Hey everyone!

HAPPY DECEMBER! as well as FRUSTRATING FINALS WEEK! (or before if you are like me. :P)
I am so glad that I wrote all this before hand, because I seriously would not be able to make the time to write a chapter of Identity Ten and all my papers due ON THE DAY OF FINALS...while I study for finals...and while eating and sleeping! I don't understand higher education sometimes...

So, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! :D Don't for get to leave a review! I makes me happy. :D You guys make me happy.

Thanks,

RueLin

Eleven

It was dead quiet, except for the labored breathing of one who had seen too much in his life. But Douglas Becker regretted nothing. Everything was for his ambition and fame, so even when news of Laurie Kabelle's murder found its way to his ears, he didn't go into hiding. Even when he was woken up in the middle of the night by a subtle knocking on his bedroom door, he didn't fear for his life.

"I can see you, or have you forgotten that my eyes can see what lurks in the dark?" he said to the darkness. "Who is that behind you? It can't be the little girl, can it?"

"No," said the familiar voice. "Someone stronger, but she's not as perfect as Alaura."

"You vile man. Are you still doing those experiments?"

"That's none of your concern. But I must ensure you're silence old friend."

"Not an issue." Douglass Becker waved his hands as if swatting away a fly. "I won't say a thing."

"Oh, of that I am sure of."

When morning came followed by the afternoon it was just like any Wednesday for Will Stronghold and his friends. The five of them, he with Layla, Zac with Magenta, and Ethan all jammed on the seat of a round table.

Warren happened to be strolling by when Ethan came rushing past and his backpack knocked Warren's shoulders.

"Oh, sorry dude," he apologized quickly in fear of emerging fire balls.

"It's okay," Warren said calmly. "Be careful next time, Popsicle." And he walked on to his table without another sideways glance.

"Hey, have you guys notice how Warren's changed recently?" Layla pointed out, with the pen she held.

Ethan set his tray of food down. "Yeah, I totally thought that he was going to smoke me back there."

The five of them looked over at the lone wolf that sat at his lonely table.

"It's the girl," Magenta evaluated.

"Yeah, what's her name? Alicia? Allison?"

"Alaura," Layla corrected.

"Huh, I figured it was something weird. That's why my genius mind didn't remember it," Zac joked, pointing at his noggin.

Magenta rolled her eyes. "Why am I still with you? It probably is her. I mean he only every hangs out with her."

"Have you guys seen the way his eyes light up when he sees her?"

"Yeah!" Magenta said enthusiastically. "He actually looks rather cute at those times."

The two girls squealed with excitement.

"Girls," Will muttered while Zac worried over his relationship status on Facebook. "Hey, what do you have there?" Will noticed the large bundle of newspaper on Ethan's tray.

"Oh yea, this, did you guys see?" he said, unfolding the papers.

"Dude, no reads the newspapers anymore, this ain't the Stone Age." Zac sighed.

"Like you read at all," Magenta shot back.

Ethan shook his head. "Anyways, check this out." He opened up to the cover story.

In large, black letters in bold it read: WORLD RENOWN SCIENTIST, DOUGLASS BECKER, DIES AT 47, with a black and grey picture of the man as he accepted his third Nobel Prize.

"There goes another great mind," Layla commented with a whip of her hand and a long sigh.

"You've heard of this guy?" Will asked.

Layla exhaled out of her mouth. "Don't you pay attention at all? We just covered a theory written by this guy. He's a genius psychologist. There was a rumor a couple years back that said he was involved in some mysterious experiments. But there was never any proof to support. Then all of a sudden he just went MIA. No one has ever heard from him until now."

All of a sudden, Warren's voice emerged from behind Ethan. "Say that again."

"Huh, what?" Layla stuttered, taken by surprise.

"What did you just say about that dead guy?" Warren nudged his head forward, toward the paper.

"Douglass Becker, three time Nobel Prize winner, genius psychologist, died just yesterday night," Layla repeated.

"No, no, not that," Warren wave his hand and looked annoyed, but he kept calm. "What did you say about the rumor, something about experiments?"

"Well, nothing like that is written in the paper. It's just something Mrs. Woods brought up in science class. No one knows ifs its true or not if he actually did participate in human experimentation. What about it? Do you think it's true?"

