Summary: Gambit's daughter, Kayo, gets aquainted with a world that she's never before known, and doesn't like what she sees.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, reference to various forms of abuse.
Disclaimer: Gambit and Beast are property of Marvel Comics. I'm making no money off of their use... though, if you'd like to hire me, Marvel people, feel free ;) Kayo, and this work of fan fiction, are copyright to Melissa "Mel" Miller 1996-2002. For your own sake, don't mess with either. Feedback: ... rocks.
Archive: You can find all things Kayo at www.nextxcomics.com and www.geocities/thevisionarytweek. I'd rather the fic not be posted anywhere else.
Notes: This fic is actually part of my in progress first attempt at fanfiction written in '99, Kayo: Status Quo. It takes place in the early part of the Next X universe (www.nextxcomics.com), before the formation of the website's title/team Nexus. Kayo has recently arrived to the X-Mansion in search of a father she's never known. Here, she finally has the chance to recoup from a nightmarish childhood spent at a government mutant holding facility, as well as get to know the world around her.... What she finds both enthralls and discusts her.

Cheyenne Mikayla Dreux-Mattie Lebeau.

The name may have seemed like an over-kill, but in all bouts of irony, the title fit.

Complicated name.... equally complicated kid.

On the girl's inside, festered a darkness of that of a young woman who had seen and been through nearly every unspeakable horror one could think of - physical marring, rape, starvation, near death from a stabbing 'incident', the loss of her mother, the whitnessing of literally hundreds of murders. The kid had seen it all.

For the most part, and thankfully so, She was numb to it. Only occasionally did it manage to ambush her in her dreams, or return to naw at her soul and rape her inner child..... rarely even pushing her to trip on the borderlines of suicide, as it would find some new way of haunting her daily routine.

At this point in her life though, no 'new' emotion, even the most eccentric or detrimental, could come as a shock to Cheyenne. Her heart had always kept her bound, gagged and tentatively beaten for as long as she could remember, so that she would, in turn, be completely numb to whatever the real world managed to inflict upon her.

And it worked.

Thank GOD it worked. She was alive and kicking in testimony to the little mind-bondage game. The problem was, now that she was away from The Camp- now that she was free- she couldn't seem to shed that raunchy little habit, or keeping it from playing itself out. More often then not, without the constant threat of fear and pain, her former defense was perpetually managing to backlash and bite her in the ass, as aposed to helping her.

She was battling what Hank McCoy had called 'manic Depression'.

HE said the 'condition' could be life-threatening.

SHE, quite honestly, didn't feel any different then she always had. Then again, perhaps that was the problem... once she had actually sat down and thought about it, She realized couldn't actually recall a time in her life when she hadn't preferred to be 'pushing up daisies'... the realization was rather unnerving.

But, whatever.

She'd cope.

She was coping, actually- and was basking in her freedom to do so, at that, having recently been enjoying the liberation of force feeding herself with the thrill of being free to make decisions....

Free to consider herself as her own, rather then someone else's little genetic mishap punching-bag... Free to be proud of how well she was managing to cope with the new life, and with that of her past. She was free to actually be a 15 year old teenager.

Cheyennne Lebeau was reveling in the chance to 'find herself' in and amidst all her internal shadows and demons. And, with all due respects, the entire process as a whole was taking a hell of a lot LESS time then she'd ever expected.

Desperation can do wonders, can it not?

It had taken less then three weeks for Cheyenne to transform her outer self into your average punk teenager, via combat boots, baggy black cargo shorts that hung just above her ankles, a spiked dog collar, and a gray felt 'wife beater' tank top....

She, by the way, was still trying to figure out why the hell the shirts were called 'wifebeaters'. Chey found herself oblivious to allot of things like the half hazard stereotypes the existed on the 'outside'... which included the 'spouse-abusing drunkard' stereotype her current upper-attire had managed to conjure up over time.

Then again, had she'd known, she probably wouldn't have given a rat's ass about it anyways. She had too much she hadn't tried yet to actually care. So much newness she's sever known existed before her new life there at the Xmansion- rock music, skateboarding, her new rather impulsive interest in dark, deviant fashion... Prodigy's lead singer Keith Flint...

.....and with all she'd missed out on in her young life, she'd try anything once.

So what reigned as this particular morning's endeavor?

Absolutely nothing.

'For once,' Cheyenne thought, grinning widely, 'I'm actually going to spend a Saturday doing exactly what Saturdays are 'for'.....sitting on my lazy white butt.'

She eagerly padded her way down the hall towards the Mansion's pool patio, with her towel, sunscreen, CD Walkman and newfound favorite stuffed penguin 'Guin' in-arm. She was quite the sight, actually- in all of her 4 feet 9 inches worth of teenage badass. Her incredible mane of never-been-cut burgangy hair that usually spanned to knee-length was bound up into an emaculant French braid thanks to Jubilee, and her efforts towards the use of make-up shown proudly on her face.

