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I know I totally ditched our thread, but I'm definitely up for a fresh one. Or we could continue the old one. Up to you, if you are interested~

Alice told all the next day. She had to.

Her mother was shocked and upset to say the least, and spent a good thirty minutes cursing the day she had ever sent her daughter to New York City. She tried to include the school in her ranting, but Toby immediately refuted her and countered with information on all of the good Xavier's had done for its students. But eventually they realized it did not matter who was to blame for what, at least not at that moment. Alice was at the top of their list of priorities, and they had to figure out how to help her best.

Alice's mother wanted to keep her at home, where she could watch and protect her at all times, no matter how overbearing.

Her father was concerned that her control over her mutation was dwindling. He thought that some solution to the issue should be found before she seriously hurt herself or others. He did not believe things were working out or would work out with the current arrangements.

Her brother thought--nay, he knew--that taking Alice back to Xavier's would be best. The mansion staff could protect her from any danger and teach her how to better handle her mutation. And the guidance counselor could certainly help her through her post-traumatic stress as well.

Ultimately, it was Celia versus Toby, with Greg torn between protecting his daughter and trusting someone else to protect her. When they (finally) turned to her for input, she had already come to a decision.

"What happened in New York was...my fault. It's plain and simple. I was stupid. I was somewhere I shouldn't have been, all alone. And I should've known better, and I do now," she paused to take in a deep breath, "It was my fault for leaving the school so suddenly and worrying everyone. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for lying. I..." She realized she was beginning to ramble and cut herself off.

"What I'm trying to say is...I think I need to go back to Xavier's. I can't deal with all of this mutation stuff alone. And I'll have Toby there, at least. I won't make the same mistakes as last time, I promise." The last bit was aimed especially at her mother, whose worried, conflicted expression filled Alice's heart with guilt.

"Okay."

It was June 1st, the day before Toby was coming home to visit. Alice hadn't seen him since Christmas. She had only left him a brief text message to let him know she was going back home, along with vague, clipped answers when he called her and frantically asked her to explain herself. She was excited to see him, but she was dreading the reunion as well. He was going to want more information from her than she had supplied earlier that year. He was also going to want an explanation as to why she had not answered any of his calls afterwards...

The fifteen-year-old went to sleep uneasy, covers pulled over her head and window ajar to let in the warm summer breeze. (Also a precaution in case she had more mutation-triggering nightmares.)

It took a while, but eventually sleep overtook her, dragging her into its blackened grasp.


Her breathing was shallow and erratic, chest feeling unbearably tight and weighed down. She saw nothing at first, nothing but pitch black, but her senses eventually began to pick up her environment.

The first was smell. The pungent odors of sweat and alcohol, along with the smog lining the city streets. The combination of scents left a bitter, awful taste on her tongue.

Suddenly, a flicking light assaulted her eyes, and she had to blink back tears as her pupils adjusted themselves. She saw broken, cracked pavement and damaged streetlights. The brick wall buildings around her were shrouded in shadows. It seemed as though everything was falling apart.

Then she felt a pain in her forearm, as though something was crushing it. She looked down and saw a huge hand curled around her thin arm like a pincer, her skin red and raw around his fingers. A man had her trapped in his vice grip, a gun in his other hand. She gasped and tried desperately to pull away, but her attempts were laughable compared to his strength.

The metallic gun was pointed at a hooded figure blending in with the darkness around him, beneath the looming shadow of a deteriorating apartment complex. She noticed men on the ground, limbs twisted and faces frozen in eternal expressions of fear and pain. There was dark, fresh blood staining her sweater, the droplets growing larger as they absorbed into the fabric. She tried to scream, but it was as if her vocal cords were twisted around themselves, choking out any sound she attempted to make.

The next moments went by rapidly: The mysterious figure grabbed the gunman's arm. The weapon went off with a thunderous, deafening bang. She managed to emit a pitiful, strangled sound, tears pouring down her cheeks and hands shaking violently with fear. It was only when the gunman sank to his knees that she could finally scream.

Where on Earth has Alice Tyler been? Well, it's complicated.

