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Elane realized her mistake when she felt something around her body. It didn't distract her
enough to make her lose her grip on her prey. She then saw that the guy with grey skin was
doing it. He was controlling his skin, the same she controlled her aura, and he was extending the
skin on his right hand. "Guess what, chica? I have a trick of my own like yours," he said in a
mocking tone.
"Yes, but you are going to learn to treat a lady with respect." She quickly brought her
knee up and then returnd to her stance. It that quick instant, the man's skin left her body and she
saw his eyes cross in pain, as he collapsed in agony. She let a smile cross her face, but she had
to escape with her prisoners.
"If you're a lady, then let me knock your lights on," said the girl in the raincoat. This was
odd for anyone to say.
"Don't you mean 'lights out', just like the state you are about to be in?"
"No." Elane then got the sight of several sparks hit her square in the face. The burning
pain each made forced her to react. She put up her hands and formed an aura wall at the level
of the the girl. She heard her prisoners fall to the floor, but they weren't going anywhere. As she
got her eyes used to the sight, she saw that another girl appeared to be dissolving. It was as she
was holding back the sparks that she noticed that a swarm of metallic bugs were attack her.
"What the... I hate bugs." She started to try and hold the bugs and the sparks back, but
it was too much. She then realized that vengence would have to wait. She ran to a door and
dived out a window to the outside. She ran off into the woods, enveloping herself with her aura.
Emplate was not going to be happy, but then she knew other ways to strike at her former cousin.
Jubilee had watched as the girl ran out a door. It was an outside room, and she was
tempted to follow, but where had all the bugs come from. Jubilee turned and saw Daria
dissolving, and the bugs seemed to be coming from her. "Daria, is this your ability?" she asked.
Daria's voice seemed abit weak. "Yes, but I'm not sure how to pull myself back
together."
Jubilee saw Emma walk over. Emma knelt down to Daria and said, "Relax." Almost
instantly, Daria appeared to calm down a little and the bugs returned to her. She was almost
back to normal, when she panicked. She started to dissolve again, and instantaniously Emma's
eyes glowed. Emma was helping Daria return to normal. Afterwords, Emma stood and said,
"We should get Rich and Yvette to the med-center as soon as possible. Who knows what that
woman did to them."
"Ms. Frost, what do you think about that girl that attacked? Could she be a problem?"
Jubilee asked. She figured as much, but how dangerous was the attacker.br>
"Jubilee, I think that Rich can answer all of our questions about who ever she was."
"Aura." Jubilee turned to see Sean was standing up. "Paige said one word when we
found her, Aura. That must be the girl's codename, and her ability as well."
"Are you saying she can, oh let's just say, knock out Wolvie at fifty paces and stop the
rest of the X-Men without a sweat."
Monet, who finally recovered from the punch, said, "Jubilee, nobody could be that
powerful with an ability, and please stop referring to the X-Men like that."
When Everett got up, he said, "She's on the right track, Monet. I was going to try and
knock her out with her own ability. She has one heluva range with her ability. She sees it, she
can attack it. Defensive abilities are worthless. Split second attacks might be all that stop her.
That is probably how Paige got in the state she's in. And we all saw, and felt what she could do."
Jubilee then noticed that Daria had walked over to Rich and Penny. She left the
conversation that everyone was having over how to talk to Rich about this. When she
approached, Daria was looking at Rich's face, and the photo she had of Rich. "He looks a bit
different than in the photo," Daria said as Jubilee approached.
Jubilee knelt down beside Daria. Daria had probably thought of Rich as the closest thing
to family. "Rich has a unique ability that allows him to fully mimic a mutant he's near. After
about a week here, you'll probably see him like this alot. He and Penny are an item."
"Penny? I thought this girl's name was Yvette."
"Well, when Penny was brought here, she had been a victim of Emplate. Over the time
she had been here, I gave her the nickname of Penny. When she was delivered, all we were
told was the word 'Penance.' That became her codename."
"How did you find out her name?"
"That was due to Rich. Rich had been able to make contact with her. The first time that
they met, Rich spoke in her native tounge. Afterwords, he taught her to speak in English through
some psionic link, and they fell in love."
