Well dudes and dudettes, I was over the moon with the response I got to chapter 5, so here's chapter 6 for you, read, comment, enjoy!
Oh, and why is everyone so convinced that Rain and Warren are getting together? Like I said, I'm too sick and twisted to let that happen so easily… ;)
And, a little bit more angst…sorry Infamous Peanut Thief , no "RAWR MOTHER FUCKER GR! I'LL EAT YOU!" but the idea about the angry love… well, I can work with that in later chapters… :P
And to my tall brunette friend… I don't know you, stop stalking me bitch! Ha-ha joking, love you really, I put the next chapter up just for you!
Chapter 6: Screw the Citizen
On Monday morning, I woke up feeling pissed off - Mondays tend to do that to me. I suppose that's why when I went to my wardrobe I decided to dress all in black; black combats, black ripped up tank top on top of a dark turquoise one, (ok, so not all black) black studded belt, and of course Warren's fingerless glove. Adding a chain to my trousers and some dark blue eyeliner and mascara, my look was complete.
At lunch that afternoon, all anyone could talk about was the save the citizen game coming up. It was the first one of the school year (save the citizen never started until half way through October) and everyone was excited. After lunch everyone was filing into the school hall, pushing and shoving others out of the way to get good seats at the front. I followed Layla and the others to empty seats right up at the back.
"People don't realise these seats are the best ones," Zach told me, plonking himself down next to Magenta. "You can see everything from here, whereas at the front, your view is usually blocked by the shredder thingy."
I looked towards the middle of the gym, where a nasty looking device of rotating blades stood directly underneath a wooden dummy hanging from the ceiling.
Once coach Boomer had taken his place in the referee's seat, he called out the names of four students who entered the arena, and began to play.
Save the citizen was a riveting game. It was long enough for people to demonstrate their powers against each other, some of them pulling off amazing stunts, but it was short enough for you not to get bored. After the 5th game, Coach Boomer pointed to me. "Hey you, biker chick at the back!" he called out. I rose slowly, not knowing what to think. "Come on down, little miss hellracer. And your hippy friend!" he waved his hand at Layla, who looked shocked.
"Rain, I can't play save the citizen, my powers…" but she never finished her sentence as she followed me down the stairs to the arena.
We were up against a pretty African girl who I knew had power over air, and a scrawny little kid with glasses, who was a technopath. As the buzzer signalling the beginning of the game rang, the technopath put his arms out towards the shredder, which began to rearrange itself, going higher and higher towards the citizen. I prepared to throw a fireball but it was blown off course by the wind girl, who then launched herself at me, propelling herself through the air with her power. I ducked suddenly just as she was about to grab me, and she went sailing over my shoulder. There was a sickening thud and I whipped round expecting to see Layla hurt, but instead was greeted with the site of the girl crumpled on the floor, apparently unconscious. Layla was staring at her own hands in disbelief, and when I followed her gaze I realized that instead of arms, she had thorny, wooden branch-like things. As we both stared, the wood seemed to dissolve into her normal skin, until her hand looked like normal. I was shocked for a few seconds before regaining my senses and turning in time to see the shredder blades only inches away from the wooden doll. A well aimed fireball hit the technopath right in the chest, knocking him off his feet and sending the rotating blades o the shredder crashing into the ground. A thorny, bushy weed grew from under it, its branches twisting and turning as it grew higher and higher, wrapping itself around the citizen and bringing it back to the ground. I didn't need to turn round, knowing it was Layla who was doing it. When I lifted the 'citizen' off of the floor, the crowd cheered.
Our next battle didn't go quite as well. After Layla was inured by a ball of acid spit, I ran to tend to her as the acid spit boy burnt through the rope holding the wooden doll up, plunging it into the blades of the shredder. The crowd cheered, and a medical team rushed into the arena, just as they had done in our previous battle to help the technopath and the Nigerian girl.
"Nice work," Warren said to me when Layla and I arrived at our seats, about half way through the next battle. "Especially with your arm and all…"
"Stronghold, you're up!" Coach Boomer yelled, then noticed Warren next to him. "Hothead, you too!"
Most of the students in the hall turned to watch as Warren slowly rose up, and he and Will walked down the steps towards the arena. They were up against Jenny, the dark-haired girl who had spoken to me on Thursday, asking me about Warren's glove, who it turned out had wings. From what I'd seen so far, she was a pretty good flyer. Partnered with her was a guy I was fairly sure was related to her, who could form his arms into solid metal objects. His power kind of reminded me of the dude in terminator 2.
When the game began, I found myself holding my breath as the metal guy (I think his name was Blake or something) set upon Warren slicing the air with his arms, Warren dodging his attacks fairly easily, whilst Jenny rose into the air and dived at Will.
A minute into the game, they had switched, and now Will was easily blocking Blake's attacks, and Warren threw fireballs at Jenny as she soared through the air, spinning out of control as one of them hit her wig.
