He had quietly followed the slowest of the kids into the gym when he stopped, really having no idea whether walking too far into the open would be a death warrent. Maybe I should sneak behind the bleachers . . . Just then Lance wandered into his viewpoint -- apparently in gym the same hour. Oh, even better. Lance was swaggering and looked "in character" enough to start slamming anyone against anything just out of course.

"So . . . Rafael. Surprised you didn't just cut gym." Lance eyed Rafael's muscles with a deragotory sneer. "It won't do you a heck of a lot of good to attend."

"Oh?" Rafael slipped into verbal combat mode instinctively this time. "I'm also surprised to see you. I'd suppose that this credit wouldn't do you any good either with a report card full of N/As, no doubt."

"And how sure are you about that?" Lance took a long step forward. "You assume that because I look like a delinquent, and heck, probably am a delinquent, that I do not have school pride enough to attend classes? I am a Bayville Hawk . . . the hawk is a beautiful animal, with talons for tearin', shreddin', causin' death! I love this school! I put every ounce of spare energy into being a true member of the student body! I love cheerleaders! I think they are the personification of all that is good and pure in the world. My SCHOOL is the symbol of light! I love Bayville!"

About two sentences into Lance's speech, Rafael began to laugh -- maybe it was just because Lance really wasn't trying to be in character at all and that was kind of nice of him. Or maybe not and it really didn't matter. He was really laughing now and Lance with him. "Okay, okay . . . " Rafael gasped, "Give me time to breathe." He looked at Lance with a hint of admiration for the first time. At least he had some sense of humor.

Rogue's rage had rather abruptly died down for no particular reason and smashing the volleyball so hard that all the people on the other team of both genders ran sqealing from its wake was suddenly a lot less fun. She vaguely remembered that wussy little Rafael that had so ticked her off some minutes ago and decided to leave sports and see what he was up to and whether she could knock him down once or twice before class ended.

She wandered around the margins of the gym floor, grey eyes flicking into every recess and shadow until she found him -- what would you know, hanging out with Lance. Figures.

She forced herself into a flirtateous walk and sauntered over to the two boys, pulling her face into a false, toothy smile. "He-ey."

"Uh . . . hi." Rafael said, his half-relaxation stiffening into terror. Her . . .

"Hello." Lance kept his voice confident, although he was a little unsure about the situation himself. Rogue didn't usually act like this -- even when the script demanded it, Rogue kept a professional distance from silly material even as she acted it out. It was almost certain that this "Rogue" was an author construct instead of the real thing -- the real Rogue was probably being chartered elsewhere. Which could make this situation very dangerous.

"Why so stiff?" the Rogue construct said, placing her hands on her hips, "Aren't you happy to see me, Lance? Oh," she looked at Rafael, "what was your name again? I'm Rogue. I was so terribly rude before, I forgot."

Rafael glanced quickly at his feet . . . not as though there was anything wrong with them . . . wait . . . his shoe was untied. As if that mattered at that very moment. Something's wrong . . . "Rafael Don," he said, looking up and seeing the suddenly proffered hand. It was larger than his and gloved in leathered black and he hesistated before accepting it. "Pleased to meet you . . . sorry for the 'uh . . . hi' thing. And, uh . . . everything else."

"No problem, Rafael. It's that time of the month. So, you said you're new?"

Rafael and Lance exchanged nervous glances without even realizing they did it before both turning back to Rogue. "Uh . . . great, and yes, I am new here." Rafael said carefully. "But heck, we all have to be new sometime . . . I just decided 'now' was a good time . . . and so, eh, here I am."

Lance tried not to roll his eyes. For such a so called intellectual, sometimes the kid had no sense at all -- even less sense than his inexperience called for. This was an especially aggressive construct and even more robotic than most. Probably malfunctioning. Cool was called for, not deference. Sometimes you could scare the construct off. "Ah, Rogue, don't let this kid fool you. He may look like some kind of geek, but he's got a hard layer of danger under that skin. Keeps the girls on edge." Rafael glared at him . . . Lance grinned wholeheartedly back, briefly caught in the moment. All that took a matter of milliseconds before they were both facing Rogue again.

"Hard layer of danger, huh? Too bad his body doesn't show it. Too bad it's hidden," Rogue sneered mechanically, placing a heavy hand on Rafael's shoulder.

Rafael swallowed reflexively. "Eh heh, you're very . . . witty." Thanks a lot, Lance.

Lance shrugged helplessly just as the ends of the bleachers nearest them began to twist and warp.