"Jubilee, do you think Rich could help me with my ability?" Jubilee saw the look of
concern in her eyes. The girl wanted to understand what she was.
"Sure. He might be able to show you a way to use your ability to give you a cool hairdo."
She said pointing out Daria's bald head.
"Bastion insisted on that for all the girls. I don't know why, though."
"If you ask me, Bastion appeared to be a bit too military. It was worse to discover he
was a Sentinel, but then you do know what they say about the military."
"What's that?"
"Military Intellegence is two words that contradict each other." The two started to laugh
at the joke, which was the most truthful thing about the military, until Monet, Everett, Sean and
Emma came over.
Sean looked at them and said, "Okay, lasses. Do ye want help us get them to the med
unit." They both nodded and as Daria helped carry Rich, she helped carry Penny.
*******************************************
Emplate sat in his chair at the top of the lighthouse. He was starting to feel drained. He
needed to feed soon, or else he would be pulled into the Beyond. He was looking forward to
supping on his favorite meal. He watched the door to his room open as D.O.A. stuck his head in
the door. "Sir, Elane has returned."
"Send her in, D." He couldn't wait any longer.
"But.."
"Send her in." D. left the door, and a second later, Elane walked in. Emplate noticed the
state she was in. She had some burn marks on her face. He could already guess what had
happened. "I take it that you were unsuccessful."
She walked over to him and kissed him on his forehead. They were both evil, and they
could do so much. Elane then said, "I have to admit, he has the luck of the irish. He and Yvette
managed to keep me hunting for them until everyone returned. Although, they were not as tough
as I thought they would. Next time, I'm going to need to know more."
Emplate sighed in frustration. "I need to sup or else I will go back to the Beyond. I was
hoping to have both in my grasp." He looked at Elane for a moment. In that breif moment, he
forgot about love and began to imagine how her ability would taste as it went through his system.
But then he thought of the screams that Yvette made, when she believed him as someone to
take care of her. True, he only saw Yvette as a meal, but Elane was more than that to him. She
loved him.
"Emplate, there is more than one way to attack Rich." He then noticed that she had
stopped talking, and was looking in fright. He glanced and saw the hands of the dead reaching
for him.
He yelled out to her as he knew he was disappearing from her sight, "Tell me when I
return, for I shall return." The hands pulled him into the Beyond, and his own private hell.
*******************************************
When Paige awoke, she felt sore. She opened her eyes to discover that she was in the
med-unit. She remembered what had happened to her. That girl, Aura, had attacked, and
knocked her out. Then she heard Jono's voice, and Sean's, and she had warned them. She
looked in the med-unit and to her left, she saw two other bodies laying in beds. One was Rich,
the other was Yvette. The two were safe, but obviously injured. Aura must have caught them,
but was probably stopped by everyone else.
{Hello, Sunshine.} She turned and saw Jono standing there. She watched as he
approached and took her hand. She was happy to see him, and smiled at him. As she smiled,
he said to her, {I'm sorry.}
"Jono, you don't have to be sorry about not being.." She stopped when he shook his
head. She then realized that he didn't mean that, he meant Thanksgiving. "Ah'm sorry, too."
She embraced him in a big hug.
The moment was cut short when Sean came into the room. He looked at them and said,
"Well, lass, ye had us worried for a moment. How ye feeling?"
Paige released Jono and sat up in bed. "Ah think Ah feel worse than when Yvette ran
amok when she first arrived." She was still abit sore were Aura had put that pressure on her.
"From what we got from the scans, yur waist had been crushed. Some of yur internal
organs were bleeding, and ye had a couple broken ribs." As Sean had said that, she could swear
that they were still broken.
She turned to look at Rich and Yvette and asked, "What about them?"
Emma Frost answered that question as she walked into the room. "Rich had some
internal injuries, and when he was dropped, he sustained some trauma. Yvette was in a similar
state, except her injuries weren't as bad." Paige was relieved to hear that, but she wondered
how the two lasted so long.
"Any idea of how they managed to last until you got back?"
