A/N
I know, I know, before any of you start getting onto me about the late update, I'd like to give you all a few valid excuses. First, I'm down a computer. Second, I jut suffered from the worst disinterest I've ever had with writing. The worst of that is over now, I think, so I should be okay. Thirdly, the one computer I do have, has been shared between three people. Every time I had any sort of inspiration, the computer was occupied. I'm sorry, I know I haven't updated in quite awhile, the longest I have never updated, and I hope you'll forgive me. Oh, and this chapter may not be all that up to my usual standard, it took me over a week to write it, so bear with me guys.
"Any idea why he gave us the warning?"
"No."
"Well. Good job, Danny, I'm glad you came to me with this. I'll tell the others. We'll stay here for a few more hours, and then we're leaving. I've been getting creepy vibes from this place ever since I got here." Jean looked out the window. "If it weren't for the fact the others seem so glad to have such a nice place to sleep, I'd be gone by now. Tell me if you get another visit from this guy, alright?"
"Sure." I said, glancing back towards the door, wondering if he'd pop up again.
We were keeping remarkably civil about this. I was surprised.
"I'm going to go back to my room now."
"Alright, but remember, in three hours you'd better pack, because we're moving out."
I nodded and walked out. I stepped carefully over the woodwork, waiting for some piece of the floor to disappear suddenly so I could rain a few expletives over it.
When I got back to my room I crawled into bed and decided to sleep. It wasn't as if I had anything better to do.
I was awake for the next hour and a half before I resigned myself to absolutely no sleep.
I folded my hand under my head and stared at the ceiling. Boring.
I rolled off the bed and wandered over to the window. It was still closed, so I assume that means that my shadowy pursuer hasn't come back. He doesn't seem the type to be overly sneaky, more like brazenly cocky. He would want me to know that he'd been sneaking around, probably because he knew it would annoy me.
The sky was still dark, and lanterns were still burning merrily on the streets. Other than the fact that flowers in the pots next door appeared to be growing without any light, it seemed pretty normal.
I wonder what he meant by being not what they appeared to be? As far as I knew, the people here seemed fairly normal, sans the obvious oddities of taking stories as payment and living in darkness everyday.
But I guess if people live in darkness everyday they tend to get used to it, and don't seem bothered by it anymore. And if one is truly starved for outside life, information is as good a payment as any.
I tapped the sill absentmindedly.
Personally, I think this place can stay a mystery to its own. There are some places that just shouldn't be messed with, especially by a bunch of people that barely know their way around this world.
A sudden knocking at my door caused me to jump. I padded over and opened it, looking right into Rahne's face.
"Jean says we gotta leave."
"Yeah." I went back to pick up my bag and walked out of the room.
"You knew?"
"You could say I had insider information. I though we still had an hour left, though."
"That was before Kitty saw the owner of this place talking to some weirdoes. Jean thinks we should beat it before something goes wrong."
"Good idea. Where is she?"
"Outside. They're waiting for us."
We snuck outside relatively easily, considering the owner was nowhere to be seen, which was odd, I would have thought she was glued to her inn.
Once outside, we met up with the group and started sneaking quietly out of the town.
"Okay, anyone wanna explain now that we're out why we're acting so spy gung ho? I was going to sleep in a bed for the first since I've been kidnapped by people that would make the lollipop guild into all star basketball players!"
"Keep it down, Ray." Mr. McCoy boomed from the front of our group. "We still aren't out of the valley yet."
Ray started grumbling but stayed quiet. We got past the plains with little trouble or noise, and about an hour after we had left we reached the rocky beginnings of a sharp incline that led out of the valley.
"Do you guys hear that?" Rahne hissed. I stopped and listened.
Clanking. Something massive was climbing down the slope.
"Hide!" Jean snapped out.
"Where?" Jubilee asked. She was right, there wasn't a lot of places to hide, and we were on the gray parts of the shadow- the sun was shining over the valley.
This makes me wonder if time was going a little fast. The sun is definitely not in the right position for the space of a few hours.
We all managed to scrunch into a slightly darker shadow that offered us absolutely no cover and made us stick out like a bunch of sore thumbs.
"This is the last time I try to hide in some valley." Kitty grumbled.
"You were born in a valley, you should know all the hiding spaces!" Jubilee quipped while she tried to get lower to the ground.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Kitty whispered back annoyed.
"Will you two be quiet? They'll hear us!" Jean said suddenly.
"Who?"
"Them!" She pointed.
Eight feet tall, covered in spikes, carrying spiked clubs and blank shields…yes, I've see these creatures before.
The massive soldiers, four in a straight line, clanked down the slope. A low whine emitted from one of the ones in the middle, the kind of noise that made me want to cover my ears. But I didn't move.
They didn't even look at us as the walked past. They were heading straight towards the village.
"Oh no." Jean whispered. "They're looking for us. What will they do when they find out we aren't there?"
