School Spirit (Part Fourteen)

"Yeah... this is a volcano."

As if there had ever been any doubt.

Once you looked inside of the rim at the summit, you could absolutely see steam coming out, and from the center, a soft rock formation with lava slowly oozing out. It looked like a pimple that was ready to pop.

"This thing is ready to go," Hisako whispered, as though speaking too loudly would make it happen for real.

"We should get down from here," I said, once she realized that this was really happening. Why wasn't anyone doing anything about this? The adults had to know what was going on, didn't they?

Hisako seemed to agree, for a moment. But then she realized that there was something at stake here, "Not without what we came for. We're here already. We can just get it and go," She said, looking around to try and spot the objective. She noticed when I didn't speak up afterwards, "What's wrong?"

Instead of just saying it, I showed her the device. The objective was down in the dome, right there in the worst possible place to be. Whatever it looked like, I couldn't see it from where we were.

I still had yet to actually see one of these things myself, so even if I could see it, I wouldn't know what I was looking at.

While we were both peering down into the dome, Hisako took a deep breath and armored up, full-body, "I'm going to get it."

I gave her a weird look for a moment, but she didn't flinch, "You're gonna-…" I started to say, before realizing that there was no point. The other day, she had basically stood in a gravitized pressure cooker for nearly four minutes, "Forget it. Just hurry up."

As if she needed to be told. It was going to be hotter than hell down there.

She started making her way down, while I stood back up at the summit. I wasn't setting foot anywhere near the center. Getting burned by churning ash and goddamn lava was not my idea of fun.

Come to think of it, none of this was my idea of fun. It would have been more my speed if I hadn't gotten cut up by a hard hologram of a jaguar and gotten more or less drugged silly by my friend who looked like a fairy.

...You know. Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.

Over the constant rumbling of the volcano, the wind that came with being so high up, the concussion I had, and other factors, I wasn't able to hear the soft, thrumming hum that signified the nearby use of a particular power that I was fairly used to dealing with. At least more than most other students' powers.

My saving grace was the sight of a shadow cast underneath me from something in the air above me. I turned and looked, thinking maybe it was Eddie and Ruth finally catching up to us. It wasn't.

Instead, it was Julian and Brian dropping in on me. I almost fell into the dome trying to scramble and get ready to defend myself. Julian flew low enough to drop Brian to the ground and floated ahead arms wide as if he were beckoning me to take a shot, "Of all the people I was looking forward to running into in here.. can't cheap shot me this time, can you, Marcher?"

Shit. Way to go Bellamy. You had one job, and you let yourself get distracted by your friend walking into the middle of a would-be volcano. Well, at least I regained my awareness enough to notice what was happening before I got ambushed again.

"Here we go again," I said, flaring up my hands to get ready to fight. I didn't know who to aim at, seeing as how I had both Julian and Brian to deal with, but seeing as how as far as I was concerned, Julian had the more dangerous powers, I was focusing more on him, "I'd ask how you even found us here, but I don't really care."

Julian scoffed and pointed at Hisako who was heading farther into the dangerous part of the dome, "You're at the top of the mountain and Armor glows bright red when her powers are on, genius. How the hell was anyone looking this way NOT going to see her? This place isn't that big."

Well, when it was put that way, he had a point. Even so, screw him, "Why don't you go to the other end of it before I-?"

*Vrrrrm...*

That damn hum again. Before I could lift my hands to fire a shot, I felt my whole body get stuck cold. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move a muscle, "Crap."

Telekinesis. It was so unfair. You could move things with your mind. You didn't even have to be good with that kind of power to be dangerous with it.

Not to say that Julian wasn't talented, because he was. He power was strong, and he was good at using it.

He was also cocky.

"Hey Brian, look at him!" Julian said, calling out to his nearby teammate before looking back at me, "You're about as useful as a laser pointer right now, aren't you?" He taunted me making straight eye contact, which was his first mistake, "Gah!"

It was hard not to feel pleased at making him pay so quickly, "Yep. Sure am," I said as I felt Julian's control over my body slip. I quickly took advantage of this by shooting him out of the air.

If I was a laser pointer, I was the best damn laser pointer there was. Not one of the crappy ones you got in stores. One of the strong ones that could really blind people. The unregulated ones people got off of the internet. Iris-to-iris, Julian got an eyeful of pure, focused light. Granted, it was infinitely weaker than if I'd just fired it from my hands, but it was more pure. It had distracted him, which was all I needed to follow my rules of fighting a telekinetic.

What are they, you ask? Well, the first rule when fighting somebody with telekinesis? Don't. That's it. There you go.

...

…I suppose you want more than that? Fine.

The second rule? If you have to fight one, try not to let them focus on you alone. Fighting in a team helps a lot. But whether that's an option or not, absolutely never hold still. That just makes it too easy for them to grab you or something.

Rule number three? Break their concentration whenever you can. Surprise them. Scare them. Piss them off. Do something. Just don't let them have control. It's a power activated by thought. That's kind of hard to pull off when you can't think properly, isn't it?

The accuracy and effectiveness of these rules may vary from person to person. I came up with them on my own back when I thought frequently about mashing Julian Keller's face into the dirt. If or when it came to it, I had planned out in my head how I would do it. Seriously, I thought about it a lot.

"Julian!" This would mark the second time that Brian watched me shoot his best friend. At least this time it wasn't in the face. In response, Brian poked himself in the chest, "Tag. I'm it."

Instead of pouncing on Julian like a jackal on raw meat and making sure he was out of the running the way I wanted to, I found my attention directed to Brian. I started running right at him, and I couldn't stop myself. He took advantage when I got close enough and punched me in the face.

