{SCE} The Wheels on the Bus

[Charity Croft]

Charity Legrange tapped the end of her pen against her mouth while she stood near the door of one of the school's buses. The vehicle was decent enough sized, easily big enough to fit at least another ten or so more students than the limited roster that the faculty and staff had selected for this particular outing. Still, there were only so many teachers that were willing to help, and the last thing the school wanted was to lose several students in the woods.

Though that could still happen anyway, given the "adults" they had in charge. The event had been Charity's little brainchild though. Take the students that were struggling and take them away from everything. Just put them all on a bus and head out for a week long expedition in the woods. No technology, save for the one modified phone that was to stay on Charity at all times. Nope, just the kids, some trained adults, and the wilderness.

"Right," Charity said, tapping the list and looking up at the gathered students. "It's time for the last check. We're going to just look through your bags one last time to make sure that there isn't anything on the forbidden list. Remember that no technological devices are allowed!" Charity pointed the pen at the gathered students, wiggling it slightly. "That means no phones or GPS units or i-Pods or anything else! Now, you need to make sure that one of the adult chaperones checks through your bags, then you can get on the bus and get situated. It's a short drive to the camp, so we expect everyone to behave!"

Charity nodded, then gestured at herself. "And I'm Charity Legrange, for those of you I haven't met yet! I'm thrilled to be able to help you all have this truly wonderful experience." And she beamed the smile of someone who believed every word she was selling. All while gesturing for students to come forth so that she could rummage through their bags and toss aside the inevitable drugs, alcohol, weapons, and technological devices that nearly every student had to be trying to smuggle.

[Jack McCarthy]

Bull. Shit.

This was bullshit.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

BULLLLSHIT.

As you can tell Jack didn’t think this was a particularly good idea and he deserved to be on this trip.

This was meant to be for the worse the school had to offer right? So why the hell was he here? Why was he the one to be singled out as one of the most disruptive kids in the Bellefonte Academy? Sure he could be a tad bit spirited at times. Known to offer up a boyish jab or two. But really he was nought but a gentleman. Yes, a gentleman that was the word to describe him. The gentleman scholar of Bellefonte. So why was he coming?

Jack chalked it up to racism.

Which is why he wasn’t going of course. Now why would he do a stupid think like that? He had better things to do then set up camp and eat smores and sing camp fire sougs and blah blah blah.

Fortunately this was where having a clone came in handy…

“Jack” Was among the first in line to the bus, wearing sensible camping gear, with a bag full of everything he would need and behaving very nicely, as quiet as a mouse and just as behaved.

While the real Jack hide behind a tree watching proceedings with a smug grin on his face.

Camping Trip. Yeah right.

[Lucy James]

Standing with her back leaned against the bus, Lucy had pulled her beanie down over her eyes as she waited for it to be her turn. Thankfully, the brunette was smart enough not to hide anything away in her bag, and to be perfectly honest, she could do just fine without her phone or iPod. She could feel the various powers of the students - some familiar, some not so much. It was going to be a tedious thing to be apart of, but anything was better than staying at this damned school, and well, Mexico had fallen through the cracks, so maybe the forest would offer something better.

Sighing as it was her turn, Lucy kicked the bag forward, pulled up her beanie and offered the oh so familiar woman a smile. "Chastity!" she exclaimed. "What a wonderful surprise. Can't wait to have you all alone to myself in the middle of the forest where no one can see or hear you." Of course, the not-so-subtle threat was dished out with the most fake sugar sweet smile any ever saw.

Not that Lucy was actually planning on doing much more than pissing the woman off, but hey. Anything to make her tick, she supposed. Their previous encounter had proved (at least to Lucy) that "Chastity" was no fan of the brunette, and come on, for someone who tried to make the entire world hate her, it was the best thing in the entire world. Her bag would contain nothing more than clothes and the necessarily, but allowed items (that she possessed). She herself was clad in a black hoodie, much too big for her slender frame and a pair of black skinny jeans with several holes down the legs.

