Absorption Distortion

Chapter 4

Earlier in the day.

Laying on the forest floor just down the street of Fernbrooke, Bolt felt a kick to the leg. Karen French was kicking his leg, "Wake up bozo" She scoulded at him, having unsuccessfully been able to wake him sooner. He looked up at her and sat up, seeing the other guards on the floor slowly getting up as the sun began to rise.  "What happened?" Bolt asked, standing to his feet to see Eville approaching him with Stevens and Ryder. "She absorbed Karen's powers, put you all to sleep," Eville replied smiling, "I thought you put her asleep?" Bolt questioned, looking at Karen. She shook her head, "If someone is already asleep, I can't put them to sleep. We found her unconscious, she must've woken up and taken my ability," Karen spat out a few unheard disgruntled comments about Luna and the military's ability to secure her. She walked past Ryder who followed her back to the main transport. Eville approached Bolt, "That kid..." Bolt recalls seeing Nick beside Luna. "That camper boy, Nick Bilter was with Luna when we found her. We just chucked him back at his camp," He pondered for a moment, "But I bet they've gone home now. If she escaped from this point, she could only make it to Canuck in a few hours,"  "Than that's probably where she'll be," Eville finished, turning away from Bolt and walking towards Ryder.

--

Back to present time.

As Luna and Nick follow the dog, resembling a black border collie, they reach a house that hides behind big gates. The dog jumps the fence, which is over 5 feet high at least, "Whoa," Nick says, stopping in his tracks and forcing Luna to stop. They stand in front of the gate beside each other, seeing the roof of a house peering above the trees. "Where did he go?" Luna asks, just as the gate swings open and she lowers her hand, letting go of Nicks. A topless man in track pants opens it, "Hi, I'm Jason," he said, holding out his hand, "Hi..." Nick recognizes his voice as the dog thoughts. "You were the dog?" he asked puzzled as Jason shakes Luna's hand, gesturing for them to come inside. "You guys were lucky.." Jason said, leading the way up to the house in the darkness. Luna closes the gate behind her and follows, "Kate put your house out, my wife," Jason says to Nick. As they continue to walk down the path, Nick hears "Nick!" said by Luna, but he realizes it was a thought and not spoken. He turns around and he can't see her. "Luna?" he questions. Jason stops and looks, another black border collie runs up to Nick and jumps up on him, "What is going on?" Luna asks, Nick realizes Luna has turned into a border collie just like Jason. "She must be able to absorb powers," Jason replies, seeing Dog Luna look up at him. "You absorbed my ability to shape shift," Jason kneels down to Dog Luna. She tilts her head, "I can help you control it, just come inside the house," he says, standing up and walking up the steps, opening the front door for Nick and Dog Luna.

Nick walks inside with Dog Luna following behind him. "How do I change back?" Luna asks, Nick translates for her to Jason, "Let me get a blanket first," he says, grabbing a rug off the back of the closest couch, putting it on the back of Dog Luna as she stands on all paws in the middle of the lounge room. Nick sits down on the couch opposite her as Jason sits in front of her on the floor. "Imagine your abilities are like a deck of cards. You just need to learn when to pull out the right card Luna," Jason begins, grabbing her paw, "Imagine putting the shape shifting card back in a deck, imagine switching it off, putting it away, becoming human again," he looks into Dog Luna's eyes and can see her close them, concentrating. Aft er afew moments, she starts to shift back into her human form but can't quite do it and falls down, using a lot of energy to try to transform. "I can't control it," Nick translates for Luna, "You can... concentrate, concentrate on your breathing, think about your human form," After a few minutes and a few failed attempts, Luna managed to turn back to human, falling onto her stomach on the lounge room floor naked with the blanket draped over her body. She shakes herself off and sits up, wrapping the blanket around her as she does so. "Now you know why I needed the blanket," Jason says to Nick, Luna can't help but overhear Nick think, "Would be better without it," and she can't help but blush a little. He notices the change in her body language and thinks, "You didn't hear that did you?" Luna looks at him with a smile just as the door opens as a needed distraction for Nick.

