Alright, so this one is kind of short. Mostly because it is the "filler chapter" which takes you from Point A to Point B in order to reach Destination C. Without it, the important part wouldn't make sense. So it has to exist.
*sigh*
Anywho, disclaimer is on the first chapter. But let me tell you, if I owned this crap, I would not be working at my local Sonic Drive-In.
Just saying.
I would like to give a shout out and say thank you to Paradox Predator, who followed this story, and to Iris-Stephenie, who favorited it.
You know how in the movies or television, when you watch scenes where someone decides to shoot the place up, it's usually in slow motion so that you can see what the main characters are doing without having to strain yourself. They want to show you exactly how they get their weapon, what hand they reach with, how they protect the damsel in distress, and so on. The drag it out to the extreme. That's what the world wants to see, so the movies show it.
The movies lie. They really, really lie.
It wasn't anything like that. Gunfire erupted in my eardrums as my voice faded, and my ears began to ring with the backlash. Something exploded, and for my own sanity I didn't dare contemplate what exactly the the villain had shot. If I did, I was going to completely lose it. Already I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I could feel myself shaking.
People screamed around me, and I am immediately begin to panic. With everything going on in my background, I can no longer be certain of exactly what is happening, or where I am. All my senses are being attacked, and everything is magnified. Sound, smell. I can hear people shouting, I can smell the gunpowder over the scent of the sweets in the shop. In my desperation for something to focus on, I latched onto Piotr's arm.
He pulled us both to the ground as more shots ring out, and I knew that the gunman hit some of the equipment due to the sound of splattering liquid, the slight temperature change, and the smell of chocolate that suddenly hit me. I stared to struggle against Piotr, because the confining feeling of his arms made me feel helpless and did absolutely nothing to stop my impending panic attack.
People shouted and screamed. Alarms went off, and there were footsteps and voices everywhere. The faint sound of sirens told me that someone managed to call the police in all this madness. Strangely enough, through the fog that I was in I realized that the man causing all this havoc was giving no reason for it. He was not making demands, or threatening to hurt people. He was just...standing there. I couldn't detect any movement from the area he had been in. It was creepy.
I could hardly hear anything clearly. But I could hear Logan dogging bullets, Storm attempting to protect some people who have huddled together in the corner...I guess Mr. Gunman brought some friends, he had to of with this commotion....And loudest of all, I could hear Piotr's heartbeat from where I am pressed into his chest. Desperate for something to focus on, I stopped struggling and listened to it. I let the rhythm dominate and overpower everything else, and slowly, I calmed down. His pulse was all I could feel beneath my fingers, but soon, that small comfort is gone.
The feeling of flesh and bones is replaced by cold hard steel, and his weight increased on me, although he did quickly lift himself off of me to prevent another near-death by suffocation. So, that's what his mutant power is. He can turn himself into a giant, metal man. Or rather, turn his skin into metal. I shivered from the feeling of it.
"Лежать!" he hissed at me. Stay down. Really?
"Я что, похож я движущихся?" Seriously, does it look like I'm going anywhere? I'm so tiny compared to the man on top of me that I bet I couldn't even get him to move his arm using what little strength I have.
His weight is gone from me a second later, and suddenly I heard tinny metallic pings! as the bullets hit his...armor? body? I'm not sure what to call it. Whatever it is, the people who are attacking the shop clearly think that he is a big (pun intended) threat and are determined to take him out.
I stretched out my arm and my hand hits a table in front of me, under which I quickly slid as I tried to ignore all the background noise now that my filter is gone.
And oooooh, how I miss it.
Wait, what?
Bad Kitty!
"YOU WANT ME? COME AND GET ME BUB!"
Logan sounded angry. And if I was hearing things correctly, which I should be, he's pretty good at taking the bad guys out. That's the third thump I've heard coming from his direction, although I am pretty sure the first was him getting slammed against the wall. Who knows?
