I KNOW, I KNOW, this is way late. I know I said it would be done after Harry Potter came out, but a whole bunch of stuff happened between then and now, and I lost my muse for a little while, and I wasn't sure where I wanted this chapter to go and stuff...But it's HERE. I'm in Newfoundland now, so I have tons of time to work on another chapter.I'm actually halfway through the fourth already.

Well, okay, one third. BUT IT'S PRETTY FAR! And since I have no internets (-tear-) to distract me, it's coming along rather speedily. And I'm quite excited for it actually, it's going to be good. But, it's not here yet, and chapter three is! HURRAH

So I suggest you read it before I change my mind and take it back.

Disclaimer: No, they're not mine, please stfu.

Chapter Three is dedicated to: Da - Because you've been my therapist about my parents, and you are disgustingly logical. And I stayed up until 5 AM to RP with you, so you'd damn well better be grateful. Thanks.

Chapter Three: Truth or Dare & the Erastaz Shower

Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.
-Jacques Delille

Another twenty minutes or so later, and the newest group of X-Students had, for the most part, grounded themselves again. Resuming their places around the fire, most, if not all of them looked a little flushed, and a little giggly, with the notable exception of Dimitri and Ariel, although Dimitri looked marginally happier that the festivities had moved ground side again. He had been getting lonely. Angele had taken out her braid, and was now attempting to re-do it, and carry on a conversation with Alianne, sitting two places down from her.

Jack looked around the circle, taking a swig of the beer he had swiped. Boredom was setting in already, and he felt the need to spice things up a little. Sitting around and talking was fun for him for about...10 minutes. Those ten minutes had passed 15 minutes ago. Sighing, he shifted around on the ground a few times, wracking his brain for an idea, for something that would make this all the better...Not that flying before anybody else had thought of it wasn't already pretty good. But still...something...something classic...

"Truth or dare!"

There was silence for a moment or two, before collective clamoring started up, mostly shouts of agreement, laughter, and the sudden retelling of memories from other games of truth or dare from their past lives...Angele sat, partially stunned, while Alianne beside her, laughed and shouted out ideas, before the game could even get started.

"Truth or...dare?" Angele looked around, faintly bewildered. She'd never played the game before, her friends didn't do that back at home. They probably had something similar, but for now, she had no idea what the game was about. Alianne stared at the blonde girl beside her with incredulity, blinking for a few moments.

"Truth or dare...? You've never played?"

Angele shook her head, deft fingers tying off the end of her long braid. She could sit on it, if she really wanted to.

"No..."

Alianne stared at her again, before breaking out into a wide grin. Ohhh, this was going to be fun. A T or D virgin, as it were.

"You'll love it. Basically, somebody starts, and picks somebody else, and the person that they picked has to choose either a truth, or a dare. Either answer a question, any question, truthfully, or do the dare. And there's a chicken clause, so if you opt out of the dare, or the truth, that's you're punishment."

Angele blinked, pushing some of her short bangs out of her face.

"...Sounds dangerous."

Alianne laughed, shrugging.

"It's fun, you'll see."

By this time, the details had been hammered out by just about everyone else around them. It was easily decided that the chicken clause was streaking; when, and where, would be decided at the time. Angele was becoming more and more uneasy about this game; it seemed like it could only ever end in embarrassment. And the last thing she wanted to happen was to find herself in an embarrassing situation. She was quite sure she'd never recover from it, if she got embarrassed, she would never be able to show her face to these people again. Jack spoke up loudly again, his voice taking over the clamor of the small crowd in front of him.

"Who goes first?"

Alianne's hand shot up before anybody else could even think of their first truth question, or dare challenge. Obviously, she came prepared. Sitting up straight, she looked around the circle with a smug grin. Everybody else, although the mood didn't change, shrank back just a little bit. Nobody wanted to be her first victim. Searching the circle again, Alianne's eyes finally landed on Shani, directly across the circle from herself, and her smile turned predatory. Ali was an Truth or Dare expert, and she wasn't about to let anybody forget.

"Shani!"

Shani looked startled, while everybody else visibly relaxed. A moment later, a pinched look crossed Shani's face, regretting the fact that she had to go first.

"Alright, fine." She said, sounding faintly exasperated. Shani didn't have to agree, it wasn't like she really had a choice in the matter either way.

