"Oh my goodness…" That was the first thing I muttered, finally out of my trance. Omega looked up from where he was sitting, and said,
"You took a long time to snap out of that trance. What did you see?" I could see the curiosity in his eyes.
"Nothing much, just the tragic tale of three people who were experiments like us." Like I expected, his eyes widened slightly at that piece of info. He whistled.
"Really? Let's go back to the flock though, before you tell us the tale that you call 'nothing much'." I laughed, a weak sound compared with my usual. He helped me up, seeing as my knees were a bit wobbly. After a few seconds, I could stand by myself without falling flat on my butt. I walked to the fire that Iggy had made, and sat down. I wasted no time in making what I saw known.
"It's amazing what a memorial can show you. Did you know that the memorial is dedicated to three experiments?" Max looked at me carefully before answering.
"Yes. Nudge can sense what has happened to something, like who has used it." I nodded, storing that juicy piece info for later speculation. I turned to Nudge.
"Isn't it sad how Slade committed suicide?" She nodded, looking up from the power bars she was demolishing.
"Yeah! But don't you think it's so cute how Bubbles and Marco fell in love? I can totally imagine what their wedding could have been. And it would have been so awesome to see Sally walk down the aisle, and I know she would be there, and Slade would follow after. Do you think that they would have a big ceremony? Probably not, since they didn't know a lot of people." That was when I tuned out. At Itex, I had heard that Nudge was a talker, but goodness gracious! Who knew she could talk so much? But luckily, talking to Nudge is easy. I just had to nod in all the right places, and she would just go on. While I was having my practically one-sided conversation with Nudge, I was simultaneously updating Omega on what I had seen. He was a bit surprised when I told him about the scent-and-memory part, but that quickly wore off.
Do you think I should tell the flock?
It's up to you.
That doesn't help me. But I guess they'll just have to ask. At this point, Angel looked up at me.
"What were you doing before you came down?" Everyone looked at me, and silence reigned through the camp ground. For some time, anyway. Max looked at me, and I could feel the suspicion coming off of her.
"Yeah. You weren't signaling the School, were you?" Wow, Max must be either really brave or stupid. Or both. I laughed.
"If I happened to have signaled, say about a horde of erasers, you wouldn't have been able to do anything. Besides, if I had, they would've been here by now. Those guys are fast, you gotta give em' that. Besides, you could have your smart little Angel read my mind. She was listening to my conversation with Omega though, so she already knows by now. Unless of course she only listened in at the end." I looked at Angel. She nodded.
"I did catch your thoughts at the end. What were you doing?" I grinned. Max had jumped up when I had started talking about erasers, and her suspicion was swamping me.
"Well, if Max wasn't so suspicious, I'd be able to talk." I turned to her. She frowned, but I could feel her mentally tone down her suspicion. I gave a sigh of relief.
"Thanks. You had to be really suspicious to get through my barriers, much more to swamp my senses. But anyways, as you know by now, or at least have guessed, I can sense emotions." I relished in their surprise. It was nice to, once in a while, be surprising.
"At the School, they called me Experiment Empathy, as you saw earlier. Course, my real name isn't that. Before I was kidnapped, my name had been Tanya Watson. But, at the School, I became Experiment Empathy. I'd like it if you just called me Em. Well, long story short, they gave me wings, the ability to sense emotions, and gave me Omega as a partner."
"How do we know for sure that Omega or you aren't going to betray us?" That was Gazzy. He was scared, but was being brave. I liked that.
"You can't. You just have to hope that Omega has enough control to resist the Director, and that I'm being sincere. Just like the both of us have to hope that you're not going to stab a knife in our back while we're asleep." Angel and Nudge looked horrified that we would ever think that they would do that. The older kids were nodding, and Gazzy was putting up a brave face.
"Hey, didn't you say that the School had captured you?" Iggy asked. I looked at him. He was looking right back, and I saw emotion open on his face.
"Yeah. They captured me a year ago, and started their sick experiments. You're looking at an experiment besides Ari who had been experimented on after birth. Lucky me." They looked horrified. I laughed, but it wasn't happy like the others. This was bitter and burdened.
"It's true. They had Tony catch her. It turns out that when you have someone who's going to be an Empath, you need to experiment on them after birth." Omega was stared at. It was the first time he had talked during this conversation, and he had startled them. I gave another grim laugh.
"And you want to know how they know that? Before me, there were at least six other Empaths. All of them either went crazy or never survived past the first week. So guess what? You're looking at the first semi-sane Empath." I felt guilty scaring the younger ones, but they asked for it.
"Semi-sane? So your not completely sane?" Fang asked.
"Course. If I was sane, I wouldn't have to deal with all this. So for future reference, there might be periods of time where I go crazy. Sorry for scaring you, but I'm too tired to hold anything back. Night." I started to get up, but was held back by Gazzy. He was still afraid, but I could feel curiosity also.
"So what were you doing before coming down?" I grinned.
"This place smells like lemons and rancid garbage to me. But the air above isn't any better." With that, I walked over to the tallest tree, and jumped on to the lowest branch. Which, consequentially was 30 feet above the ground. Yay for mutant abilities! Omega joined me. He was worried. I never liked reliving what the School did to me.
