Dante: Thanks, and really, Aero is being playerish? –glares at self- bad aero. That little bit of the end wasn't part of my idea, but you know, girlfriends at camp, along with everyone else, so I wanted to put something in there. Thanks for the two compliments,

Mithros: Thanks for telling me there was still some brackets, I went back and fixed it -. Thanks so much for being a beta reader. I'm glad that you are so easily amused. And yes, it is a good song.

And to the other 9 of you that read the last chapter, it wouldn't hurt to review you know .

Anyway, TELL YOUR FRIENDS about this story .

Chapter Nine

It was the first day of hiking, and the all of us were excited. Well, everyone but Wolverine, who decided that he'd prefer pool to hiking, making some excuse that nothing was going to happen to them. I think he just really wanted a beer. The hour-long car ride to the visitor center was pretty chaotic; I discovered a new pastime, tickling Ann. It started when Ann was questioning me about last night; it appeared Lauren had told her nothing. She kept poking my shoulder and asking questions, when I just looked at her and poked her in the first available spot, her stomach. She went into massive giggles, and I decided to continue to see how long she could stand it. After a few seconds though, Lauren, who had been avoiding me all morning, and who was staring out the window, whacked me on the head. I looked back at her, but she continued to stare out the window. Ann noticed this and was all the more confused.

When we arrived at the visitor center, I went to a map of hikes that had the actual topography of the mountains. We went into the gift shop in the corner, and naturally everything was overpriced, Scott was talking to the rangers, asking what the really good day hikes were. We didn't have any camping gear, and I doubt Jean and Kitty could stand sleeping in tents. It seemed that they had decided on a hike we were going to do, while I was looking at the posters on the wall. Lauren was sitting on the couch, having a quiet discussion with Ann… if you can call Ann asking questions and Lauren sighing them off a discussion. Scott gathered us all together next to the rented car, a black hummer. Scott and Jean had just noticed Ann's outfit, a white half tank top with a catholic girl type short skirt. We all looked at her in sheer stupidity, and shoved her in the car to change. When she got out, wearing decent shorts and a running shirt, Scott explained the plan.

"Ok, we are going to go on this 8.6 mile hike, to a cliff top, which is around 4.3 miles there, or we could take this longer route that goes by the creek, and it would be around 16 miles long. (I DID THIS HIKE, although maps lie, that was so not 8 miles. YOU LIE SCOTT, ITS SO A 20 MILE HIKE ). Which one guys?" We voted and it was decided that we had no idea. We'd have to backtrack a bit so we would decide then.

The car ride was so uneventful it's not worth mentioning, everyone was checking their bags and staring out the window at the sheer beauty of the Smokies. We reached Clingon's Dome, the highest part in the park. The famous blue mist was astonishing beyond belief; this was truly a natural beauty. Of course, that wasn't the only beauty I was looking at. I kept trying to get Lauren's attention, maybe to explain or apologies for last night, but she was too busy talking to Ann and ignoring me to notice the fact that I had made several waves in-front of her face. The hike to the top was very short, a quarter of a mile I believe, and I almost laughed out loud when I heard some people say they don't think they could do the hike. Of course, I was surprised how steep it actually was; sometimes I even think it was 45 degrees or more. You were breathless after the few first steps. My legs started to burn because I could never stretch them when I walked. The hike was pretty much all of us in silence, nothing really important, besides the beauty of course, is really worth mentioning. That is until IT happened.

(ok, I'm really sorry to all the readers out there, but I'm still a bit noobish at action scenes, I have yet to have one in real life, pacifist kind of, so I'm sorry. I'm getting better I hope )

Scott had taken the lead, and had set a difficult pace for some to match, so as Jean, Scott and I waited for the rest of the hikers to catch up. Suddenly, without any warnings this slimly green, well I really don't WANT to know what it was, but it sure was disgusting, came out of the bushes and hit Scott in the face, and when it went back to the brushes, it dragged something with it. From the reddishness of it, I guessed it was his sunglasses, and a brief beam of red light shot at the bushes, but this wasn't like the beam I had the danger room. This extremely bright, it seemed to take the air from around us and use it to increase its power. There was a yelp, and I saw a toad like creature, only huge for a toad, jumping away, rubbing his bottom. I started to fly after him, but soon discovered that it was nearly impossible to do, the trees were too thick for safe flying. As my arm grazed against one of the trees, I cried out in pain, and didn't notice a branch extending on the branch, which I hit face first.

A rumbling shook the ground, and tried to roll away from this huge mass of something moving towards me. Terror took over and I acted on instinct only. Adrenaline pumping through my system, time seemed to slow down, and I tried to roll out of the way, but it was hopeless. I couldn't breathe fast enough, my eyes felt like they were going to burst out of their sockets. Something that I couldn't feel, nothing seemed to be making sense, pulled me away. Jean had saved me, but her attention was diverted and a flying branch crashed into her stomach, knocking her down to the ground, and she curled up in into a fetal position. I could hear her short, shallow, breaths, and I tried to reach her, but balls of slime stopped me. Shot by Toad, at least I guessed it was toad, Jean had told me about him, and he certainly fit the description, although he didn't smell.

