Peas in a pod

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The man looked at his clock and closed his book, then he started to walk in the direction of the girl, or of the food cart depending on how one saw it. A pigeon flew down and landed right beside the girl's feet as she stood in line. Previously he hadn't been completely certain, watching the pigeon circle someone in the air can sometimes be a bit misleading when there are too many people around, but now when she stood still and the bird got a chance to land close to her, he could be absolutely certain of his target.

"Beautiful creatures, aren't they?" He asked the girl casually while looking at the bird. It wasn't that unusual for people to start talking to each other when standing in line. He wasn't doing anything that would rise suspicions so far. "Easily trained as well, not as easy as a dog of course, but they learn quickly, even with such a small brain. Quite fascinating, wouldn't you say?" If it wasn't obvious already that he didn't speak to people often, it probably would be in a few minutes when all he would say would be about birds. Though on the other hand, he probably wouldn't let her stick around for that long. He was just warming up a bit before it was showtime.
 
As the much older male stood behind hir in line Xan tried at first to ignore him. Then, he started to talk to hir about the birds. More exactly the pigeon. Great... Not. Ignoring him at first had been the perfect option, but not when it would be rude to refuse some kind of response.

Glancing over at him the teen confirmed that it was a much older male... Eww, gross. "And? Fine someone else to chat to. I don't wanna talk with old geezers." A few glanced awkwardly over at the rude response from Xan, but the teen was indifferent to the attention. This was a much better rude than not replying.
 
The older male chuckled, quite entertained by the response. Not many would want to show themselves in such a bad light out in public. At the very least he could respect her honesty. Most people would just fake politeness in such situations.

"I on the other hand would love to chat with you, but I'm running out of time. Just try not to struggle and this will be over in the blink of an eye." He sounded as calm as ever when his right hand suddenly caught on fire. A few gasps could be heard and people weren't sure if they should help or run away, but they did at the very least back off from the burning man. "Try not to hate me too much." He gave an innocent grandpa smile before firing off towards the girl's legs.
 
Fuck! A pyrokinetic! Reacting quickly Xan jumped away. "Screw yourself!" Turning she ran quickly, jumping through a bush or two with the aim to disappear in the darkness.

Keeping an eye on hir surroundings the teen looked for things that could help. Water to put out the flames, or pebbles to feign running in a different direction. Hir speed was reasonably decent and ze was getting closer to the edge of the park, a low brick wall with a metal fence as the top half. The question was if he had kept up, would he think ze was reaching a dead end?
 
A sigh escaped the man's lips as the pigeon took off and followed the girl, clearly showing the man where she was running. "Why do they always run?" He shook his head, not paying any attention to the people running away from the now burning park. All the girl could do now was to run forward, because the fires would hinder her way back. "Let's see how far she'll get before she meets a dead end." He mused as he took off after her, following the birds direction.

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Elise was cautious as she kept looking around every corner before entering onto a new road. She had to get out of town immediately. It was too bad, she had really thought she could get to know Alex a bit better, but now there was no choice but to split up. Alex would probably be happy to get rid of her though, even Elise could imagine that.

The smell of smoke grabbed Elise's attention and she noticed that a pillar of grey smoke was rising to the sky. "A fire?" That brought back some memories. The first time she met Alex was when she passed a burning building, now on the last day they would ever see each other, there was another fire. What a coincidence. Or was it?

If the woman whom had stood outside of Elise's window hadn't ran past her towards the burning park, she wouldn't even have thought about going there, but now... The woman had clearly not noticed Elise in her new disguise, but why did she run towards a fire if she was trying to find the illusionist? That wasn't a particular good place to search for her. Something didn't feel right, and since she couldn't know for sure why that was, she decided to just check it out for herself. As long as no one found her mind, she would just pass them without anyone ever noticing.
 
It had been a few days since ze last practiced on this, but ze figured hir body would remember the movements. Using the brick part of the wall as a stepping stone, and in too much of a rush to care, the teen climbed over the fence. Using the top bar of the fence ze jumped off, making it a smooth jump.

As if serendipity had other plans, a lady came into view that moment and they actually crashed. "Gah!" Landing on top of the woman Xan was glad it was a soft landing, but not so glad over the landing being a complete crash.
 
Elise followed her former stalker from a safe distance even though she was under the cloak of invisibility. Always stay on the safe side. Soon they came to a brick wall with a fence at the top and it seemed like the woman would start climbing it, but that plan was cut short. Elise was on such a distance when it happened that she could see everything, while the woman completely missed it until a girl was sitting on top of her.

Her first instinct was to run forward to the woman and ask her if she was alright, but she reminded herself that that might not be the best idea.