Warren thought before he said anything. "Do you think there's any connection between Becker and Kabelle?"

"You mean Laurie Kabelle, the scientist that was just killed a week ago?" Ethan asked.

"How do you know all this?" Zac asked with a look of unbelief on his face.

"Because I read, genius."

"Yeah, that guy. There was something about how he was into human experimentation also."

"Are you on to something, Warren," Will asked.

Warren looked around and then back at Alaura. With her power she had been able to eavesdrop on their conversation from the center of the cafeteria she and Warren sat together. He caught on, even though he didn't fully understand the look on her face, and came over when he heard about Douglass Becker. He looked around again. There were too many people. Even though no one could possibly hear a thing he would have to say without Alaura's keen sense of sound in that rowdy cafeteria, he wouldn't risk it. It would be very suspicious if Will Stronghold's group all huddled together in a tight circle with Warren and Alaura.

"So," Will prompted. "Do you have anything?"

"I think we are, but this involves those people that attacked our school a few weeks ago, and maybe also Alaura. If you want to hear the rest we'll have to go somewhere…quieter."

There was suddenly a heavy air amongst the cherry group. All of them remembered the destruction those intruders laid out against the school for no apparent reason. Even if the boys still were boys, and the girls still were girls, the group had matured immensely since the time of Royal Pain. They were adults now, and then knew when it was time to get serious.

"Okay, we'll meet out back in five minutes," Will said, getting up and ready to go.

"Yeah, Alaura says the area's clear," Warren commented. "We'll see you there."

"Wait, you heard her from here. She didn't even move her mouth." Will looked behind Warren at Alaura who was no longer at the table, her tray neatly cleaned up, and Warren's backpack was nowhere in sight either.

"I'll explain later. Just get there."

In exactly five minutes Warren and Alaura had made to the green house far out in the school yard. Layla had gone ahead of time and made sure none of her agricultural club members would interrupt the talk.

"There are so many flowers here," Alaura said. "I can smell them all."

"Don't tell me you have super smelling powers also." Warren stood over her, as she sat on a white stone bench.

"I don't think I do. But I want to see their colors," she sighed.

With one arm propped up against the wall to hold him up, Warren rubbed his bottom lips with his finger and thought about how the world looked to her, only black and white, only a map of sounds drawn out in her head. He imagined seeing a world drawn with white lines, like a computer, depicting only dimension without really understanding depth and height, shadows and lights.

"I can show you."

"Oh, but I can't. I made a promise not to look into your head." She angled her head upwards, facing him so that she gave off the impression of really looking at him, even though she could see him without moving a muscle.

"I think we can make an exception when I give you permission," he said as he pushed off the wall and knelt before her. "Go ahead, have a peek, but only at flowers."

"Do you have something you must hide from me? I can look into the deepest parts of the heart and know every dark secret you keep, and you won't even know it." Her eyebrows shot up comically and he thought if her eyes were open there would be a bright glimmer.

A cool, confident smirk stretched across his dark face. "Go ahead and try." But he knew she wouldn't. She would never break her vow. His secrets were safe. His deepest wish would remain unknown to her.

It was subtle, the little tap he felt in the back of his head as she entered his thoughts. It was as if she were knocking the door of his mind before entering. He had felt it back at the cafeteria when she told him about the empty greenhouse and during the fight with Darien when she told him everything was going to be okay, that they would win.

He concentrated on keeping his thoughts on flowers, the bright colors, and dark shadows of the greenhouse. It was a copied power from Victoria, and neither of them was sure of how well she could control it. Even if she didn't mean it, she could tap into another part of his brain if anything slipped.

Just as she saw and everything he saw, he felt everything she felt, the high of seeing color for the first time since she could remember, the awe of the beauty of nature. He never felt such honest feelings before, the sheer joy of seeing color and shape. He felt his eyes sting as tears leaked out of her closed eyes and felt her conscience slide out of his as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Oh sorry," they both heard, and jolted away from each other. Warren looked up and saw that Will and his group had finally arrived. "Are we interrupting a moment?"

Warren cursed in his mind.

"No. You weren't, but that took you long enough." He stood up.

"What were you two doing?" Zac asked and got a sharp elbow to his gut from Magenta.

