Hello again to all my friends. I don't own X-men, but regardless the original characters that I'll be using in here do belong to me.
Shout outs!
To Kali3110: Hence the Dun dun Duuuunnnn! at the bottom of the last chapter. Just sit back and enjoy the ride! Weee!
To Hamo Hero: Welcome to my story, thanks for the review and for the complement. I shall try to continue working as good as I always do. I hope to get another chapter up soon.
Chapter 28
Rune's hold on Naomi tightened significantly. Naomi tried to focus on the darkness created by his back to her, she gave up and just closed them. The jumping shadows made her head ache, she couldn't see anything, or sense anything in this chaos. How could anyone stand it all? Along her shoulder blades her skin cracked while she fought to keep her own shadow from striking out at anyone. One false strike and she could be in deeper trouble that she'd already found herself.
"Rune, you wound me. Picking some little girl over me?" Recharge was saying, she sounded close. "Why don't you just come with me and I'll remind you how to party."
Naomi felt her ears popping and something akin to being pushed away from Rune, however he held her close to his back. "Don't touch me." Rune said through gritted teeth.
Recharge frowned and put a hand on her hip. "Really? This is how its going to be, and Pyro thought he could trust you." She sighed and shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to go make... new friends." She smiled darkly and headed out onto the dance floor, two other mutants followed her closely.
Rune's grip lessened. "Is she gone?" Naomi asked, her voice just distinguishable over the the pound of the music.
"Yeah..." he sighed, "Is it bad to say I almost followed her?"
"No, cause you said almost." She grabbed his hand, "You have to find Wolverine. We need help."
Rune sighed, "First, I'm not leaving you here alone. Secondly,"
"Who said I'm staying? Rune, this place is making me nauseous." Naomi interrupted, she'd never been on a boat or out at sea but she supposed that this was what being sea sick was like. With all the flux in the shadows it was starting to feel like the ground was moving under her feet.
"Secondly," Rune continued, "The others don't know what's happening. We need to figure out what we're going to do, especially if Recharge turns the student body against us all."
"She can do that?" Naomi asked, daring to open an eye slightly to look up at the blur that was his face. He nodded, she nodded in response. "Well, there's Emily. She could tell Wolverine to stick close to the gym. You can go tell the others what's up... and I'm going to sit right here..." She sank to the ground and covered her face with her hands, "God Rune, I think I'm going to loose my mind, or worse. Control."
He looked down at her shadow, it was shooting out in sharp shapes around her, his own shadow had vanished, absorbed into her own. He felt a little off not seeing his own shadow flashing around with the lights. Occasionally he noticed edges of the shadows around her peel off the walls then return in the shift of lights. He dropped down to her level, "How about we get you over to one of the chairs before you implode." He took hold of her arm.
A point of her shadow shot off and slashed across his hand. He pulled back immediately, a thin line of blood began to bubble on the back of his hand. Naomi looked up despite the annoyance on her eyes and began to apologize. "Its agitated, it knows I'm uncomfortable so its trying to protect me. I'm so sorry."
He shook his head. "Come on, I'm getting you out of here, Rael and the others'll be fine for a few minutes." He held out his hand this time, she grabbed at about his wrist and he helped her to her feet. "I should be the one apologizing." He wrapped an arm around her, she laid her aching head on his shoulder.
Someone walked past them on their way to the door causing Rune to curse after he was gone. "What?" Naomi asked. He shook his head.
They reached the doors and found them locked, and chained shut.
"Ladies and Gents, welcome to the evening's greatest part of the entertainment!" It was Recharge, Rune looked back and saw her standing on the stage.
"Damn it..." He put Naomi in the corner between the doors and the wall, "Sit here, don't move, if anyone comes near you except one of us... defend yourself."
Oh, yeah, and it was so easy to distinguish one from the others. She mentally disappoved of his idea, but nodded and let him go. "Emily, can you tell..."
"She told me already." Wolverine's voice came from the other side of the doors, "How's your first dance?" He asked sarcastically.
"Peachy." She replied, "Actually I was going to ask her if she could tell who would be coming at me." There were some lights over head and while it did diminish the vision impairment, the nearby jumping shadows weren't helping her.
The metallic claws came through the door and cut around the door handle, the metal pieces clattered to the floor. The door swung out, Logan stepped in beside her. "Problem solved."
"I've always liked problem solvers." Emily said to Naomi, "I told Rune that Logan was watching you."
"There are some uninvited guests to this party," Recharge was talking again, there was a large commotion of boos, "I know right? So, lets give a big unwelcome to the mutant kids from the school down the street!"
Spotlights came on somewhere in the gym, the other lights stopped, Naomi's head stopped pounding and she quickly stood, "Are we just going to stand here?"
"Just wait," Logan said.
"What I would just love from all of you, is for you to show these trespassers just what we do to unwanted company." Recharge said. The crowd began moving almost as one group toward the others.
Naomi walked into the darkness, Logan grabbed her arm, "She a psychic or something?"
She shook her head, "Just manipulative. Her power is an addictive touch, it makes you stronger for a while, then it takes it away and makes you feel powerless I guess. So she uses it to get what she wants, you do what she wants, you get to be more powerful."
"Sounds like a variation on psychic to me." Emily put in. "Maybe if you guard yourself well enough it won't effect you."
It was worth a shot, "Try not to hurt anyone, they're just brainwashed kids." Naomi said to Logan.
He scoffed and walked past her.
"I have one problem Emily." She whispered, "She already touched me... I think that was why I was overly aware of everything..." Naomi looked down at her shadow, she could still see it even in the darkness, it seemed to have taken in an even darker shade of black. Naomi sighed, "I guess I should use it while I got it." She stepped onto her shadow it drifted into a collection at her feet then what looked like waves of shadow began to wrap defensively around her, her skin didn't crack anywhere. In Naomi's mind, it felt good, it felt right.
Rune pushed away several of the students, all the while giving up ground, the spotlight still overhead continued to follow them. He heard Curse squeal, he looked over to see her struggling to keep back several large guys, likely from the football team. He floated her up above the crowd and out of reach.
Curse reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like needles. She released them, mid-fall they changed into tiny silver looking stick figures, they clattered to the ground then stood and began stabbing their sharp little arms into the ankles and shoes of the students. They began jumping and yelling, stomping their feet to squash the pin men only to step on more sharp things. Curse fluttered herself toward the wall and grabbed a curtain. "Put me down Rune! I hate heights!" She yelled over the beating music that came back on the sound system.
"You sure know how to pick 'em kid." Logan said shoving one of the students away from him while approaching Rune. "On the crazy scale of one to ten," He grunted when another of the football players tried to tackle him. Wolverine flipped him over his shoulder, the boy hit the ground and lay groaning, "That one," He pointed to the stage, "should be in the psycho-ward."
Rune pushed back a pair of girls from him and got over to Logan, "Where's Naomi?" He yelled, "Nightmare said you were watching her."
One by one the spotlights began to shatter, there were screams from students as glass tingled down on their heads. Naomi saw a flashlight turn on in the room where the spotlights had been coming from. The moonlight filtered in through one door making shadows cast long. She went though her shadow and came up in the shadow cast by the flashlight.
The one holding the light source dropped it when she appeared behind the other. "Did I scare you?"
The second one turned around, flaming red hair came from his head, she recognized him. From his smirk, Pyro remembered the small encounter at the chocolate shop.