And as soon as her bag had gotten checked and approved, Lucy would climb into the buss, sit down as far away from everyone else that she possibly could. Leaning against the window, the brunette pulled the hoodie back down over her face and lean her foot against the seat in front of her; the sooner this bus trip ended, the better it was. All she could hope for now was that people would actually leave her alone.

[Selina Taylor]

    Selina almost laughed at the one girl's nick name of 'Chastity' for their chaperon, as it was incredibly fitting. Selina absently wondered why they'd picked her out for this trip. Sure, she wasn't exactly the paragon of a student role model, but she hadn't openly defied the school's staff or anything. Maybe they'd found out about the stash of alcohol she'd kept in her room, or the time she'd broken that one kid's arm, or maybe the time she'd offered to help a girl kill someone even if the offer had been refused... so maybe there were a few things that could have led to her being here, but really she was mostly just wondering how she'd been found out, if she had been at all.

     Maybe they just went through a student's past files? If so, she could definitely understand being chosen for this little excursion into the woods. Selina shrugged and gave her bag to the teacher to check through. She had nothing in there except for clothes, a lighter, some personal effects, and a water bottle. She wasn't going to try and sneak anything through that she wasn't allowed, so she'd packed her things openly so the teacher could remove whatever if she felt she needed to. The lighter would make for easy fire starting, but Selina wasn't sure if it counted as a potential weapon or not.

    She honestly didn't mind getting away from the school for a while. Nature had almost always been calming for her, so she was actually kind of eager to go... It was just the other students that she wasn't so keen on. Ah well, she couldn't have everything. 

[Demi Smith]

It had been half volunteering and half being volunteered for Demi. She'd heard about the trip, and if this had been a few months ago, she'd be right on the bus with everyone else as far as being required to go. As it was, she'd recently done well enough with the security squad to avoid most forced activities like this.

But like Demi was going to pass up going out into the woods on a survival campout.

The little dirt thumper literally had nothing save for the clothing she'd obviously made herself: course stuff coated in dirt and dust, and a small drawstring pack, also made herself. Inside it contained a tarp, a canteen filled with water, and a piece of steel used for fire-starting (which had been one of the gifts that Demi had gotten during her Inheritance). Needless to say, her checkout would be quick indeed. And she'd already gotten the information that the bus wouldn't be tainting her too.

So it was a matter of entering the bus and looking for a decent seat. She headed straight for the back of the bus, wanting to be far away from the adults (though she didn't mind Spence that much; the dippy Charity could go find a cliff to jump off of). She plunked down, sending up a little cloud of dust, and adjusted, unable to stop from looking too smugly excited about being on this whole trip thing.

Let alone being the youngest by at least a year or two. But Demi knew she'd show them all up once they actually got where they were headed.

[Nico Martell]

Well, at least Lucy and Selina were along, so this shouldn't be too horribly awful. Nico was slightly worried about being shoved into the wilderness, since his survival skills generally only worked in a more urban setting. But he figured he could just do what he always did: lay low and follow the majority of the group. After all, he'd probably only been picked for this particular outing because of his record. That felt a bit like profiling to him, but it wasn't like Nico could really argue the point.

he shuffled into the lineup with the rest of them, ready to have his gear looked through. Like most of his peers, Nico had the good sense not to hide anything in his actual bag. Bringing something illegal along on a trip like this was pretty much just asking for trouble anyway. Not that Nico really had much that had been placed on the "no" list.

Well, except for his knife, which he pretty well kept on his person the entire time. He knew that was going to hold him up, and he'd debated whether to try and sneak through it or not. He figured that the worst they could do is confiscate it, and then he'd just have to see about getting it back. So he just had it out, ready for whomever ended up checking out his bag to look through and tell him what to do with it.

Then it would be on the bus and try to avoid everyone and not phase out the bottom of the bus. The road rash that would result from that latter would be... bad. Bad was a bit of an understatement...

[Corey Spencer]

Spence never liked laying hands on a student. He rarely, if ever, lost his temper to the point of getting physical and, if he was touching someone in the line of duty it meant they were injured in some way and that was never a good thing. Some students, though, just needed a bit more 'incentive' to behave. And some students, much like the knucklehead hiding behind the tree Spence was staring at, needed a truckload.

