Chapter 2
Tempest roared again, and she nearly laughed. His voice sounded ready to crack at any moment. Her rather desperate predicament kept her silent, however, and she hoped he would leave.
He did not leave. He spotted the glint in her eye and leapt over to her, knocking the junk pile away with a swing of his arm. She yelled, and swung her leg in a circular motion. It knocked one leg out from under him, and he wobbled on the other for a few moments. Fidget used the precious time to rush past him for the door.
As she reached it, it swung outward and a green clad figure stepped through.
"What’s all the racket abou-" Asazi’s sentence was cut short as Fidget plowed straight into her and knocked them both to the ground with a small ‘oof!’ They stood up quickly, glaring at each other. Asazi drew her crossbow, and Fidget turned to dive for cover in the small room. Tempest, who had once again gained his balance and headed up behind her, was the second victim of this small, redheaded missile. He, however, did not fall to the ground, or even let out more than a grunt as some of the air was forced from his lungs with the power of her impact.
Fidget berated herself a moment for her obviously malfunctioning peripheral vision, and tried to run again. She found a strong arm under her arm and back up around her shoulder, and Tempest growled. She hung her entire body weight off his arm, grabbing it with both her hands and lifting up her feet, but he held her small mass up easily. She shrieked again, and without setting her feet down, she bit into the arm holding her, breaking the skin. She fought against gagging as his blood ran on to her tongue, but he dropped her quickly on to the floor. She dropped flat on her backside, and blinked. The sudden fall had rattled her somewhat panicky brain. She reached up and grasped one of the lightning rods in hopes of figuring out how it worked and rendering both of X’s minions unconscious. She wrenched it from his grasp and held it in both hands, her eyes darting from Tempest to Asazi.
"Watch it, pea-brains!" She cried, brandishing the lightning rod. "I’m armed and dangerous!"
Tempest laughed out loud. The weapon in Fidget’s hands wavered uncertainly.
"You can’t use that!" He cried, still laughing through his words. "All they do is focus and direct my own electricity!"
He aimed his own lightning rod at Fidget, who held up hers as a futile shield. He blasted the energy, and it jumped to the rod in her hands. She gave a gasp, convulsed, and dropped the rod. She fell to the floor herself, and twitched spastically. Asazi and Tempest rushed over and examined her, the former holding two fingers to her neck.
"She’s alive," Asazi confirmed, straightening up again. "We should take her to X now, he could use her as bait."
Tempest whirled around to face her, anger showing in all his features. "I had it under control, you didn’t need to try and help!" He yelled. Asazi brushed the drops of spit from her face with a look of disgust before replying.
"Please, if I hadn’t walked through, she would have escaped without a problem." She cut off Tempest’s next protest before it began by holding up a finger. "No more arguing, let’s get her to X before she goes into a coma or something."
"Electrocuting someone won’t put them into a coma!" Tempest interjected. "It’ll only-"
"I said ‘or something’!"
Tempest took Fidget’s head, Asazi took her feet, and they carried her silently to the lab.
"You know, I could carry her myself. It’s not like she weighs anything."
"Will you shut up! You are the most strong-headed brat of a kid-"
"Don’t call me a kid!"
Nearly silently.
*
Big Air dipped swiftly downward, a rope ladder swung out from the bottom. Alex grabbed on to it quickly, and was lifted into the air. He climbed in, expecting the usual mottled praise, but found only worried faces. Well, a worried face from Grinder, a panicky face from Rikki, and…
"Where’s Fidget?
Rikki’s hyperventilating became audible, and he rushed up to Alex in a high-pitched frenzy of explanation and questions.
"She-fell-out-of-the-hatch-and-I-couldn’t-see-her-oh-god-Alex-what-do-we-do?!"
Alex held up his hands to bring the tumble of words to a halt. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Fidget fell out the hatch? As in, towards the ground?"
Rikki nodded jerkily.
Alex swallowed. "You couldn’t do anything?"