The woman got up on her feet just seconds after Alex had moved away from her. Maybe she would have let the girl go if she hadn't noticed her friend's pigeon flying down and pass the girl. It gave her the clarification she needed to realize that it was her target. "Hey, get back here." She shouted after the girl before putting her hands to the ground, causing an earthquake that started to split the ground. Maybe it would have reached the girl and swallowed her if she hadn't disappeared from view. "What the..."

Elise wasn't completely sure who the other girl was. There was a possibility that it was Alex, but since she had seen the girl earlier that day and she had looked differently at that point in time, she thought it might be someone else in trouble. All she knew was that they were chased by the same people.

"Hey, you can slow down, they can't see us anymore." Elise shouted after her, trying to keep up with the girl's speed. Only they could see each other, everyone else were shut out. It wasn't easy for her to maintain an invisibility shield on two moving people, so she would prefer it if they could start walking. Elise's appearance since she changed it, was of a dark skinned woman with straight black hair, about the same length as Alex. Even within her own invisibility shields, she refused to take off her fake personas. If she used them every waking hour, she could feel safer with her power and be more certain that her disguise wouldn't fall off because she stopped concentrating.
 
Getting off the woman quickly Xan kept on running, and ze was glad as the damned pigeon had followed hir and the woman was an ally of those people. Great, now ze really was involved into this mess. Ready to dodge from the earthquake the teen kept on running, but her flight was soon distracted as this other woman was calling out to hir about being safe since no one could see them.

Stopping up Xan stared down the black woman and realized exactly who it was. "Elise..." Not forgetting the risk of the situation ze turned stern and asked quickly. "Does your ability work on animals? Dogs, birds and so on?" Hir light eyes were the same, and the blunt way of asking was recognizable for Elise, who had been on the receiving end of the blunt and abrasive nature of the mercurial teen.
 
"Alex?" Elise was quite surprised by the sudden change. It wasn't like the girl changed her appearance as easily as Elise did, she actually had to work on it to make it happen. "Uhm. If it's an illusion laid on the environment like this one, then yes, everything with eyes will be fooled. If they use smell or other means to detect people though, they would probably notice it. If it's an illusion put on one individuals brain on the other hand, so the environment isn't affected, then I'm not sure, I haven't actually done that before on animals. Never had the need to. Though if I could get into their brain just like with a human, I would probably be able to fool their sense of smell as well."

Elise had yet to realize there was a stalking bird after them, good for them that she put an environmental illusion on them instead of going for the culprits brain, though in this situation it was pretty much the only option as they were moving around too much for her to keep track of someone's mind.
 
"Good, keep up the invisibility. We're ditching this town now." Thinking quickly the teen knew they had to be fast. "But first I have to detour by my place to fetch some things." Her whole lock picking gear, the spare clothes, the extra cash... Ah, screw it. "On the other hand, let's just split it. It's nothing precious." Just stuff that would be tedious to replace.

Moving on Xan headed on to the bus station, ze'd use hir own invisibility to get on board, besides, buses were plenty while trains were more difficult to escape from. Not that the town had a central station for trains.
 
"We..." Elise stared at the girl almost as if she was questioning her sanity. This was definitely not expected, but on the other hand, neither was being attacked by a mutant. Who was that woman anyways? Why had she been stalking Elise and then gone after Alex?

For a moment she was completely frozen, but then she got her feet moving again and she caught up with Alex. She felt bad for skipping out on the bus payment, but she didn't have any money on her so there wasn't much of a choice. On top of that it was more risky to loose the invisibility.

"So, what did you do in a burning park? And do you know why that woman was attacking you? Except for the obvious reason of you jumping down on her." Elise had to concentrate quite hard to make sure to hide their voices. It was much easier to hide sounds when manipulating peoples brains rather than the environment, but she didn't dare let go of the full illusion before she knew they were far away from those people.
 
"Because your boytoy is a deluded asshole," responding grimly she kept on walking, there would be nothing left to lose now, especially since Elise's stalking childhood friend was officially an enemy. "Well, him hating me isn't a surprise." Keeping her words soft it help that people were escaping from the crowd, but their chances were dwindling if the buses was going to be put on a hold.

"Anyways, now I've been mixed up in your troubles, and he's got buddies in the town. Either you can give yourself up," glancing over at the girl she continued almost carelessly, "or you can do like me and ditch this town right now."
 
"Wha... You think that woman is with him? He's a nice guy, he wouldn't hurt anyone, and he certainly wouldn't hang around such a dangerous company." Elise protested, but that didn't change the fact that she had to leave. "It's probably just a coincidence that they showed up at the same time." She tried to rationalize.

