It was the last weekend before Clyde's older brother went back to college, and therefore, it was “bonding time.” In reality, it was more like a mandatory activity his mom invented. They were supposed to spend some time together. All they really had done was travel to the outskirts of the city, where it was less crowed. Despite having eaten dinner only an hour earlier, his older brother had somehow gotten hungry already. So there they were, parked at a convenience store.

“I trust you can wait heah while I go in?” his brother teased, standing just outside of the car.

“Yes, Bryce,” Clyde grumbled from the passenger seat, annoyed.

“Hey, easy, little bro. You need to loosen up a bit. Anyways, I'll be back in a few.”

Clyde rolled his eyes as his brother left the car to enter the store. He left the keys in the ignition and didn't even bother locking the door, but that was no big deal. It would be kind of hard to steal a car with someone in it, right?

Several minutes passed, and there were still no signs of his brother. Clyde groaned. What the heck was Bryce doing in there? He should have been back by now. Oh, he'd probably gotten distracted with something in there. Clyde was growing bored from waiting.

That was when remembered that his backpack was still in the back seat. Well, there was a way to pass the time. The age shifter climbed to the back and retrieved a book from the bag. There, he lied across the seats and started reading. With the book, he could definitely wait this out.

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.

Ugh... that book he'd picked up from the library wasn't nearly as interesting as he thought it would be. In fact, it was boring enough to be tiresome. Not to mention, Clyde was a bit sleepy from the boredom of waiting. It had been almost ten minutes! Why was his brother taking so long? Tired, Clyde let his eyes close as he drifted off to sleep.

He had only been asleep for only about a minute before a sudden jolt knocked him to the floor. The age shifter tumbled onto several empty soda cans, which made a loud crunching sound under his weight.

“Ow! What was that fo, Bryce!” he grunted out of annoyance. Landing on those cans hurt, and, frankly, that car's floor was pretty disgusting, with all its sticky old cans, empty chip bags, and the like. Jerking the car in reverse was a nasty way of getting someone's attention. This called for an apology. He looked at the person behind the wheel, expecting that it was his brother giving him the rude awakening...

Except Bryce wasn't blond nor a woman. Now that he was looking up at the person in the driver's seat, Clyde realized that this was not his brother, but rather some complete stranger. She must have gotten in thanks to the unlocked doors. And the keys were already there! Crap! Only about a minute of not being awake, and look what happened! Someone was trying to steal the car!

“Hey! Just what do you think you ah doing?” he shouted at the stranger angrily, clambering into the front of the vehicle. He couldn't let something happen to the car, not while he was watching it.

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.

Suddenly, the carjacker stepped on the gas, accelerating the car backwards and throwing Clyde forwards between the seats. He yelped as the armrest hit him in the stomach. Oh no, they were careening around the parking lot in reverse! Just as he was about to get up, she finally shifted the gears into drive, slamming him backwards into the rear seats. Then, there was a bump, accompanied by the rattles of the aluminum cans. Agh! The car was on the street now! Even worse!

Learning to drive? This wasn't learning! Was she stupid? How she had avoided hitting something so far was one of the universe's greatest mysteries. At this rate, the car was going to crash, and that did not mean a simple fender bender. She was going to get them killed!

The whole time, the crazy lady up front was blissfully unaware of how many near misses she'd had. She even was preoccupied with the side mirrors. Clyde could think of several reasons for why she lacked the mental capacity to drive. One: Of course the mirrors pointed at the wrong things – they'd been adjusted for his brother. Two: Why would she worry about someone siphoning gas from a moving car? Three: SHE NEEDED TO WATCH THE ROAD! Four: If he continued thinking of reasons, the list would never end.

“You have to be kidding me,” Clyde muttered under his breath. He was in a car with a complete idiot behind the wheel. If something bad happened, he would be doomed. She needed to be stopped. Fighting the car's jagged movements, he tried to pull himself into the front again. He gripped the armrest as tightly as he could in an attempt to avoid sliding around the car. “LADY, AH YOU TRYING TO DIE?!” he screamed at her over the honking of the nearby cars. “PULL OVAH RIGHT NOW!!”

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.

Who on Earth did this girl think she was? First she had stolen the car, then she continued stealing it with him in it, then she started driving recklessly with him in it. Then, to top the cake, she continued driving recklessly with him in the car despite his protests! She seemed so unaware of how dangerous this was. “This isn't fun! This is suicide!” he yelled. “Those cars aren't honking because they're happy! They're honking because yah driving like a complete maniac!” He inched forward into the front, still clinging to the armrest for dear life.

She did offer him the alternative of jumping out of a moving vehicle. Hmm... stay in the car and have a good chance of dying, or jump out and die for sure? He shuddered at her obvious disregard for life. And there she was again, laughing in the face of death. Perhaps this woman was some sort of crazy adrenaline junkie.

