Alphas

[shady]

Dustin stood exactly where he was for a moment, not feeling anything except the seering pain on his wrist. He gritted his teeth, with this and the blonde headed girl running away from him, he was started to become extremely pissed off. He gripped the rung in his hand so hard that it began to bend only slightly. He watched the girl as she ran, and felt the peices of metal sting him on his back. He did not budge though, only glared more in her direction.

When the girl had reached the end of the alleyway, Dustin began to walk towards her, he was no longer in the mood to play the 'nice guy' in this game they were playing, and he really wanted to get rid of the pain that was now deep inside his wrist.

As he made it out into the street, the sun still shining overhead and glinting off the tops of parked cars, Dustin heard a rather familar voice. He looked around, expecting to see the annoying blonde haired boy soon enough. Ignoring the voice, he let his blood red eyes scan the crowd for the girl until he finally found her. He grinned and began walking towards where she had ran off, pushing his way through the crowd of tourists and average New Yorkers.

"Time to kill.time to kill.time to kill"

[Purple]

Storm heard her name as she broke free of the dark alley and crammed her way through a large crowd of people. This time she ran towards it rather than away from it, glancing over her shoulder to see that the boy was indeed following, though at a much slower pace. She kept running at full speed in the direction of the voice, hoping that Nate could somehow help her, though she didn't see what good reading emotions would do now. The guy was furious, that much was clear. She hugged Nate, more attacked really, when she finally spotted his blond head in the crowd, more glad to see him than she had been to see anyone in a long time. The girl quickly got a hold of herself and stepped away, but the damage was done.

"Sorry," she said, quickly turning her attention back to the dark-haired boy, who was catching up surprisingly fast considering his slow pace. "I really hope you have a plan," she said. "He absorbs metal or something. A fire escape crashed on him and he wasn't even hurt." Storm looked at the deaf boy, wondering what he could do, what either of them could do. Her explosions did no good when the boy was solid iron, and with so many people around she didn't want to use them again. More likely than not she would mean to blow up the boy and would end up making some poor old lady's hat explode. She couldn't have that on her conscience. She'd already killed one person today, possibly two. She wouldn't kill another one, unless it was the black-haired boy.

[lari]

"Plan?" Nate asked, making a scoffing noise. Well, in his mind he sounded like that, but to others it probably sounded like a retarded cough or something. "You obviously don't know me." Nate looked around, trying to find a weapon to use that was not metal. Seeing a wooden bench that was unoccupied, he ran over to it and kicked it, breaking one of the wooden boards off. He took it and held it like a bat. Baseball wasn't his sport, but he could deal for now. Nate moved to stand in front of Storm, almost as if he were protecting her.

Nate spotted the old man down the street, running as if he was crazy. Well, when Nate guessed this crazy dude in front of him was also an Alpha, at least he was correct. He's lies already made Doc hesitant to trust Nate. Nate swung the bat, not hitting the boy but getting his attention. If the boy was looking at him, then it was a prefect distraction. Nate hit him a couple times with the broken piece of wood. It probably didn't even hurt, considering how weak Nate was at the moment. He just got hit by a car-what should people be expecting from him? But it did get attention away from Storm and the approaching old man.

"Time to kill, time to kill," Doc read when trying to read the mind of Dustin. His eyes widened, as this wasn't the first time this has happened. This was the brainwasher's third victim, yet it had been a month since the last incident had happened. He opened his man purse, pulling out a needle that was meant to make a person pass out. Nate saw the Alpha with the needle approaching and swung back. Even bystanders had their eyes on the bat. But the needle came before the blow and the boy passed out.

Doc stared at the unconscious boy, than up at Nate. "You're carrying him."

"Getting hit by a car trumps old age, Doc. You carry him," Nat responded. He turned to Storm, trying to sound friendly and welcoming, though it failed. He was so tired. "You should come back to Headquarters with us."

"Headquarters? Way to make my apartment sound fancy, Nate," Doc said once Nate turned back to him. Picking up the black-haired teen, they started to head toward 'Headquarters.'