The big man didn't hesitate as he drew closer to the lanky boy. A meaty hand grabbed the back of Jack's collar and yanked him along as Spence started for the line that had already formed. "McCarthy, right?" He grumbled, his tone low and showing just how not in the mood for this crap he was. The former soldier had gotten the dossier on all the students who would be under his watch during the trip and, while they all most assuredly needed someone to keep an eye on them, there were a few who had habits of acting out he'd marked for extra attention. Near the top of that list was one Jack McCarthy who's mutant power happened to be a form of cloning. "I hope you didn't take me for being that stupid." He shot a glare down to the boy that could've melted plastic. "You're not getting out of this." If Spence had to go, he certainly wasn't going to let anyone else stay home.

With long strides Spence moved toward the bus, cutting in line in order to get his unwilling quarry boarded where it would be easier to keep tabs on him. "Get your bag." He said, pointing toward the "Jack" who was waiting patiently in line. "And get on the bus." Once again the glare turned toward the real Jack. "Now."

[Ashley Benson]

It didn't look as though many of the kids wanted to be there, standing in line for a bus to go on a trip that sounded absolutely horrible so Ashley took solace in not being the only unwilling participant. What set her apart from the rest of the group is while they were reluctantly waiting to be checked in with expressions of contempt and frustration, Ashley was utterly terrified. She could barely manage to function in her day to day life without trouble and now they expected her to break her precious routing and head out into the middle of nowhere because they claimed it would be 'good for her'? Ashley remained unconvinced and had pleaded her hardest to get out of it. The effectiveness of her cries was shown plainly in that she was here, shuffling forward as the line moved along with all the other kids.

Even though the young woman checking that checked her bag was friendly enough, Ashley still couldn't make eye contact. She quietly handed over the brand new pack filled with a few changes of clothes and whatever else her therapist thought she'd need that was allowed and then trudged up the steps and into the bus. Her eyes darted around a bit alarmed at first until she found plenty of seating to be had. With a sigh of relief, she tried to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible as she moved down the aisle before slipping silently into a seat toward the back by herself.

A small, muffled beep came from her wrist just as she settled her pack onto her lap. She pressed the button on her watch, silencing the alarm before unzipping one of the side pockets to her pack and fishing out a full prescription bottle. She cast a short glance around to make sure the alarm hadn't caught anyone's attention and twisted the cap off and plucked a single pill from the bottle. Once the pill was place into her mouth, Ashley tightened the cap on the bottle and stuffed back into her pack. She swallowed and gave a resigned sigh before shifting so she could rest her forehead against the cool glass of the window. This was going to be a long trip.

[Charity Croft]

Charity nearly sighed with relief as Corey Spencer showed up. She'd been giddy when he'd agreed to go along with this, since the whole trip wouldn't work without at least the two of them pulling together (and ideally a few more staffers too). seeing him actually helping to corral some of these unruly sorts just made Charity all the more certain this could happen.

Didn't mean that she could just rest, oh no: "It's Charity, Miss James," Charity said back immediately. She also waved a few others onto the bus: the dirty little girl, the withdrawn one with medicine (whom they'd gotten a file on), the older Hispanic girl. "She's trouble," Charity mumbled, before looking back and nodding.

"Ah, right, Mr. McCarthy," she said nodding. "I'm sure you were just hanging back and letting a few other students go first, right? And your..." she looked at the other Jack, not sure how to handle or address him, "duplicate was just saving your spot," Charity nodded. For most of these students, she was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Some had just made poor decisions or had bad environments or they just needed a bit of guidance. They weren't all evil girls who made Charity reconsider her position on the death penalty.

Oh, wait, one of them had a knife. Charity frowned, pointing at it and looking up at Spence. "Where did we come down on their having knives...?" she asked, remembering the debate. They were often tools used for camping, and they were going to have to use them, after all. It was just whether they wanted students to have their own or not...

