Disclaimer: I do not own Gakuen Alice.
Chapter Seven
Power Plant Problem
The night was chilly, I could feel the cold coming up my feet as Is sat down on the ground. The grass was damp and cold, and I snugged under my jacket. The trees were rustling and the crickets were chirping. The air was still, but there was something in the atmosphere that gave me a chill: not related to the cold. I wondered where Natsume was. Where was he? I grumbled a little as my stomach growled. I hadn't eaten a single thing all morning, and I couldn't sleep either! I checked my watch, it showed 4:34.
"Where are you Natsume!?" I thought, still grumbling under my breath. There was a rustle among the trees and before I knew it, Natsume appeared, drawing away branches as he walked toward me: I was greatly relived but still shocked. Natsume looked at me solemnly as though he carried a great burden and we stared for a moment. the silence was broken:
"I thought we'd be meeting up a the middle of the forest?" Natsume mumbled and I stood up.
"But this is the middle of the forest!" I answered back with as much contempt as I could manage, but ended up in a dumb-founded voice.
"No, this is the end of the forest!" Natsume said, pulling out something from his bag. "Never mind," he said quietly. "have you taken your breakfast yet?" he asked.
"No...," I began. "I haven't any in my bag..."
"You haven't check the left pocket?"
I scurried for my bag then unzipped the left pocket which I thought to be empty but found out there were two long sticks of cream cheese wrapped in cling wrap and a small packet of Japanese crackers. I nearly squealed for delight as I pulled them out. Natsume had done the same but wasn't quite pleased as I was. we sat down and I munched happily as we sat down to eat our break fast, I glanced at Natsume, he looked vivid and vague not caring much about his food. I chewed carefully and swallowed then I asked:
"What's the matter?"
"What?" was his reply.
"I don't know, you don't seem yourself..."
Then the thought hit me, in my hunger I forgot I left Natsume with Sakura. What might have happened last night that made Natsume so vague. I wonder how Mikan was doing, will I ever see her again after we run away? Perhaps it will still be the same, maybe we'd be caught and be thrown back into the Academy. I couldn't bear the thought of Mikan, so i switched the subject into a different thought: though it wasn't any better.
"What shall we do, how do we escape?" I asked Natsume, who shove back his crackers and cheese stick into his bag, apparently he wasn't hungry.
"We will leave before dawn, if we escape now we won't be caught easily. I suppose we should make out escape by air, that we we won't have to climbed over the wall and trigger any alarm system." Natsume stated, hastily. "Come on, summon your eagle so that we may move!"
"But haven't we tried that before?" I said. "We might get caught."
"Not this time, we won't be caught: not when all the security systems are fried and only the underground alarms work at the moment. Make sure your eagle doesn't make a sound for it is sure to rise the suspicions of the of the faculty, and get him on stealth." Natsume said wisely.
"Okay, but what about the barrier above the sky, the force field is sure to work." I pointed out, gravely. Natsume contemplated for a wile and I too, had to mull over that one.
"Right, we'll set it the power plant off first!" Natsume said. "Now we must hurry! We have lost a great deal of time after this little chatter!"
I nodded as a response and I whistled quietly under my breath, summoning my eagle. There wasn't a response for a while, but as always, he came eventually: flapping it's majestic wings and coming swiftly towards us, carefully and quietly. He swept through the horizon and and made it's landing in front of us. He poked me and I stroked it's feathers. We mounted him and carefully, as to not hurt him, I grabbed onto his hind neck. He spread out his wings and stomping one leg on the ground he made enough pressure to take flight and very soon, we were on air. Natsume grabbed onto my back securing his bag with another hand.
The morning was young and a faint, tiny hint of pink and orange glow appeared in the sky and the air was crisp as it pushed against our faces, blowing our hair wildly. The forest seemed to blur below us as we gained speed and the hills sloped higherand higher as we made our way deeper into the forest. natsume explained that the power plant lay somewhere beyond the forest and that it was forbdden for students to enter it.
"We must stay low, and we musn't go too slow...," Natsume said time to time. Finally, he ordered for me to land his eagle down on a slope below and to make a quiet landing.
"Natsume," I began before landing.
"Yeah?" he said.
"What happens to the hospital when we shut down the power system?"
Without even hesitating, Natsume replied, "There are different switches and fuses. They built the power plant in a way that if one switch shall fail, there will be backup."
Apparently, Natsume had out a great deal amount of thinking and I replied a simple, "Oh..."
Without further ado, we landed safely and quietly on a slope close to a small building: which would be the power plant, and we I told the eagle to wait for us and hide until we come out. We walked through the silver beeches and tall evergreens, pushing them aside with much difficulty. I asked Natsume why we hadn't landed directly beside the power plant building and he answered, simply, "It would be too risky."
After a moment's difficulty, we made our way to an open area, and there, standing upright and surrounded by metal fences, stood the power plant building. It was an oval shape from the sky's point of view but on the ground it took a shape of a dome. It was painted white and didn't look very interesting as it sounded. I nearly touched the fence when Natsume took hold of my hand a pointed at the sign I didn't notice a while ago. It read:
"Hazard, Danger!" and below the sign, there was a symbol of lightning and electricity. Perhaps if one was to touch it, he'd be electrocuted or shocked with a nasty current of electricity. From that moment on we had to think a way to get through the fence. I thought may be could use the eagle but Natsume thought of t as a bad
idea so I gave in. We were irresolute for a while until, Natsume suggested that if he burned the fence and made a hole n the middle, we might just be able to jump in safely. But I denied the idea for making flames wasn't a very wise thing to do in the middle of a thick forest, furthermore, we had no water to put it out if anything should happen. Finally we had to agree to use the eagle. I thought this to be quite impertinent of Natsume, but after all, there was no other way.
So once more we mounted the eagle and he took off but we weren't on the air for too long for our destination was only a short way. We thought perhaps some alarm was going to trigger if we landed on the ground so Natsume, to experiment, threw a stone on the ground on the inside of the fenced-area. But no alarm triggered. So we
anded safely inside the forbidden area: it was mossy and the tall grass was damp. The eagle set off back to the place I told him to hide and we made our way into the domed-building. Rogues though we were, we were doing it for a good reason. As we opened an amazingly small door, we found the inside bigger than the way looked like outside.
And in the middle of the room, we saw a large machine full of switches, levers, and control sticks. No body else was in there except for us. Natsume looked round for any hidden cameras that could have been set and checked to see if there were any alarms od the floor, until it was thoroughly safe, we entered. Now that we finally
made it inside, the annual problem now was, which switch should we shut down? But we weren't wondering for long as we spied a lever and below it a small sign read, "Security: Main Entrance."
I checked my watch, and it showed 5:21. Very soon the sun would rise fully and our escape would be a harder if it had done so.
Natsume very carefully pulled down the lever and we continued out. Leaving the dome and I whistled for my eagle. He appeared shortly and we mounted him once more, taking off toward the main entrance of the Alice Academy.
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This fanfiction will be updated soon. Fanfiction by Honey R.K.