Alianne looked faintly pleased with herself, sitting back on her palms.

"Truth or dare Shani?"

Shani sighed, shrugging.

"...Truth." She said, after a long moment. She grinned cheekily when she caught sight of Alianne's faintly put out expression.

"You're no fun at all. Hmph..." Her face settled into a thinking sort of expression, now that her plans for a dare had been totally trashed. Chickens they were, the lot of them!

"Alright...Shani..." Alianne's slow grin was coming back to her, and with every notch upward it took, Shani looked more and more nervous.

"...How many guys have you kissed?" Shani blinked for a moment, looking at Alianne quizzically. Certainly not the kind of question she had been anticipating. That was almost...mundane.

"Three. You suck Alianne."

Alianne made a face, shrugging.

"It was the best I could come up with on short notice!"

Shani rolled her eyes, gazing around the circle.

"Yeah, yeah, my turn..."

And so it went. Angele watched, partially amused, but mostly in horror at what was going on. She could only hope, and pray that nobody remembered she was here, or that she even existed...This game was fun to watch, but she wasn't exactly jumping up and down for a chance to go next. Picking up a stray water bottle, she tuned out of the conversation for a moment, idly wondering what time it was. Awfully late, no question.

"...Angele!"

Choking on the water in her mouth, she coughed, suddenly alert. Looking to her left, she spotted a grinning silver-skinned Jack, tapping his fingers expectantly.

"Well? Truth or dare angel girl, come on, hurry it up."

Angele slowly turned away, her eyes looking at everyone else, as everyone else was looking expectantly back at her. Oh dear. Oh. Dear. What was she supposed to choose? She really wanted to fit in, and make a cool choice...truth was considered weak, wasn't it? But dare...Dare was going to get her in a lot of trouble. Still...whatever Jack could think of wasn't that bad, it was Alianne that you had to watch out for, she had come up with some doozies.

"Um...dare...?"

She fiddled with a piece of grass nervously, not exactly happy with the look on Jack's face. Angele felt like she had suddenly walked into a trap, and that was not a pleasant feeling in the least.

"I dare you..." Jack gazed around the group, as though thinking. Oh, he already had an idea in mind. A very good one. Angel girl needed to loosen up a little anyways, couldn't hurt, right?

"To...shower with Dimitri!" The smirk on his face couldn't have gotten any bigger.

Angele jerked suddenly, ripping the blade of grass held between her hands in half.

"What?! "

An outbreak of laughter came from all sides of the group, and a cat-call or two. A furious blush raced up Angele's cheeks, covering her face. She wasn't even going to look beside her. Because if Dimitri was laughing, she was going to kill him. Crossing her arms over her chest defensively, she tried to think of a way out of it.

"It's not funny! What are my options?"

Jack looked entirely too amused with this. Ooh, if she could just get her hands on him now...

"Streaking. Through. The teachers dorms."

Oh. My. God. Was he serious? He couldn't be serious. There was no way in hell that he actually expected her to SHOWER with Dimitri. OR go streaking. It wasn't happening! Nuh uh, no way, she had...she had dignity and morals! And a whole bunch of other reasons!

"You can't be serious."

Jack didn't even bother answering her, waving a hand in her general direction. Angele squeaked as she felt herself being pushed upwards, no doubt thanks to the help of some silver plasma. A quick glance to her right confirmed that (an equally shell-shocked looking) Dimitri had been pushed into a standing position alongside her.

"Well, hurry it up."

Angele clenched a fist, all thoughts of propriety forgotten. She really wanted to smack that smug look off Jack's face. He was such an ass, and she had only known him for a few hours. Looking around the circle of eager faces, some of them still shaking with mirth, one or two (Shani's in particular) torn between laughing, and feeling sorry for Angele's plight, she really felt like she had no choice. One little corner of her mind was screaming for acceptance from these people, and...well, if this was the way to do it, then...this was the way to do it. In a sudden turn about, she twisted, seized Dimitri by the wrist, and without a further word, propelled them both out of the clearing and back towards the mansion. God, her parents would have a fit if they knew what was going on...All the more reason to never ever ever ever even hint at this. She would have to remember to warn everybody else, that if they ever brought this sort of thing up again, Angele would be beating their faces in. Humiliation such as this should never be repeated, or mentioned.

