People had been steering clear of him.

It was no secret that he hadn't been the most personable person since the wedding catastrophe. He'd spent his days doing rough police work, yelling at anyone who got in his way, and obsessing over anything that might lead him to any of those known as the Zodiaks... He wanted to break them... For hurting Andrea... for ruining his wedding, their special day... for selfish reason, he wanted to make them bleed; everyone else they'd hurt was an afterthought.

so when a giant horrendous mutant was spotted outside of the city limits, and was attacking livestock and people, he had to volunteer. Maybe, just maybe, it was the monster that... smug piece of @#$% had summoned. Maybe if he found it, he would find him. He could make it so he never hurt Andrea again.

"You ain't speakin at all... Usually that means you got somethin to say." Saph spoke to the person in the passenger seat of the borrowed police vehicle, not at all hiding the eternally pissed off tone his voice had taken as of late. One of his fellow X-men had also volunteered for this mission, though they both may have thought they were going alone before this morning.

Saph didn't have anything against Locke... Hell, he'd made him a groomsman at the wedding... He... Just hated the world right now. Everything he looked at he wanted to hit. "Well... Say it, then." He looked out the window while he spoke, barely paying attention to the road. Out of the city, traffic was way easier to deal with, and he could feel cars coming anyways.

They were near their destination; a gas station where the monster was last seen. The lights were presently on.

Sometimes being a hero sucked Locke thought. It could be as simple as having to cut back your class prep time so that you could go stop a megalomaniac with a death wish against mutant kind or human kind. His Halloween had been disrupted by a biker gang when they tried to trash a hotel. Flying out to locations was always stressful on the teen, and he still was convinced that the jet would spontaneously combust or something. Today he was spared that at least, but riding in a car was hardly top on Locke's list of way to travel. Normally if he had to go by car the teen would duck into the back seat and sit in the middle. Riding shotgun made his palms sweaty and brought to the front of his mind the last few seconds of full vision he had. There had been a time when he couldn't even force himself to sit in a car at all. But for the sake this mission, or more specifically for the sake of the one at the wheel, Locke dared the front seat.

If being a hero sucked for school or for taking your little siblings out for a fun visit, having your wedding crashed, well, destroyed practically, sucketh the greatest suck. He wasn't sure why Saph had asked him to be a groomsman. The two had done some things together yes, but it had always been business, and Locke always felt as if he was chasing after the older man to keep him safe. Honestly the man got himself into crazy situations and needed someone more sane to keep him grounded. In the past Saph had been mildly insane, but Locke was worried the man was going to loose it big time here. He bore witness to the man's unraveling. And while Locke wasn't going to pretend that he was the best example of mental health, he knew that Saph needed someone to keep him from going too far into a very dark place.

Earthwalker, as he was called when performing as a X-Men had been focused entirely upon the road ahead, nursing thoughts quietly in his head while trying not to let flashbacks of the accident that took his dead make him shake. As such he was surprised when Saph broke the silence to talk to him. Even more surprising was just how good of a grasp of his behavior Saph seemed to have. Locke did have some things to say to the older man, but wasn't quite sure where to start or even if what he had to say was going to be any help at all. "I'm always quiet," Locke said,one hand gripping tightly to his seat belt, the other going to the little handle thing that you used to shut the door when inside the car. His knuckles were turning white and he tried to relax his grip. "Eyes on the road." Honestly it was like trying to keep a puppy in check! But in all fairness Locke had never told anyone really about the car crash, and Saph couldn't have known why Locke was being so paranoid about his driving.

"I don't like wasting words," Locke said after another moment of silence, before Saph could get too snappish about it again. Where the older man was pissed off with what he said, Locke was being very calm and level headed. "We at the location yet?" he asked. Saph might want some space to tackle what he was feeling, but at the same time Locke had seen the man being kept clear of. "It's weird. First time we met, you were a single guy going into a gun fight with a lead pipe, and I was hiding behind my hair.". There. If Saph wanted to say anything about the events of the wedding he could. Locke wasn't the type to push people.

"I'm always quiet,"

...

Sounded about right. "Eyes on the road." Saph grunted a little, and looked back at the road. The hell was his business telling him what to do? @#$^in punk... He gritted his teeth a little... He was being unreasonable. He knew that... He recognized it, but part of him was screaming so damned loud it was hard not to want to break everything and everyone. His heart thumped almost audibly in his chest as his eyes darted across the road. Taking Locke along was a bad idea... He could kill this man all by himself, right? He'd gathered enough energy this time. His teeth gritted again, but further words snapped him out of his rage-trance.

"I don't like wasting words, we at the location yet?" Saph nodded a little.

"Almost...Ain't an exact area, He's been a little hard to track on account of the rolling power outages in the area... they think it's weather. Bout a mile out, or so." The car went silent again.

"It's weird. First time we met, you were a single guy going into a gun fight with a lead pipe, and I was hiding behind my hair."

Saph was silent a little while longer before replying. "I was better off then... Had nothing to lose... Andrea was better off, too." His teeth chattered a little as he lost the presence of mind to keep them from doing so; He did have a good amount of energy; his whole arm was tingling. "That girl that saw you off... I ain't about to tell you what to do, but she ain't safe. I hope you know that. Because we are what we are, and she knows you. She ain't @#$^in safe." He left it at that, turning to look out the window... The truth. His eyes teared up just a little when he said it... He wasn't about to let anyone see that.

Locke kept quiet, nodding his head when Saph said that their target was hard to pinpoint because of the rolling blackouts. It made sense to him. If power was cutting out from this thing then it would make sense that there would be no visuals to confirm its location. Given that this was something having to do with electricity it made sense to have the X-Man who could manipulate rocks and the earth tag along. He volunteered for it not just for the sake of the man driving them, crazy as he might be driving.

"Single doesn't have to mean not in a relationship," Locke pointed out before falling silent again. He had meant it in the relationship way when he had said it though, mostly just to try and get Saph to talk a little. Silence on the part of the Earthwalker wasn't uncommon. With him it was golden. But for Saph it was very much like when a little kid falls quiet. You just know that there's trouble brewing. It was better if Saph was talking, even if what he said sometimes didn't make sense in the past.

For a brief moment the earth manipulator removed his death grip on the door and started scratching at his head. Since he had first chopped off the hair a few years back he had been keeping it short. When it started getting long again he would just take a pair of scissors to it. It was more symbolic then wanting to save money, or even that he liked the way it looked. Locke cutting his hair meant that he was taking control over something that had been blocking him from embracing life and all it's messy moments. Right now his head looked as though a weed wacker had been taken to it.

Then Saph mentioned KD. All the older man's anger over what happened at the wedding, something that Locke thought was justifiable, and now he was trying to give Locke dating advice. "KD knows what I did. Before our first date I went and tried to stop a freaking volcano and practically burnt myself up. She's heard what happened to my sister on Halloween, my friend almost drowning because he wanted to go for a boat ride when I visited, and all the other countless times that the people I care about being in the line of danger. But the weirdest thing is that I'm not worried about her getting hurt, and she's not either." It was weird thinking about his relationship with her. After all, he was the guy who had broken up with his first girlfriend because she had been too clinging to him. "We've got this thing worked out. She'll be safe as long as I remember one simple thing... crap."

The GPS that had been guiding them just shut off.