Chapter 21: Attack of the Killer Iguanas
Eleven and Crystal hurry through the thick jungle foliage, trying to try and find out where the person's screams are coming from. They struggle to swat vines, leaves, branches and creepers out their way path while stumbling over roots and rocks; it is clear that the jungle was never meant to be run through, even though someone's life might depend on the speed of the rescuers.
"Which way did it come from?" Eleven asks.
"I don't know, it's so hard to tell," Crystal says. "Trees can disorient sound and make it come from different directions or distances."
The two stop for a moment and attempt to listen. The typical jungle sounds can be heard including birds, bugs, other animals and of course snakes. The all too familiar hissing of these reptiles is one of the most prominent noises surrounding the two girls. Crystal tries not to shudder in disgust, her hands still alit with magic. A weird-looking snake that looked to almost have wings sprouting from its back, slithers past them and disappears into some thick underbrush.
"WHAT THE F***!" a voice calls out.
Eleven is sure that she knows this voice, despite the expletives, but again the jungle makes it difficult to determine where this familiar voice is coming from.
Then Crystal realizes what she's going to have to do.
She lets her special vision take over; something that was unique to only her in magic, it allows her to detect and find other people. It was almost like x-ray vision, only she could see a person's aura or energy surrounding them. She could also see their hearts and was often able to tell who a person truly was based on this skill. This vision came in handy when she first came to Storybrooke and the citizens attempted to hide their true identities from her. She could also sense and detect the magical potential within a person. Usually, this ability fully worked with people from her own realm or who had magical potential, but she could still find a person, it's just that their energy would not be as easily detected or seen.
She inhales and looks around the jungle. To her surprise, the trees, bushes, and plant-life had a faint yellow outline surrounding them, as if they had some sort of magic around them. She doesn't know how this could be possible and she refocuses to try and find this person who is swearing like a sailor, obviously confused and in danger.
The daughter of Rumpelstiltskin begins to walk forward almost in a daze and Eleven attempts to keep up with her. When the younger girl looks in her ally's eyes, she becomes a bit frightened to see that they are glowing blue slightly.
"What...what?"
"It's a special ability I have," Crystal says, continuing to look for the person who had been screaming. "It's kind of like your ability to go into the Void, it helps me find people. It's too complicated to explain at this moment, but basically I'm trying to find this person's energy."
Before Jane can ask any other questions, another round of expletives is heard, and Crystal looks out in the direction of the voice.
She has to squint, but far in the distance. She can see the red glow of the person's heart.
"This way!" she says, grabbing Eleven's hand.
The two begin racing in the direction of the voice, Crystal keeping her vision on to ensure that she does not lose sight of the person.
They stumble through the foliage until the voice is joined by a new range of sounds. It sounds like hissing mixed with snarling, it did not sound normal at all.
As they get closer, the daughter of the Dark One notices that other energy forms are surrounding this person. She isn't sure what they are but their auras seem to shift from purple to black, to white to red, and their shapes are outlined in yellow, the same yellow energy that surrounds the trees and plants. Her heart accelerates as she's never seen this before and she becomes nervous as they race to help this person.
The two finally clear the brush and see a person standing close to a wide-open clearing. It doesn't take the girls long to realize that he's close to the edge of a cliff. Surrounding him are large dark gray creatures that crawl across the dirt towards him, it's if they are herding the human victim towards certain death. The beasts are the ones making the inhumane hissing and snarling.
How can there be a cliff in a greenhouse?! Crystal thinks to herself. She decides not to worry about it later.
The minute she sees the hair, Eleven knows who this is.
Sure enough, Steve Harrington is holding a large broken branch that he continues to swing at the advancing gray animals... if they were even animals, to begin with. His clothes are torn and ripped; his face and hands look badly scratched and bruised, confirming to the girls that he's been through hell already trying to fight off these... whatever they were.
"STEVE!" El calls out.
The guy looks up to see the two people, one he recognizes, and the other he doesn't.
"Eleven?!" he says in shock.
At that moment, one of the gray beasts takes the prey's distraction to attack. It leaps forward unnaturally and seems to claw at Steve's leg. He lets out a scream of pain and attempts to use the branch to beat the thing off. However, another of the creatures leaps at him and bites his arm, the one he was using to beat the other with. He yells out again and is forced to drop his weapon.
