Shadowed Pryde: Chapter Three

A/N: I forgot to explain how I am writing this. It's a little like a comic book. Every title represents an 'Arc' or storyline (plot). Every arc will have about 5-6 chapters or 'comic books'. Some will be long, and some will be short (same applies to the chapters).

I hope now that I am a little less busy I can post more, and will try to keep to the schedule of posting one every Saturday. Oh, and it's all going to stay in the same folder. I'm not going to make a new one for every story. To much work.

You know how in the movies or television, when you watch scenes where someone decides to shoot the place up, it's usually in slow motion so that you can see what the main characters are doing without having to strain yourself. They want to show you exactly how they get their weapon, what hand they reach with, how they protect the damsel in distress, and so on. That's what the world wants to see, so the movies show it.

The movies lie.

It wasn't anything like that. Gunfire erupted in my eardrums as my voice faded, and my ears began to ring with the backlash. Something exploded, and for my own sanity I didn't dare contemplate just exactly what the villain had shot.

People start to scream around me, and I am immediately begin to panic. With everything going on in my background, I can no longer be certain of exactly what is happening, or where I am. All my senses are being attacked, and everything is magnified. Sound, smell. I can hear people shouting, I can smell the gunpowder over the scent of the sweets in the shop. In my desperation for something to focus on, I latch onto Piotr's arm.

He pulls us both to the ground as more shots ring out, and I know that the gunman hit some of the equipment due to the sound of splattering liquid, the slight temperature change, and the smell of chocolate that suddenly hits me. I start to struggle against Piotr, because the confining feeling of his arms makes me feel helpless and does absolutely nothing to stop my impending panic attack.

People are shouting, alarms are going off, there are footsteps and voices everywhere. The faint sound of sirens tells me that someone managed to call the police in all this madness. Strangely enough, through the fog that I am in I realize that the man causing all this madness is giving no reason for it. He's not making demands, threatening to hurt people if James doesn't open the cash register...James!

I can't hear him anywhere. I can hear Logan dogging bullets, Storm attempting to protect some people who have huddled together in the corner.....I guess Mr. Gunman brought some friends....And loudest of all, I can hear Piotr's heartbeat from where I am pressed into his chest. Desperate for something to focus on, I stop struggling and listen to it. I let the rhythm dominate everything else, and I slowly begin to calm down. His pulse is all I feel beneath my fingers, but soon, that small comfort is gone.

The feeling of flesh and bones is replaced by cold hard steel, and his weight increases on me, although he does quickly lift himself off of me to prevent another near-death by suffocation. So, that's what his mutant power is. He can turn himself into a giant, metal man. Or rather, turn his skin into metal. I shiver from the feeling of it.

“Лежать!” he hisses at me. Stay down. Really?

“Я что, похож я движущихся.” Seriously, does it look like I'm going anywhere? I'm so tiny compared to the man on top of me that I bet I couldn't even get him to move his arm using what little strength I have.

His weight is gone from me a second later, and suddenly I hear tinny metallic pings! as the bullets hit his...armor? body? I'm not sure what to call it. Whatever it is, the people who are attacking the shop clearly think that he is a big (pun intended) threat and are determined to take him out.

I stretch out my arm and my hand hits a table in front of me, which I quickly slide under, trying to ignore all the background noise now that my filter is gone.

“YOU WANT ME? COME AND GET ME BUB!”

Logan sounds angry. And if I'm hearing things correctly, which I should be, he's pretty good at taking the bad guys out. That's the third thump I've heard coming from his direction, although I am pretty sure the first was him getting slammed against the wall.

Storm clearly doesn't need any assistance whatsoever, because I can feel her power crackling from all the way across the room. It's almost like electricity, and it practically has substance.

One thing is clear about this odd trio of companions that I have somehow ended up with. They're holding back, and I don't know why. The power the surrounds Storm is so great that I can nearly touch it, and yet she isn't unleashing it on these madmen. Piotr could take them all out in seconds without breaking a sweat-Can he sweat?-and no doubt so could Logan, but they don't. They pull their punches, keep themselves from attacking at full strength and it confuses me. If I were in their position I would go berserk.

And how many people would get caught in the crossfire? How many people would get hurt while you're trying to play hero?

I hate it when my conscience is smarter than I am.

“No, no please! Let her go!”

“Mommy! Mommy!”

If they had been anywhere else I wouldn't have heard the young woman and her child over the commotion. But they were right next to me, so I heard everything. I heard someone heavy footed, more than likely another man reach for the child who hadn't stopped screaming since this all began. “S'UT UP!” he screamed, yanking her small body against his much larger one and shoving his face into hers.

I don't know why the man focused specifically on this one child when there were many screaming adults to pick on, or when he could have just been shooting bullets at one of the X-Men, but he did. He slurred a little, and the thought that maybe he was hearing impaired crossed my mind. If all he could hear were certain noises, maybe all he was hearing is her screaming. It's a crazy theory, I know, but at this point I can't really focus on anything sane.

The girls cries were halting now, and I realized that he was shaking her, hard. The mother was begging, pleading with him to let her child go. I silently plead for one of my fighting companions to notice the latest scene currently happening, but I know that they couldn't possibly do anything before it became far to late. Piotr sounds like he's crunching metal between his palms-must have gotten a hold of a gun-, Storm is currently doing some hocus-pocus thing that I can't even begin to explain because I honestly can't believe what I am hearing, and Logan sounds way to into the fight for me to even think about asking him for help. So I do the only logical thing.

