Nov 07, 2006 05:47
To say that things had calmed down would not have been an incorrect statement. But at the same time it was not all that accurate. The chaos that ran through the institute was thick and easily felt by nearly everyone who was within range. How the Professor and any other telepaths managed to even function without being driven insane by all the random and erratic thoughts was something that Dallas found very hard to comprehend. Especially the younger telepath. Charles had years upon years (upon years) of training at his disposal. But what about the fresh faced child who just realized their talent? Or even the person who had a good enough hold on their blocking ability under normal situations? The state of the school certainly did not constitute normal.
Getting the students to safety had been their primary concern during the attack. During the aftermath? Getting them back before they got themselves into too much trouble. A double standard of sorts, but necessary nonetheless. Luck would be with them, most of the students, far as he could tell, were unable to get that far from everything. As long as they were safe, that was all that really mattered.
His continued searching met with some success. Some students were already on their way back, others needed to be convinced into returning. Others still remained missing, or hidden. One of the two. The girth of the mansion didn’t help matters all that much. Even with people looking for others, it would still take some time to find them. They needed to give off some sort of clue about their location. Like… the sound of sniffling?
Said sound caught him by surprise. It was faint at first. So faint that he thought he was just imagining it. Wishful thinking. But, as he knelt down, the sound became stronger, and some whispers, too. A hidden panel in the wall was partly ajar, and Dallas struggled to pull it upwards, but eventually it gave way. The sniffling was overlapped by a raging yell, and, without notice, Dallas found himself barely avoiding an enclosed fist that centered on his face.
“Easy! Nobody’s here to hurt you. It’s over, now. You’re safe.” The light of the hallway illuminated what had formerly been the darkness. Two students, one male (the attacker), and one female (the one who sniffled), were right in front of him. “You don’t need to cry anymore.”
“It hurts…” the girl declared.
“What hurts?”
“When those robots came and the ground shook, something fell on her leg. She couldn’t run, so I brought her in here. I’m sorry, I thought that you were someone who was trying to get us. We would have come out, but the Professor never said to… so we weren’t sure.”
“You were trying to protect her, don’t worry about it. For the record, you’ve got pretty good aim, but you should work on being a little bit quicker.” His attention turned to the girl. She was leaning against the wall, trying to keep her leg from having any weight on it. “What’s your name?”
“B-Bree…”
“And what can you do, Bree?”
“How does that have anything to do with helping her?” The boy asked, somewhat puzzled and angered.
“Because I need to be sure that, if I try and help her, I’m not going to have to risk some massive power jumping out and hurting or killing me.” A lot of powers were related to emotions. Especially the volatile ones. Better to stay on the side of caution. “You understand, right, Bree?”
Bree nodded softly, “I make music.”
“Well, as long as you don’t have me start belting out the chorus of My Heart Will Go On, I think we’ll be okay then.”
The girl smiled and laughed, “No, it doesn’t work like that…”
“Has to be a fast song? Like Conga? Much as I love Gloria Estefan, right now I can’t take the chance of the rhythm getting to me and not stopping.” Anything to make her smile, to help put her at ease. Ethan had trained him well.
The laugh became a little louder, “No… when I’m around music, I can make the notes come alive and surround people. It isn’t dangerous, but I can’t really control it, so people get scared.”
“I see. I’m going to touch your leg now. The one that got hurt. It’ll probably sting, but I have to do it, all right?” Bree closed her eyes, awaiting the pain that he described. They shut tighter as the ‘ow’ sound came out of her mouth. He was gentle, but gentle still hurt like hell. “I don’t think it’s broken, but it could be. Or fractured.”
“So what are you going to do? How are we going to get her out of here? Can you carry her?”
“That would probably just put her at risk for banging something against her leg. We need to brace it.” Dallas looked around. The mansion was usually in fine form. A big honking robot attack managed to fix the neat and tidy rule. “Hold on.”
He walked away, towards the hallway again, the shadow form taking over his body as he stepped forward. He heard Bree gasp, but she saw with her own two eyes, so she had little reason to fear it. His hand reached out and gripped one of the sticking out boards from a wall that was still mostly there. Effortlessly, Dallas pulled the board out and snapped it in two. His next step was to grab one of the curtains from a blown out window. They were partly shredded, but would do their part well. Items in hand, the black shadow melted away to reveal his flesh. “We’re going to make you a brace, Bree.” His attention turned to the boy, whose name he did not know. Not that it really mattered. “You need to help her, though. It should take away most of the pain, but walking won’t be easy.”
“I can do that.”
“Good.” He got back down and looked up at Bree once more, “This part could hurt again, if it hurts too much just say so and we’ll think of something else.” What Dallas was unaware of was the fact that Bree had lost a part of her fear just by his mere involvement. In his bright blue eyes she felt safe. And, without a peep, the task was done. “How’s that?” He inquired as he stood up.
“It feels good. Thank you.” The girl wrapped her arms around him, an innocent hug as her thanks for his involvement.
“Get to the lab, so one of the real doctors can actually take a look and see what really needs to be done.” The pair of youngsters walked away, with the boy giving something of a glare towards Dallas as they parted. What the hell was that about?