[Purple]

Storm let out a sigh of relief as the black-haired boy crumpled to the ground, finally feeling somewhat safe. She looked back and forth between the old man, Doc, and Nate. She didn't exactly want to go back to some old guy's apartment, but she figured she would. They had just pretty much saved her life and probably the lives of several innocent bystanders. She owed them that much.

"You got hit by a car?!" she asked Nate as they walked, looking him over. "Are you okay?"

Storm sighed, looking at the white haired man as she thought. What a weird day. What a weird freaky bizarre day. She had just been going to Central Park to look at trees and birds and squirrels and shit and relax when that freaking idiot had messed it up and started all this. If that dude hadn't been pestering her then she never would have approached Nate. If he hadn't kept bothering her then she never would have made the tree branch fall, and Nate never would have known that she was an Alpha. Then he would've never asked to see her powers, and she would've never have caused that car crash. If the car crash hadn't happened then the freaky black-haired dude would have never gotten pissed off and started chasing her. If the crash hadn't happened, she wouldn't have even started running. And if she never started running she would have never had to narrowly escape the boy only to be saved by an old man shoving a needle in his neck. And then of course, she would not be heading to said old man's apartment with deaf boy Nate. However, it all went back to that moron from earlier. Why did people have to be stupid? They just messed things up.

"So what's the deal with the Alphas? Are there a bunch of you guys?" she asked when they reached 'Headquarters,' which, as Doc had said, was really just an apartment. Not even a very big one at that, though that didn't matter much to her. Having lived most of her life in a two-room apartment or a train car, size was never something Storm cared much about. "And why did that guy want to kill me?"

[lari]

"Fine," Nate replied to the question. Now that Doc was there, things were starting to get back to normal. Nate could just get by with one worded answers and Doc could take over for him. It was how the world usually worked, when Nate didn't have to worry about responsibility of other Alphas. When his opinion was needed, he'd sign something to Doc, who would translate for the others. Half the time, Nate would sign 'I wasn't paying attention, just make up an answer' when he noticed the group of Alphas starring at him expectantly. Nate liked this way of life.

When they got to the apartment, the old man tossed Nate the keys, struggling with the dead weight he was carrying. Nate opened the door wide and limped in. He hadn't been paying attention to what Storm had said, so Doc signed the questions she asked, then carried the black haired boy into another room to do God knows what. "There's 6 of us here in this group, but there's more Alphas all throughout the world. And that guy there is an Alpha brainwashed by another Alpha-one that intends to kill all us good guys. I don't know why he wants to kill us; maybe we're just a threat. And why you, specifically, is also unknown." Nate shrugged, realizing he probably didn't answer her question thoroughly. He sat down on one of the couches, putting his feet up on the table.

Doc came back out, glancing at Nate. "Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"No thanks. I don't have any broken bones. Just sore," Nate signed back. For all he knew, he could have broken something or had a concussion. But the hospital wasn't a friendly place to him, and if he could avoid it at all costs, than he would.

"Oh please, don't pretend to be fine if you're not. Trying to look heroic in front of the girl?" Doc was only kidding, of course. As he could read Nate's mind, he knew it was the hospital that was the problem, not the girl.

"No, why would you think that?"

"She's cute," Doc's hand read, a smirk on his face. "I can read your mind, remember? It's hard to hide things from me." Before Nate could protest, Doc turned away from him and to the girl. "Sorry I haven't introduced myself, have I? They call me Doc here. And you are Storm, yes? Well, do you have any questions? I'm sure this is pretty overwhelming for you."

[shady]

The last thing Dustin remembered was getting stabbed in the neck, it is as if that is what had woken him up from him his trance. Though he had fallen instantly to the ground, his mind had lingered for a few seconds before he had offically passed out. All he could think was," What the hell just happened? and then he was out cold.