"You dimwit," she called him. "Sorry, he's an idiot."

"Yeah, I know."

"Okay, before we get anymore distracted," Layla said, taking command. "Let's get on with business. Warren, you said something about those people that attacked the school?"

"Yeah." Warren rubbed the back of his neck with his gloved hand and blew out a breath from his mouth. "Where to start?"

Alaura walked out from behind Warren. "I'll handle it," she said softly.

And suddenly, images started to flash before their eyes, the events of the battle that day with Darien and Victoria. Dialogue and voices entered their heads about experiments, revenge, multiple powers. The images blacked out for a few seconds and opened up again to a one-on-one fight between Darien and Warren. More voices about Laurie Kabelle, experiments on the human brain.

When the flashbacks finally ended, the five of them all had to take a step, or more, back as their minds processed what had just taken place. After the connection was cut off, Alaura felt a wave of nausea, and she leaned on Warren for support. His hands circled around her shoulders as if that was the purpose they were made for.

"What was that?" Zac exclaimed as he blinked away the images that still flashed before his eyes.

"That's the power you got from that Victoria lady, with the red hair," Layla said.

"Yes, it is. Just like those people you saw, fought with, not all my powers are... natural to me. Those people were attacking the school because they thought that there was something here that had to do with our past."

"So wait, you've been a subject of human experimentation?" Layla asked as her brows knotted tightly on her forehead. She, who always promoted peace, couldn't believe the horror.

Alaura hesitated and Warren answered for her. "We don't know for sure. Alaura has no memory before she was six, and those, let's call them the Experimented, say that their memories of that time have also been erased and things are fuzzy for them. The only trait that connects them all together is the multiple, non-heretic, powers."

"And this Darien person thinks that Kabelle and Becker may have something to do with it?" Ethan said.

"Yeah, the one with memory manipulation… what's his name?" Warren asked Alaura.

"Casper?" Magenta suggested.

"Yeah, that one, said that he remembers Kabelle's name being said and his face also. They say it's because his power is memory manipulation that he remembers the most from those fuzzy memories. He's currently working to reverse his power and perhaps remember those suppressed memories."

"But what does this have to with Becker?"

"They are both world renowned psychologists," Ethan answered Zac's question. "I think that Becker also had a power, I don't know what it is though. I don't think Kabelle had a power."

"No, he did. He could see the future," Layla said. "But I don't know what Becker's power was either. I don't think he ever disclosed it to the public. We'll have to research to find out."

"This is so not fair. People can't be treated like this," Will said as he shook his head. "I should tell my dad this. He should know. He'll do something about this."

"No!" Alaura stopped quickly. "You can't, none of you can tell a soul about this, nothing about Kabelle, Becker, the Experimented, or the experiments. From what I see, there is someone out there killing off these scientists. It's impossible for Becker's murder to happen so soon after Kabelle's murder to be merely a coincidence."

"She's right. There are rumors that both scientists were involved in strange experiments and that they suddenly disappeared only to appear again, dead. There is definitely a hunter out there, and until we know more, no one else can know about this," Warren said.

"So what do we do now?"

"Research, delve, but be subtle. If you find anything you think might be a lead, tell the rest of the group. We'll think about this together. The whole world may think that we're still kids, but when we put our heads together we can be heroes."

"Like the time with Royal Pain. Oh, how we saved the day," Will said, leaning back with a soft smile.

Layla patted his shoulder.

"Yeah, but keep your head in the game. Be extremely careful. We're not just being zapped into babies here. We might actually get killed this time."

Everyone let out a breath they all were holding. It's true. This time it was no game, it was for real, with serious dangers, matters of life and death. It was time to be adults.

"Be careful. Don't be overly ambitious. I don't know who is out there looking, but I know he or she is a monster," Alaura said.

Just then the warning bell sounded from the main school building.

"Class is starting," Warren said. "Let's go. Remember this conversation never happened."

PS. One more thing! I know this sounds weird, but check out this video (especially if you love Disney and Pixar):

watch?v=xIYKulZIZfg&list=FLoXGdbY5TOlH2XdV8w5Ne8A&index=1&feature=plpp_video

This was created by two of my friends and I would really appreciate it if you guys give them a bit of support and just watch the video. :D

Thanks. Merry second day of December!

RueLin