Storm clearly didn't need any assistance whatsoever, because I could feel her power crackling from all the way across the room. It's almost like electricity, and it practically has substance. And Piotr was a giant metal man. That needed no help at all. He wasn't hardly even doing anything. Just like the rest of them.
One thing is clear about this odd trio of companions that I have somehow ended up with. They're holding back, and I don't know why. The power the surrounds Storm is so great that I can nearly touch it, and yet she hasn't unleashed it on these madmen. Piotr could take them all out in seconds without breaking a sweat-Can he sweat in metal?-and no doubt so could Logan, but they didn't. They pulled their punches, kept themselves from attacking at full strength and it confused me. If I were in their position, I would go berserk.
And how many people would get caught in the crossfire? How many people would get hurt while you're trying to play hero?
I hate it when my conscience is smarter than I am. Which is most of the time. This is one of the few times I listened to it. For more than five seconds.
"No, no, please! Let her go!" the female voice is so full of desperation and fear, I became terrified myself.
"Mommy! Mommy!"
If they had been anywhere else I wouldn't have heard the young woman and her child over the commotion. But they were right next to me, so I heard everything. I heard someone heavy footed, more than likely another man, reach for the child who hadn't stopped screaming since this all began.
"S'UT UP!" he screamed, yanking her small body against his much larger one and shoving his face into hers.
Oh great. He sounds like he's drunk.
I don't know why the man focused specifically on this one child when there were many screaming adults to pick on, or when he could have just been shooting bullets at one of the X-Men, but he did. He slurred a little, in a different way from a person who had been drinking, and the thought that maybe he was hearing impaired crossed my mind. If all he could hear were certain noises, maybe all he was hearing is her screaming. It's a crazy theory, I know, but at this point I can't really focus on anything sane.
The girls cries were halting now, and I realized that he was shaking her, hard. The mother was begging, pleading with him to let her child go. I silently pled for one of my fighting companions to notice the latest scene currently happening, but I know that they couldn't possibly do anything before it became far to late. Piotr sounded like he's crunching metal between his palms-must have gotten a hold of a gun-, Storm was currently doing some hocus-pocus thing that I can't even begin to explain because I honestly can't believe what I was hearing, and Logan sounded way to into the fight for me to even think about asking him for help. So I do the only logical thing.
I end my two-second inner monologue, and I jump him.
It has been established in the past that I am not the smartest person in the world. I am selfish, a brat, I have a lot of snark, and I have a terrible habit for doing stupid things. What I did in that moment proves the last statement right. This guy is twice my size, and he has a kid in one arm and a gun in the other. He no doubt in is possession of at least most of his senses, whereas I am lacking in that department.
In conclusion, this is one of the stupidest things that I have ever done. I mean, seriously, this guy has got a GUN! With a capital 'G'. It is loaded with bullets and can take me down in an instant. One wrong move and someone else winds up dead with me. The girl in his arms could die. Her mother could die. Some innocent bystander could die alongside the others who are already gone or who are drawing their lasts breaths. I can smell the blood, and I know that more then one person has been wounded in the past minute and a half. Has it only been that long?
But as I slammed into his side, shoving my hands around his neck and squeezing as tight as I can, I am driven by only one thought. Well, two thoughts.
One: I am so about to die.
And two: but the kid isn't.
Look, I am no hero. I don't pretend to be. I am a scared fourteen year old who is trying to make it through college and life with a cane in one hand and a pair of glasses on. I don't like people as a general rule. But that little girl was completely innocent. She didn't know pain or suffering. All she wanted to do today was get some ice-cream. This wasn't on her agenda, just like it wasn't on mine. I'm not anybody special, but she could be. And she deserves to find that out. And if it was a choice between me and some other person, I would die every time.
So I hung there, pinning his arm to his body and kicking my feet at him, hoping to hit something important.
That's a thigh, ouch! Nope, to far to the left, wait, oooh, GOT IT!
Clearly, whoever leads these goons has not schooled them in properly protecting everything.
He groans and I felt him drop the child, who ran into her mothers arms. They quickly ducked under the table that I just vacated.
