Generation Breakers
By Sinead

Chapter One
Relevant Song: Cele De "Awakening"

.o.O.o.

Author's Note: This is a work in progress, and I'll be editing it intensively for the next few weeks before I put any more of it up. Please be patient with me!

.o.O.o.

If there ever had to be a time for the anime character of her dreams to be real, it would have to be now. There was a strain on every inch of her patience, and as a result, it wore her out. Customer service desk was a good way to learn how to be civil with people who really didn't know jack about what they were talking about. The only thing worse than standing behind The Desk at an office supply store was to be pouring coffee for the ungrateful and spoiled New England public. If there had been a wrong way to "officially" make coffee, the half-deranged, grunge-eating angry zombies on their way into Boston would certainly remind the poor Barista that it had been "officially" made wrong. At the same time, they would point out every single one of her faults, whether true or not.

There was also not a single thing to be done at The Desk, save for the very occasional customer or call. The store was dead; the weather dreary. Nothing was going a hundredth of a mile faster than a snail's crawl, which applied even to the computers and registers. That was the final and last stop on the road to a headache.

Finally, punching out and two extra-strength Tylenol tablets later, the customer service representative was on her way home, biking slowly, not wanting to get winded on top of the rest of her troubles and woes. It was almost two miles to her house from her workplace, and there was a large hill halfway there. As she took it, she downshifted, keeping herself upon the bike seat while pedaling slowly, steadily. All that her mind was on was getting home, resting, and then letting the workday slide off of her shoulders.

Running across the street, she mounted the bike while upon the sidewalk, riding the bumpy, uneven blacktop, the roots of trees that had been planted between the walkway and the road pushing their way upwards as they grew. It made for an interesting ride, the skinny tires of the circa-1970s bike treading their way carefully. Cutting her way behind a Catholic church, sitting up and letting go of the handlebars, shifting her weight only slightly in order to steer the bike, she thought about how she was waiting so very patiently for news upon a ferret she wished to adopt.

Raevyn Hawkeye Starwalker was the daughter of Hippies-turned-Star-Wars-junkies. Growing up was something of an adventure, as since once she had turned asthmatic, she had the responsibility to air out any room of incense if she wished to use it. Her father, Leukyn Stonemind, was the kinder of the two parents, leaving her mother, Luna Featherwind, to be the worker, supporting the family through her government job, which she could obviously not speak about. Neither Raevyn nor her two-years-younger sister Gloria Heaven, minded about that. What they minded was being the late children of people who were teenagers in the Seventies, and that they were named such odd names. They also minded each other's habits and loves. When the two agreed upon something, it was going to end up being to the other party's despair, as Raevyn and Gloria never agreed unless it was inevitable.

"Hawkeye" was almost a man's name, too. Ugh, sometimes she wondered what she was going to do with herself, her never-at-home mother, or her sickeningly-girlie-girl sister.

Well . . . she was nearly home . . . just around the hedge and up the driveway . . .

And almost into the bumper of a car.

An almost-spanking-new car. And new to her car. A car that under the layered grime and dirt was so yellow that it almost made her wince at the shade.

Seeing the symbol, knowing the name of the manufacturer, she whispered in a reverent tone of one who knew expensive and beautiful cars, "Camaro . . ."

Looking up, Raevyn saw her father leaning against the hood, his brown cowboy boots old and scuffed. He never wore any other type of shoes. His once-mid-blue jeans were worn over a body that was still lean and toned, and he was wearing a white button-down shortsleeve shirt with the collar ripped off, and the front unbuttoned, the white undershirt semi-loose over a still-hard torso.

"Dad?"

"Was comin' home from th' dojo, saw this beauty bein' sold, an' thought that a gal like you needed this kinda transp'rtation." Smiling, the beard that he never truly shaved all the way off stretching to show white, if not perfect, teeth, Leukyn indicated the hood with a sturdy but also gentle buffet with his closed fist, a thick ponytail of hair flicking around his bicep with the movement. "Owner said tha' this bugger don't start up that well, an' I tested it . . . think that ya can figger it out?"

Smiling at his soft Western accent that he had never really gotten rid of over the years of living in the hard, harsh, rapid-fire tones of Massachusetts, the daughter literally kicked the kickstand down and let the bike half-fall upon it, her helmet tossed to her father. With a practiced move, she ran her hand down the hood, then along the front end of it, feeling for the catch that would release it and let her see what kind of power she was looking at here. Finding it, she pushed at it slightly, finding a huge resistance in the action. Then, she smiled and whispered, "C'mon baby, just a peek to see what you're made of and then I'll cover you up again."

Pushing it again, it clicked as if well-oiled. Smiling, she lifted the hood, wondering if all she had to do was ask the catch to release after all. Peering down into the engine, she found no rod to keep the hood open. Shrugging slightly, she held it up with her right hand, her left getting horribly greasy as she touched a few places that had some buildup of grime. "Hey, Dad, I need to pull 'im into the garage an' clean 'im up."

Smiling as he heard her acquired accent slip forth, he nodded. "So ya know it's a dude, eh?" Giggling, letting the hood come back down and letting it fall into place with a click that sounded almost satisfied, Raevyn wiped her hand off with a rag her father had provided. He patted the roof of the dusty, mud-encrusted car. "Gloria's teachin' 'er ridin' class, then sleepin' over a friend's house. Luna won't be back 'till midnight."

"She said that she'd be telling me what's getting to be so big in the D.C. that it's got the national security watch up as high as it had been during the days after Nine-Eleven," the self-taught mechanic said quickly, wanting her father to reassure her that his wife would be telling a few secrets.

He knew just what she was doing. "Honeybaby, trust me, she'll tell ya. I'll send her out to your garage. Just don't spook your sister's horses again, 'kay?" He clapped his hands together, rubbing them. "Now. Lesse if this boy'll warm up to us, eh?"

Slipping through the driver's-side door, feeling herself sink into the bucket seat, Raevyn sighed and gripped the steering wheel. Her worried eyes looked up at her father. "Is this really mine?"

"You bet. Gloria's loved horses since she could figger out what they looked like. You've just been into cars. She's got two horses, a pony, and is going to be getting another one soon, just ta rent out. You've never had yer own car yet, even though you've built all sorts o' wheeled thin's that take up space in your garage. Jest like Shy Gal's her best an' favorite show horse, ya need your mascot car. Happy birthday, baby."

Looking straight ahead, swallowing and trying not to cry openly, she turned the key in the ignition, hearing the engine purr to life, a reassuring sound. Her voice was almost lost upon her father, but he smiled as he heard her whisper, "Thanks, Daddy."

"Go joyride. Your boy's got a full tank, an' I'll be payin' fer the gas for a month, just so that you can start to build up funds to keep 'im runnin. Don't come back until y'all've got y'selves tuckered out an' ready t' clean up, got it?"

Pressing the gas pedal, the engine roaring, she nodded, putting her baby into gear and turning him around smoothly. As she was about to leave the driveway, her father held out a small card. She took it, then blinked. "Dad . . ."

"Triple A. G'wan, get!" He laughed, thumping the roof of the car again. "Move ya tailpipe afore I dent ya chrome-plated bumper!"

Laughing, shoving the card in her back pocket and buckling up, Raevyn glanced both ways, glad that the only two other cards that were in her back pocket were a liscence and a debit card.

Freedom . . . how wonderful.

.o.O.o.

As her father watched the car he had bought for his black-haired, golden-eyed daughter take off, he smiled and turned to push her bike up the driveway and into the two-car garage that was used solely by Raevyn. She was growing up, all right . . . He couldn't wait to see who she would turn out to be.