Songs of Power Chapter Eleven
Disclamer: Heather, Lucas, Ben, Sarah, Mia, Ally, all the teachers and anyone else unrecognizable is mine. All others are, predictably, somebody elses. That's why they're recognizable.
Shout-outs:
bant: .:blush:. Thank you! And many thanks as well for your help in ruining the English language...
MuggleBuddy: Feel free to use it! It's just simple root words and suffixes... and I'm a bit of a Phan myself, so I wouldn't grudge you use of my (highly questionable) "genius."
Mattb3671: Thanks! Your story really amused me! I can definitely see it...
iamhollywood: Thank you! As I mentioned before, I believe, Ben (the cold one) is a bit of an evolutionary dead-end. His mutation was something experimental that didn't work; however, that says nothing about his worth and his role in the fic... Oooh, foreshadowing!
And now, the fic:
Heather padded quietly into her room and looked around at the white walls, white curtain, beige carpet, shelf, desk, dresser and bed. Utilitarian and plain. Left on the desk was a note. It read
Heather,
Welcome to the Arizona Academy! I hope you'll enjoy your stay here. Feel free to rearrange and decorate your room however you wish; I can buy paint for you if you want. If you need anything—clothes, other necessities—you will be able to get it in town this weekend along with a small allowance for anything you want to decorate your room with.
Sincerely,
Dr. Gonnal
Putting her small bag on the bed she poked around the room for a while. She peered into the closet, opened the dresser drawers and looked at the desk before doing anything.
She opened her bag, pulling out a spare change of clothes, two books—Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—and a spiral-bound notebook. The books went on the shelf, the clothes in the dresser and the notebook in a desk drawer.
She finished and lay back on the bed for a few minutes before a sharp rap at the door distracted her.
She opened it to find Sarah. "Hey! I'm supposed to bring you to see John. He's the doctor here; he's really nice, I think you'll like him. This way…"
A few minutes' maneuvering of hallway brought them to the med lab, where John was waiting for Heather.
"Hello!" he said. "I'm John; you're Heather, right?"
She nodded shyly.
"Great! If you'll take off that jacket and the shoes I'll weigh you, and then a physical check-up…"
Heather did remove her sweatshirt, revealing two extra pairs of arms, spidery and tri-jointed, two pincer fingers at the ends, covered with the same short fur she had for hair; her first set, the upper-most ones, were mostly normal, but with an extra joint as well. On her neck was another mouth, giving her two, though the one on her throat was different—fanged, with spinnerets (1) beneath and above and fangs. The skin around it darkened to black, hard and armored, almost; the same armoring ran along the tops of all her arms, even the most human upper pair.
To her credit, Sarah only gave a little jump and a muffled gasp. John remained unfazed. "Well, since you have such a physical mutation I'll need to reevaluate your diet; it's quite possible that you have different dietary needs. Do you ever crave weird things?"
"When I was growing my wings I craved a lot of milk," put in Sarah. "I think it was for the calcium… the new bones for my wings and the rebuilding of my old bones; they're hollow so I'm lighter. Wouldn't do to have wings if you're too heavy to get off the ground. Or are scared of heights." At the end her smile was forced and brittle.
"Why don't you go do something else, Sarah?" recommended John.
"Right-o! I'm off."
Elsewhere:
"Todd!" (2) yelled Mia. "Where are you?"
She couldn't quite catch the yelled response. Opening a window she stuck her head out.
"What? I can't hear you!"
"What do you need?" he yelled in response.
"Where's Ally? I need to get my sheet music from her!"
Jono, who was in his room listening to music, heard them.
How in Hell do you manage to be so loud? he demanded, opening the door to his room.
"Choir," said Mia, at a normal tone of voice. "And lots of practice. That's why I need Todd, actually… he's half of our tenors. And I need Ally…"
At that point Todd walked up. "What?" he asked.
"Have you seen Mia and Freddy? I haven't had choir practice in forever…"
"Right. I think Freddy's downstairs somewhere… but where's Ally?"
"Behind you," said a voice, amused. Mia gave a startled gasp and whirled around to see her friend.
"Whoah… don't sneak up on me like that!"
"Serves you right for being loud enough to wake the dead. What were you saying about practice?"
"Well, I think we still need polishing on 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' and 'Carol of the Bells' is just plain fun to sing… that should be enough."
"Great! I really need to stretch out my vocal chords… I'm hideously out of practice!"
I'll be off, then, said Jono, going back into his room.
"Where can we sing?" asked Ally.
"The common area, probably," said Mia. "I'll go get water if Ally'll get music and Todd'll get Freddy…"
"Sounds good," said Todd, leaving.
"Ditto," put in Ally, going into her room to delve through stacks of sheet music.
Mia walked to the kitchen, searching around for a while before finding and filling four (3) water bottles. She went to the common area, where the other people were waiting for her.
"Shall we warm up, then?" she said.
Ten or so minutes later Sabretooth (4) walked in to see the four stretching thoroughly. He stayed to watch, standing unnoticed in the door.
"Dictation!" announced Ally, brushing her red hair out of her eyes as she walked to the piano. "Sing, 'Chester Cheetah chewed a chunk of cheap and chunky cheddar cheese.'"
The other people did, going a bit higher with each rendition until only Ally was singing. As she reached the end of her range she dropped out, so a brief silence fell.
"Why did you stretch before singing?" asked Rogue, who had been reading before the choir came in.
"Stretches out the diaphragm," put in Ally.
"Improves posture," added Mia.
"Keeps you from locking your knees," chimed in Fred.
"And it just loosens you up." Finished Todd.
"Riiiight…" said Rogue. "…knees?"
"When you lock your knees it cuts out the blood flow, and eventually you'll pass out," said Ally. "It happens, when you're standing on risers in choir… One year my choir teacher started out our rehearsal for our first concert by teaching us what to do when a person near you faints."
"Whatever…" muttered Rogue, getting up and leaving. "You know, people in choir didn't scare me until I met you…"
(1) What a spider uses to spin silk.
(2) The bold print within quotation marks indicates a yelled—at full choir volume—conversation. Bold print without quotation marks indicates Jono speaking. Italics merely indicate emphasis, as does underlines and isolated bold print. CAPITALS signify yelling or fortissimo (the absolute loudest the singer can go) songs.
(3) And as this chapter's required alliteration…
(4) If anyone happens to remember his real name, I'd like it if they'd tell me via review… I seem to have temporarily blanked on it.
A/N: Well, I guess I lied. No plot development in this chapter… and the next one is forming friendships (just so the new people start to fit in), but there's going to be plot in the next one, I promise! This really is going somewhere!
