Hell's Belles Chapter Three: Keep the Home Fires Burning
The air rushed by so quickly that all Gomurr could see was the closing vortex. His small frame slid into the light just as the passage resealed. He suddenly landed with a thump on top of a lumpy, moaning, groaning mass, which he soon discovered was the three young students that had unwittingly opened the portal. Gomurr, who was much more used to dimensional jaunts such as this was nowhere near as disoriented as his pupils, so he was the first to notice that they were no longer on the school grounds. For that matter, it appeared they were no longer on any earthly realm that Gomurr recognized. As he surveyed the area around them, he saw huge jagged mountains of rock, spilling dark black waterfalls into obsidian pools all underneath a blood red sky. The wind, or what passed for it in this realm, seemed to scream as it whipped and beat by the 4 travelers carrying enough grit to sting the eyes and skin. "Where in the name of the seven rings are we", Gomurr thought.
Rahsas sat in his room, window shades open, trying to build up his defenses against the sunlight. He sat with his 6'10" frame somehow curled up on a chair next to the open window, allowing the cruel sun to bathe his body in its glow. As far as he could tell, the wicked sun drained him of almost half of his mutant powers. His dark hair and skin blended into the shadows that constantly surrounded him, even in contact with the warm sunlight from outside. Every moment of spare time that the academy allowed to Rahsas, he used in honing his dark-spawned abilities. It wasn't like he had many other options for his time anyway. He always found himself out of place even among these other young people that might understand his differences. He always felt distant and showed it in his bitter sarcasm when he spoke to others. His inborn power to harness the power of the dark dimension, as he called it, allowed him to teleport as well as fire globes of this dark energy with varying degrees of intensity. It took a great deal to break this solemn young man's concentration, but seeing his teacher, Gomurr, fall from the sky, and rocket by his window was more than enough. Rahsas leaped to his window, and stretched his arm malleable arms out to try and snare his plummeting mentor, but was too late. As he fruitlessly closed his hand on air, he watched Gomurr disappear into the glowing hole.
Rahsas concentrated, opened a shadow door, and tried to step through, but was immediately wracked with pain. It felt as if, his entire body was being showered with tiny needles, or shards of glass. Rahsas allowed the portal to close and collapsed onto the floor. Even his well disciplined body was not ready for the intensity of that sensation. When the shock of the experience had worn off, Rahsas picked himself up and ran toward the stairs of the men's dormitory. His calls of alarm drew the attention of some of the other Black Hellions. Puma11, Janista15 and Johnny Blaze met him, as he bolted from the doors of the dormitory at a mad run. All the students were questioning him frantically about what had happened to so excite their usually solemn, and often downright cold, teammate. Rahsas explained the situation as best he could to the others and they immediately began searching the area. They gathered around the site where their headmaster and their three fellow students had disappeared. Rahsas examined the ground and noticed the faint remains of the pattern that Bux had traced to form the gateway. He looked closer and a strange feeling of deja' vu came over him. He had seen this symbol before.....but where?......and why weren't his powers working? He slowly traced his fingers along the lines of the triangle, and just then felt the slightest touch of the dark dimension from which he drew his power, yet somehow, there was also a new sensation here. It felt almost as if someone had somehow attempted to block his inborn awareness of this dark place....almost like a blanket of cold, sharp and dangerous barbs had been placed around it. He tried once again to form one of his shadowgates, and was rewarded by the same pain as before, yet this time he realized there was less resistance being put up. It then came to him in a sudden jarring flash of memory...the triangular symbol.....the flying razor sharp crystal shards......these all were part and parcel to the dark dimension in which he teleported through....he just never stayed in the dimension long enough to recognize them consciously. His mind whirled with images of cruel landscapes of sharp jagged hills erupting from barren ground.......the dry burning heat of winds carrying enough grit to cut skin from bone.....these were all memories of a place, that Rahsas thought he would never find.......these were all images of HOME.
On to Chapter 4.
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