Okay, okay - this is the chapter where the soldiers come ( as if I haven't been saying that enough times) And also - Okay, I live in Chicago, which means that I get free issues of the Onion! Which is the best source of news ever!!!!!!! Even if it's all fake!!!!!! And it made me laugh because they had a whole section about fire safety, and it made me think about our dear friend Mr. Pyro --- the best 'fire safety tip' was : " Remember, the old adage " fight fire with fire" does not apply to non-metaphorical fires." YES!!!!! I love the Onion!!!!!!

Especially the article titled " Christ returns to NBA"

Thanks to all you reviewers!

Chapter 11

*****

Once again, Adrian could not sleep - which wasn't highly unusual. As soon as his body would start to fade to dreams, his natural defenses against noises he could usually block out would drop and he would be bombarded with the simplest of sounds, preventing him from sleeping.

Tonight, however, he could hear a sound that he had never heard before. He lay in his bed, his face screwed up with confusion as he listened.

There were feet - lots of feet, all of them creeping around in the school. He could tell that the owners of those feet were trying as best as they could to walk quietly. At least to Adrian, they could never hope to succeed.

And then there was a sound that he could never have recalled hearing before. It was a metallic sound - the sound of cloth-covered hands gripping metal. Adrian listened, as confused as he could be. And he had thought he had heard every sound there was to hear!

The only thing he could think it even remotely sounded like was -

But that was impossible. Or was it?

A wave of fear passed over Adrian, because there was only one answer that he could come up with to explain the noises that he heard, and that answer made him afraid. Adrian slowly got out of bed and tip toed (which was pointless since he never made a sound) to where Rob was sleeping comfortably in his watery bed. This time, he pulled no jokes. Adrian dipped his hand into the water, and nudged Rob.

Rob woke up, and sat up in his bed. He looked somewhat confused - Adrian NEVER was decent enough to wake him up in a polite way - but tonight, Adrian didn't look right at all. In all honesty, he looked really freaked out.

" What's wrong," Rob said yawning and getting out of bed.

" Shhh!," Adrian whispered in a pleading voice, " They'll hear you."

" Who will?," Rob whispered back as he softly walked across the room and began to pull on his familiar gray hoodie and cargo shorts.

" Can't you hear it?," Adrian asked, whispering so softly even Rob had a hard time hearing him.

" Hear what?," Rob asked back, hoping that Adrian just wasn't pulling a joke on him. But he couldn't have been - he looked near to panic.

" There are people here," Adrian whispered back, " Thirty or forty of them. They're all trying to be quiet."

Rob thought about that for a second - who would come to the school this late at night? Were they other mutants who wanted to find safety in the school from the outside world?

" Rob," Adrian whispered, " I think they have guns."

" What?," Rob asked, " How do you know?"

" I hear them," Adrian explained, " They shake in their hands, I can hear the metal. What else could it be?"

" Have you ever even HEARD a gun before?," Rob asked, replacing the word 'seen' with 'heard.'

" On the TV, sure," Adrian said.

" But you hate the TV," Rob argued - and that was right. Adrian usually did whatever he could do NOT to watch the television. He would always ridicule the noises that he heard on the screen - there was no way that a noise played through that box could ever come close to the beauty of sounds that Adrian heard all around him. To him, television was a joke.

" But I can hear it!," Adrian pleaded. He had to have Rob believe him, because right now he was terribly afraid that something very, VERY bad was just about to happen.

" Okay, fine," Rob finally consented, for this was no time to be arguing, " What do you want to do?"

Adrian didn't say anything, he was listening.

" They stopped," Adrian said, listening as hard as he could, " In the lounge....." Adrian grew quiet as he listened. He didn't utter a single syllable for a few seconds, and Rob grew restless until,

" Oh, god!" Adrian said in a voice loud enough to be considered a shout from him, " They just shot someone! They just shot someone! In the lounge! I heard it, Rob! They just -"

Adrian grew quiet once again, stretching his hearing as far as it would go, for now he heard a new set of noises. Growling, metal punching through skin with a very distinctive shkint! noise, feet trampling, someone falling to the ground, hearts racing, a body thrust against the wall, words, words too overcome by other sounds to be heard, puncturing, flesh torn by metal. A gasp, death. There was death.