"A little telekinesis would be helpful right now!" he shouts. The beast that had clawed his leg was off, but Steve Harrington struggled to get rid of one biting his arm.
Eleven uses her telekinesis to grab the thing and fling it over the cliff but it ends up taking a chunk of Steve's jacket and flesh with it.
Despite this guy's awareness of Eleven's ability, Crystal is unsure of how he would react to her using her magic. This Steve guy was going to need to be healed and she hesitates, wondering what his reaction will be.
Eleven begins lifting the things off the ground and flinging them over the cliff, two at a time, but it wasn't enough. Several of the things were still after Steve, while others were now approaching these new aggressors, snarling and their yellow eyes lasered on them.
It takes a moment for Crystal to realize that these beings are lizards, more specifically iguanas. She'd seen them at the zoo before, but these iguanas were much different from ones she'd seen before. Their claws were longer, their teeth are bigger and sharper to the point of almost protruding from their jaws, their eyes are yellow and are glowing, and they express very aggressive behaviour that was usually not in their nature. When her vision takes over again, she knows that these are the things that are glowing abnormal colours. Their energy is all off, something is wrong with them; they're acting more like the raptors from Jurassic Park than lizards.
Thinking quickly, the elder girl decides to protect Steve by subtly using her magic. With a flick of her fingers, a line of fire begins to form inches in front of the guy. It continues forward in a perfectly straight line until it nearly reaches the nearby trees.
To her relief, the iguanas retreat away from the flames, some of them letting out horrible hissing noises as they got too close and burned themselves. They scatter like rats, some come towards the girls, while others retreat into the jungle. Eleven takes advantage of the approaching lizards and uses her abilities to throw them as far as she can.
Unfortunately, Crystal's seemingly well thought out plan came to an abrupt halt when Steve, frightened by the sudden appearance of the fire steps back to far and vanishes over the ledge.
"STEVE!" Eleven shrieks.
Crystal extinguishes the flames and races towards the edge of the cliff. She's afraid of what she might see. She doesn't want to see his twisted and mangled body at the bottom, but if he had survived the fall, there was still hope that she could heal him.
She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees Steve holding onto the edge of the cliff. He's struggling to keep his grip and Crystal knows she has to act now.
She immediately reaches down and grabs his wrists firmly.
"I've got you," she says, before using all her strength to pull him up back over the ledge.
The boy with well-gelled hair tries to help his apparent rescuer by trying to find grip with his feet and climb upwards. Eventually, he succeeds in helping her and he breathes in relief when he's finally back on solid ground. His heart is pounding in his chest and he feels pretty shaky after nearly plummeting to his death; here he thought having to face the Russians or the Mind Flayer was the scariest thing he'd ever done in his life. Maybe falling off a cliff would make his top five scariest ways that he'd almost died. However, when he attempts to stand up, he trips over the girl's feet and lands on top of her.
Crystal ends up on her back, gazing up at this guy. While she grimaces in pain from his whole body practically using her as an airbag, she immediately becomes lost in his brown eyes. Her breath catches in her throat and her heart races. Her face feels flushed as their faces are within inches of touching. Despite him being battered and bloody, he is extremely attractive.
Eventually, she snaps out of it. "Are… are you okay?" she finally manages to ask him.
"Uh yeah… and you?"
"I would prefer if your knee wasn't digging into my stomach, but other than that, I'm on top of the world."
Steve is surprised by the girl's sarcasm but still finds it amusing. He smiles.
"Sorry," he says, doing his best to get off of her without hurting her further. Once he's off, he puts his head between his knees, trying to calm himself down a bit after another near-death experience. He tries to collect his thoughts as none of what was happening seemed real. This place, the lizards, the fire... none of it was logical. When he looks up, he sees Eleven walking towards them, having taken care of the rest of the little monsters. He sees the familiar stream of blood coming from her nose... at least not everything was completely f***ed up.
The younger girl smiles at him, happy that he was safe.
He then turns his attention back to the girl who saved him.
"And you are?"
"I'm Crystal… Crystal Miller."
"I'm Steve. Where the hell did you come from?"
"Would you believe a place called Storybrooke, Maine?"
A/N: Please follow and review.