"Come on..." She muttered, creeping into the mansions backyard from the forest. Dimitri complied silently, quickly picking up on the fact that if he said anything, he would probably be shouted at. He was torn between being shell shocked at the fact that Jack had included him in a dare like this, and adolescent pleasure at being included in a dare like this. Hormones were a powerful thing. He took a few steps ahead of her, turning himself into liquid as he did so. Looking back before his head collapsed into a puddle, he caught a brief glimpse of Angele's face, masked with fear. She was desperately trying to make like she didn't care that most of her body was in a puddle of water on the ground, because she knew that this was the fastest way inside the building. But still...it was scary. If Dimitri still had a mouth to talk out of, he would've told her something encouraging.

Like he only lost a finger that one time, and he had gotten waaaaay better at this since then.

Well. Maybe it was better he kept his mouth shut.

Angele flicked some invisible dirt off her shoulder, noticing that, once again, she was down another bracelet. She sat down on her bed for a moment, rubbing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. This was stressful, in a bad way. She didn't want to get into any sort of trouble...and she was sure that this would go under the list of things not to spend your time doing in the X-Mansion. Showering with strange boys, that is. Maybe she should've thought this through a little bit more, truth or dare was obviously not a game to be under estimated.

Dimitri, on the other hand, was rather interested in poking around her room. Something that she had the feeling she should be annoyed at, but since all her underwear was still safely packed away inside the suitcase under her bed, it didn't really bother her all that much. Not that there was all that much to look at in her room. She hadn't had anytime to put up pictures, or...anything. Mostly just clothes dumped where ever she thought they should go. Which was anywhere that wasn't the floor. For now, anyways, her room never stayed clean for long, and she didn't see why that should change now. The awkward silence continued for another few minutes, a few glances being exchanged between the pair, Angele on her bed, Dimitri standing...well, where ever he felt like standing at the moment. Apparently, they had the same idea, because they both started speaking at the same time.

"We should probably--"

"You don't have to do--"

Angele blushed, lapsing back into silence. Dimitri cleared his throat, starting his sentence over again.

"You don't have to do the dare if you don't want."

Angele blinked.

"But...then...I thought..."

Dimitri let out another chuckle, looking at her from the corner of his eyes as he inspected a wall.

"You've really never played it before, have you?"

Angele sighed, pulling at a thread from her bedspread. She didn't like it all that much, maybe she'd spend some of the money sent along with her on a new one...

"No. Is it that obvious?"

Dimitri laughed again, and once more, Angele didn't know if she should laugh along, or be rather annoyed at it.

"Pretty much. Doesn't matter, they'll never know. You'll get a reputation as a daredevil, take-no-prisoners chick, and I'll get my rightfully deserved one as a ladies man, and we can pretty much sit up here and eat chips. When I get some that is, does it matter what kind? I'm pretty sure all the good ones are taken, besides dill pickle and plain."

Dimitri made a face, like having to chose between dill pickle and plain flavored chips was the worst possible decision ever, and the simple thought of it was going to give him an ulcer. Angele simply blinked again.

"Um...plain...?"

Dimitri nodded, and with a sly smile in her direction, collapsed into a puddle of water on the floor, despite Angele's audible gasp of surprise. She really wished he'd stop doing that, it freaked her out. Glancing around her room for another moment, she heaved a sigh, and hauled herself off her bed. Well...She couldn't just sit around and wait, she might as well...oh, I don't know, take off her make up, put on pajamas. She was pretty sure that they wouldn't be heading back outside to the fire tonight anyways, which was actually fine with her, because she wasn't looking forward to the teasing that all this was going to garner her tomorrow. Yawning, she tugged the ponytail holder off the end of her braid and let it slowly undo itself as she bent over the sink in the bathroom, scrubbing her makeup off. She pulled a towel over, and patted her face dry, before leaving it on the counter. Bah. It was too late to clean now, she'd do it in the morning...if she ever got up in the morning, that is.

Shedding items of clothing as she went, she pulled open the door to her closet, and rifled around for her pajamas, that she had been sure had been in here. Tapping her foot impatiently against the hardwood floor, Angele frowned. Stupid pajamas, one day and she had already lost them, go figure.

"Alright, so they didn't have any plain, but they did have—woah!"