[Selina Taylor]

    Selina barely heard the female chaperon mumble about “trouble” as she passed and turned to smile sweetly at her, “It would be such a pleasure to get to know you,” Selina said in the most saccharine voice she could muster. Selina hadn’t given two shits about who was coming with them in terms of the staff, but Miss Charity had just made herself an enemy that didn’t forgive easily. “But just in case you’re lost,” she added conspiratorially, “The middle school is over there,” she added with the most condescending sincerity that she could force into her tone.


    Selina glanced up as one of the younger boys got dragged into the clearing and shrugged. His idiocy wasn’t any of her business, but perhaps he would serve as a more interesting form of entertainment than the bigoted school teacher. Selina then turned and picked out a seat away from the others on the bus and stared out the window. This trip had just gotten a lot longer, and she was not looking forward to being stuck with a muscle-man and an overgrown child. What had she done to deserve this type of shitty karma? At least Nico was coming. She could actually talk with him… sort of.

[Ryan Alexander]

Ryan had NO idea why it had been required for her to come along on this trip, but she was soooo INSANELY EXCITED! She hopped up and down and clapped her hands as she rushed into line.

"This is gonna be SO. MUCH. FUN!" And she wasn't a stranger to hiking, so she'd chosen what she considered to be the perfect outfit. They were warm.  She of course had no idea what this camping trip would be like as she only went when she was at home in Canada.  But she looked forward to it.  She walked into line pulling her three suitcases.

"Let's see...I have clean clothes and some canned food in one.  Along with my assorted toiletries.  Oh.  And toilet paper.  Definitely toilet paper.  I have my canvases, paint, sketchbooks and brushes in another.  A decent portion of the third suitcase has my sports drinks and chewing gum...and the tent poles.  Couldn't fit the bloody tent in there unfortunately.  Assorted jewellery in there because who needs a knife that won't get past the chaperones.  A sleeping bag tied onto my backpack which has trail mix, energy bars, and other assorted goodies.  And a sleeping mat attached to the sleeping bag.  Yup.  I think I have everything."  She nodded her head, pleased with herself.  She walked up to the chaperones.

"Mine are ready for checking.  I...still don't know why I'm on the behaviour reform trip though.  Glad I am though.  THIS IS GONNA BE SO MUCH FUN!"  Okay, she shouldn't be yelling.  But she was.

[Quinn Wiley]

Quinn was seriously considering backing out. A never-ending week, in the woods, with a bunch of kids with issues, having to rely on each other for everything. He didn't even have his camera! That was the worst. Because, to Quinn, his camera was almost an extension of himself. He needed it, to look at the world.

When Charity claimed they’d look inside their bag, he was glad he didn’t try to sneak it in. It would have been awful to know they had it, hidden somewhere. It was safe, in his room. Erin better take care of his ferret while he was away. At least, his roommates were here too, so he didn’t have to fear anything. The rest of the things she said they were not allowed to have did not concern him. He had none of those. He was anxious to get in though. The sooner they would be there, the sooner this would end.

Quinn didn’t think he had any survival skills whatsoever, except perhaps this ability to run real faster in the face of danger and climb to the nearest tree. That, he was really good at. He supposed he could light a fire without too much problem. Though he might just as well burn the whole place down while he was at it. He tried not to think about it this way and waited in line for the staff to check his things. Quinn was not known for his patience so every time things seemed to go too slow, he would sigh and take on himself not to do anything more. No need to get all the attention on him or the others might decide to cast him apart from them. And, alone, he really wouldn’t make it.

At least his turn would go fast, since he had nothing on him they might want to confiscate. He looked at the school once more before getting on the bus. With everyone there, it was hard to find a seat where he could be alone so his plan was to shut up the whole time. And avoid anyone that might be a little too loud. He already spotted them so it should be fine.

[Devyn Solway]

A camping trip for those kids the school had seemed to think were they troubled ones on the school ground. Devyn could not argue as to why her name had ended up on the list, because well her track record proved as much that she needed to be on this trip. Yet, she could not see a camping trip as any form of punishment since it was something she loved to do. She had gone camping a lot with her father as a kid and even hunting. This trip was going to be a walk in the park and she was pretty sure she could go off on her own and survive until it was time for them to head back to the school.