"Maybe they'll just leave?" Kitty said hopefully.
"Not likely." Crepuscule commented. "They will search the village, and if that means burning it to the ground, they will."
"Oh man, don't tell me we have to fight those things!" Kitty moaned.
"Uh…if we're going to we're going to have to run after them, for all that stuff they have on they move pretty fast." Ray pointed out.
"They seem to be quite single minded for the weaponry they wield. They should have seen us." Mr. McCoy mused.
"Maybe they're just stupid." Kitty said.
"I don't want to be the one that finds out." I muttered.
"What, scared?" Ray asked, and then realized what an incredibly stupid question that was and saved himself from outside abuse by hitting himself in the forehead. "Sorry."
"You all go ahead!" Jean got up and started flying after the small force.
"…Well, you heard her!"
"Jubilee! We have to go after her!"
"Can I ask why?"
"Absolutely not! We can't just let her go sacrifice herself to save people without making an attempt to help! Come on!" Kitty got up and ran after the airborne Jean.
"Fine. Everyone knows if Jean jumps off a bridge everyone else would too. Let's go!" Jubilee ran after them.
After about a half minute, the rest of us barreled out of the hiding spot and ran hot on Jubilee's heels. Jean had already engaged the enemy, with little results.
Very little results. They weren't even flinching. In fact, one of them had begun to swing it's club in circles and was ready to turn her into hamburger. Luckily Kitty ran through him, and in its eagerness to hit Kitty and jean at the same time the club went wide and slammed into the face of one of its pals.
"Hey, let's just let Kitty and Jean make them hit each other! Then nobody will get hurt!" Ray yelled as he used electricity to blast on of the armored creatures in the chest.
However, this seemed to be doing very little overall. They got more danger from each other than any of us, including Crepuscule in his full monster form, trying to knock one of the armed soldiers to the ground.
I tried to catch some attention and be a diversion, but I wasn't doing all that well. The animals here had vacated the area and had slunk off elsewhere, leaving me absolutely no leverage.
"You all are making too much noise." Growled a voice. I ducked down and looked behind me.
There was a crowd of people just standing there, glaring.
Where did they come from? I recognized a few from the town, but they could not have gotten here that fast.
"Now, you'd better leave, or suffer the consequences." The front man sounded deadly serious.
The armored soldiers paid no attention to the villagers, but I grabbed Jubilee, the closest person to me at the time, by the arm and hauled her out of the fight.
"I don't think we want to suffer the consequences." I told her in a low voice.
"What are they gonna do? Grab torches, wave farming equipment at us?"
"That's the kind of thinking that gets mutants like us lynched. Let's get out of here."
/Everybody! Get out of the fight and run, I'm getting bad feelings/
We both looked at each other. The others had already started to run back in the direction we had come from.
"Well, if Jean has bad vibes, then we should run."
"Oh, so my advice isn't good enough?" I said sarcastically as we ran after the others, almost getting cut off by two soldiers as they rushed to block us.
"Geez! These things must be twice as fast as us."
"And yet somehow we still manage to get away…DUCK!" The club of one of the soldiers whistled over the spot our necks used to be.
"I think we should have started to get away sooner." Jubilee yelled into my ear. I was about to holler back when the soldiers stopped going for us, and turned its attention to something else.
/Jubilee, Danny, get out of there NOW. Do NOT look back. Just run./
"I think we need to listen and not argue this time. She doesn't speak in that tone of mind very often." Jubilee whispered to me.
I agreed and we ran past the soldier that was still occupied by whatever it considered dangerous.
None of the other armored creatures tried to attack us, and that got me to put a little more speed on. Whatever stopped them was bound to be a little more dangerous than what we were boasting.
The others barely waited for us to catch up before they started running again. No one was saying anything. They were just running.
A half minute after we left the battle, a horrible sound pierced the air, not unlike the whine the armored creatures made, that made me want to fall down and cover my ears. But I kept going.
We all ran as fast as we could, never speaking, just moving as fast as we could to get out of the valley.
And we didn't look back.
Chrissy: I will admit that it was pretty fun. Now I only have two more days left, and school starts this week. I'm glad you like Dex, and as for who sent him, we'll have to let that one play out. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
PrincessOfWildfire: Thank you, the part was really fun to write. I'm glad you like Dex so much, you'll be seeing more of him as the story progresses and maybe beyond. Anyway, hope you like the chapter!
Raliena: Oh my, one and a half years? That's really long, I haven't even been on here that long, I don't think…anyway, I hope you liked the chapter.
Asteria: I'm sure he will for however long he wants. I hope you like the chapter!
AnonGirl88: Well, I suppose everyone deserves a not so secret admirer once in their lives. I'll do my best to update more frequently!
asp: Glad you think so. Heh, I'm glad Dex was so well received, I was halfway worried about that, but I think it will be okay. Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter!
Herman also apologizes for the late update with me!