Everything was a blur suddenley, Dustin was standing in the middle of Central Park, people were dancing and singing all around him and he was singing with them as well. Then it started to rain candy and everyone sang spanish songs. Dustin felt something warm wrap around his wrists, and he tensed. He glanced down at them between verses but saw nothing. The warmth grew and instantly Dustin was back in reality as he flashed his eyes open wide, their normal royal blue back again. He glanced around the room, only seeing computer monitors, medicines, doctor's instruments, sicking things all around him.

Dustin's heart began to pound, and he tried to stand up, but was stopped by what he now realised what was the warmth in his dream. He had been tied to a chair, and stuck in a cold room. His eyes widened, had the police finally gotten him?

,"..shit..," he breathed, glancing quickly arond again.

Suddenly, the pain in his wrist returned and Dustin cried out, the roped tied around them making it worse. Dustin continued to scream and thrash about until he unsuccessfully knocked himself and the chair onto the floor with a loud bang, hitting his head on something hard.

,"DAMNIT!," he yelled,realising that he was in his normal skin as blodd trickled slowly down his head. And then suddenly he was quite, as if someone had fed him medicine to stop the burning and it was now just starting to work.

[Purple]

"I'm sure I'll have questions later, but at the moment the only thing I'm wondering is what your power is," she said. Storm wasn't exactly sure what to make of all of this. Her thoughts were going in every direction, none of them pulling hard enough to drag her focus along with it. There was a part of her that was still having a minor freak-out moment at the thought that some guy had just tried to kill her for almost no reason at all. There was another part that was wondering if his attacking her had something to do with the car crash she'd caused. Yet another part was just wondering what the heck happened next. So there were good and bad Alphas, and these were the good guys. So? What did they do exactly? Still another part was wondering what the heck Nate and Doc were signing back and forth.

The girl's head turned towards the room where Doc had taken the black-haired boy at the sound of a loud thud, followed by even louder swearing. She looked from the old man to Nate and back to the old man, about to ask what they should do but then deciding she didn't care. Instead she stood up and walked to the doorway of the room the noises came from, peering in at the boy, who was apparently tied to a chair and had knocked himself over onto the ground. Wow, nice one, she thought, but not knowing if he was still brainwashed or what, she chose to keep it to herself.

[shady]

For a moment Dustin just laid on the ground, he felt no pain, only the warm sticky-ness on his forehead and the hair that had fallen between his eyes. He sighed, and looked around at his situation. He had somehow successfully managed to knock himself over out of the anger he had just expressed. He tried to move his head around so as to get the thing he had hit it on out of the way, but only made matters worse.

Just then, he heard a sound coming from the doorway of the room as someone approached it, his eyes grew wide,"Hello?Who is that?," he strained his neck only to see a girl with flowing blonde hair standing at the door.

He almost choked, realising how pretty she was, but acted as if nothing had just happened,"..oh, its just a girl..," he murmured, then he coughed.

,"..can you help me out,dude?I dont know how i got here, or what happened. But my head is bleeding, and just a minute ago it was hurting like a bitch, so i know that cant be very good.," He tried to meet her eyes but failed to do so, as his jet black hair was still in his eyes.

[Purple]

Storm glanced at Doc for a moment but didn't wait for any response from him before walking over to the boy and setting him upright. He was heavy, though not that heavy for a guy as tall as he was, she supposed, but she'd been pulling herself into trains for years, and the extra fifty or so pounds didn't make that much of a difference. The girl looked up to see Doc standing in the doorway, staring at the boy intently. He was searching his thoughts, making sure no traces of the brainwashing lingered and trying to find any information he might have about the man who was brainwashing all the Alphas. On the plus side, the boy was back to normal, but unfortunately he didn't seem to have any memory of whoever started all of this.

"To answer your question, I read minds," Doc said to Storm before approaching the boy. "I'm sorry about this, but we had to make sure you were back to normal." The old man set to work untying the black-haired boy while Storm looked on, wincing as she thought about his power. Reading minds was ten times worse than the simple reading emotions that Nate did. Hanging around those two she would never be able to hide anything, and she had to admit that scared her almost as much as being attacked earlier had. All of her carefully built and fortified walls would be torn down and smashed to nothing if he could just look inside her mind. Nothing would be secret anymore.