Despite Devyn actually being excited for the trip she still took her time getting to the buses, mainly because it was during the day and she might have slept in a little later then she planned in order to get here early and get a good seat on the bus. She blamed her 'not a morning person' and 'slow getting up' on all of that. Either way she got in line and dropped her duffel bags to the ground so it could be checked and she could get on the bus. She was still half asleep so was not really looking at all the people that were on the trip or the staff looking through her bags.

"How long is the trip?" Devyn asked, the question directed at the staff, but she didn't really care who answered it. Either way she planned to get herself a seat to herself, and lay out on it as best as possible so she could sleep the whole way there. That way she would be full of energy and ready to go 'rough it up' as some people called it. She had the basics in her bag, with a few extra pair of shades, and she did have two not see through camelbak water bottles that were filled with alcohol but she would not have been surprised if that had been caught.

She just hoped they dump out the contents and let her keep the bottles, because those things were high quality for camping. As for knives, well she had one in her back pocket, because who packed that away in a bag? That was something you were supposed to carry on your person for quick access. Devyn would wait patiently, just relaxing against the bus after adjusting her shades, and letting out a yawn.

[Casper & Jasper Emory]

"I don't want to go. This is stupid. Why are they making us go?" Jasper groaned as he walked along with his brother over to the buses. They had been informed that they had to go on some stupid camping trip because of their behavior. It was stupid and neither of them actually wanted to go because of the fact that they were being made to go. they didn't have a problem with camping and were not that bad at it, but having to go because someone said they had to was what was making them upset. They didn't like doing anything anyone told them to do unless they were the ring master or the person had done well at getting respect for them.

Which were very few people since the brothers were still getting used to treating all adults with respect and all of that stupid crap? "Because we are 'bad kids'." Casper responded back to his brother as he did air quotes around the word bad kid. He didn't actually get the whole purpose of putting air quotes around things, but it seemed perfect for the situation. They were already packed and ready to go, dropping their bags on the floor and impatiently waiting for their bags to be checked. They had actually made sure to pack what they needed and nothing that they didn't need, other than a 'toy' that neither of them actually used or needed to use. They had only gotten it because they heard the staff would be checking their bags.

They were practically mentally begging for it to be a female staff that would have to pull out the two identical and very large objects from out of their bag. They had gotten them on sale and would end up throwing them away, but they wanted to see the reaction of the staff when they would come across it. This entire trip meant to them was that they were going to get to bother a select group of people more often than people from around the school. Either way, they planned to sit next to one another on the bus and talk about the first thing they planned to do when they got there.

[Taylor McCarthy]

So, Taylor had gotten into a few fights when he was a kid and while at St. Bethany's. He was never a bad guy, he just happen to find himself in a couple bad situations that required the use of force to escape. Nothing major. He hardly thought a handful of minor fisticuffs warranted his label of 'troubled' that seemed to haunt some of the other gloomy, downtrodden miscreants that were forced to partake in this little excursion. He was nothing like them. They were all moody and trying way to hard to seem cool and edgy. It would have been kind of sad if Taylor had allowed himself the time to think about it.

Nonetheless, he was 'voluntold' he had to be there and, like the good little boy he was, Taylor had shown up, albeit slightly late. He packed light, it wasn't as if he had much to take anyway, and figured there would be some sort of safety net. He didn't think they were going to take a bunch of kids out into the woods to starve or freeze to death. Or, if he had given that a second thought he may have come up with some grand conspiracy where the Academy had decided to purge their most troubled students for the betterment of mutant-kind as a whole. That would have made ridiculous sense.

Once checked in and on the bus, Taylor slowly moved down the aisle, taking in the other students that would be his mates for the trip. The dirty hobbit girl, the hot Mexican chick, the creepy Mexican dude, the weird girl popping pills in the back, the bored looking girl trying to take a nap. He regarded them one by one, at least until his eyes settled upon a familiar sight. The rest of the vagabonds and ne'er do wells that had been herded onto the bus became a mere afterthought.

"Good morning, luv." He said with a grin as he slid into the seat beside Lucy. "Thanks for saving me a seat.