Awkward... Embarrassment

Zeke was standing below a cliff. There was always a large group of people milling around inside a fence. They were different this time, he found them vaguely familiar. He saw a boulder fall off of the cliff directly above them. Zeke reached out to stop it, but it would not stop. He strained with all the strength had, but he couldn't stop it. He wanted to scream and warn the people, but he couldn't open his mouth. Zeke was forced to watch helplessly as the people were slowly crushed by his partially suspended boulder...
"Zeke!" Charise was bumping around in the dark, trying to get to him.
"Its ok, Charise, I just had a bad dream."
"What time is it?"
Zeke pulled his watch off a table and pushed the light. "It's 5:02."
"Too late to go back to bed, and I'm hungry."
Zeke opened the door and led her down the hall to the galley.
"There's food in the cabinets there, just go through it till you find something you like."
"Thanks. By the way, how do you find things in your room in the dark?"
"I can see di, not as well as when I'm in silver mode, but I can feel where everything is in my room."
"Silver mode?"
"Alchemy is a delicate art, to manipulate it more precisely, I arrange small amounts of it over blood vessels and muscles to increase my connection and strength respectively and in my eyes and brain to see di, and it gives me a better idea of where it is. Silver mode is also essential for gravity control."
"You can control gravity too?!"
"Not really. In fact, when I pushed the trucks off the bridge to save you, that was the only time. It is incredibly difficult and I haven't had any training yet."
Charise had just poured herself a bowl of cereal when they heard Mike shout, "WHERE ARE MY PANTS?"
Zeke laughed a little and said, "We'd better go explain."
Zeke and Charise stepped into Rachael's room to find her rolling on the ground in laughter. Mike had his head poked out from around the other doorway. Zeke walked back into the room. Mike was in just his boxers and looked quite mad.
"Zek, why am I in Rachael's room and not wearing much?"
"Uh, Mike, you were shot several times. We had to cut your clothes off to get to the wounds."
Mike just stood there stunned as the memories of the last night flooded back to him. Feeling the gravity of what he said, Zeke decided to try and lift the mood with some humor.
"Come on man, we have to get ready for school. Now go get some pants on."
"But Rachael and Charise are out there."
"Well, Charise was the one that cut your clothes off, and Rachael did have to run her hands all over you, but if you're still bashful you can just grow yourself a pair of leaf pants."
Zeke tried to dodge him, but Mike managed to land a punch on his shoulder.
"Ow! I was just kidding, you can borrow a pair of mine." Zeke left and returned with a pair of jeans.
"Here. So are you ok after last night?"
"Yeah, its kind of like a dream. I actually want to go to school. It will make things seem more normal."
"Yeah, you guys are used to having weird powers. All this is new to me." Charise added.
"Charise, you can't go, and I'm not being paranoid. They know you were involved: they came to your house. They are most likely going to be looking for you, and asking about you at school."
"I think Zeke's right about this one, they wanted to get you and the staff bad enough that they shot Mike." Rachael added.
"Ok, so I stay here. But what am I to do here by myself all day?"
"Oh, hold on." Mike stepped out into the bedroom hub and began to stare at the wall. In a few moments he flicked his wrist and a doorway appeared. "You can figure out how you want to decorate your room."
"Mike, that's awesome!"
"Well, we have to go, there's food in the galley." Everyone entered their rooms and emerged with their backpacks and school gear. "See you later."
And with that Charise was left alone in the base.
School went normally, for the most part. All their classes were rather uneventful. Rumors were starting to spread, and the three of them were more than happy to add to the stack of lies that the police would have to sort though.
"So son, can you tell me what you know about Ms. Charise Walters?"
"Well she's in marching band with me, she does flags."
"So you know her well?"
"No, not really. I see her in band, and that's it. But I heard that she killed her parents and she ran around town dangling her parents hands from a stick."
"Well I can assure you that her parents are alive and well. Thank you for your time."
By the time Zeke got to his last class, chemistry, he was tired. All the alchemy from the last night had taken a lot out of him and he was starting to feel it. Zeke just rested his head on his desk and listened to the teacher drone on.
"So anything lighter than iron will give off energy when fused and any thing heavier will give off energy when it fissions. Does anyone know why?" Because iron is at the size at which the short nuclear just spans the nucleus, and if you get two of them near each other in high pressure, you get some other form or di.
He easily slipped into sleep.
Zeke was standing below a cliff. There was always a large group of people milling around inside a fence. They were different this time, he was sure he knew them, but he just couldn't but his finger on who they were. He saw a boulder fall off of the cliff directly above them. Zeke reached out to stop it, but it would not stop. He strained with all the strength had, but he couldn't stop it. He wanted to scream and warn the people, but he couldn't open his mouth. Zeke was forced to watch helplessly as the people cried out as they were slowly crushed by his partially suspended boulder...
"Zeke... Ezekiel!"
"What? Oh, sorry." Zeke peeled his face off of the desk. "Could you ask the question again?"
People in the class giggled, but the teacher complied.