Glad at least one of us gets away.
"You little..." he moans, bending over and gripping me with his now free arm. I don't let go, which would be the smart thing to do. Instead, I held on as tightly as possible and hoped that my small body is heavy enough to keep him from shooting me or other people.
The X-Men still have yet to notice my predicament, for which I am somewhat grateful. I think that if one of them tried to rescue me at this point the added noise would distract me so much that I would let go, and therefore die. And to be honest, as much as I said I was ready to, I really didn't want to die today.
I had no idea what I was doing. All I know is that I have to keep those people from being hurt. They just came in for some ice cream, completely oblivious to the fact that today it came with a free side of bullets.
If I can just hold on long enough, someone else will take care of this idiot.
Well, it was a nice thought anyway.
Needless to say, my companions were far to caught up in totally kicking butt to notice little old me dangling from this man's arm like an ornament on a Christmas tree. And my little girly fight move-stunt thing apparently didn't last long. My fighting instructor must have lied when she said that kicking a guy in the nuts is about as bad as constant period cramps.
Or maybe he was just able to weirdly heal himself in some strange manner, because when I kicked Robby Hensley in the nuts for getting a little to handsy-grabsy during gym class, he went down and stayed down until long after school ended. Maybe the "bigger they are, harder they fall principle" applied here.
Whatever it was, I was doing it again.
Mind rambling is so much fun, and it successfully keeps you from panicking.
Unfortunately, it does not in any way help you escape from the evil man who more than likely wants to rip your head off and has the power and strength to do so.
Which meant that in my self-distraction, Big and Ugly had managed to wrench me off his arm. He was currently holding he in the air by my wrists, and my wrists were starting to hurt from the lack of blood circulation. Dang, this guy is strong.
Two seconds later, I realized that there was no way I was getting myself out of this. I came to this realization when his other massive hand closed around my throat.
When Logan had covered my mouth with his hand, it was the smell more than anything that had made it difficult for me to breath. He had hardly put any pressure on me, because he was simple trying to shut me up before I did something stupid. Like what you did just now.
But this guy had absolutely no qualms about wrapping his hand around my neck-and yes, it went all the way around-and squeezing as hard as he possibly could.
That's going to seriously bruise.
I had the misfortune to not take a breath before he started his assault on my windpipe, and therefore I had very little air reserves. And now I'm gasping and my eyes are bugging out and I bet I look like a fish and I can still hear World War III happening around me, and yet at the same time, all I really focus on is the face of my captor, who by indication of his breath, had shoved his face into mine.
There's this thing, I think it's called tunnel vision. Right before you 'go into the light' the world closes in around you and you focus on only one thing. Even without my sight, I was focusing on two. The fact that my lungs burned like hell, I was going limp and swiftly losing any sense of reality, and also the fact that I did not want the last thing that I remember to be the severe onion breath of my murderer.
And my god, it was bad.
I wish that I could say that the world started to grow dark as I felt myself begin to slip away, but well, you know, blind, so my world is already dark. However, I couldn't hear. Sounds slipped away. And that was when I truly started to panic.
I was not going to go down like this.
I don't know for sure exactly how I was going to go down, but I knew that it wasn't like this. I went completely limp, and the idiot holding me fell for it.
His grip on me lessened just enough for me to breath, and scream.
Sure, things had been loud before, but I put everything that I had left into the volume of that sound.
With several final bangs, things around me grew silent, and I knew that the others had seen me in the grasp of this hygiene-deprived beast. And then I realized my mistake. Everything around me went silent as the X-Men stopped fighting to look at me. In their distraction, it didn't take long for any of them to hit the floor. None of them moved, and I knew that they were unconscious.
You stupid idiot! I berated myself. Oh. Shoot.
I'm next.
"Thanks girly!" his bristly voice was the last thing I heard, hissed into my ear before being hit on the back of the head and falling into darkness.
Лежать
Stay down
Я что, похож я движущихся?
Do I look like I'm moving?