Her first semester at Xavier's had been more than she had expected, both in nice and not-so-nice ways. She had made some new friends, faced a couple of silly bullies, and developed a healthy amount of crushes. She had participated in the usual teenage shenanigans and acclimated to the dorm life pretty well, lucking out in the roommate department. But along with all of this, homesickness had also played a large part.

She missed her mother with her fabulous Italian cooking and surprise shopping sprees. She missed her kittens, Pepper and Minty. She missed her old friends, even the ones who had difficulty accepting her mutation. She missed the dazzling atmosphere of San Francisco, the way the city lights looked like watery stars in the dead of night. She missed the friendliness of the lovely grandmother who ran the secondhand book store in her suburban neighborhood.

She missed being the Alice Tyler she used to know, the one who didn't have to worry about accidentally hurting other people. The one who didn't have to face shock and derision when explaining her mutation. The one who didn't have to care so much about anything, really, when life had been simple. Just simple.

But life in New York City, at Xavier's...was complicated. Rough, confusing. Sometimes downright hard. She had lived her entire life in San Francisco and learning to live in another alien city was difficult. The bustle and chaos of The Big Apple was worlds apart from the energy of the Bay Area. Mutant and baseline human relations were insane. There was much violence perpetrated by mutants, as well as against them.

Things went downhill after Gina Shuyler was viciously beaten by rogue cops. The students at Xavier's were furious and divided, and Alice found she could not understand or cope with what was going on. She was so new to the world of mutant politics and so used to the protective little bubble San Francisco had afforded her, she could not understand all of the aggressive tension and trouble brewing in the city. And it made her squirm to hear some of the students speak of retaliation...bloodthirsty retaliation.

And then, one chilly winter evening, Alice found herself surrounded by three drunken men with ill intentions and one powerful mutant hidden within the darkness. The events of that night were still blurry, her mind's attempt at bludgeoning the trauma, but she could still fit the hazy pieces together to form a murky memory.
The smell of hard whisky, bruised wrists, a torn scarf, blood that was not her own. A steel gun glistening in the dim fluorescent glow of a dying streetlight.
The shadowy, hooded figure had saved her, that's all she remembered before blacking out and waking up in the mansion.

That was all enough to send her running back home. That week she packed up all of her boxes, said goodbye to no one, and hightailed it back to San Fran.



((The traumatic night in question took place here.))

No class! was perhaps all Alice could think as the bus rumbled onwards to their destination. Sure, she enjoyed art class and more or less enjoyed museums, but the real perk of going on a field trip was missing school! Especially Algebra class, ick. (And possibly maybe hopefully spending time with Mr. Holloway.) To her right sat her roommate, Kaitlyn, with whom she chattered freely, though it was hard to hear each other over the collective din in the yellow vehicle.

Her hands moved freely and animatedly as she regaled some eccentric dream she had the other night, and she was so absorbed in her story that she didn’t even notice if Kait was paying attention or not.

Alice was buzzing from too much sugary cereal and excitement anyway; her self-awareness was at an all time low.

The pair sat fairly center on the bus, not too close to the high school students who were laughing raucously in the back. The brunette couldn’t really associate with the older students, because A) Half of them thought she was weird, and B) She was still too new. In her short months at the mansion, she barely got to know half the students going on the trip, much less befriend them, so she clung to her roommate as much as she could.

“Hey, do you know who that lady is?” she asked Kait, indicating the raven-haired chaperone who was currently chatting with Mr. Holloway.

I would like to nominate Chrysanthemum Van Hart for MotM! She's spooky. She's gorgeous. She's an adorable, terrifying, masochistic kidnapper who is perfectly happy with who she is. And yet, even beneath all of those crazy characteristics, there's something even deeper and more complex about Chrys that I think her writer deals with very well and very subtly.

Some recommended reading:
Pet Project - Continued from this thread. In which Chrys successfully kidnaps her next pet, Akshay, and spends a delicious week with him.

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend - In which Tses unwillingly becomes Chrys' newest plaything. (See a common trend, here?) They play voodoo doll dress-up! [This thread also leads into When Life Leaves You Desperate, where some illegal activity is currently brewing~]

Family Business - A new solo in which Chrys' relationship with her father is further explored, as well as some business news.

Is it possible to be addicted to a character? Because even as her actions horrify me...I can't stop reading!