Wanda had entered the gym.

Rogue snarled ferally for no particular reason. "You!"

Wanda ignored her, walking deliberately over to Lance, "Lance, why are you facing this Rogue kid as if she were worthy of notice?"

"Calling me a kid?" Rogue snorted, something she apparently liked to do. "Trying to defend your rough neck boyfriend?"

Lance's hair rose on the back of his neck. Great . . . trouble. Good old female competition. I mean, sheesh, Wanda, I know you better anyway . . . she's just a contruct, I could use your help . . . sheesh. "Rough neck?" Start with the insult. "Now, Rogue, let's get this straight. I am a delinquent, not a rough neck. If I was a rough neck, I would be wearing a cowboy hat and probably dangling a straw from my mouth. I would talk with a Western accent and walk bowlegged. You look at me again and call me by the correct name, okay?"

"She is also not a kid," Rafael said, suddenly having a very vague and ever so slightly mischievious idea. "You see, Wanda, a kid is a young goat. Rogue is a female human in the adolescent stage of development." Out of habit, he began to pace, keeping his eyes in a small arch from Rogue to Lance to Wanda, "This stage of development is noted by overheated emotions particularly toward the opposite gender, as certain teachers in this school will not tell you. In other words, this stage of development is very amusing to watch in action, especially to nerdy scrawny kids who never fit into the interplay anyway." He spread his arms as he reached the end of his exaggerated speech, grinning in the most infuriating manner he could manage. I hope I know what I'm doing . . . I think I used my entire vocabulary right there . . . but even if they can't follow the dialogue, they'll get the grin. And hopefully, their annoyance towards me should pull the tension between themselves. Hopefully they won't kill me as a second option.

"That's really cute, Lance," Rogue sneered (again!), as she abruptly grabbed Rafael's wrist and dragged him toward her. "You're cute, too, skinny boy. Although I think you're talking to compensate for something, you know what." Unfazed by Rafael's stricken expression, she pulled him closer until she could whisper in his ears. Lance couldn't hear . . . she really was whispering, a rare thing in fanfiction, but he could tell by the progressive reddening and then blanching of Rafael's face that whatever she was whispering was . . . She finally shoved Rafael away, back toward Lance and Wanda. Rafael caught himself mid-stagger and looked so firmly at the ground that Lance was sure he was fighting back tears.

Lance exhaled very slowly and looked up at Rogue. "Get out of here. He didn't deserve that."

"Gonna make me, rock head?" Rogue sneered, as if her face was programmed that way, "And he deserved it. Want me to say something to you, too?"

"There's not a thing you could say to me that would make any difference, Rogue. I've heard it all, he hasn't. So, that's enough. We're just about done with this script."

Rogue chewed on her lip, "No, we're not. Hey, Wanda, wanna fight?"

"What?" Lance's question was swallowed by a sudden cacophony behind the wall as a series of water pipes exploded.

Wanda was actually retreating, having the forethought to know that something odd was going on, but hadn't retreated quite fast enough. For no apparent reason, as soon as Rogue challenged her, her power went off madly and something blew up beyond her and just as she ran out the open doors, they swung shut and practically welded themselves together and to the doorjamb, completely airtight.

"That's not . . . " Wanda never finished her sentence. The massive hand of The Author flicked her out of the fic. As an afterthought, she did the same to Rogue . . . one didn't want to write with so many characters for such long stretches of time.

"Oh crap. Crap crap crap," Lance pointed wildly at the water pouring relentlessly into the gym from the walls. We're gonna die . . . you know The Author won't do something logical like have someone outside turn off the flippin' water main."

Rafael had ripped himself out of his stupor immediately after the explosion and was watching the streaming torrents with an air of concentration, which was all very nice, as long as something would come out of it. I could avalanche that wall down easily and the gym wouldn't fill up . . . except, I could also bring the roof down. Or . . . maybe I could just do a little avalanche and hopefully drain something somewhere . . . but my power isn't working! That's not even . . . Lance swallowed, massaged his forehead with his fingertips and shouted, "Rafael -- I think this is going to be up to you!"

"I . . . I think I can hold it off . . . " he called back, "for a bit! But can't you knock down the doors or . . . "

There was a deeper explosion and a huge gush of water enveloped them both and flung them hard against the opposite wall. Lance choked and flailed wildly before finding his bearings among the pain shooting up and down his back and the water pressing so fiercely against his body it was almost impossible to stand. He vaguely heard a few kids screaming and clattering up the bleachers, although there should be more kids and more screaming and clattering and The Author probably didn't care.