"Judging by the way some of the vents were opened, the two were scrambling around
the vents," Emma said.
"I think that might have been Rich's idea." Paige looked to see Jubilee entering the
room, with a girl about Jubilee's age, bald and with a red dot on her forehead. Jubilee turned to
the girl and said, "This is Paige Guthrie. She is the one with the disgusting ability."
"It's useful, at least for defense," Paige responded instantly.
"Didn't do you any good against Aura. By the way, this is Daria."
Paige looked at the girl and said, "Welcome to the school. Ah'm sorry Ah didn't come to
the airport, but..."
The girl looked at her and said, "I know. Everybody has told me about Rich's dreams."
The girl then approached Rich and looked at his face. She then noticed that Rich had started to
have what appeared to be an epileptic seizure. Daria then yelled, "Something's wrong. Rich
doesn't seem to be well."
Paige yelled to Daria, "Step away from him, Daria. You are forcing your ability onto
him." Daria looked as if she didn't understand. Sean ran over and pulled her away from Rich's
bed.
"Daria, did Jubilee tell ye that Rich mimicked mutant's abilities?"
"Yes."
"Well, how he reacts is determined by who closes the distance between him and the
mutant while he is in a nuetral state. You initiated the change, and something tells me that ye
had some trauma in yur life." Paige looked at the girl and then noticed that Rich had calmed
down. Paige could tell that he was starting to wake up, due to the fact that he started to move
his head. He didn't sit straight up until Yvette screamed.
Rich jumped when he heard the scream. For a moment, he thought it was him
screaming, partially due to a unique occurance. Someone must have gotten near him in his
state of unconsciousness, at he must no longer have had Yvette's ability. He sat up and opened
his eyes. He was in the med-unit, and it was Yvette that was screaming. He saw Sean and
Emma trying to calm her down, and he then saw Daria. She looked just as she did in the picture,
but he knew something about her that worried him a little. He wondered if she was aware of the
fact. He turned back to Yvette to see she was sitting up, but was wary of everything she saw.
He looked at her and smiled and said, "I think we are safe, love."
She relaxed and smiled at him, and then said, "Rich, I had the strangest dream. I
dream that you weren't around, and Emma was handing me over to Emplate."
Rich noticed the glance Sean gave Emma, and Rich said, "I don't think Emma would do
that, unless she planned to make sure he didn't get you. She doesn't want to see any of us die."
It was now that everybody was filing in. Apparently, everyone had an encounter with Elane.
Sean looked at him and said, "Rich, lad, when were ye going to tell us about Aura?"
Sean's tone made it evident that he was upset with Rich. But then, Rich couldn't blame him.
Rich sighed and said, "Fine. If I am going to reveal this dark secret, then two other
secrets must be revealed." He noticed a look of puzzlement on everyones face, except Monet's.
Her face was had a look on it that begged him not to say anything. Rich then said, "Daria, I don't
know if you are aware of this, but you have the ability to alter your form to do a task."
"I figured that out. Thank you, but why are you say this," she replied, very puzzled.
"Daria, you joined Zero Tolerance before your abilities awoke. In the process, I think you
underwent the first phase of becoming a Prime Sentinal. Your abilities alter you from your true
form to that of metallic forms." Daria blinked and was speechless.
"I didn't even know about that. And you learned all that when I got near you," she
eventually said.
Rich nodded. It was an odd experiance, but if she did remember it, something in her
made her forget about it. He then noticed Sean looking at him and said, "Then what's the other
secret?"
Rich let a smile cross his face. It was usually the same smile he had seen on Emma's
face. He then mouthed the one word that Monet didn't want to hear. "Gemini."
Rich watched as Sean turned to face Monet. It was obvious that Sean knew about the
twin sisters, but did he know what Rich knew. Probably not. Rich watched as Sean said to
Monet, "Well, lass, if you don't say anything about yur twin sisters, I have a feeling that Rich will
tell us. Which is it?"
Monet looked down at the floor. For the first time that Rich had met her, Monet was
truely afraid. Monet finally said softly, "I am the twins." Rich saw the looks on everybodies eyes,
including Daria's, and this was her first day here.