Are you okay? He obviously didn't want the flock to hear. But he couldn't help it if Angel was hearing this and telling Max.
As okay as Mr. Fluffikins and his family will be the day you feed them cheese. I heard him chuckle in his mind. His face on the outside was stony, though.
I see you're not giving up on that joke.
Of course not! It's too funny. I give that joke up the day I'm done obsessing with cheese. Mmmmm….. provolone cheese…. Omega grinned. He had told me one day when I was obsessing with cheese that I was obsessed with cheese because of the Empath Shot. I pretty much believe him.
I'll take first watch. I looked at him in surprise.
You still don't trust them?
Of course not. Just as they probably don't trust us. I frowned.
You just don't trust them because they're the flock. The flock that caused the Fall of Itex, and showed that you weren't a perfect Wonder Boy.
Maybe. Maybe not. I can't tell anymore. My mind's in a jumble. The bigger part wants to kill them right now, and the other part is telling me to trust them, because they're fellow experiments and Max didn't kill me at the Fall of Itex. Both parts trust you though, so that's probably why I don't have their blood on my hands. I looked down when I heard the gasp. Angel was looking at Omega with fear.
"There is a reason why you shouldn't read all minds. Sometimes people don't think good things. But you know that, don't you. Just don't worry. I trust you guys right now, and you heard Omega think that both parts of his mind trust me. So sleep well, Angel." Angel walked back to the fire, constantly looking behind her shoulder at Omega. I felt sorry that an eight-year-old had to be worried about getting killed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I was greeted by the smell of smoke in the morning. Bolting awake, I grunted as I fell on the ground. I looked up to see everyone laughing at me, including Omega. Scowling, I got up.
"Just wait till that happens to you!" I grabbed some power bars from Max, and tore into them. I had had a nightmare last night. I had been in a forest, and it had been on fire. Ahkrah, Tony, and the Director had been fighting me, and winning. When I had finally given up hope of winning, the Director had pulled me up, and pushed me into the fire. That was when I had woken up. The smell of smoke in my nostrils had made me think that it had really happened for a second. But I knew that it couldn't be true, because Tony was dead and from what I knew, the Director wasn't an experiment.
I was able to scarf down four power bars before I was satisfied. Omega had only two power bars. When everyone finished, it was time to go. The little ones went first. Then Iggy, Fang, Omega and I, and then Max. I looked at the grove as it turned into a small speck, finally disappearing completely. I felt a strange sense of euphoria watching it go. To burn off the feeling, I started doing loop-de-loops, barrel rolls, and dives.
Of course, my happiness didn't last. It never does. I felt a sudden burst of feelings. My head was pounding, and my nostrils were wide open. I smelled and felt many emotions, mainly anger and blood-lust. I swore. Looking behind us, I was correct in seeing a batch of probably new erasers. The newbie erasers were the worst, they had no control over their inner-wolf and would keep on morphing between states at Itex. These erasers were still newbies, but obviously had little trouble controlling their morphing. Taking a brief second to tell Omega what I was doing, I did a U-turn.
"Hey! Time for some practice, ya newbies!" They bristled, and I grinned. Not slowing down at all, I collided into the closest eraser. The collision was enough to stun me for a few seconds, but the eraser fell from the sky in shock. I punched another eraser in the snout and then slammed it's wings together. Another eraser fell to the Almighty Empathy!
I grunted as I got punched in the gut. I slammed my hands over the ears of the eraser who did me the courtesy of bringing me back down to Earth… or well, back down to the sky. Screaming, it spiraled to the ground.
"Why are you so stupid Em! We're a team!" I snorted as Omega flew next to me.
"You're just jealous that I got here first. No talk now, time to kick some newbie butt." With that, I dove back into the mass of erasers.
Soon after that, the flock joined us. The erasers stood no chance, the poor mongrels. As I was about to finish an eraser though, I heard a whisper.
"Poor little Experiment Empathy. I wonder what it's like to have your enemies resurrected." Turning around slowly after I finished the eraser off, I expected the worst.
And I got it.
AN-I feel like a hypocrite... I never meant to leave you guys for so long and not update, but my muse (who would like to remain unnamed) decided to go on vacation. So when I sat down to write, all that came out was stupid stuff like last chapter... bangs head on wall. Also, I keep on hearing stuff about how your story can get deleted if you answer reviews in the story, is that true? If it is, I'll only answer anonymous reviews on here, and if it isn't... well, I might just do that anyway.
aviator301- Congratulations for being the only one to guess about the trance thing! Cookie for you. And, honestly, that's probably the most stupid thing I've ever done in a fanfic.
unknown-Sorry, but my muse seems to like morbid stuff and hates action, which is really ticking me off... And about the cats, lets just say we haven't seen the last of them...
cratermaker-Don't you just love Lonely Man cats? They're the complete opposite of Lonely Grandma cats. They kicketh major booty!
OhMyGoshsickels- I am truly trying to write in Max style, but it's so hard... I think I'm too used to writing with OCs.They're much more fun to write with, since you can completely control them. But, I just might write a flashback chapter. (hint hint wink wink)