Angele screeched at the top of her lungs and flung herself into the closet, at the same moment that Dimitri turned around to face the other wall so fast, he probably could've sued her for whiplash.

"Don't you knock?!"

Angele was breathing hard and fast, hidden behind the door of her closet, squashed right into whatever clothes she had hung up already, her wings taking up more room than she could spare.. She was sure her face had never been this red, not even before when she'd been dared. She turned her head to the side to bury her face in her pajamas. Oh, hey, that's where her pajamas were!

Dimitri, on the other hand, was torn between feeling rather proud of himself (Hellooo, half-naked girl! ...If only from behind.) and feeling really embarrassed. And a little bit scared that her screech had woken up half the mansion, and he would be killed once discovered.

"Sorry! I'm sorry! I thought knocking would be too loud, how was I supposed to know?!"

Angele huffed, pulling her long shirt over her head (it didn't have any sleeves, and the back was just right for her wings), and stepping into a comfortable pair of cotton shorts. She was going to have to get heavy duty pajamas for when winter came around, but she hadn't needed them at home. Cold? In Egypt? Yeah, right.

"Yeah...well..."

He did have a point, how could he have known? Although maybe next time, she'd get changed just a little faster. Or better yet, don't risk it at all, and just sleep in her clothes. That would probably be best. She'd keep that in mind. Finally inching the closet door open, she stepped back into the room, doing her best to keep a dignified air about her, as Dimitri hadn't just seen her standing in her underwear from behind. At least she'd been wearing cute underwear, yellow and purple hearts with...

Ahem. Nevermind.

She made her way over to her bed, tucking her wings in carefully behind her. Dimitri was already pulling the bag of chips open, shaking them a little, before offering them over to her first. Ever the consummate gentleman, he was. Angele sighed, folding her legs under her as she sank onto the end of her bed, her wings lazily hanging from her back. She reached into the bag of chips, and pulled out a couple, making a little pile on the bedspread in front of her.

"So..."

Dimitri, who was busily stuffing his face with the chips (All dressed was one of his favourites, that much Angele could gather from the way he was gorging), took a few moments before he answered her.

"...So tell me about yourself."

Angele blinked, popping another chip into her mouth despite looking faintly bewildered.

"About...myself? Like what?"

Dimitri shrugged, taking another handful.

"I don't know, where are you from, how did you get here, what's your favourite colour, and do you want to be my friend?"

Angele gaped at him for another moment, before her eyes narrowed accusingly.

"You stole that from TV, I've heard it before!"

Dimitri laughed, albeit somewhat quieter than he had outside.

"So sue me. But I'm serious, I've never met anybody from Egypt before. Besides staring undead mummies in the face, what do you like to do?"

Angele chewed on a few more chips, buying her some extra time to consider his question totally. It was a loaded one, actually, because what she liked to do, and what she was allowed to do had become very separate things since these...things had sprouted out of her back.

"Well...when I'm at home, I like to read...And watch TV and stuff, listen to music. I used to take dance lessons, when I was younger, but I was absolute rubbish, I just thought the costumes were pretty...Hm...Oh! I liked to play soccer, a lot actually, but I haven't been on a team in..." Angele lapsed into silence for a moment, somewhere between reminiscing, and calculating. "...In a very long time."

Dimitri watched her, crunching (somewhat obnoxiously, in Angele's mind) on a chip for a few moments.

"Soccer? Really? I didn't peg you for the sports playing kind of girl. More like the...shopping and make-over-giving, no offense."

Angele blushed a little, managing a faint grin.

"Well, I like that to." If her extensive wardrobe was any indication. She liked shopping far more than she should've, but she neglected to mention it accidentally-on-purpose. Angele thought it made her sound rather shallow, although she couldn't for the life of her figure out why sounding shallow in front of this boy was such a bad thing.

"What about you? You've practically got my life story on hand, and I don't know anything besides what you told Miss Frost earlier today." Or...yesterday, actually, since it was past midnight, but whatever.

Dimitri shrugged.

"I don't know, not much to tell. I live with my mom a little bit further upstate, and...I like watching sports on TV, and...swimming," He wrinkled his nose in Angele's direction when she started giggling. "Yeah, swimming, but not competitively or anything. I dunno, my existence so far has been pretty dull...Except for coming here of course, this place is awesome." He sounded so excited to be there. Angele watched him curiously.