"What is the difference between oxidation and reduction?"
"Oxidation is when an atom looses an electron to an oxygen atom, and reduction is when it gains one from an oxygen atom."
"Correct, as usual, Zeke. Now the bell's going to ring soon, so all of you need to read chapter 5.4 and answer all the question at the end." There was a general murmur of complaint from the class. "Fine, skip the vocab review. Just make sure that you know it."
The bell rang and the class started to empty. The teacher stopped Zeke on the way out.
"Zeke, I know you have a natural talent for chemistry, and I know that this class is a little slow paced for you, but try and stay awake. It sets a better example for the rest of the class."
"Yes, sir. Sorry, I was just really tired today."
"Ok, well there's just tomorrow and then we have spring break."
"Good bye."
"See you tomorrow."
The three were laughing all the way to the park.
"So you really told him that you heard she killed her parents and ran around with their hands on a stick." Rachael clarified.
"Yeah, you should have seen the look on his face, it was something like 'damn kids these days will believe anything they hear'." Mike laughed.
"Misinformation is such a wonderful thing." Rachael agreed.
"It's more of a distraction than disinformation, for it to be disinformation, they would have to believe it." Zeke pointed out.
"True. But it's still funny!"
They arrived at the tree and checked to make sure no one was looking before Mike let everyone in. They had barely stepped in the door when Charise came running down the hall. She nearly tackled the group to the ground.
"Wow, you're happy to see us, aren't you?" Rachael joked.
"Yeah, I've been bored out of my mind with no one to talk to and no TV. I read the rest of Lord of the Flies, I was that desperate! Strange book, I don't think that kids would really kill each other like that. I mean come on, they're just little kids."
"Wow, calm down. Did you get the plans drawn up for your room?" Mike asked.
"Yeah. I even did several different ones because I don't know how much space you have to work with."
"Well if you don't mind dropping levels, we have all the space you could use."
Charise and Mike left to work on her room. Zeke and Rachael ventured to the galley and found something to eat.
"So what's the plan for this weekend?"
"We head to Japan after school. I know that you think its a little fast, but we need all the time we can get."
"We?"
"Yes we, I'm sure that they can find some way to help you too." Rachael looked skeptically at him. "At the very least you can take some martial arts classes." He added.
"Zeke, I don't know if I can leave my room alone that long, it's not like we can just call a neighbor to take care of it."
"I know, but you're a smart girl, you'll find a way to make it work."
Rachael sighed. "I know its better not to argue with you, so I'll just take your word for it."
Zeke opened a cupboard and rummaged around looking for food while Rachael reached up and grabbed an unopened bag of sugar. Written on it was "Rachael's sugar, DO NOT EAT." Along with that was other random notes from Zeke and Mike, including "IT'S POISON!", "IT'LL KIL US ALL!", "AAAH!", and "DANGER, RADIOACTIVE!" Zeke smiled as he remembered Rachael's reaction when she first saw it…
He remembered when she walked in and went to the cabinet, dutifully oblivious to he and Mike's attempts to stifle their secret. She had pulled out one bag, and she had only taken one glace at it before she turned to looked at the two, partly annoyed and angry, but happily surprised, too. The two boys exploded in fits of laughter, and after a moment, she had started laughing too.
"Zeke…Zeke!"
Rachael's call brought Zeke back to reality.
"I'm going to go feed my room… I have to try and mess with its genetics and whatnot to slow down it's metabolism by like, 800%. Y'know, so that way not too many cells get eaten. Cannibalistic cells, that's what starvation's all about. I'll be in there, if you need me."
Zeke nodded.
"I'll probably be up all night working on my room, so I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Zeke."
"See ya."
And with that, she was off.

~~~~

A few hours later, Zeke had called Rachael back out to experiment with Charise's mind, in the sense of getting in and out. Rachael complied, as her room had done exactly what she wanted it to.
A few minutes into it, Charise's mind finally let her in. While part of her attention focused on the sleep, another part noticed a small part of Charise's brain that wasn't active at all. She focused on it, and she found a gene inside of it. It was turned off, and Rachael tried to manipulate it. It was to no avail, she couldn't.
Rachael muttered aloud. "Whoa…"
Mike and Zeke stood idly by, and questioned her. "What is it?"
Rachael withdrew herself enough to speak. "There's a gene in here I can't manipulate. It's not a mutated one, but it's turned off. I'm going to finish up the sleep with Charise, and then I'm going to turn it on to see what happens."
Quickly, Rachael finished up the bit left, and then she went to the inactive area again. She turned on the gene, and she hurriedly left. She didn't know what would happen, and she didn't want to be involved if something negative happened.
Rachael detached herself from Charise. She opened her eyes and looked around and the three.
"How do you feel?" Rachael asked.
Charise blinked. "A lot better! Thanks!"
"Anything else?"
"No…why? Should there be?"
Rachael was crestfallen. It should've worked! Why didn't it? Zeke and Mike quickly forgot about it as they went away to finish their homework.