"Storm and Nate can get you cleaned up and fill you in on the details, but basically you were brainwashed," Doc continued, "We'd appreciate it if you'd stick around for awhile and see if you can help us catch the guy who did it." When he'd finished talking the man disappeared into a different room, presumably to begin the search for the evil Alpha, leaving Storm and the boy alone.

"I'm Storm, by the way," she said, "Nate's in the other room. He's deaf so make sure he's looking if you talk to him."

[shady]

A smile grew quickly across Dustin's face as the old man walked in and started to un-tie his wrist constraints. As soon as the old man was done, Dustin planned to jump up and run out and get to saftey. There was just something about these people that Dustin didnt like and didnt trust either. But, the old man did say he could read mind, which ruined Dustin's plan for a moment. So, instead, he shoved the idea to the back of his mind and started thinking dirty thoughts to cover himself up.

When the man left, Dustin stretched, and instantly let his eyes fall on the blonde-haired girl, Storm, she had said her name was.

,"Dustin.,"He said, standing and stretching his legs while grabbing and fixing his pants.

,"..that guy in there, said i was brainwashed.is that right?,"Dustin let his royal blue eyes meet Storm's for a minute, then he dropped them and smirked.

,"..we didnt..,"Dustin walked over to the doorway and then turned around,"...oh, i dont know, do anything did we?,"Dustin blushed, not knowing the seriousness of how he had actually chased and tried to kill this exact girl down just about an hour ago.

[Purple]

Storm couldn't help but laugh at his question. It wasn't because it was that strange of a question. That was what people usually asked when they couldn't remember what they'd been doing for any length of time. However, it was just such a far cry from the truth that it was almost comical. It probably shouldn't have been so funny considering the seriousness of what had actually happened, but Storm had always had a rather twisted sense of humor.

"Well...no, actually you were trying to kill me for some reason. I was running through these alleys, and I got stuck in a dead end, and you absorbed the metal off a ladder, but then I made the fire escape fall on you, but long story short I ran away, and Doc came up and stabbed you with a needle," she explained, "Then you passed out and he brought you here and gave you the anti-brainwashing meds."

"I don't know if you know about the Alphas, but that's what people with freaky powers are called, and apparently there are evil ones trying to kill the good ones and blah blah blah. I just learned about it today, so I'm not really the best person to tell you all this," the girl continued, not wanting him to be confused but at the same time unsure how to explain things to him. She looked Dustin over for a minute, noting that he was still bleeding. He was kind of cute, blood aside, if a little punky for her taste. Oh who was she kidding? She didn't have a taste. She never got that far. "Hey Doc, you got a--"

"First Aid kit?" the old man called back, "On the kitchen counter." Storm scowled but went and retrieved the kit from the kitchen so that Dustin could at least stop bleeding. Doc was in her thoughts, which she had to admit she didn't like. Maybe she would sporadically scream profanities in her head just to deter him. Or maybe she wouldn't.

[shady]

Dustin nodded as Storm spoke, and pretended to listen to what she was saying. He did hear something about 'Alphas' and 'weird powers' .He also heard about he was trying to kill her earlier, which he found kind of weird. Usually he would try to hit on a girl like her endlessly until she finally caved and gave him a rejection hotline number, which he had always hoped to actually be real for once. After a while of that happening though, it began to affect him less and less.

He watched as she left the room, something about a first aid kit, and Dustin remembered the blood that was still slowly dripping down his face. He frowned, and put his hand on his head, bringing it back down to see a scarlet red on his fingertips. He hated to see himself bleed,that was a sign of him being weak, and probably able to be taking advantage of.

Dustin, not knowing anything else to do or anything better, followed Storm like a puppy-dog into the kitchen as she retrieved the first-aid kit.

