted the month before. Eventually, she was going to learn that petty crime was more her style, and these felony level adventures were better left for professionals. But right now, she was too focused on the giant tin can she drove off the curb and into the road with a rough bounce. To the left and right, there were mirrors that reflected different things in the road behind her, but they were set up for a slightly taller driver, so Tses was mostly seeing reflections of her own car. She squinted at one of them, and frowned slightly, a bit confused about their purpose. "Hey, why do these point at the gas tank? Is that so you can see if someone's trying to siphon your gas?" She said, eyes taken off the road for a short moment, while they narrowly avoided careening into oncoming traffic.

Tses sighed with mild annoyance. This would have been much more fun without the kid tagging along and screaming at her the whole time. His lack of spine was sort of killing her buzz, and she wished there were some place she could just casually pull over and shove him out at so she could keep going. But she wasn't great at this driving thing yet, and she didn't want to stop unless she had to. She was moving in forward motion now, and that was the most important element, as far as she knew. She turned back to the road, and chuckled slightly, glancing over at him as if he were a puppy barking to be let out. "Hey, you need to chill out a little bit. We're not dead, I haven't crashed, and I think we're doing pretty good for the first time out on the road! Just think of it as a joyride!" As he yelled a bit more, and clung to the arm rest, she grumbled unhappily.

"I'm not pullin' over! If you're too scared, then jump out, I'm sure I can get close enough to some grass or something you can land on..."

Reaching a curvy part in the road, she swerved around a tighter turn, leaning to the left to counteract the centrifugal force. She laughed at the way it made her insides squirm, and the car barely stayed on the road, back tires going a bit outside the white line. They were going about 50 now, but Tses kept gradually increasing the speed, more daring with each turn. Learning to drive wasn't so hard after all! She should have taken a car for a test drive a looong time ago.

Some people were whiners.

Tses glanced at the boy next to her, and decided he must be one of those people. He didn't seem old enough to shave, let alone drive, and he certainly didn't seem old enough to boss her around. She had to resist the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him, but figured she'd reserve that action for later. Never use your entire arsenal of snarky actions at one time; always leave room for later.

"Fun is a matter of opinion." Tses said casually, and rolled her eyes before glancing back at the road. She was slowly learning a few things and she moved: 1) you were supposed to drive between the lines 2) you were supposed to drive slower than she was currently going and 3) you should stop at red hexagonal signs. After a car blared their horn at her and she continued through an intersection with mild disinterest, she sighed, and glanced at the boy. "If you don't want to die, you should tell me how I'm supposed to do this then. What do the white signs with numbers mean?" She ignored the nuthouse comment at first, but when he started moving towards a lever between the seats, she swatted his hand and glared at him.

"Don't interfere!" She glared, and her hands flared with a tiny flash of green energy. It was a warning sign, but she doubted he would listen to it by the way he kept going on and on about life peril and possible death. Life peril was over rated. And possible death was just as common whether you were driving the out of control car, or standing innocently on the side walk when it roared past.

Tses' ears perked up and she caught the mostly subtle murmuring, but the word mutant flickered in her mind. She frowned a bit, and resisted the urge to glare at the kid, but it was hard to decide if she needed to be angry or not. He could have just had some recent run ins with a mutant and it could have irked him. Or he could be one, but didn't like his kind. Or he could just be a mutant hater. Only time would tell, and it was easier to be angry with a valid argument.

It was probably for the better though, because after a few moments, the kid actually started to help. "Arc of numbers, match the white signs. Gotcha." She repeated, and at the next sign, let up on the gas so she slowed down to 45 mph. She glanced back and forth between the different numbers, and grinned proudly. "Cool! Slower, but cool! What else?" In her mind, it never registered why this kid would be freaking out. To her, cars were just little tin cans on the road, and the danger wasn't real enough to worry. She was in ignorant bliss.

There is proof showing that driving while distracted is dangerous, which is notable, because Tses in a car period was distracted. It was like setting a toddler down in a room full of shiny objects, then telling them not to touch anything. Of course, they were going to mess with EVERYTHING! She turned on the windshield wipers, she messed with the headlights, and she started to reach for the radio when her passenger started talking again. She obediently settled into the seat, and focused on the lines on the road. "Stay between the yellow lines. Gotcha." She said, but then her mind started to get bored. All the rules seemed a bit confining, and if there was something Tses hated it was being held back.

With a wicked grin, she turned back to the kid, and her eyes arms flickered with green energy. The idea that formulated in her mind was one of a destructive nature. " Hey, wanna see something cool? Hold the wheel!"

Without waiting for his (most likely) panicked reaction, she opened her door, formed an explosive in her hand, and chucked it out at a large dumpster they were passing. The tiny orb of yellow sailed through the air, leaving a tiny glimmer of light in it's wake. The green bin was left unaffected, however, and seemed to be taunting Tses in the rear-view mirror. She missed it by a few feet thanks to the cars momentum, and it exploded leaving a tiny explosion of white powder in it's wake. Quickly shutting the door, she turned back to the driving lesson, momentarily wondering how they managed not to careen off the road. But she was more focused on sulking because the only thing she managed to blow up was dumb snow.

Tses thought on his question seriously for a moment as she took the wheel back and got the car back where it was supposed to be to the right of the lines. She glanced at him, assessing the fear on his face, and sighed, slowing down and figuring she probably terrified the kid enough. She was a little crazy, but she wasn't a complete jerk, so she settled back into the seat and left the door alone for now. Too bad. It would have been fun to see if she could make the next shot in a smaller trash can.

She turned the corners at a slower pace, so he wasn't being thrown like a pinball anymore. "No, I know being one doesn't make me invincible. But what good does it do to waste my time being afraid of stuff? If something happens, whatever. I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory." She shrugged her shoulders. She never thought her way of thinking was wrong before, but he seemed to act like it was.

As they came to an intersection, a red sign came into view, and Tses hesitated, squinting at the word. "Hey, what's that say?" She asked as politely as she could, trying to figure out what action she was supposed to take now. She grumbled under her breathe and sighed. "Didn't realize driving would have so much reading..." She said to herself, once more feeling as dumb as the kid seemed to think she was.