I could totally understand why girls fell for guys playing save the citizen, especially Warren. The way he moved, so smoothly, his black t-shirt clinging to his body underneath his leather jacket as flames erupted from his hands, was so sexy somehow. They way his hair fell in front of his face, and he shook his head to move it, the utter concentration in his eyes as they followed Jenny's movements through the air…
I stood, clapping and cheering when Will propelled Warren through the air, who snatched the citizen and landed the other side of the shredder. They both turned to survey the audience, Will flashing a smile at Layla when he saw her. I heard a sigh near me to my left, which I knew was Layla. Warren caught my eye and held it for a few seconds, a smile playing across his lips. The cheers grew louder (I suspect it was mostly the girls) and I knew it was because Warren smiling was a rare event, although it seemed to happen relatively often in my presence.
Allowed to take a short, 10 minute break, Warren and Will made their way up the stairs and collapsed on the seats between me and Layla, still out of breath. Layla bent to kiss Will, who pulled her down onto his lap.
"Get a room," Warren told them laughing. I stood in front of him, congratulating him on his game, (which was the most spectacular so far out of all the games today) as people in front pushed and jostled to get to him and Will to congratulate them as well. Other people who had played in earlier games were in similar situations across the gym I noticed, right before some-one backed into me, causing me to fall. And guess where I landed… that's right.
On Warren's lap.
I heard couple of girls a few rows in front of me gasp when they saw, and a lot of people turned to look, conversing amongst themselves about what it could mean. I rolled my eyes. There were probably going to be rumours going round about how Warren and I were dating now, or something ridiculous like that.
Remembering I was still on Warren's lap, I turned. "Oh shit, sorry," I exclaimed, but he just laughed.
"You might as well make yourself comfortable, if you try to stand up you'll only get pushed back down again," he told me.
"Strike a pose, people are going to start taking pictures soon!" I said to him grinning. "You're like a celebrity today!"
Sure enough, some-one did actually take a picture on their camera phone. More than one.
A few minutes later, Will and Warren were called back down to the arena for the next game. After another 5 games, they were undefeated. Coach Boomer was obviously looking around for a formidable opponent for them. Normally he would have chosen Speed and Lash at this point (or so Layla told me) but unfortunately, Speed wasn't in.
"Lash and…" Boomer scanned the crowd for some-one who could go up against Will and Warren."
"You, ice girl!" he called, pointing to a pretty blond girl in the front row. It took me a second to realise he was talking about Brittany. My mouth fell open, as did everyone else's in the entire hall, including Warren and Brittany themselves.
Coach Boomer, apparently unaware of the sensational nature of the order he had just given, glared at her. "Well?" he called out. "Hurry up, we haven't got all day!"
Brittany rose slowly, calmly walking into the arena, he eyes not leaving Warrens face.
The sound of the buzzer signalling the beginning of the game was met with an explosion of sound as Warren and Brittany simultaneously fired at each other, Warren's balls off fire and Brittany's balls of ice meeting in midair.
For a few seconds, Lash and Will simply stared – not that I blame them, I mean so did the rest of the school – before Will remembered the purpose of the battle and picked up a distracted Lash, throwing him to the other side of the arena. He grabbed the citizen easily, pulling it from its harness and landing on the other side of the shredder relatively gracefully. It was all over pretty quickly, but it didn't stop there. Warren and Brittany, oblivious to what was going on, were becoming more and more ferocious in their attacks, completely ignoring coach Boomers shouts, ordering them to stop. They seemed to be evenly matched, but I noticed that Warren was in fact pushing Brittany closer and closer to the edge of the arena. When she finally backed into it, with nowhere to go, she raised an icy shield, but Warren burnt through it easily, hitting her square in the chest with a particularly large fireball.
Without thinking, I ran down the steps towards the arena entrance, arriving after Warren had stepped out. Smoke rose from his hands as he walked, and I ran after him.
"Warren, are you ok?" I began, putting my hand on his shoulder. He spun round, jerking away from my hand, his eyes full of fury like I'd never seen in anyone before. The look he gave me radiated so much anger, my legs felt weak as he turned away, and I found it totally understandable as other students got as far out of his path as possible. He continued to the doors of the gym, which burst into flame when he was still metres from them, the fire eating away at the wood abnormally fast. He stepped through the flames and was gone.
"Rain…" Layla put her arm around me. "You ok?"
I turned, blinking back tears. You cry for the stupidest of reasons, I scorned myself.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I told Layla, trying to push the memory of Warren's eyes out of my mind. Why did it mean anything to me? I don't like Warren, and he doesn't like me.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that, I almost laughed out loud.
"Hey Rain," came another voice from my left. It was Gunn. "That was so rude the way Peace just snubbed you,"
I shrugged like I didn't care. "Well, I guess he was pretty pissed off…" we both glanced towards the smouldering doors, the fire being put out by a couple of the older students with water powers.
We stood in conversation for a few minutes longer, discussing the game, Gunn congratulated me in winning my first ever game of save the citizen. I tried really hard to ignore Layla, who was waggling her eyebrows at me from behind him, giving him 'significant' looks. It wasn't hard for me (or anyone else on the face of the earth) to realise what she was getting at.
And of course, after Gunn had gone, Layla came bounding up to me. "He so likes you!"
I laughed, but didn't write off the idea completely. I mean, I liked Gunn. He was good looking, sweet, and could be funny too. And after today… Warren wasn't exactly the kind of guy I tended to go for anyway.