,"So..i really tried to kill you?,"He said, for the first time in forever acting serious and not rude like he normally was. Dustin placed himself on top of the counter though, like a small child would, and placed his hand back on his head where the blood was dripping out of.

[Purple]

Storm opened the box labeled as the first aid kit, digging through it until she found a good-size gauze pad, which she handed to Dustin to hold to his head to stop the bleeding. She knew her way around a first aid kit, that was for sure, as she was always patching up minor scrapes and cuts on herself. It was rare that she found herself patching someone else up, so much so that she doubted she even had before now. Most people she didn't care enough to help them and would just toss them some band-aids and let them figure it out, but she felt a strange sort of attachment to the boy now that he wasn't trying to kill her.

"Yeah, I mean you didn't hurt me or anything, but the intent was pretty clear. You said something about me looking death in the face," she said with a shrug, looking through Doc's supply of band-aids to find one the right size for Dustin's head wound. It was bizarre how calm she was about something that could have left her dead or at least seriously injured, with the boy who'd attacked her no less. Of course she'd been freaked out at the time. An hour ago she never would have imagined that she'd be standing in a tiny kitchen helping the black-haired boy stop bleeding. But he was a lot less scary when he wasn't brainwashed, and she wasn't scared of him or upset by what had almost happened. She would admit that there was something about him that was a little strange, something that put her on edge, but then Storm was always on edge, so it was nothing new.

"You're gonna have to lean down a bit, dude," she said as she dampened another gauze pad with hydrogen peroxide to clean up the cut and wipe away the blood. The fact that he was sitting on the counter top, which was just about waist level, combined with the fact that he must have been almost six feet tall, and Dustin's forehead was, if not quite out of her reach, at least out of her comfort zone. She would rather not have stand on her tip toes the the whole time she was cleaning up his face, especially since the best angle was when she was standing directly in front of him.

[shady]

Dustin looked down at Storm, taking the gauze that she had handed him, and held it to his head. He started to drift off again when she talked about what had happened, having a short attention span and all. But then, when she said something that sounded close to the word 'death' he leaned back in to listen.

,"I guess that is what happens when you get brainwashed, huh?,"Dustin asked, as if Storm would know. He raised his eye brows and sighed, running a hand through his black hair. What was he doing?Why was he using small talk with this girl that he barely even knew?Usually by now he would have already had been slapped in the face for acting rude towards someone, but he hadnt even given this girl a chance to think he was rude, other than trying to practically kill her.

When she asked for him to lean down some, Dustin just shrugged and got off the counter, it made a noise as he got down, as if it was glad to have lost the extra weight and signifying that it was quite old.

,"..is this better?,"He said, looking down at Storm, suddenly finding himself stuck in one of those sappy moments where the lead-male stares intently into the eyes of his lover, and they just stand there until something happens. He shuddered at the thought, but flexed his muscles and shrugged, bending down a little more so she could reach his head, while slowly resting his arm on her shoulder out of instinct.

[Purple]

She wondered what he meant by his comment but didn't ask. Likely he was feeling rather confused right now, or he was feeling something that she couldn't see. His speech didn't have to be quite coherent just yet. She watched as he hopped down off the counter, hoping he would still bend down, as there was still quite a height difference. When he did she prepared to clean off his wound, though the fact that his arm followed annoyed her slightly. Storm looked at Dustin and then at his arm on her shoulder, raising one eyebrow at him in an expression that said, "Really? Why the hell am I an armrest now?" However, she ignored it and began wiping the blood off of his face. The gauze pad had managed to stop the bleeding, so she just had to clean off the old blood, some of which was dry, and clean out the cut before she could cover it with a band-aid. She tossed the bloody gauze pads into a nearby trashcan and followed them with a band-aid wrapper before focusing on Dustin's face once more. She leaned in a bit closer, trying to see the cut better so that she could get the band-aid on without getting any of his hair caught in it. Finally she got it and leaned away a tiny bit, though she didn't move out from under his arm as she had been tempted to do a moment before.