“What nuthouse did you come from?” Clyde grumbled as he managed to pull himself into the passenger seat. Hastily, he grabbed the seat belt and buckled himself in. It wasn't really going to help much in the likely event that she did something insane, but at least it would keep him from sliding around so much. Looked like he got there just in time for the swerving turns. Glancing over at the speedometer, he could see that it was at fifty, and still accelerating. If she kept this up, something bad was going to happen! Something needed to be done, and fast. If he couldn't get her to pull over, he was going to stop this car himself. Leaning forwards, he extended his arm towards the handbrake.

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.

True, fun was a matter of opinion. Evidently, this blonde found near-death experiences fun, and failed to realize that normal people didn't. And did she seriously not know what a speed limit sign was? How crazy was she? Clyde didn't want to know.

Unfortunately, she caught him going for the handbrake, which earned him a slap on the wrist. It stung, and he was almost at the point of swearing at her, when he saw her threat: some sort of green glowy thing in her hands. It disappeared to quickly for him to know what exactly that was, but he figured it best not to assume that was merely a light show. “Another mutant...” he said under his breath.

It seemed that her crazy driving had calmed down just a little (just a little), giving him a chance to breathe. Anyways, he had to find a way to make it out of this alive. She refused to stop the car, so that option was out. He'd already gone for the brake, which she demanded that he should never try again. His best bet was to try to tell her how to drive like she'd suggested.

“Fine, I'll tell you how to do this,” Clyde sighed. He pointed to the speedometer. “You see that little arc of numbers?” he asked slowly, like one would normally do when instructing a very young child. “The ones with the letters MPH? The red hand should not go past the number on the white signs.” Slowing the car down itself would make the driving a lot less dangerous. Fingers crossed that she was actually trying to drive correctly.

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.

For a moment, Clyde wondered if his quiet remark about her being a mutant somehow offended her, but to his disbelief, the woman actually slowed down to a reasonable speed. Good, she was willing to listen to him. He still couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea that she honestly had no idea how to drive. Even those without their licenses still knew about the basics. Maybe she hadn't been in a car all that much? Whatever the reason, she was basically holding him hostage and forcing him to teach her how to drive. It seemed quite odd that she was risking theft and kidnapping charges just to learn how to drive.

If she wanted to know more, fine, he'll tell her more. He just wanted to return home in one piece. “Okay,” he stated, keeping careful watch of the traffic. “Now, as for those double yellow lines on the road, the cah's supposed to stay to the right of those. And watch the road!” Instinctively, he gripped the edges of the seat, bracing himself in case she decided to make a sudden turn or speed change. With her behind the wheel, nothing was too crazy to be possible.

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.

To Clyde's horror, instead of staying to the right of those lines, the car was now straddling them! And she didn't care; she was wanting to show off something else. “Agh! To the right of them, not between them!” he shouted. He was not in the mood to see whatever this “cool thing” was, even if it was her powers. Wait, he just saw her glow again! “And what ah you-”

His mouth dropped open as she actually opened the car door and took her hands off of the steering wheel. “What kind of crazy suicidal move is that?!” he yelled at her, but his words most likely fell on deaf ears.

Hey, she told him to take the wheel. He leaned over and yanked the steering wheel right in an attempt to keep it from drifting into oncoming traffic. The car swerved right sharply. He looked to the left in time to see a glowing orb fall to the ground and send up a spray of snow in an explosion. So that's what her powers did.

Clyde kept his hands on the side of the wheel and glared at the driver. This lady was quite literally driving him crazy. What really irked him was that she was not only risking her own life, but his too. To heck with the explosives; her driving was deadly, and he wasn't going to let things slide anymore! “Do you think being a mutant makes you invincible or something?!” he shouted, his expression filled with fury. “No joke, you're going to kill us both!”

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.

Again, it seemed that the blonde-haired lady had toned the driving's craziness down a notch. Her behavior on the road was so unpredictable. So, to her, this was all going out with a blaze of glory, huh? Some philosophy. Maybe it suited some people. But, it was not exactly one Clyde agreed with. It wasn't because he was afraid of everything. It was more that there were some things that people, unless they were off their rocker, should be afraid of. For instance, dying.

The age shifter looked down and sighed. “Fricken' adrenaline junkies,” he mumbled. He turned back to the driver. “Why'd you not just get lessons so you didn't have to steal a car and kidnap me?” Hey, by legal definition, kidnapping was the act of holding someone against their will, so this definitely qualified. Either she was insane, or she liked the thrill of stealing a car. Or both.

They were closing in on an intersection, and the lady was asking about what something said. What did what say? The only thing to read nearby was a sign. It had six sides and was red. Oh, crap. “STOP!” He threw his arms in front of him, ready to brace himself in the case that the car to came to a screeching halt. “Seriously, maybe you need glasses!” Indeed, that would explain at least some of the issues. Some. Not all.