~~~~

Hours later, the four had resulted to games to pass the evening away. Zeke and Charise were playing chess while Rachael and Mike were playing charades.
"Quick, who am I?"
"Hey, no fair! You can change what you look like to make it easier!"
"Why are you complaining?"
"Um…I like a challenge?"
"I could blindfold you."
"What good what that do?"
"Well it would definitely make it harder to guess."
"Ahahaha! You look like that stupid math teacher!"
"DENTENTION! Ha-ha! I know, I try."
"I've got you now, Charise! E4 to C2!"
"Uh, yeah! Sure! Knight takes C2!"
"Ooh, bad move! Now I can –"
"Wait."
Zeke looked up at Charise, mid-move. Rachael and Mike weren't paying attention, and they continued their banter over their game. Charise looked over all the pieces, and again, and a third time while a smile crept over her face.
"What is it?"
Charise laughed. "I can see every move possible. You can't win!"
"Oh yeah? Well, we'll see about that!"
A few minutes later, Zeke sat in defeat. Charise glowed triumphantly.
"See? I told you I'd win."
"Yeah, right. It was probably just a lucky bet."
"Give me a puzzle, I'll solve it. Come on!"
"Here's one," Rachael said, running up. "Where can I hide so Mike can't find me?"
"Wha-? Um, definitely no place around here. Why?"
"Shoot – Aaah!!"
Rachael ran off as Mike came in and chased her down the next hallway. Charise turned back to Zeke.
"Seriously. Give me a puzzle and I'll solve it."
"Ok, fine. I'll go get some." He got up, went to his room, and returned with a book. "Here. It's a book of sudoku puzzles. Y'know, that new craze from Japan. We are going there in a few days for spring break, anyways."
"We are?"
"Of course. I have to finish my training."
"For?"
"Dinuclecium, of course. What else? Anyways, try one of the extra hard ones in the back. Y'know, the ones with 13 numbers instead of nine. If you can figure all those before morning, I'll believe you."
"Perfect. I'll have them done long before you wake up again, though."
"Alright, fine, whatever. Just don't hurt yourself."
"Like Rachael just did to Mike."
"What?"
At that moment, Rachael tore through the central hub towards the bedrooms with a huge grin on her face. Mike entered not long after, with huge red marks up and down both arms.
"What happened to you?" Zeke asked. Charise was already in a laughing fit.
"Word to the wise: Don't make a genopath mad at you. You have no idea what she can do to you."
"That's…temporary, right?”
"You know Rachael. She wouldn't do anything to hurt us. Heck, she couldn't hurt anyone, even if she wanted to."
"If you say so."
"I'm going to bed now. G'night, Zeke. You too, Charise."
Zeke nodded. "Doesn't sound like a bad idea, right now. Night Mike, Charise."
They walked down the hallway to the bedrooms, and Zeke called out when they got there, "Goodnight, Rachael!"
"Ya backstabbing moron!" Mike added. Only fits of high pitched giggles answered them.

~~~~

Zeke was standing below a cliff for the fourth time. This time there was a small group of people milling around inside the fence. Zeke was sure that he knew them. The boulder fell off of the cliff directly above them, and he reached out to stop it, as always. It slowed, but did not stop. He strained with all the strength had, but he still couldn't stop it. He wanted to scream and warn the people, but he couldn't open his mouth. Suddenly, with astounding clarity, he knew who the people were. Horrified, he tried to call to them. Mike! Rachael! Charise! Zeke was forced to watch helplessly as his friends were slowly crushed by his partially suspended boulder…
Zeke found himself sitting bolt upright on his bed in his room, a cold sweat and an echoing scream accompanying him. Rachael was banging on his door again, just like the last time.
"Zeke! Open the door!"
His hand lifted, and the di melted. Rachael stormed in.
"Would you quit it? Some of us are trying not to be petrified by someone suddenly screaming!"
"Sorry. It –"
"Let me guess. Just another nightmare?"
Zeke stared at her.
"Yeah. Anyways, Charise stopped by my room before she went to bed. She said to give it to you if she didn't get a chance. She doesn't have to go to school anymore, you know. She gets to sleep in."
Rachael handed it to Zeke, and he flipped through all the pages. The first page was blank. Upon further inspection, he found a note. It read:

Thought I'd leave you one for you so your money for this book wouldn't go to waste.
-Charise

Zeke tried to laugh a little as he went through and saw that every other puzzle in the book was completed. "Thanks, Rachael. What time is it?"
"A little past 12:30. You guys went to bed maybe an hour and a half ago."
There's no doubt about her gene now, Zeke thought. "Thanks again, Rachael. Goodnight."
"No problem."
Zeke heard her mutter to herself as she left.
"Nothing ever goes on around here at night. So boring. And for six more hours, at least! Heaven forbid. I've got to find something to do. Every night gets more and more boring…"
Zeke forced a halfhearted smile while she left. When his door was shut, he closed his eyes and pondered his nightmare, still shocked.