Chapter 7

Rouge walked into the gym. The other cheerleaders were already there, but they weren't practicing, they just stood there wide eyed.

"I know, I'm late but I'm here now," said Rouge.

They just stared at her.

Rouge rolled her eyes. "Fine."

They all grabbed her and began to drag her away.

Rouge tried to break free but she couldn't manage to get away. "Hey, let go of me! What are you doing?"

"We must take you to our master," one of them said in a monotone.

"Master? Is this some kind of joke?" asked Rouge.

"We must make you one of us."

"One of…us?" she struggled to get free but couldn't. With their emotionless voices and wide eyes they looked like zombies or robots or something, whatever they were they weren't the girls Rouge knew. She screamed for help.

Something blurred past her knocking the other cheerleaders down.

Rouge stood there in amazement wondering what just happened.

"Are going to just stand there all day?" said a voice behind her.

She turned and saw Shadow standing in the doorway.

"Or are you going to run?"

She ran past Shadow and down the hall while he closed the gym door to slow down the cheerleaders.

Rouge looked back for a second and ran into Silver and Tikal. They all tumbled to the ground in a pile, Rouge on top, Tikal on the bottom.

Silver dumped Rouge in the floor and helped Tikal up.

"Some gentleman you are," Rouge said crossing her arms.

"Only to the girls that are worth it," said Silver.

Tikal giggled and Rouge glared at them.

"We gotta go, you can fight each other later," said Shadow as he ran past them.

They all followed him. Shadow was in the lead with Silver and Rouge a little behind him and Tikal a little behind them.

"What's going on?" asked Rouge.

"I don't know," said Shadow. "But I think it has something to do with those hats, everyone who's wearing one acts like what you saw back there."

"I knew those hats were no good," said Tikal.

Silver and Rouge looked at her.

"They have this antenna thing on them; I mean how dumb is that?"

Silver pondered that. "They must be transmitting some kind of signal."

"I was actually joking, but that does make sense."

"The girls said something about a master," said Rouge. "Could someone be controlling them?"

"So all we have to do is take their hats off, right?" asked Tikal.

"I already tried that," said Shadow. "They seem stuck, like they've latched on."

"So what do we do?" asked Tikal.

"We keep running," said Shadow.

"I can't run forever!"

"We gotta hide!" said Silver. "And fast, before they start gaining on us!"

"We can come up with a plan then, happy?" Shadow said glancing back at Tikal.

Tikal didn't answer she just looked down. How could she be happy when all this was going on?