I heard a sort of, well I don't know how to describe it, sort of like a screaming zip, and Toad was hit by one of Scott's normal beams.

"Go and warn the others Aero. And hurry." Scott shouted, and aimed a few beams at the charging massive blob, I almost laughed as I remembered there was someone called the Blob. I shook those thoughts from my head as Scott landed a beam in Blob's face sending him into a greater rage. Seeing that the battle was becoming increasingly hopeless, I realized we needed the others here to help, or at least warn them so they stood a choice against our enemies. I shot down the path as fast as I could, trying to ignore the increasing number of cuts on my arms, the pain in my shoulder, and just kept going forward.

It was a great pain to see the Kitty and Ann were already taking some sort of defensive position, where this seemly living light shot around them. They were in a clearing, it seemed that three people had attacked them. Two were gaining up on Lauren, hoping to finished her quickly and then join this light. One was wearing this kind of hawk like helmet, and his eyes were in the back of his head. The ground began to shake violently, and suddenly this fault ran straight towards Lauren. I did what the first thing that came to my mind, and that was hitting that person as hard as I could to save Lauren. The other one was watching, waiting for an opening to attack. I dove straight for hawk helmet, and crashed right into him, and we both went flying. I crashed into the trees, and the hawk helmet went into a rock. We both were in no shape to continue. I was helpless, no matter how hard I tried to stand, my legs were jelly, and my eyes couldn't focus.

I saw some scattered images; it looked like Lauren was losing to the man. He was wearing a sort of Panda outfit (with you ever saw batman beyond, that sound guys costume) with no helmet. His armor was black and white, with two claws like things at the end. He had his arms pushed out, and some invisible thing shoot out of them making a low pitched thrumming sound, and hit Lauren, who had also managed to send her own air to the man to his knees as well as her. Kitty and Ann had the light pinned down it was a teenager, with silver hair sporting a turquoise outfit. I managed to get to my feet, but the hawk person had also, and this time with a vengeance, directed at me. This time it wasn't a small rumbling, it was bigger, enough to be a small earthquake. I heard the distant roaring of a jet, soaring above us. It was the X-jet. But, I went past us, heading in the direction of Scott and Jean. Kitty and Ann wear leaning on each other for support, but Lauren was losing her balance, and she was close to the edge of the cliff. I ran to get to her but I couldn't balance making it impossible to run. I jumped in the air and flew after her; she reached her hand out towards me. It was so close, I could almost touch it. I grabbed her hand and pulled her towards me wrapping my arms around her, she felt so cold and her eyes looked so helpless I gently landed, but rocks began to fall. The ground itself was breaking into pieces, as hawk man sent wave after wave of tremors after us. Boulders crashed and broke into thousands of pieces. I heard Kurt poofing, saving an unconscious Kitty and Ann, but he didn't notice us and teleported straight back, probably to the X-jet. He didn't come back for us.

"Hold on you two." The Professor told me in my mind.

Its too dangerous for Kurt to teleport in, rocks are falling everywhere. Don't let him sacrifice himself to save us. I tried to send my thoughts to him, but I never found out if they reached him. Lauren was supporting herself on my shoulder, and we began to walk out of this. Panda-person had made some kind of shield, and the boulders were crashing into it, leaving him undamaged. I looked up and saw one coming towards us, but it was deflected. Lauren had managed to make a shield for us, but it was fading even as it started. We began to walk faster, trying to get out of reach of the boulders when our shield failed. One of the rocks hit my head and slowly darkness crept into my vision, poisoning my eyesight, numbing my brain. I hit the ground, and Lauren was practically on top of me. We both were breathing heavily. I felt her chest heave against mine.

"I'm sorry." I said to her, and she made a vain attempt to smile. "About last night too." I started to crawl pulling her with me, determined that no harm would come to her. I managed to get a few inches, before I started to black out. I looked at Lauren for the last time; her hair had red sticky spots on it. Sweat dripped down her face, she looked as exhausted as I did. I rolled us over to get more comfortable, it's the last thing I could do for us. I wrapped my arms around her to protect her.

"Its not your fault." She said, and rested her head on my arm. "I wanted to do it to…" Her voice got horse and then stopped completely. I felt her cough violently, and something warm landed on my hand.

"No, don't die on me Lauren." Slowly a tear, I don't know either from the pain that felt like someone had their hands in my skull and were squeezing my brain, or the thought of dying and losing Lauren. The last sound I heard, or remember hearing, was the sound of helicopters, but they were cut short of the sound of a rocks rolling down the hill. I couldn't bear it anymore, the pain, the emptiness, everything seemed to collapse in me, and I blacked out, for sure that I was about to die.

Oh CLIFFHANGERNESS. . Anyway, please review and tell me how I, well I and then edited by Mithros, did on the action scene. PLEASE, tell me how it sucks, what to do better, and what you like about it. . Thanks a bunch.