Rikki looked at his feet, as if they could provide an answer to his problem. "No. I…I just thought…" He sighed from the bottom of the toes that occupied his sight. "I don’t know what I thought. I just can’t believe it. I mean, she was there, just giggling, and then…"
He fell forward in a gasping sob, and Alex caught him. Rikki bawled loudly, and Grinder followed Rikki’s original plan of pedi-observation.
"We should go look for the body, then." He said softly, and Rikki whimpered. Alex nodded.
"Yeah. I still can’t believe I wasn’t there to help…" He looked from one person to the other, and noticed Rikki’s wide eyes. "Let’s go."
*
Fidget awoke. She was lying on a cold tabletop, and her ears were ringing fiercely. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to send the ringing away and leave her mind free, then surveyed her surroundings. She was in a laboratory, and instruments lined the walls. She frowned at the blinking lights on the consoles, and slid off the smooth metal platform. Marveling at the fact that they had once again left her alone, she walked as silently as she could towards the door.
"You don’t think we’d just let you leave."
She turned on her heal and searched for the source of the voice. Tempest straightened from where he’d been leaning against a wall, and stepped forward a few paces. Fidget took a wide stance and her hands balled into fists.
"Don’t even start with me, kid." She snarled, and Tempest growled and gritted his teeth.
"Don’t call me…a kid!" He cried, but took a breath to calm himself. He smiled again, and Fidget raised an eyebrow suspiciously.
"My electricity had a rather shocking side effect," he started, then paused briefly. Fidget snorted.
"Cute pun, now get on with it, already."
Tempest was disappointed that she hadn’t thought it was clever, but kept talking. "We don’t know much about it yet, but if you want a physical sign, there’s a mirror."
He watched Fidget’s reaction as she thought of a change in appearance. Her eyes widened, and her hands shot up to her hair almost immediately, then down over the rest of her body. The hands were delicate; they waist the skimmed over was slim and well shaped…
What? He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts which had taken such an odd turn so suddenly. When he looked again, Fidget had rushed in the direction he had pointed in.
It wasn’t a mirror, really. Only a steel panel. But the steel had been buffed to a high shine, and reflected the general appearance of the rest of the room. Fidget slammed into it with her arms out in front of her, and stood straight to peer at herself. But she didn’t seem able to focus her eyes or something, all she saw was a peach blob and something yellowish…
Tempest smirked as he heard the scream she issued upon realization. She came skidding across the polished floor and slammed her fists into his chest. "You freak!" she shrieked, shaking all over and beating on him futily. "My hair! What the hell did you do to my hair?! What’s going on?!"
He grabbed her arms and held them up. She frowned up at him, too angry to care that she was being held captive. Tempest never stopped smiling, which only served to annoy her further.
"The hair is only a small side effect of what I think happened to you," he explained, saying each word slowly and deliberately, as if speaking to a child. Fidget strained harder against his grip. "Don’t push, and I’ll explain!"
Fidget considered a moment, but took a seat on the metal bench once more. Tempest smirked again, he had total control over this chick.
"When the electricity leaves my body and shoots out of the lightning rods, it turns from my own bio-electricity into regular electricity, right?" He waited for her to answer. She didn’t, and he continued anyway. "It does. Anyway, because it’s only electricity when it hits people, it has only the usual effects. But because you were holding a lightning rod as well, it was converted back into my electricity before it entered your body. This completely changed the outcome of the shock, and had very unusual effects, indeed." He let his eyes trail up and down her height, and she squirmed under his gaze.
"So, what exactly are these ‘unusual effects’?" Fidget queried, wanting very much for his focus to be her eyes again, and not a certain other pair of organs. Tempest snapped back into focus again, and looked slightly disgruntled at the question.
"Well, I’m not completely sure as of now. My best calculations, however, show that you may have the same powers as I do."
Fidget frowned yet again. "You mean I’m one of you freaks now? This is great, just great. You wait until I tell Alex about this," she added with sudden accusation. "He will rip you apart and mail you across the continent!"
Tempest shook his head slowly. "I highly doubt he’ll defend you if you’ve become the enemy."