Hi, guys. I've just decided to revise these first chapters. Don't worry. I'm still writing chapter seven. The changes won't be big. I'm just taking out anything that sounds to Sue or doesn't really help the story move on. Hope you like the changes. Next chap will probably be posted sometime next week. On with the story.
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men Evolution at all, they belong to Marvel and Warner Brothers. I'm making no money off of this. I only own my original characters and story. Do not sue.
About the Fic: This is set sometime after 'Joyride', and the timeline is somewhere in early July. I'm going to try to stick to the original storyline in the series but I probably will end up turning this into an AU (since me even putting in a new character is AU) so please don't hate me if events that happen in the series don't happen in this fic. Enjoy! ;)
After the Fall: Chapter One, "Though Air and Water".
By: LolitaRed.
Rated: PG-13, for brief cursing.
"This is your captain speaking." said a monotone voice over the intercom. " If you'd please look out your windows for a moment, we are starting to pass over the great Lake Michigan, which means we'll be in Milwaukee in about forty-five minutes. Thank you for choosing SilverBird Airlines. I'm Captain Thomas, over and out."
Bethany Bancroft looked out of the small circular window down at the cerulean blue waters peeking from behind the wispy clouds. 'We're almost there. I wonder if Gran will be waiting for us at the airport?' she thought, 'I hope not.'
Beth brushed a lock of dirty, black hair out of her face and stared out with her brown eyes. She was a short, overweight, fourteen-year-old girl from a small town in Kentucky. Her brown skin stood out against her white tank-top, and her big arms jiggled in the turbulence. She wore a pair of torn jeans, and the laces on her hiking boots were left untied.
"Mom, why does Gran fly us out here every summer?" she asked, looking over at the woman sitting next to her.
"I don't know, hun." said the woman, thumbing through her magazine, her ebony eyes darting from side to side as she read a recipe for nutmeg cookies. "I guess she thinks she has to check up on you, or something."
Zelda Cortez Bancroft was a short, thin, Hispanic woman. She wore a royal blue blouse and a short blue skirt. Her shiny black hair was in a messy bun, and the make-up on her thin bird-like face was perfect. She looked like she had just walked off a photo-shoot.
"Why does she care?" Beth asked, one bushy eyebrow raised skeptically. "I hate that bitch and she hates me."
"Bethany! Don't talk like that!" said Mom, her hair falling out of her bun and into her smoldering gaze. "I don't know where you get that language from."
"I get it from you." said Beth in an undertone, crossing her arms under her chest.
She had watched her mother cuss out a cab driver this morning for almost making them miss their flight.
"Listen," said Mom in a softer tone, placing her blue clad arm around her daughter's shoulders. "I know you don't like each other, but she's your grandmother. I'm sure she loves you deep, deep, down inside."
Beth nodded, though not really believing what she said.
"Besides," her mom continued, "I have to put up with her too."
"I guess so." said Beth, "I just hate seeing her."
"I know, hun." said her mother, turning back to her Ladies Home Journal, "But this time we won't have to stay very long."
Beth sighed and continued to look out at the blue sky. She leaned her head against the cool glass.
She didn't know why her grandmother still flew her and her mother out to Wisconsin once a year. It's not like she saw much of them when they were there anyway.
Beth's grandmother, Bernadette, was the owner of a very popular antique store called Cavalier, and was always away somewhere buying new furniture or paintings to sell in her store. But on the rare occasion she was there, Bernadette was an unholy terror.
She would have Beth kneel on her praying stool for hours on end ( which was torture for both Beth's knees and the poor stool) and have her pray to Saint Michael for redemption. She would drag her off to her small Catholic church to talk to the fat, bloodhound-faced priests to see if they would baptize her into their holy communion. Either that or she would make Beth stay outside all day and pull weeds or wash windows.
Beth had to stop thinking about it.
Maybe the anxiety was starting to get to her, because a dull pain was starting to form in her forehead, like her brain was being pushed against her skull, and she could feel the bile churning in her stomach. She was going to throw-up.
"Mom, I have to go to the bathroom."she said as she stood up, ducking below the overhead compartment.
"Okay, sweetheart." said her mother pulling her legs as close to her body as possible to let her daughter through.
"Do you feel okay?" she asked looking up as Beth shimmed past her.
"Yeah, I'll be fine." Beth said as she looked away from her mother's concerned face, and walked up the alle.
The SilverBird wasn't the worst plane in the world. The grey cylindrical ceiling was somewhat low, and all the plush green seats were crammed together like sardines in a tin can. A stifling 'new car' smell hung in the air and only added to her nausea.
Beth continued walking along the stiff gray carpet, glancing at the passengers as she went.
She saw an old man with frizzy white hair, wearing a grey tweed suit, asleep in his chair. His head flopped back onto his shoulders and his mouth hung slightly open. She also passed a little girl in blonde pigtails who was fidgeting in her seat and banging her hands on the white tray in front of her. "Stop that, Priscilla!" said the little girl's very irritated looking mother.
She had just passed the exit hatch on the left side when her headache suddenly got worse.