As Cheyenne stepped out into the massive glass-enclosed patio area, peeling off various articles of clothing to reveal a deep red, two piece bikini bathing suit, She breathed in the emaculantly beautiful early-summer warm. The High-noon sun blanketed her porcelain skin. She could feel her ever-present internal charge of untapped kinetic energy pulsing in the pit of her chest, fusing its somewhat comforting heat-singe within her coursing bloodstream, and as cued her enhanced sense of smell, sniffing at the crisp, clean air. Cheyenne, in a rare instant, was at peace with the life she had so casually been cursed with.

As she perched her petite self on the base edge of the patio chair nearest to the Olympic-sized pool, she gazed at her reflection, letting her mind wander at the site if it, pondering over all of its beauty and equally ingrown wretchedness. As her train of thoughts ordered themselves, She tilted her head to the left a bit, in an unwarrantedly canine- esque manner.

With every bit of due fairness, all of her efforts made towards the appearance of being just a 'normal' trouble-making kid proved to seem successful. She had that typical teenage posture, the faint aura of superiority about her, and had mastered her very own incredulous underlying smirk-of-a-facial-expression. She had done as well as could be expected in creating a credible self-image.

.....And yet, an 'image' was all it had proved to be. There was always the small stuff about her that she knew deep down in spite of herself would always be there to remind her of her real self.

Of what she was brought into the world with......

Of why she was born into the nightmare she had been.....

These 'small things' served a an endless reminder of what she was.

A mutant.

A 'freak'.

A genetic flaw.

The fact was, the 'image' was only skin deep. What you were to see at first glance towards Cheyenne was a beautiful, seemingly 'normal' young woman. She'd catch your eye as a rather elegant display of youthful beauty, sprawled across a calm-yellow patio chair, stifling relaxed yawns, slathering on cheap suntan lotion, and laying back to bask in the brilliant sunlight alongside a plump stuffed penguin. When you made move to look closer, however, you managed to easily spot those minor attributes that proved to exist to her own detriment.

These minor ' details' would likely cause your skin to crawl.

.......First you noticed the scars.

Former wicked knife-inflicted gashes- dozens of them- littered the girl's pale-complected back. The brutal, pink, jagged ribbons of imperfection had nearly cost the child her life when the steel's blade first made contact with her then seven-year-old flesh... She'd nearly died... Nearly bled to death while her marauder sat back and enjoyed the show.

The scars been a sign of defeat way back then. Now they were given little regard by their owner. The butchering had managed to kill every nerve in the skin of her back, leaving her unable to feel the discomfort of their presence, anyhow. It was only when she gained those heartless gasps and wide eyed stairs did their existence and the awful nightmares that came with them effect her... only then did the ugly marks do their worst to break her heart. Even then, though, those marks were simply scars, contractible by everyone. Spectators could actually bring themselves to dismiss those as 'normal'...

But Chey's 'spectators' couldn't let go of her most predominant flaw.

'They' were horribly frightening to most humans. 'They' instigated screams, taunting, mockery, and pretty much left the young Cheyenne LeBeau with “I'm a Freakin' Mutant!” branded across her forehead.

'They' were her eyes.

Glowing, crimson red irises on pitch black orbs.

'Demon eyes' as her father, Gambit, called them, and he ought to know.

She'd inherited the righteously eerie trait from him.

For what they were worth, though, Chey happened to like them. She thought they were 'cool', and now that she knew where they had come from exactly- from a man she loved dearly- she loved her 'demon eyes' all the more. The problem was with what they symbolized to everyone else.

A flaw.

An abnormality.

to Chey, the outside world had proved its self to be explosively volatile towards the stereotypical 'subnormal'. Mutant hysteria was a supposed global 'threat'. The People as a whole looked for differences before they spoke, ready to throw insults, and all the while, the media played into the public's awareness and neurosis.

' 'Mutant Threat' my ass,' Cheyenne spat angrily, peering up through the patio's glass panes, through the trees, and into the cloudless sky.

'The Mutant Threat'

She recalled the latest of stereotypical slogans that had managed to graze the New York Post within just the past week. It had been an accomblishment for her, in being able to read it at all, but when the meaning of the phraze had finally managed to sink in, it struck her to the core. Chey growled bitterly, "There is a threat, I'll grant you that, you blood-suckin' biggets- but who's killin' who? Last I recall it was us 'mutant freaks' doing all the suffering. All the bleeding. All the freakin' dying....' Chey sighed grudgedly at the remorse that swept its way into her Saturday morning calm.

'NOBODY'S SAFE!!', the media squalled.

Or so they claimed.

It was sick. All of it.

All of the hate.

All of the misconception and victimizing.

All of the death.

It was just plain sick.

......But even then..... Cheyenne Mikayla Dreux-Mattie LeBeau was learning to cope- To live her life despite the human race's hang ups.

'Just........whatever.'

It was their loss.

Or so she claimed.