Compared to some of the ones I'd been hit with before – one from that very day, as a matter of fact – Brian's punches weren't so bad, even without toughening my body up with my powers. The problem was, I kept walking straight into them, and I couldn't stop myself.

*Whap! Whap! Whap!*

I came back again and again until I finally stopped one. Before I could respond in kind and show him what a real punch was supposed to feel like, my arm was caught. Damn Julian, "What did you do?" I asked to Brian.

I would have to wait on that answer, "Good job Bri," Julian said as he sat up and got back to his feet. He wanted to take a shot at me so bad, but he had bigger fish to fry. There was a bigger way to screw me over than beating me up, "Keep him there. I'll be right back."

I took another potshot at him, but I missed. When I did, I couldn't necessarily give chase, seeing as how I was legitimately stuck because of whatever Brian was doing. So I asked again, "Tag, what did you do?"

Man, I couldn't keep track of everyone's powers. Brian had never used his on or around me until now. Apparently, when he touched people he could slap some kind of mental signal on someone. It would either make people go toward that person, or away from them, and you couldn't fight it.

"Don't worry about it," Brian said, "All you need to know is that you aren't going anywhere until I say so."

He seemed confident about that. True enough, I couldn't bring myself to go after Julian as long as Brian was doing… whatever his powers were. All I could see was him flying away, "…Alright."

As far as I knew though, Brian's powers didn't stop me from beating the piss out of him and dragging his carcass around. If he was nearby, I could go wherever I wanted, just as long as he came with me. There was just one problem.

I couldn't get any closer to him.

Brian took a step forward and I took a step back. He took a step back and I took a step forward. All of this was without my consent. He could see my expression and started laughing while I was struggling, "I tagged myself to bring you to me, and I tagged you to make you run away from me. That's as far as you can make yourself go in either direction!"

"Why are you laughing?"

"I didn't even know I could do both until just now!" Brian said through his laughs, "The look on your face is priceless!"

So I couldn't move closer and I couldn't move away.

I turned my head and could see Julian already accosting Hisako down in the dome just as she had gotten to the objective. That was going to be trouble. Now he definitely knew she had it, "Armor, turn around!"

She heard me in enough time to see the guy flying toward her with a green outline around him. She stopped and picked up a big volcano rock to throw at him. Julian frantically stopped in the air and caught it with his telekinesis.

He sneered at her and threw it back, but she broke it apart with a punch.

Hisako could deal with him for a bit, but with his powers he had the advantage. Not that I would fare much better against him. I only figured I would because I had the option of range. That, and if she taxed her armor too much, she wouldn't be able to hold it.

Brian looked smug, until I held up my fists that were both glowing. He immediately realized just what kind of situation he had put himself into. Luckily, I didn't really care about doing anything to him at the moment. It wouldn't help.

Instead of shooting him, I shot the ground in front of me at an angle. Because it was concussive, and the ground was too hard to push through too far, it sent me flying. Simple physics, children. And physics win out over most things, including some wonky mental conditioning that forces you to not go too far one way or another. I could feel when that little limiter on my mind broke as I soared through the air.

-Right at Julian. Did I forget to mention that I conveniently aimed myself in that direction? Because I did.

He was too busy throwing stuff at Hisako with his powers, so he didn't see me coming. He was wide open. This was going to be amazing. I almost yelled a one-liner at him as I flew his way, fist cocked and ready to give him the most solid punch he'd probably ever taken at that point. It was like something straight out of a movie.

Sadly, it wasn't a movie. It was life. And life was a bitch, because it could never let me have nice things.

Before I could get to the leader of the Hellions and give him the greatest haymaker ever set up in modern teenage superhero history, I got blown off-course by the strongest wind I'd ever been hit by. As if I had teleported to the center of a hurricane for a split-second, Julian and I were knocked for a loop.

I thought it was the Danger Room being a dick again, until I saw the airborne yellow and white-clad form of two of the New Mutants in the air. Sofia Mantego and Laurie Collins – Wind Dancer and Wall Flower.

Why girls? I thought we were cool. You sat by me in hand-to-hand classes.

Julian recovered in the air and shook off the surprise quickly enough, because of course he did. The motherfucker could fly.

I did not share that particular ability.

"No-no-no-no-no-noooo!" I screamed, falling from the sky into the dome. It was high. Too high. Higher than I had been prepared to fall from, thanks to Wind Dancer blowing me off-course, "For the love of God! Someone who can fly, catch me!"

And of course, they didn't. Because whenever anything went wrong, people just stopped and stared, even the ones who could do something about it, like Julian (telekinesis) and Sofia (aerokinesis... err... wind powers). That is, if they even cared in the first place. No comment there. Eddie wasn't around either. He would have definitely caught me. He was a bro like that.

So this was how I was going to die. The Danger Room was going to get the kill it wanted, though not really, because Wind Dancer was the one who kind of killed me. I could try to toughen up my body, but I would still get messed up in the process.

Nope.

Redirecting myself with the physics of my light blasts helped me out once, so why not do it again? That sounded like a sensible way to try and protect myself.

Only, instead of using a concussive blast the way I had the first time, I panicked. You know, I was free-falling twelve stories to the ground with no guaranteed way to stop myself. Those kinds of things happen. So instead of a closed-fist concussive blast, it was open-handed.

...The explosive version.

…On the inner dome of an active volcano just looking for a way to relieve the pressure that was getting ready to burst inside of it.

...I probably should have just taken my chances hitting the ground from as high up as I was. That way only I would have been in danger. But, I didn't. Thank you, self-preservation.

*BOOM!*

I don't think it needs clarification at this point, but mistakes were made. Very, very bad mistakes were made.