Gripping the back of an empty seat with sweaty palms to keep herself steady. Her head throbbed as if it had its own pulse. The green seats and grey walls bleared and shifted out of focus. The ground swayed like the deck of a ship. If she didn't get to the bathroom soon, she would throw up on the spot.
Just then the plane seemed to slow and the engines started winding down. Then the plane gave a powerful lurch and stopped moving entirely. Falling to the floor by the force of the lurch, Beth reached out and grabbed the armrest of the empty seat.
The small hairs on the back of her neck stirred. What happened? What's wrong with the plane? The frightened passengers gasped and some of them screamed. The old man in the tweed suit had woken up and was talking to the young man next to him about 'faulty technology'.
Beth was starting to pull herself back up again when a strange hum filled the room followed closely by a horrible, metallic, CRUNCH!. The sound of metal being crushed.
Several people screamed this time and some stood up from their seats. Fear shot up and down her body like an electric current. Planes aren't supposed to make that sound. What's going on? Where's Mom?
Beth looked wildy around at all the passengers. The yellow oxygen masks had sprung out from the overhead compartment and most of the people were putting theirs on. She couldn't see her mother through all the masked people. I have to find her. I have to. This can't be happening. Then her head split open.
The pain was too much. It was like her brain had cracked open her forehead and was pouring out onto the ground, she thought if she opened her eyes she'd see her cerebral cortex squirming on the grey carpet. Her body sank into the rough carpet as the pain coursed through her body. All she wanted was for it to stop.
Then, just as quickly as it had come, the pain vanished. And when she opened her eyes she did see something weird.
A transparent, bubble had appeared around her, encircling her like a mini ozone layer. She could see the people gawking at her, their mouths hung open as she reached her hand out and touched the bubble. It stretched out as she pushed it, but it didn't pop. Beth barely had time to gaze at this, however.
Her stomach collapsed as the plane started moving again. Only this time it was going forward and down, falling at such a rapid speed that Beth had to cling desperately to the empty seat to keep from falling to the front of the plane. They were falling into a nosedive.
They were going to crash.
Forcing her head up to look at the back of the plane, her black hair falling into her face, Beth saw the passengers griping to their green chairs. The yellow oxygen masks were strapped to their faces. They were desperately trying not to fall out of their seats. Where was Mom?
"Bethany!" cried a voice.
Her heart leapt. Looking around, she found her mother clutching to the armrest of her seat. The Ladies Home Journal had fallen to the floor and Beth watched it slide down the slanted alle, and bounce off her bubble.
"Mom!" she screamed so loud she thought her throat might tear. She had to get to her.
Zelda looked up and what Beth saw in her mother's face would haunt her for the rest of her life. Her mother had never looked so afraid before. There was no warmth or humor in her dark eyes, no loving smile on her red lips. Her black hair had fallen out of its bun and was hung wildly around her head.
Beth wanted to get up.
Her mom made to stand up, staggering, still strapped into her seat. She looked as though she was going to throw herself over to her. This couldn't be happening. They couldn't die.
Beth looked around the plane. The little girl in pigtails was screaming into her oxygen mask, her mother holding onto her tight.
"I love you, mom." said Beth. Horror slowly seeped into her mom's face. Beth could tell she was about to say something, but she would never get the chance to hear it.
Just then, before her mother could do anything, the exit hatch flung open sending fierce winds tearing through the plane. The wind knocked some of the oxygen masks off the passengers, and sent papers and suitcases whirling in the air till they flew out the hatch into the sky.
The last thing Beth saw was her mom's hair swirling violently around her face.
Letting go of the seat, the air leaving her lungs, she felt her great big body being sucked out of the plane and shooting through the exit hatch, bubble and all.
Outside of the plane, Beth felt herself spinning and falling. The whole thing had happened in just a few minutes. It was like a dream, only she couldn't wake up. Amazed she was still breathing, hearing only the wind shooting past her, she opened her eyes just enough to see.
Everything was a bright turquoise blue and hazy white clouds. Her bubble was still around her, guarding her like a force-field from the violent air currents. She watched the sky fall up away from her, wondering when she was going to hit the ground.
Turning her head to the side, the air rushing in her ears, she looked down and saw, in the rapidly approaching waters below, the white tail of the SilverBird sticking up in the blue waters.
Her insides turned to ice. Wasn't her mother in that plane? Wasn't she just talking to her a few second ago? She couldn't think about it. She couldn't think about anything anymore.
She knew one thing, though. If the plane hadn't killed her, the waters would.
Still seeing her mother's face and wishing for it all to end, Beth closed her eyes just before she hit the water.
Well, hope I didn't cut too much. While I was revising this chapter, it shocked me how much sap there was in it. I know it had to be dramatic but I think I went a little overboard. I've found, since I started revising, that less is more when writing. Strangely, I think cutting out all that sap made it all the more intense. Maybe it's just me. Review and tell me if I'm right, and it doesn't have to be five reviews, (God, I can't believe I did that!). See you soon. Luv, Lo.