Chapter 6

I have nothing interesting to say.

Alex, Grinder and Rikki had tried to go back to a regular life. A new camera-woman had been appointed, a scrawny, freckled girl named Darla who was overly excited about her new job. She had taken a bit to Grinder (taken a bit in the sense of growing on him), who's never-ending patience was put to the test with his new appendage. Rikki and Alex often exchanged pitying glances at her ignorant statements. Life had changed, and it was time to accept it.

Rikki found Alex in the kitchen area one day about two months after Fidget's fall and leaned casually against a cupboard door. Alex continued in his activities of stirring something until Rikki's persistent silence drew his attention.

"What's up, Rik?"

"Oh, nothing much," Rikki replied casually. "Say, Alex," He added too suddenly for it to be a revelation. "I had an idea. They never found her body, right?"

Alex eyed him again, suspicious. "Right..." He agreed slowly.

"So, maybe that one thing that happened to you happened to her."

Now, Alex was definitely curious. "What thing, Rikki?"

"Well, you know, that one time when you fell on X's blimp. Maybe she fell on his blimp and was okay!"

"Rikki, don't you think we would have gotten some sort of threat from X by now if that were the case?" Alex held his friend's shoulders as Rikki looked about to crumple.

"Well, yeah. But maybe...maybe he doesn't know she's there, either!"

"Rikki-"

"No, but think about it! Maybe she's been hiding out this entire time! Alex, I think we should go and see!"

"Rikki! You're just getting excited chasing wild geese. Calm down and look at the real deal here. You're getting your hopes up."

Rikki looked back and forth, literally searching for an answer. "It's not me, it's...Vinnie!" He grabbed the disgruntled reptile off the table and held him up in Alex's face. "Alex, I'm worried about him. He's taking the loss very hard, he hasn't been himself since!"

Vinnie yawned, blinked, and tasted the air.

Alex pushed Rikki's hands down. "Rikki, you need some help."

Rikki tossed Vinnie down on to the table again, the latter making a anxious noise as he flew. Rikki grabbed Alex's shoulders and looked very serious. "Just say we can go in there. I'll go with you! Alex, I could never live with myself if I thought she was in there and we didn't help."

Alex sighed. "Fine. But I really think this is crazy, Rik. If it'll help you, I'll do it."

Rikki smiled, and grabbed Alex around the arms in a hug. "Thank you!"

"Uh, no problem."

*

Fidget had become almost accustomed to her new home, and her new 'team'. Asazi had somewhat lost her venemous edge and accepted Fidget as much as she had accepted anyone else. Verbal battles took place often, but they were nearly in good humor. Tempest had begun to train a somewhat reluctant Fidget to use her newfound powers when and how she wanted to.

"Ya' know, I thought it'd be a little more difficult." She commented one day, looking over the lightning rod he had loaned her. It was too large and heavy for her to use effectively, she had to weild the steel pole with both hands to aim it. If I were in a fight, I would probably just club someone with it, she thought, a mental image springing into her head.

The most difficult part had been learning to not use her full force of electrucution. She hadn't wanted to be trained to efficiency in her power because of the pain it brought, but Tempest had explained to her how to avoid it.

"Your body isn't built to handle large amounts of electricity. Neither is mine. It's just the way we're composed. True, the strange effects of our mutation has equipped us to stand a higher voltage than the normal human, but for whatever reason, we can conduct more energy from the storm than we can really handle. At any rate, the flickering skin is a side effect of too high a voltage. When you or I get feelings of strong emotion, we summon energy from the storm. We can do it on purpose, too, but it happens involuntarily. If you don't check yourself, you get too much voltage and it causes pain. Get it?"

Fidget blinked. "Uh, I think."

Tempest sighed. "Good." He walked off for a moment, and she threw a few crackles of electricity at the wall. When he returned, he was holding two smaller staffs. He held them out to her, and she set his on the table and took them. "I got these for you. You looked a little unbalanced with just one bigger one."

She looked down at her odd little gifts. "Um, thanks." She held them up, experimentally swinging them around and pointing them at various objects without firing. Tempset watched her approvingly. While spinning 180 degrees, she stepped on the back hem of her pants and slipped, sitting down hard. She sat, stunned, for a moment before looking up and grinning at him. "Guess I should rest a little, then." She said, and carried herself and her new toys off to her room.

She lay down on her cot, thinking. She had enjoyed today's practice in an odd way. It had been invigorating to be able to point her energy in the direction she wanted it to go. She had felt powerful as the storm's energy was transfered in and out of her like she was an electrical cord. And it hadn't hurt.

She had stopped thinking about Alex, Grinder and Rikki long ago. It had only been two months, but two months was a long time to an almost-prisoner, and her always flaring temper had flared mostly at them for her entire captivity. She had decided that they must have been glad to get rid of her, that they didn't care. She had even stuck herself on the story that they had come to rescue her and seen the way she looked, the powers she had, and left again.