Dance or Die: a Fanfiction

Chapter 5 - Intruders

The fifth day was uneventful for all of the men. Upon opening the doorway that led out, however, they found that the repeated blizzards that had been raging in torrents and shaking the metal walls had stopped. The giant mound of snow in front of the inward-opening door was still too large to break through, standing at least a head taller than Rulefe, the tallest one of the bunch. In all, they messed around in the place all day until they decided they should sleep. Derek began to feel more at home with the completely alien beings he wouldn't even thought existed a week ago. The four were very friendly and treated him like a brother. His insecurity about feeling inhuman began to fade as he became more comfortable with them and the "weird alien powers," as he called the bio-radiation.

It felt as if his family had expanded to hold these four strange, funny, not-quite people.

The other four liked Derek quite well, Siron acting as the main mentor and friend towards him. Tephe particularly enjoyed making him laugh, and Najat liked teaching, or more often just showing him stunts. Rulefe expressed a certain kindness towards him as well.

And so the day began and ended.

In the middle of the night however, when they were all asleep, a loud bang startled Tephe awake. He warily peeked around, eyes wide and searching. He almost dismissed the noise before another resonated, and the entryway opened, beams of artificial light spilling in and looking around like curiously shaped creatures. This time, he was very afraid of what he could now see. Two, three man-shaped figures were carrying the lights and were swiftly walking closer and closer in a wandering path. One spoke a few brief words of a foreign language to another as Tephe lay, terrified. He had to defend his comrades and brothers.

He slowly stood up. Noiselessly he wormed his way around the searching circles of light until he was in range of all three men. He quickly shot a bright, snaking strand of white at the one to his right, toppling and stunning him, and drawing attention to himself. The other two, a stout one and a big broad-chested one whipped their circles of light at Tephe, whose face had gone from fearful to as intense and intimidating as he could seem. The stout one ran away as Tephe shot another beam of energy at him, missing him by mere centimeters. The bigger man ran at Tephe and grappled him to the ground, only to be kicked off to some distance with a burst of burning energy. Tephe leapt to his feet again to hear a tap of shoes on the ground behind him. He paused a moment before lighting up his right hand with white flame-like wisps and, with unexpected grace to his movement, whipped around, punching the stout man in the jaw. He soon regretted his form, hurting his knuckles on the man's jaw, and gripped his hand in pain. At this time the bigger man came after him again, shoving him down sprawling. He felt a strong knee on his lower back, but before his hands could be held back, the force was lifted from him. As he got up, breathing hard from having the wind knocked out of him, he saw another figure grappling with the large man. A shock of turquoise grazing the man's head showed him it was Rulefe who saved him.

As the noise level in the warehouse increased, the others had gradually awoken. Another couple mysterious men rushed in just as Tephe had shaken Siron awake. He dragged Siron to a standing position and slapped at his face to wake him up. Siron smacked Tephe's frantic hand away and glared at him for a second before the two men who had newly entered grabbed them. In a slightly tired anger, Siron quickly struggled loose and channeled a particularly hot wave of energy to both his hands and grabbed the mystery man's face, nails digging into his cheeks. The man gave a cry of great pain, waking Derek and Najat.

The tussle in the dark was messily fought, with no light to see around. Tephe escaped the other man's grip by stomping on the instep of his foot and tripping him. Derek had no idea what to do amidst the flurry of activity, so he decided to try to find the light switch. He could tell where the mysterious people and his friends were fighting, so he looped around the inside edge of the building to where he remembered the switch was. As he flicked it on, the stout man who turned out to be a police officer, with a burn mark where Tephe struck him, was behind the young man. Derek put his hands up a little in surrender as the other looked at him in curiosity, then seemed to recognize him.