"How is it awesome?" Angele still hadn't made up her mind about Xaviers. On one hand, she was happy to be here, happy to be around other people who understood exactly what it was like to not fit in. Plus, she got along rather well with Shani and Alianne, and it was always nice to have new friends. On the other hand though...She couldn't help but feel somewhat sequestered from the rest of the world. Hidden away, as it were. And she missed her friends, and especially her parents, she missed them terribly. A fact, that suddenly made her eyes prick with tears, and she turned away, her good mood rapidly deflating. This fact was apparently not lost on Dimitri, who stopped mid-sentence (he had been going on about how awesome Xavier's was) blinking at her, half-wondering if it was something he said.

"You alright?"

Angele wiped at her eyes furiously with the back of her hand. Twice, in one day! It had barely been twenty-four hours since her parents had seen her off at the airport, not even one full day, and she was already bawling about it! Get a grip Angele, don't cry, you'll scare the boy. She nodded, looking back at him with a watery smile.

"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine, sorry, what were you saying?"

Dimitri hardly looked mollified by her rather bad deflection of his question.

"You sure? You don't look alright."

Angele sniffed, the ball of emotions in her stomach shooting up from an orange to a watermelon in the space of a few seconds. She nodded again.

"Yes, I'm fine!" She snapped, trying to deflect the questions again. "I'm perfectly alright, I just miss...I miss my parents, but I'm fine, I'm really fine." This, of course, was not exactly convincing, especially taking into the fact that her voice broke in the middle of her sentence, and more tears were leaking out of the corner of her eyes. Dimitri, who fortunately had the emotional range of not just a teaspoon, but an entire cup, leaned over to her, embracing her in a sort of awkward hug, crushing the chips between them in the process.

"It'll be okay Angele, don't cry..." He sounded faintly pained. Crying girls were quite beyond his realm of expertise, the ladies man though he was. "Please...please don't, you're making me feel bad."

Angele laughed slightly at the pleading note in his voice, leaning back some to disentangle herself from him, wiping her eyes again.

"Sorry...I've just never been so far without my parents, y'know? And I've never slept in a place without them..."

Dimitri nodded wisely. Even if he hadn't known, he was at least smart enough to know that disagreeing would get him nowhere. Glancing around the room, he pulled himself off her bed, and snatched up an extra blanket that had been left on the dresser.

"Tell you what. Since you are, by far, the nicest person I have met here--" Which wasn't a lie, really, everybody else seemed to be rather rude at times, and although Angele had been rude as well, she had apologized for it later, which made it all better really. "--And if you will spare me one of those pillows, I will sleep in here tonight, just to keep you company."

Angele stared at him for a moment, through red-rimmed eyes.

"You're...serious? Won't that get you in trouble?"

Dimitri shrugged, flashing her another grin.

"So what? It won't be the last bit of trouble I get into anyways, what's the worst Miss Frost could do?"

Angele had a feeling that Miss Frost could do a lot worse than he could imagine, but the offer of not being alone, at least for the first night, was more than she could resist. Shifting towards the headboard of her bed, she seized a pillow, throwing it across the room to him.

"Alright, you have yourself a deal. But if you get caught, and in trouble, then don't say I didn't warn you. Because I did."

Dimitri laughed, throwing the pillow onto the floor.

"Yeah, alright."

Angele smiled, wiping her eyes for the last time, throwing back the covers on her bed.

"Alright then..."

She could no longer see Dimitri, being that he had found his spot on the floor, and was currently shifting around, trying to find the most comfortable spot. She waited a few moments, until the shifting stopped.

"All set then?"

Dimitri stretched in an exaggerated manner, putting his hands behind his head.

"Yep. Hit the lights angel-girl."

The lights went out first, and he found himself hit in the face with a stuffed bear next. A muffled voice came from above.

"Don't call me angel-girl."

Angele had stretched out on her bed, her face in her pillow. Lying on her stomach was the only way she could really get to sleep, sleeping on her back was out of the question, and if she slept on her side, sometimes her wings would overbalance, and she'd tumble right onto the floor. She heard a quiet chuckle from the direction of her floor, and rolled her eyes, before closing them again, asleep before she could think of another witty comeback.