"Either way I can't stay here anymore. Even if they disappeared after this, the town will be in total chaos for the next few months, looking over their shoulder after potential mutants. It's not unusual that the government brings in mutant detectors during these kinds of crises. Too bad. I was getting fond of the sewing class." She shouldn't have stayed this long to begin with. It was a mistake on her part.
 
Giving Elise a dry stare Xan wasn't about to argue about their differing opinions on this. "Let's just agree to disagree on that. In either case, we're being hunted by the same people and I don't think one new town will make them believe we're not connected to each other." Thinking of something the teen turned silent and stepped inside the bus station.

Choosing a bus the people were boarding already ze headed towards it, waiting to talk with Elise about how her interference twice now had made things worse for them both, and particularly for hir who had very human reasons to stay on the run. Not mutant-based ones until now.
 
Elise followed Alex onto the bus. Agree to disagree was probably the only thing they could ever do considering their differences. Or Elise could just disagree and make things more complicated.

"You think they'll try to follow us?" She asked quite stupidly, even she realized how silly it was. She always thought she was followed by someone, adding a few extra someones to that list shouldn't be that much of a problem.
 
"Once they realize we've ditched town, for sure." Speaking softly Xan took a seat in the back, seated right next to the window ze leaned lightly on it, sighing tiredly the teen stared seeming idly out of the window, waiting for the bus to start up.

They were in luck and the bus started up, grasping the opportunity the dark blonde teen added lightly. "If you get tired of holding that up, let me know. I'll take over for a while." Though touch would be needed to extend hir powers that much as it was not a mind game like Elise's illusions.
 
Elise looked surprised at the other teen before letting out a small giggle. It seemed like even Alex could care sometimes. "As long as we stay somewhat still, and I don't fall asleep, it isn't that hard to keep it up. It's mainly when we move around that it gets tiresome." She reassured the girl. Now she didn't have to move her illusion around with them, so it was much easier to maintain it, and she would never dare to fall asleep in public even if she was tired. She couldn't be completely sure what happened when she was asleep, but most likely she just stopped using her powers altogether and returned to her normal self. The thought could make her stay up nights in a row sometimes when she was incredibly paranoid, but eventually she had to sleep just like any other human. It was just to hope she woke up if someone came to close.

"I will miss the sewing classes." Elise sighed. Sure, she had joined because she wanted to try getting closer to Alex, but she liked the two girls she had gotten to know there. Eventually she would have been forced to leave them anyways, but in this case she would have preferred later rather than sooner.
 
"Then I'll save you the trouble and stay silent too." Looking out the window Xan ignored the comment on the sewing classes. It was sore giving up the things ze had given up, but the teen valued hir life more than any other material thing. It had been a hard lesson at first, but anything that could tie hir to hir past life had to go. Be it special or whatever. As long as ze had skills to make a living and enough time then it would be okay.

Keeping an eye on the outside she was searching the skies for birds and looking for any of the three mutants. 'A pyrokinetic, earth manipulator of a sorts and a mind reader that confused me with his childhood friend. The mind reader might be the one they're using to track down Elise. Other two... Restraint and backup?' Frowning softly in thought she hoped it was just those three, and not a fourth of the group that they had missed but hadn't missed them.
 
"You don't have to go that far." Elise chuckled. "As long as you're not giving me long math equations to solve, there's no way I'll loose focus." She tried to reassure the other girl, not understanding that Alex might wish for some peace and quiet.

"I do hope that woman don't have the means to find us again. I wonder for how long she followed me around before I noticed her." The worry was clear in the girl's voice. Usually she was careful to the degree of high paranoia. Knowing that she might have been followed for hours or maybe even days without noticing frightened her. How could she have been so careless? That woman hadn't even tried to hide that well. She had just leaned towards a wall and stared across the street. It was the most suspicious thing ever. Had she been in the sewing class too, looking at them from across the room?

Elise shivered. "Maybe it would be best to get out of the state." She was close to suggesting the country, but maybe that was a slight overkill. It wouldn't have been the first time though.
 
'Urgh... Would she ever stop talking?' Inwardly grimacing the teen was glad the chatter of others covered the talking from Elise. Looking over at the blonde ze spoke bluntly, but still soft enough to be drowned out by the other passengers.. "Yes, that's a plan. Now shut up, unless you're planning on getting us both caught."

Giving the other girl a final glare Xan leaned back and closed hir eyes, listening to the chattering on the bus and the radio by the bus driver. There were already news covering the attack and it was another reminder of why they had to remain quiet. This was why she disliked mutants being out, it was harder to pass by unnoticed.
 
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