The Dragon Tamer: Spellbound
(PG-13 for swearing and suggestive actions and words. This is Part II in The Dragon Tamer series. I think most of you know as well as I do that I don't own X-Men or the characters (except the ones I make up, you should be able to tell who those are.) Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Life Goes On
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John put his arm around her and pushed her under the water, laughing. She came back up with a grin and playfully spat water onto his face. He laughed some more and they headed towards shore, where Magneto and Mystique seemed to suddenly appear. Amanda drew back and tried to go in the water, but John had her by the arm.
"John, let go! Come on, we have to get out of here! John?"
Before her eyes John's expression changed from serene to extremely. She immediately tried to push away from him, but he held firm. What was happening here? Out of nowhere she felt intense pain, and there seemed to be bells ringing loudly in her ears. Her fear grew as the water directly around her turned a dark shade of red.
Blood red.
Fearing what she might see, she looked down to see some sort of knife embedded in into her lower abdomen. John's hand was on the opposite end of the knife. Mystique and Magneto started laughing, enjoying the cruelty their apprentice was afflicting on her. The last thing she saw before blacking out was the shadow passing over John's face as she fell back into the water.
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The clock on the wall chimed 1:00 A.M. as Amanda Orlan sat straight up in bed. Her face was flushed and she was sweating enough to fill a large wading pool. She breathed heavily and quickly, but as silently as she could. After all, she knew Rogue was still sleeping. Amanda slowly crawled out of bed and headed down the hall to the restroom. 'Why do I keep dreaming about stuff like that?' Her heart pounded against her rib cage as she splashed water across her face.
It had been ten months and some odd days since Amanda last saw John. 'But whose counting?' She mused to herself. These dreams were recurring about twice a week, and she wasn't sure what they meant. "What's happening...?" Her voice, soft as it was, bounced off the walls and came back at her. Taunting her. She had thought several times about telling the professor, even though he probably already suspected something was up with her. Amanda barely ever wanted to do anything with her friends anymore, as she could barely think about anything but John and these dreams. Her grades were suffering, but not as much as one would think. They went from B range to C range, not too shabby. "I've gotta stop doing this to myself. After all, what would Evan say if he knew that I was still thinking about John?"
The name made Amanda frown. Evan. For the past month and a half she had been dating Evan Hope. It wasn't much of a relationship; she didn't feel much for him. And she knew he didn't feel much for her either. As a matter of fact, she was pretty sure he was only dating her to get attention. She had become somewhat of a celebrity around the mansion, along with Sarah. After all, her boyfriend had been caught sleeping with Sarah. Apparently everyone thought this was the most exciting thing ever, next to the raid.
Really, the only reason she had said yes to Evan was because everyone was telling Amanda she needed to move on. She was constantly hearing, "It's not like you two were married or something." and "You dated for less than a month, he can't have meant THAT much to you." So when Evan asked her out for the seventh time she said ok. With a hopeless sigh she toweled her face off and stalked silently back to her dorm. This was going to be a long night.
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John fiddled with his new lighter. It was better than his last one, although they looked the exact same in appearance, this one had been messed with so the flame rose up to an inch and a half. As always, he was opening the lid and flicking it closed, making the familiar sound of metal hitting metal. Magneto had gone off to get a new 'friend'. Apparently there was a teenage mutant that caught the media's eye, so the old man figured he would get the creep to join his little 'brotherhood'. Magneto honestly thought he was going to get powerful enough to completely overrule the X-Men eventually. 'Yeah, and I'll be rescued by Mighty Mouse any day now...'
John sighed. It wasn't like he was being held here against his will. He HAD come back on his own, but it was for the good of the others. They were much safer without him there. A soft breeze flew through the cracked window and made his hair brush against his face. Causing him to turn and look out the glass. 'I wonder what everyone's up to?' It had been way too long since he last saw his friends, and part of him was still praying they would come get him and take him back home. But the rest of him knew that was a childish dream. After all, as far as they knew he was perfectly happy here without them. But they would be wrong to assume that.
He had come close to asking Magneto, on more than one occasion, if he could visit them. But he knew what would happen if he did. He would go back, get caught up in their world, end up staying, and Magneto would come and ruin their lives again. He couldn't risk doing that again, even if it had been fun for a while. Pyro laughed, thinking about the lake, the way they had scared the girls half to death. Then there had been the dance... god, that night couldn't have been more perfect. Heaving a soft sigh he let himself fall onto his bed, hoping he could fall asleep.
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