Noelle - Day 168 (MARATHON - FINAL DAY!!!)

Hello everybody!
You survived the week through my RMS marathon, kickstarting the plot line of my second book, The Survivors!  As your reward, I promise not to post RMS for A FULL WEEK.  Although it may kill me - and then you would have lost your favorite blogger!  What would we do then?!

Anyway, so the past few days, I like to do a little intro for my Marathon post.  Today, a deeply important psychological question:

Who do you ship?  Jess & Danny (Alisa, one of our authors, christened this Jenny, but I changed it to Jelly) or Jess & Sam (she called this Jam...Jam and Jelly?  Geddit? Anybody?)  Comment!  :P

The Survivors (Part 20)

Chaos.

Feet pounding across the floor.  Pressure destroying the walls.  Splintering foundations.  Pain.

The world is grey and scattered.  Fluttering across my eyelids.  I am the world...the world is me....  The shifting of the ground, the flying particles.  It makes sense.   All of it.

“Jess, wake up!”  Somebody roughly pulled her out of the trance.  She had always tried to stay out of her connection...now it was time to work to stay in it.  She forged ahead again....

The sand is monumental, huge.  It doesn’t want to obey.  It has a mind of its own.  The tiny particles, all working together, like ants in a colony, to build something huge.   What holds it together?  What?

I don’t even have to think, to slow down.  I’m in the air, the stone holds me there.  Wings are overrated, afterall.  The sand coils up, fighting my will.  I stretch my mind.  It stretches away.  It’s a battle of wills for a little bit, then I twist under an arch of angry specks to take control of the situation.

“JESS!!”  Somebody snagged her ankle, dragging her out of the air and into the real world.  Nova.  “What are you thinking?!  STOP!!!”

“Get off of me, Sam!”

Coulson’s voice weaved into the confusion of the sand and pressure.  “Keep her contained, Nova, we have to call in some Dragon specialty units.”

Jess’s eyes flashed, then transferred into complete greyness.  No pupil.  No whites.  She’s out of control, thought Nova, and doubled his hold on her ankle.

C’mon, time time time.  The sand is roaring up against me, strong and furious.  I can’t afford to be caught.  The pressure is gone from my ankle, whether I can’t feel it or it’s gone I can’t tell.  That doesn’t matter at the moment.  I need control.

Physical contact.  That usually helps.

So I plunge my hands - hands I can see straight through, straight into my veins - into the writhing mass of Sandman.  I scream escapes my lips; my mind has never touched another like this and it's all pain and horror.  It wants Spider-man.  It wants blood.

The stone in my blood is racing, roaring, rushing along like it's on fire.  I haven’t been this strong or in control for a long time.  It’s relaxing, and I force that into Sandman’s mind.  Press it upon him, stabbing him with knives.  I am in control.  I am relaxed and at home in this world.  You will listen to me.  I repeat this over and over and slowly, the sand retreats from my fingers.

He slides away and obediently bottles himself in a crate behind the cafeteria.  It’s ok.  The chaos is over.  I can pull myself out of this connection and it will all be ok.

I can’t make myself believe that lie.  I fall to my knees, the tile floor softening the blow for me.  It’s over...I’ve ruined my world.  Marred it.  There’s no way out.

Except....

Something hit Jess in the back.  An energy blast.  It sent her skidding across the floor and slammed her against the remains of the wall.  Ava screamed.

Coulson was holding an energy cannon.  Jess’s back sizzled and sent fresh signals of pain to her brain in an attempt to bring her back to the present.  She rose to her feet, waiting for somebody to say something.  Anything.  No one moved.

She hissed and her wings unfolded, this time with an audible shhhhck.  “You’re just going to let him attack your own teammate?”  She called, crouching down.

No one said anything, then Peter shouted back, “You never were our teammate.  Putting yourself first...risking everything just to use your powers.  You can’t follow orders.  We need people that can help us on our team...not you.”

“Ava?”

“It’s against regulation Jess.  I’m...I’m sorry.”

“Luke?”  Jess whispered, a hint of desperation in her voice.

“Sorry, man.  Gotta listen to the boss.”

“...Sam?”

Nova just stared sadly at her, saying nothing.

Coulson shook his head, as if he was clearing his thoughts.  “Warriors, I need you to contain the threat until the troops can get here.”

Jess hissed again.  “Fine then,” she said calmly.  And took off into the sky.

§§§

Noelle: Sorry this is such a confusing section. Its switching between 1st person-present and 3rd person-past and that's just hard to follow. Of course, this scene is supposed to be hard to follow, because Jess herself...you know what, I'm just going to shut up now.