Jubilee was the only one to say the next question. "How? I mean, you can't be the two
of them, unless it is in your mind." There was a flash of light and then there were two eight year
olds standing exactly where Monet stood. Rich truely understood now what the two were.
Rich sat up and looked at them and said, "Tell me if I'm correct, girls, but you have the
ability to merge into a new person. One that you pick what you like, but the only way to maintain
the balance of who is in control at any given time is those autistic spells." The twins nodded.
Rich then said, "So, Monet St. Croix is just a fabrication of your imaginations."
The one girl said, "Yes and no, Richard." He was taken back my this. She then
continued, "I am Monet St. Croix. My sister is Claudia." The other nodded and started to fall, as
if weakened by the transformation, or she was dependant on the transformation. The two
remerged into the familiar form of Monet St. Croix.
Rich shook his head, to clear his mind. He then said, "Then all what you two did was
merge together your abilities, knowledge, and age. But why did you keep that form if.." He then
pieced together what he learned the second day he was at the school. The part that Emplate
drained from Monet St. Croix was actually Claudia's powers. "Never mind, I know."
"Know what?" Emma asked, looking as if she was going to scan his mind.
"Claudia has become so dependant on being part of Monet that she probably won't
survive for long alone," he lied. "Since the two of them are combined, it explained the strength,
hightened senses. Over time, one forgets what it is like to live without a fallback." Monet gave
him a small smile which communicated thanks.
"Then, how did the ability to merge manifest so early in their life." Sean asked.
"Maybe it was instinct of self-preservation. They didn't know at the time that blood
relatives are immune to each other." Rich stopped that, and finally said, "Now, you all want to
know about 'Aura'."
Paige looked at him from her bed and said, "Ah think we should have known about her on
the first day."
Monet then said, "True. She seems to be quite a dangerous advesary." Rich
shuddered, for he knew that she was dangerous. She was almost pure evil.
Sean then said, "First of all, how did ye meet her, and what happened?"
Rich hated bringing that memory back, but he had to. "First of all, Aura's real name is
Elane. She probably still goes by Elane Bonstein, since that was my uncle's name. Elane was
his second adopted child. He adopted her due to the fact that his adopted son wanted a sister.
Elane came from a broken home. She was the one that broke it."
Sean interrupted by saying, "So Aura is yur cousin?" He hated to ever think that Elane
could be considered relation, but she did so good a job of disappearing that her last known name
was Bonstein.
"My whole family won't even say she existed," Rich continued. "It wasn't until my
birthday that I met Elane for the first and last time. It had been obvious she didn't like anyone,
but when I approached her, I saw her plans. She had planned to start with our family to control
the world. I don't know how she would go about, but she was going to start with us. I told my
uncle and all her plans came apart at the seams. She ran from the house that day, swearing
vengence on me. The police were informed of her, but no one could find her. I lived my life as I
could. Eventually, I thought she forgot about me. When I came here, I left no trace of coming
here."
Emma then asked the question what was bothering him, "Then how did she find out you
were here? I doubt she hacked into the school's files, since I have locked down the computers
from hackers, and I have no records of the school's students in the computers at Frost
Enterprises."
Rich looked at everyone and said, "I knew she lied about that. If who I think helped her
find out I was here, then she is dead by now."
Monet said the name he suspected, "Emplate. If he did help her and she failed him, she
is dead."
Yvette then said, "But if Emplate helped her, she would have known about us." That
puzzled him, too.
Daria then said the one thing that made it fit together. "Maybe Emplate didn't tell her, or
she was under instruction not to tell." Rich wondered how much she had learned about Emplate,
or how much she had observed when Bastion was head of Zero Tolerance.
Jubilee then said, "That makes sense. But the only way we will know the truth is if Aura
attacks again. I don't think Emplate is the forgiving type."
Rich looked at them all. He knew that what he would say would shock them, but it was
true. "I hope he isn't the forgiving type. I wouldn't mind seeing her dead, for then I wouldn't have
to worry anymore." At that everyone stopped asking about Elane, and he hoped that Aura was
gone for good.
End????