Rob had been watching Adrian listening. His eyes darted back and forth, his breath quickened, and his jaw dropped slightly as if he had been watching the whole thing taking place in front of him.

" Someone just died," Adrian whispered finally, looking at Rob with an untold fear. Adrian suddenly snapped his head in the direction of the door.

Rob ran to the door in just a few steps, flung it open as quickly as he could, and looked out into the hallway.

" Hey!," he whispered, reached his hand out, and pulled Brit into the room. She was in just as bad of hysterics as Adrian had been.

" There are soldiers! What are they doing here?," she sobbed, " They're everywhere. They have guns. Logan is killing them. He's killing them all!"

Rob looked helpless at Brit, and then to Adrian. They were both in extreme distress.

" Look," Rob said to Brit, " Just don't look through the walls, okay? Just turn it off."

Brit closed her eyes, mentally telling herself not to see through the walls. She opened her eyes again, and she could see normally - they were enclosed in a room. There was security in that false feeling of surrounding, but she still could not forget what she saw.

" We have to reach the underground tunnels," Brit said quietly, her voice still riddled with the shock she was going through from watching someone - from quite a distance - getting killed.

" Adrian, can you port us out of here?," Rob asked, but he never got an answer.

Just as soon as the question left Rob's lips, an ear shattering scream sliced it's way through the relative quiet. Rob and Brit were double bent, hands over ears - but they could handle it. Adrian winced his way through a few unbearable seconds, but the sound was far too much for him. It knocked him out cold.

And just as soon as it had begun, there was silence.

Rob looked over to Adrian, who was lying inert on the ground. He had been expecting that much - but now was not the time. They needed to escape. He ran over to Adrian's side, and hopelessly tried to shake his friend awake.

" No use," he told Brit, " He's out cold."

"What are we going to do?," Brit asked, still trying to stifle her desperate sobs.

But then, just then, Rob heard something. There were guns. He heard a rally of gun fire, screams, children running. So Adrian had been right. Up until then, there was still no way for him to know for sure what WAS really going on. Up until then, Rob had stayed calm by putting up the defense that Adrian was just hearing things that he couldn't understand - it had happened before. But now, the cruel reality of their situation hurtled through all the barriers he had built to keep himself level headed.

He did not know what to do.

Brit had forgotten what he had asked her to do, and she was looking through the walls again. She pointed at places that would have made sense to her - down at her feet, the far corner of the room, directly through the ceiling above - with a look on her face that clearly showed that she could see SOMETHING.

Then, she turned her attention to a different wall, and her jaw dropped.

" There's a helicopter!," she exclaimed, " They brought a helicopter."

" Okay!," Rob shouted. He felt like he the only sane person left, surrounded by crazy people who were seeing and hearing things that just weren't there.

It was clear that they were going to have to get out of the school. But how? Adrian was down for the count, for the moment at least, and they couldn't exactly wait for him to come to his senses. Rob was standing in a dumbfounded sense of blank answers.

" Look," Rob said, knowing that they had to reach the tunnels before their escape was blocked off, " I'll just carry him."

" They're coming!," Brit suddenly whispered, though she had been pointing the whole time. Rob wheeled around just as the door handle began to turn. He was rooted to the spot - fear completely striking him motionless.

And he watched in utter horror as a flash light illuminated their faces.

The soldier looked into the room, his eyes crossing from Brit to Rob and finally to Adrian laying unmoving on the ground. Several seconds passed, screaming out their implausible length as the room was still with anticipating quiet. Rob wasn't even breathing.

The soldier turned upon his heel and was in the hallway.

" Room's clear, sir," his voice echoed through the hall as Rob heard him walk down to the next room.

He began breathing once again.

" That was close," he whispered to himself, his voice clearly hinting at the fact that his nerves were completely shaken.

" Huh?," Adrian was stirring. Rob and Brit rushed to his side as quietly as they could.

" Hey, are you okay?," Rob asked, and looked over his shoulder at the door - there had been a noise.

" There's a soldier posted outside," Brit whispered back.

" Well, that's the end of the tunnels," Rob said, his plan ruined.

" Are you okay?," Rob whispered once again to Adrian. For an answer, Adrian, kept his eyes shut tightly and held a hand to his head.

" I've got a headache," he whispered back.

" Look, we've got to escape," Rob whispered back, his urgency overcoming any other concern, " Soldiers already came through here, but I can't just keep convincing them that we're not here. Can you teleport?"