Dimitri lay awake on the floor for another few moments, thinking. It was a minute or so before he turned onto his side, pulling the blanket up to his chin, but once he did, he was gone. Thank goodness Angele had fallen asleep first, and was a deep sleeper. She'd never manage it over his snores now.

The sun was bright. Very, very bright. Even for a girl who had worked with light since she was 6. Angele squinted through her (rather fashionable) white rimmed sunglasses as she hurried down the path leading to the mansion pool outside. It was around 12:30 in the afternoon, and the sun was in full swing. Wearing a pale pink bikini top, matching bottoms, a pastel yellow wrap around her waist and absolutely slathered in sunscreen, she couldn't help but smile as she walked along. Sure, she was tired. Staying up late had been a bad idea, and her body hadn't quite adjusted to the jet lag yet, but she was happy. Around 10 that morning, Alianne had knocked on her door, and even though she was nursing a small hangover, had told Angele that in no uncertain terms, she was expected to make an appearance down at the pool sometime that afternoon, or face the consequences. And so, when Angele had finally pulled herself out of bed a half hour later, dragged her lazy ass into the bathroom for a real shower, dried her hair, shoved some toast down her throat, and stepped out into the blinding sunshine, it was already past noon, and she hoped she wasn't late.

Stepping around the corner, she was delighted to be greeted by a chorus of voices. Alianne and Shani even sat up from their places on the lawn chairs, wincing as they did so. Direct sunlight never did bode well for those with headaches the size of Texas. In the pool, Ariel lay stretched out on a pool mattress, while Artie (in a pair of ridiculously over sized sunglasses) lounged about in an alarmingly large inner tube. Vince was sitting on the steps, submerged up to his chest in the cool, clear water of the pool, while Gabriel (who gave Angele a rather cheery wave) who had the same problem as Angele, sat on the edge, dipping only his feet into the blue waters below. Angele sighed wistfully as she caught sight of the pool, dragging over another lawn chair to lay beside Shani and Alianne. Ariel's pool mattress drifted closer to the edge, and all three girls on land made adjustments to include her in their conversation. There were only three members missing from the mini pool party, and nobody seemed to mind much. They'd show up sooner or later, of course, I mean who else were they going to hang out with? Better to stick together like this, in their own little group. It was better like that.

Angele scooped up some salsa from a bowl placed precariously close to the edge of the pool with a nacho, and shoved it rather unceremoniously into her mouth. Stretched out on her stomach, the head of the lawn chair was at the edge of the pool, mirroring Shani and Alianne's. Ariel drifted between them, sometimes close to Shani, sometimes visiting Angele, but more often than not, wherever the damn hell she felt like being. Girls, being girls, kept shooting surreptitious glances over at the guys, who knew that it was safer to stay on this side of the pool, at least for now, and giggling, recounting various tales of anything that they could think of. After laughing herself half to death over Ariel's tale of something to do with a rubber chicken and a lot of whiskey, Angele shifted in her spot, watching the other three girls, rather than contributing. She didn't have that many good stories to tell, and it was so much more fun listening to them trade tales, even though she felt scandalized just listening to some of them. Finally Alianne's eyes came to rest on the blond girl, and she grinned.

"SO Angele...spill the beans. How was he? Was it good? First time, eh?"

Angele blinked, smiling like an idiot, whatever Alianne was trying to get at obviously not dawning on her. She scooped up some more salsa with another nacho, trying her best not to drop any into the pool; she didn't think that Miss Frost would be that pleased if she had to call a pool cleaner.

"The sex, duh."

Angele suddenly had nacho chip in places that no nacho chip should be. Namely, up her nose. Coughing and hacking for a good minute (Nearly knocking the bag of chips into the pool, saved only by the timely intervention of Ariel, and her magic pool mattress) Angele drew in a huge breath, her eyes wide.

"Who told you that I did...that I did that?!" Because whoever did would CERTAINLY be hearing from her lawyers or something. Wasn't it illegal to do that? Wasn't lying about other people bad? Lies! Lies and slander it was!

Alianne, unaware that she had perhaps offended Angele so greatly, shrugged.

"Jack told me. Said he woke up early for somethin', saw Dimitri doing the walk of shame from your bedroom at 6 in the morning--" Angele, in some dim corner of her mind, put two and two together, and figured out that was why he hadn't been there when she woke up. Distinctly relieved, and very annoyed at the same time, she was starting to think it would've been better if he just stayed. "--And heard the whole story, straight from the horses mouth."

