Next chapter: Coming up! Hope you've gotten used to my habit of taking forever to update, so I hope you like it.
"This is a stupid idea!" Elementro spat.
"Well, you agreed to it!" Paul hissed in the darkness. "We've come too far to turn back. You do know what you're doing, right?"
"Of course." Elementro snapped. "I just don't know why I let you talk me into this."
Paul pointed a trembilng finger toward Elementro's perfectly functional arm, trying to mask his own anxiety. "You owed me. Now let's go!"
"You really know how to hit where it hurts." Elementro muttered under his breath. But it was true. Elementro owed a favor to Paul, without whom Elementro would still be stuck in the institute with a badly broken arm. Also, to his great annoyance, Paul wasn't as wimpy as he looked. His training must be working. Scowling, Elementro placed his hand on the roof of the tunnel.
"The mall's right above us. Now what?" he asked.
"Well, I was hoping..." Paul trailed off, fiddling his fingers nervously. Elementro's visible eye widened.
"Are you out of your mind! You want me to break through the floor of the mall! That's insane!"
"It's not like you couldn't!" Paul retorted.
"We could come up right in the middle of some mutant-hating crowd! We could get arrested! Elementro shot back.
"You said you'd help me." Paul said. "So do it!"
After giving Paul a withering look, Elementro brought his hands together in front of his face, like a prayer. Then, slowly, he pushed his hands up while separating them. A hairline crack appeared in the rock above their heads. Pushing his hands farther apart, the crack widened, until it was a square hole, about three feet wide.
"I don't think anyone's up there. Now let's go!" He crouched down and jumped, stretching his hands upward. His fingertips brushed the edge of the hole, and he gripped tightly, pulling himself over the edge. He stood up, and took in his surroundings. He was in a dimly lit room that stretched on for about twenty meters. There were boxes and crates stacked up along the walls.
Must be a storage room.
"Come on!" he hissed to Paul, who was still standing in the dark hole.
"I can't reach." Paul's voice sounded distant and tinny. Rolling his eyes, Elementro flicked his hand upward.
"Oof!" Paul grunted as he landed with a thump after being shot up into the air by a platform of earth. Elementro proceeded to close the hole and tunnel.
"Now what?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.
"We find the other students." Paul tried to sound more confident than he felt, and failed miserably.
Elementro flattened himself against the wall, his gray clothes concealing him in the shadows.
"Come on!" he snapped again to Paul, reaching out and yanking him against the dark wall. They crept along slowly, concealed by the shadows cast by the dingy lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. At the end of the room, there was a set of stairs.
"Is there anyone up there?" Paul asked tersely.
"How should I know?" Elementro just stopped himself from snapping. "Since when am I a telepath?"
"Okay, okay, keep your head on." Paul whispered. "We'll just have to go up and see."
"If we get arrested for this, I blame you." Elementro muttered. They bound up the steps and slowly pushed the doors open.
There were at the end of the mall, at a small food court. There were only a couple of people eating, so Elementro and Paul slipped through the door and walked toward the main part of the Bayville Mall. Elementro and Paul both relaxed and started looking for their fellow students.
"You know," Paul said slowly, "Cassie's with them. That means..."
"...They could be anywhere," Elementro finished, "And we wouldn't know."
"They also could be watching us right now." Paul added. Elementro shuddered. Freaky.
"But I doubt it." Paul said. "They're probably shopping, which is hard to do when you're invisible."
"So where do you think we should start-" Elementro was cut off by a security guard shoving past him.
"Get her!" the guard screamed. Elementro shot Paul a puzzled look and stood on his toes, craning his neck to see over the throng of people. Five guards were charging through the mall, shoving indignant shoppers out of the way, shouting into their walkie-talkies.
Get who? Elementro thought. He scanned the mall, looking for the person being chased. He saw more guards on the balcony, and then spotted the person being chased.
No way.
He did a double-take. He wasn't mistaken. It was a small girl, maybe ten or eleven years old, with shiny black hair that hung to her shoulders. She was wearing a pink shirt and jeans, and appeared to be crying. Nevertheless, she was weaving and slipping through the kiosks and crowds with amazing agility and speed.
"Get that mutant freak!" A guard yelled, leaping over an overturned bench, making a wild grab for the girl.
Mutant freak?
That girl was a mutant? Elementro jumped off the bench and grabbed Paul's arm.
"W-What's going on?" Paul stammered, his French accent thickening. Elementro started running, dragging the small blond boy behind him.
"Just come on!" Elementro let go of Paul and started running faster, shoving people out of the way. Paul started falling behind, but Elementro pushed harder. He reached the escalator and started bounding up two steps at a time.
Why is this escalator so long?
Elementro had just noticed that it was taking longer than normal to reach the top when he realized that the people on the escalator opposite were heading up: He was on the escalator going down!
Cursing under his breath, Elementro put more effort into his climb and mate it to the top. The girl was about ten meters away, but the guards were gaining fast.
With a start, Elementro realized that he didn't know what he was doing here. Did he plat to help the guards catch the girl? Or was he going to save her from them. While he stood there trying to figure this problem out, the little girl reached the escalator. At the same moment, a guard took a flying leap and caught the back of her shirt.
Elementro stood watching the whole thing. He was just about to grab for the girl, he not being sure weather to help the guard secure her or yank her out of his grip, when the guard suddenly froze in his place. With a jolting realization, Elementro saw that everyone in the whole mall had frozen in place. People stared at each other in mid-sentence, their mouths open, their eyes unblinking. Shoppers were stuck in mid-purchace, their stiff hands holding cash and credit cards. But strangely, the girl wasn't frozen. She was sitting on the floor, face buried in her knees, sobbing.
Uh oh. There's only one person who could've done this...
"I believe," Elementro cringed at the Professor's voice as he slowly came up over the edge of the escalator, "That you have some explaining to do."
The rest of the students stood behind him, looking at their shoes. Elementro sighed.
Why are these things never simple?
Stay tuned!