"Rafael!"

A loud coughing excuse for a breath to his side was enough of an indication -- Lance shot his hand down in a desperate parody of his grab last night and caught Rafael by the back of his shirt and pressed him against the wall until the smaller mutant had braced himself sufficiently.

"Th-thanks," Rafael gasped, digging into the walls with his nails.

"Don't thank me -- you said you could hold it off -- can you? It's getting bad."

"I d-don't know . . . so m-much."

"And what we need is Jean and I can't do anything. Think The Author will pull a deux ex machina and get us out of this?"

"I'll . . . I'll do it . . . "

He closed his eyes as the water begin to churn around his skinny chest. Lance pressed him harder against the wall with his arm and hoped it would work.

This had been scary at the beginning and was considerably moreso now and Rafael didn't honestly know what to do or whether anything he did do would work. He couldn't even remember what Rogue had hissed in his ear and it would have almost comforting to be able to dwell on that, but he couldn't because it was all vague as if The Author didn't want to explicate it and the water was sucking coldly at his collarbone now, rising at its impossibly fast rate and he did have to do something.

He let himself out of his body into the grid-framework which his mutated brain percieved as not so much time, but the affect of time on everything in concrete reality. He instinctively located the fluctuating bulge in the grid that was the water as it poured from the wall and the bulge below it that was the water as it gathered in the sealed gym. He reached out and pushed against the filiments of the grid around the bulge of the water as it poured from the wall until they seperated and pulled away from the bulge. The bulge stopped fluctuating -- more stagnant than stone. He felt the pressure already building up behind the frozen section of water, felt it in his blood as a harsher, screaming pulsing. Each heartbeat paused ready to spurt out of his skin . . . he knew what was going to happen. Just a little blasted longer . . .

He felt, far off, disconnected, the cut under his chin reopen with an insistent twinge, then the cut under his fingernail . . . the half-healed relics from the first time his power had taken him. A little longer . . . someone will send help . . . The Author can't kill us so early . . .

Something big burst in his arm and Rafael was yanked so quickly back into his body that he retched helplessly blind against the wall. The pressure against his back was harder and someone was trying to talk to him, but he couldn't see and his dizziness was so intense that he suddenly couldn't tell where even the wall was and fainted.

"Raf -- Raf . . . " The water billowed under his feet and rose and Lance was torn away from the wall, only keeping his hold on Rafael by a handful of cloth. He tread water, gasping miserably as he swirled aimlessly in eddy after eddy and it was a second or so before he noticed that Rafael was somewhat less conscious than the average-dude-after-a-collision-with-Rogue. "Rafael!" He quickly pulled the kid closer, tilting back his head. "Breathing? Oh crap."

A long beam of red blew the nearest door open with enough force that the water drew back from it . . . then lunged forward in a roar out the sudden opening, sweeping Lance in its wake. The back of his head ricocheted viciously against the top of the doorjamb and he briefly and violently lost consciousness. When he struggled back into the pain, he was in the hall and the water was draining from under his body, easing him onto the damp tile, suddenly gentle now. Lance shook his head hard, trying unsuccessfully to clear it of the fragments of something lurid and undefined. Raf was draped bonelessly against him. Groggily, Lance shook one of Raf's shoulders . . . only to nearly drop him as a flush of blood welled from the connected arm. "Oh . . . " His voice sounded thick and whiny and things hurt. He sunk up against the wall with a sigh and tried to close his eyes again.

"Lance! You all right? No, stupid question."

"Uh?" Lance glanced up at something tall and indistinct above him, but couldn't spare more than a glance.

"Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah ahhh . . . " that one was Raf's creeling.

"Your friend's throwing up enough water . . . and he's got a huge black gash pouring out of his arm. I think he needs medical attention. You can accompany him to make sure I don't do anything."

"Don't need any help, Scott."

"I know. You never do."

"You're not supposed to be in this fic . . . yet . . . I remember."

"No, I'm not. Long harrowing explanation and I can't be here long . . . here, Rafael, if you're conscious enough? Good -- wrap that around your arm. I know it hurts. Good. I'm gone and quickly -- be careful, Lance."

"Oh, shut up . . . "

"Lance . . . hff, aaaah . . . we've got to leave, too."

Lance finally managed to do more than squint. "Yeah."

It was a slow process -- Lance had never had so much trouble getting up and Rafael was unsteady and

trying to tie the bloodstained jacket tighter around his arm, but they both got up.

And slowly, deliberately, hobbled out of the school.