Adrian opened one eye and gave Rob a look that he had to be crazy, but he had never heard such an emotion on his friend's voice before.

" Yeah, just give me a second."

Adrian could hardly even get up to his feet without help from Rob and Brit, let alone 'port them anywhere, but time was not on their hands. They were all convinced that any second another soldier would stroll through the door. Brit had to do everything that she could not to cry out in alarm - no matter how hard she told herself not too, she continued to look through the walls.

" They're getting away," she whispered to Rob, " They reached the tunnels." She looked in another direction, squinting her eyes at the distance.

" And Logan, Bobby, Rogue, and John are in the garage," she reported, " They're getting away, too."

" Then we're the only ones left?," Rob asked.

" Shh!," Adrian hushed them, but he had acted too late.

The door was once again opening - the guard posted on the door outside had clearly heard them talking - but this time the door swung open fiercely. Once again, the three teens were overcast with the light from a flashlight.

" Down on the ground!," the soldier shouted. He didn't know why this room had been cleared as empty - the three students just stood there staring back at him, and he raised his sidearm at them. He remembered his orders, use the tranquilizer gun, they wanted the mutants alive. Any second he was going to shoot. Brit reached down and instinctively grabbed Rob's hand in fright. It was her only comfort at that moment. Yet it was too late for Rob to do anything. The soldier clearly wouldn't be fooled if suddenly they all disappeared under his power.

But disappear they did.

The soldier shot, but it was too late. Adrian had lunged forward, grabbing both Brit and Rob and he would have completely the front flip if he hadn't disappeared at the last moment. The three teens hit the ground outside, the grass was cool and wet under their feet, and they were gone again. Rob kept his eyes closed as they were teleported away - he felt a succession of grass and rock and asphalt under his feet, each followed by a moment of nothing.

Finally, they stopped. Adrian was far too exhausted to go on much further. He was double bent over and panting - he still had not recovered from the terrible headache he was having. If he had recovered, surely he would have been able to hear that they were not alone.

None of the teens said nothing at all. All of them were quiet, panting - Brit had never teleported before, and the experience had made her uncomfortably nauseated. Rob was recovering from that brief pang of panic. He had been certain that they were about to be shot. What would have happened to them if the soldiers had taken them?

Rob refused to think about those horrors now. They were safe, they were away from the school. Listening to the quiet around him, he was sure that they were alone. All fear slowly filtered out of his system as it was replaced by a soothing calm.

They had gotten away.

Brit had succumbed to sobs once again. The terror was almost too much for her. Rob looked around at his surroundings, they were on a lonely road surrounded by trees. It resembled the same road that Logan and the others were racing down at that moment - almost too similar.

Rob turned his attention to Brit, and comforted her with a simple, " Are you okay?"

" I was so sure...," she whispered in between her sobs.

" It's okay, we're away now," Rob said, but he was silenced as he looked down at his chest and saw a tiny dot of green. He looked up with terror into the woods. There was nothing. There was absolutely nothing but darkness.

" Lights," a voice said, and all three teens were suddenly flooded with what seemed to be the brightest light mankind had ever built.

Adrian raised to his feet, his hand shielding his eyes from the light, and he attempted to peer beyond the radiance. He could hardly see anything beyond the light, but dully he could hear the sound of people. His ears were still ringing from the earlier onslaught - but it was clear, there were people there. And he was sure that they had guns.

Rob hadn't moved - he was staring down at the green dot on his chest as if he had hypnotized him. After all the drama during one single night, he finally felt defeated. His nerves had been stretched to their limit - and then, his emotions were tested once more.

" Rob?," the voice came through to him as if torn from memory. He didn't even move in response. He looked up into the light that blinded him, but he saw nothing, nothing that could reassure him. That voice, how could that be? It was painfully recognizable.

" Dad?," Rob asked into the light, but that was all the he had asked.

Adrian once again ran up from behind, his mind completely focused upon his task. He reached out his hand to grab Rob - he was so close! - but his stumbled. His feet no longer were quick enough to obey him. Adrian looked down in horror at his exposed chest - he had been shot with a dart.

He had not been fast enough.

And they all were taken.

*************

So, did ya like how things turned out??? Next chappie should be up in a few days!

Please review ; )