I end my two-second inner monologue, and I jump him.

It has been established in the past that I am not the smartest person in the world. I am selfish, and a brat, and I have a terrible habit for doing stupid things. What I did in that moment proves the last statement right. This guy is twice my size, and he has a kid in one arm and a gun in the other. He no doubt in is possession of all of his senses, whereas I am lacking in that department.

In conclusion, this is one of the stupidest things that I have ever done. I mean, seriously, this guy has got a GUN! With a capital 'G'. It is loaded with bullets and can take me down in an instant. One wrong move and someone else winds up dead with me. The girl in his arms could die. Her other could die. Some innocent bystander could die alongside the others who are already gone or who are drawing their lasts breaths. I can smell the blood, and I know that more then one person has been wounded in the past minute and a half. Has it only been that long?

But as I slam into his side, shoving my hands around his neck and squeezing as tight as I can, I a driven by only one thought. Well, two thoughts. One: I am so about to die. And two: but the kid isn't.

So I hang there, pinning his arm to his body and kicking my feet at him, hoping to hit something important. That's a thigh, ouch! Nope, to far to the left, wait, oooh, GOT IT! Clearly, whoever leads these goons have not schooled them in properly protecting everything.

He groans and I feel him drop the child, who runs into her mothers arms. They quickly duck under the table that I just vacated. Glad at least one of us gets away.

“You little....” he moans, bending over and gripping me with his now free arm. I don't let go, which would be the smart thing to do. Instead, I hold on as tightly as possible and hope that my small body is heavy enough to keep him from shooting me or other people.

The X-Men still have yet to notice my predicament, for which I am somewhat grateful. I think that if one of them tried to rescue me at this point the added noise would distract me so much that I would let go, and therefore die. And to be honest, I don't want to die today.

I have no idea what I am doing. All I know is that I have to keep that kid from being hurt. They just came in for some ice cream, completely oblivious to the fact that today it came with a free side of bullets. If I can just hold on long enough, someone else will take care of this idiot.

Well, it was a nice thought anyway.

Needless to say, my companions were far to caught up in totally kicking butt to notice little old me dangling from this man's arm like an ornament on a Christmas tree. And my little girly fight move-stunt thing apparently didn't last long. My fighting instructor must have lied when she said that kicking a guy in the nuts is about as bad as period cramps.

Or maybe he was just able to weirdly heal himself in some strange manner, because when I kicked Robby Hensley in the nuts for getting a little to handsy-grabsy during gym class, he went down and stayed down until long after school ended. Maybe the “bigger they are, harder they fall principle” applied here. Whatever it was, I was doing it again.

Mind rambling is so much fun, and it successfully keeps you from panicking.

Unfortunately, it does not in any way help you escape from the evil man who more than likely wants to rip your head off and has the power and strength to do so.

Which meant that in my self-distraction, Big and Ugly had managed to wrench me off his arm. He was currently holding he in the air by my wrists, and my wrists were starting to hurt from the lack of blood circulation. Dang, this guy is strong.

Two seconds later, I realized that there was no way I was getting myself out of this. I came to this realization when his other massive hand closed around my throat.

When Logan had covered my mouth with his hand, it was the smell more than anything that had made it difficult for me to breath. He had hardly put any pressure on me, because he was simple trying to shut me up before I did something stupid. Like what you did just now.

But this guy had absolutely no qualms about wrapping his hand around my neck-and yes, it went all the way around-and squeezing as hard as he possibly could. That's going to seriously bruise. I had the misfortune to not take a breath before he started his assault on my windpipe, and therefore I have very little air reserves. And now I'm gasping and my eyes are bugging out and I bet I look like a fish and I can still hear World War III happening around me, and yet at the same time, all I .really focus on is the face of my captor, who by indication of his breath, has shoved his face into mine.

There's this thing, I think it's called tunnel vision. Right before you 'go into the light' the world closes in around you and you focus on only one thing. Even without my sight, I was focusing on two. The fact that my lungs were burning, I was going limp and swiftly losing any sense of reality, and also the fact that I did not want the last thing that I remember to be the severe onion breath of my murderer.

And my god, it was bad.

I wish that I could say that the world started to grow dark as I felt myself begin to slip away, but well, you know, blind, so my world is already dark. I couldn't hear however. Sounds slipped away. And that was when I truly started to panic. I was not going to go down like this. I don't know for sure exactly how I was going to go down, but I knew that it wasn't like this. I went completely limp, and the idiot holding me fell for it.

His grip on me lessened just enough for me to breath, and scream.

Sure, things had been loud before, but I put everything that I had left into the volume of that sound.

With several final bangs, things around me grew silent, and I knew that the others had seen me in the grasp of this hygiene-deprived beast. And then I realized my mistake. Everything around me went silent as the X-Men stopped fighting to look at me. In their distraction, it didn't take long for any of them to hit the floor. None of them moved, and I knew that they were unconscious.

You stupid idiot! I berated myself. Oh. Shoot.

I'm next.

“Thanks girly!” his breath was foul, and his bristly voice was the last thing I heard, hissed into my ear before being hit on the back of the head; OW, that was fracking painful! and falling into darkness.