Angele turned a rather delicate shade of scarlet, finally cluing Alianne in. She looked rather surprised, and them half ashamed.

"You..." She sighed, rubbing her eyes. "You didn't do it, did you? God, Alianne, such a huge mouth!" She opened one eye, peering at Angele who hadn't said anything, but was rather, breathing very hard again, muttering something darkly under her breath. "I'm so sorry, I told Jack that you didn't seem like that kind of girl, that was more Shani's territory—ow!" That comment had earned her a sharp kick to her shin. "--And he couldn't possibly have heard what he thought he did. But he insisted, so I thought...I thought it'd be okay to ask...Sorry."

It took Angele a few moments to gather her thoughts, looking around at the three faces, which were semi-anxious, waiting for her reaction.

"How...how many people did he tell?"

Alianne glanced around the circle, and then extended her gaze over to the boys on the other side of the pool. She winced slightly, looking back at Angele. Angele blinked, looking over at the other side of the pool, horrified comprehension dawning again.

"Did he tell everybody?!" Her voice rose to near-shriek levels as she stood up. This definitely caught the attention of the small group at the other end of the pool, all of whom looked slightly guilty, as though they had been caught doing something they shouldn't have.

Alianne sighed.

"Well...he—Jack--thought everybody would've known already. The way he told it, Dimitri looked pretty proud of himself, going on about being a "ladies man" and stuff like that."

Angele took to pacing back and forth on the concrete, trying to process this information through the red haze of anger in her mind. How could he?! After he said all that! After he had seemed like such a decent guy. She snorted. This was the furtherest from decent that anybody could get. This was downright despicable, and she was going to see to it that nobody ever fell into Dimitri's stupid little trap ever again. Her face was burning red from the humiliation that everybody seemed to have believed Jack's words. Did she really seem like that? Were her skirts too short? Oh God, maybe she shouldn't have worn a bikini...

She paused as a horribly familiar head came bobbing into view. Dimitri appeared around the corner, dressed in swim trunks, and waving cheerfully to the gang congregated around the pool. He seemed slightly disconcerted when nobody waved back at him, instead gazing at him with a mournful expression, like they were watching a cow walking to slaughter. He had yet to catch sight of Angele and her thunderous expression, standing right behind him.

"Dead man walking." Artie said with a shake of his head. Dimitri just looked plain confused, taking a few steps closer to the pool, just to make sure he had heard right.

"What?" His tone was innocent, but Angele wasn't fooled. Artie just sighed, gesturing for him to turn around. He did so, pleasantly surprised to spot Angele standing right behind him, ignoring for the moment the way her arms were crossed defiantly over her chest, or the way she was looking at him, as if she hoped he'd drop dead right there.

"Oh, hey Angele--" A loud slap reverberated through the air before he could even think of finishing his sentence. He didn't move for a moment, nobody moved for a moment, his head still turned in the direction of the slap, Angele's hand suspended absurdly in the air.

"Don't you ever talk to me again, do you hear me Dimitri Delgado?! Don't EVER talk to me again!" Her voice was nigh hysterical, and Dimitri could only stare at her like she had gone mad. Which, was quite possible, actually.

"Angele, what--?" He was cut off yet again as a pair of small white hands placed themselves against his chest, and with a surprising amount of strength for a girl that hadn't even started her training, shoved him backwards into the pool. He emerged from the surface, more startled than before.

"I said don't talk to me!"

"What the hell is going on?!" Nobody seemed to want to answer him, instead averting their eyes, looking at the ground, the sky, each other...just...not at the scene unfolding in front of them. Angele sent another deadly glare in his direction, before turning around. With a small flourish of her hands, a flare of bright light scooped up her skirt, and the bag of nachos, depositing them into her hands. Without another word to Dimitri, or her captive audience Angele Ritaka stormed off towards the dorms, not even sparing a glance backwards.

Tee hee.

Alright, so I enjoyed writing Angele getting angry much more than I should've. But it was excellent fun, yes yes. This was the longest chapter, by far, being 13 pages in length on Open Office. Once I got into the swing of things, it was rather fun to write. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Read and review dears, read and review.

Until next time (which won't be that long, PROMISE.),

-iKatie