"Kate?" Jason queries as his wife walks into the room. Luna can only see her medium blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, tucked under her beanie as she embraces Jason until she faces the room. Luna has a thought and looks at them, "If they know where Nick lives, won't they find us?" she queries, with a little desperation and concern in her voice. With her concern, she starts to glow from underneath the blanket, pulsating with her heartbeat. Nick stands up,  about to approach Luna but Jason puts his hand on his chest, "Control it Luna," Jason demands, she looks up at him and concentrates, closing her eyes. Her glowing minimizes and stops as Kate declares, "A friend bought us this house, we needed a place to be safe from their control," "Their?" Nick repeated, "Fernbrooke Facility," Jason replied, "They were keeping me there after I...." Luna began. "Come on honey, lets get you some clothes huh?" Kate says, holding out her arms to Luna who is hesitant to move towards her, "It's okay honey, you won't hurt me," Kate says with a comforting smile. Luna walks with her into another room. Kate didn't want her to start using an ability she had no control over yet.

Nick sits back down on the couch as does Jason. "So you can turn into a dog?" Nick remarks, attempting to spark conversation. "Yeah, dogs, cats, crows," Jason smiles and looks up recalling and thinking, "Even a cow once," which Nick overhears. "A cow! Why did you do that?" Jason looks back at Nick, "The same reason you can read minds Nick, because we can," Jason smiled. He was in his mid 30s, as was Kate, but he still had that young boy innocence. "You said earlier that Kate 'put my house out?' You mean she made it rain?" Jason nods in response to Nick, "She controls weather, the trees, the grass. She's special," he smiles at the thought of his wife with her abilities. "Luna.. she's..." Nick begins but shakes his head confused at what she is, 24 hours ago he thought he was the only one with the ability to read minds or any ability. He had no idea that there were others out there, especially someone like Luna. "She just needs to control it, if she can control it, she really could be unstoppable," Jason divulges to Nick, "Is that why Fernbrooke are after her?" Jason lets out a breath, "They were trying to stop her leaving..." Nick sits back confused, "Overprotective Big Brother much?" he retorts. Nick looks at him as if to question what he means, so Jason continues, "From what I heard, Luna can absorb anyone's ability, especially now that she is out of the Fernbrooke Forest force field," "Yeah, I always wondering why I couldn't hear peoples thoughts while I was there," Jason sits down on the couch, "Yeah, they have a shield over the forest, so if anyone escapes, they can't use their powers," Jason turns and lifts up his hair showing the microchip with a green light. Nick hears Jason think, "It's not something they can track outside of the forest," Jason continues by talking, "See how its green, I can use my abilities now. They can control when I can or can't when I'm in Fernbrooke forest," Nick feels the back of his head and feels the microchip in the back of his head, "What the...?" he says, turning his back to Jason who replies, "Yeah they got you man," Nick recalls the night he met Luna, "In the forest, the lightening bolt," "Ahh, you met Bolt," Jason mutters. "I found Luna because she was glowing," Jason nods, "Yeah, Bolt, he's one of the Fernbrooke guys, follows Alex's every command," Nick raises his eyebrow, "Alex?" "Professor Alexander Eville," Jason says as if to almost announce him. "He runs the whole operation," "Why him?" Nick queries just as Kate and Luna walk back in the room. Jason looks at Nick and thinks, "I'll tell you later man," Luna sits beside Nick wearing jeans with boots and a hoodie. He smiles at her, letting his mind wander as he watches her lower her head looking sad. He can hear her thinking, "I shouldn't be here, I should just go, I don't want to hurt anyone else," he can see her fingertips are glowing but with her eyes closed, she stops it going any further. Kate takes Jason in the kitchen so they didn't notice it. Nick moves forward to Luna and grabs her hands, he goes to speak to her but stops. He freezes, holding her hands. He can feel a tingly through his body. With her eyes closed, she doesn't notice she is pulling his essence from him. His eyes roll into the back of his head as she absorbs his life through his hands, draining his energy. Jason walks back in holding two cups, he sees Nick's eyes are white and start to lose their colour. He drops the cups, they smash on the floor with water covering the floor, signalling to Kate something is wrong.