The dance was quickly approaching, and Nisha had about an hour to think of a battle plan. With the vagabond supposedly getting help from The Chain Snake, she could only pray that she will look appropriate for the part. Not just that, but play the part as well. It was incredibly stressful to have so much riding on such a loose cannon, but at this point, it couldn’t be helped. The mention of Jackson made her lose all focus, and it wasn’t until the last minute did Nisha realize how terrible this plan was.
Steven sat in the corner, spinning a coin on his finger.
“Relax.” He said unbothered. “There’s nothing more we can do now. Just drink some tea or something and let’s get going.”
Nisha stopped pacing and sighed. She looked over at him. He was wearing a jet black tuxedo suit and a pair of old dress shoes. The coat was unbuttoned and the tie was crooked. His hair was combed, but still looked a mess.
“Steven, you need to fix your appearance. I can’t have Jackson seeing my date look this disheveled.” Nisha said displeased.
“Alright, fine.” Steven got up. He went into the bathroom and started buttoning his blazer.
Nisha took this time to look at her own appearance. Her hair was put up into a cute little bun on her head and there was a little bit of makeup on her face. Her dress was a strapless bouffant with a long dark pink skirt that reached her ankles. She of course didn’t have any dresses of her own that would fit this occasion, and definitely wasn’t going to spend money on one. However, she was able to find this little piece in her moms closet and thought, it’ll do.
Steven finally came out looking somewhat more suitable. He stopped and was just staring at her for some reason.
“What.” Nisha deadpanned.
He suddenly walked over and wrapped that silver necklace from earlier around her. Nisha looked down at it, a bit surprised, as Steven took a step back.
“Oh… Thanks.” Nisha wasn’t used to dressing up much so she didn’t even consider wearing an accessory. “How does it look?”
“Eh.” Steven said. “It doesn’t really match but at least you look better than before.”
Nisha wanted to smack him but instead bopped him on the head with her fist.
“Come. Let’s go.” She said, as she walked out the door.
The plan was relatively simple. Nisha and Steven would show up to the dance together as a pair. They would scout the event for Jackson, and once they found him, they’d casually make conversation. Then, Steven would suddenly need to leave, leaving Jackson and Nisha alone. Perhaps Nisha will feel so “betrayed” by this that she’d shed a few tears? Maybe Jackson would console her? Nisha couldn’t predict the future, but she was pretty good at believing she could, and therefore felt this plan was pretty set and stone.
Upon arriving at the dance, Nisha and Steven were met with a swarm of rowdy high school kids. So many in fact, that they could barely get inside. Steven looked perplexed.
“Why is everyone being so obnoxious?” It was like a complete frenzy inside, like a drunken teenage house party.
“We can’t get in this way.” Nisha’s voice boomed over the crowd. “Let’s go around the back.”
Upon reaching the back entrance, they came to another problem. It was locked.
“Now what.” Steven asked. “Back to the front?”
Nisha scanned the building before pointing to an open window on the roof.
“Let’s just see if we can get a view from the top window. We’ll be able to find out where he is at least and figure it out from there.”
Steven shrugged, and Nisha bent down, jumping so high that she nearly made it to the top of the roof. She grabbed onto the ledge and pulled herself up. From below, she saw Steven steadily making his way up in a swift climb.
Peering from above, the dance looked a lot more chaotic than she’d thought it would be. Kids were falling all over the place, running around, shouting. It was an ugly sight. She naturally scouted for Jackson, but with so many people, he was almost impossible to find. Once Steven made it up, Nisha turned to him.
“I can’t find him anywhere.”
“Let me see.”
After a while, not even Steven could find him, and Nisha began to climb inside.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to go ask around. See if anyone’s seen him.” she said blankly.
“You don’t think anyone’ll notice you crawl from the ceiling like a spider?” Steven admonished.
“No, I think they’re all drunk. Someone probably spiked the punch or something. Nobody will notice.”
“I’m pretty sure there will be at least one person who will notice.” Steven retorted.
“Whatever, I’m going. Feel free to try the front again if you really want.”
And with that, nisha crawled inside, landing on one of the long metal support beams. Steven signed and rolled his eyes before jumping in after her.
Balancing on the support beams, Nisha made her way to the wall. She looked around but there were no divots or decorations that would make it easy to descend. Their school really didn’t have the budget for such things.
“Can you make a rope or something so we can climb down?” She asked.
There was no response, and Nisha just realized Steven wasn’t next to her. She turned around to see him still in the same spot.
“Something’s wrong.” He said coldly.
“What do you mean?”
Looking down, Nisha realized the crowd below had gotten even rowdier, more so than before. There were even some fights breaking out in a few areas with not a single teacher around to stop them.
Without needing any more time to think, Nisha blurted. “Come on, Steven, the rope!”
Steven quickly used his ability to manifest a glowing blue rope. He threw it to Nisha who began tying it to the beam.
“I’ll go down, you stay here and look for Jackson.”
Steven crept forward.
“We’ll find him later, let’s both just focus on why it’s a warzone down there first.”
“Ok, yea alright, fine. Let’s both go down.”
With that, Nisha slid down the rope, landing aggressively on the old, dilapidated gym floor. With Steven behind her, they both stood in awe at the sea of unhinged teenagers running around rabidly.
“What on earth is going on?!” Nisha said dumbfounded.
“A curse maybe? They must be infected with something.” Steven offered. This was beyond being just drunk.
Just as he said that, a kid flung himself at Steven. Without thinking, Nisha punched him in the side, launching him across the gym.
“Nisha…” Steven said crossly.
Nisha quickly jumped back before looking at him.
“Sorry! Reflex!”
Steven looked as though he regretted his decision to come down, remembering the calm peacefulness of that steel beam in contrast to whatever this was.
“Whatever, people don’t seem to care anyway, just leave him there.” He said, seeing Nisha about to go help. “Let’s see if anyone is conscious enough to tell us what’s going on.”
The two looked around before Nisha spotted a familiar face amongst the crowd.
“It’s Izzy!”
Running over to her, she saw the girl was dancing chaotically, whipping her hair around like a crazy person.
“Izzy? Can you hear me?”
“Oh- Hey Nisha! What’s up?”
“What’s going on here?”
Steven chimed in. “Yeah- why is everyone acting like they’ve had forty energy drinks?”
The girl snorted.
“You guys are funny…” Midway through her sentence her laughter turned into a sob.
“Focus!” Nisha snapped. “Who did this to you?”
Izzy thought for a moment. “It was the lady in the cool disguise… The Masked Eris.”
“Masked Eris?” Nisha asked. “Where is she? Do you know?”
“Over there.. I think…” Izzy pointed towards the stage. “She’s handing out kisses.”
Nisha looked over to see a silver mask that just slightly towered over the crowd. Anger flared up inside of her as she made her way through the sea of kids.
“Nisha-” Steven started but stopped. Nisha didn’t notice he didn’t follow her, and continued pushing.
Once close enough to reach, Nisha’s arm swiped. In the blink of an eye, the lady was pulled by her collar to meet Nisha’s cold gaze.
“You seem to be causing a bit of trouble in my territory.” Her voice was low.
The woman was stunned, unable to move. Up close, Nisha could see her bright blue eyes and long black hair. She was wearing a thick long dark blue robe that covered some sort of prom dress.
The masked lady blinked a few times before relaxing her body.
“You must be The Gold Mada.”
“Mada? I don’t know what that means. Does this have anything to do with the distributor? If so, tell me where he is!” Nisha tightened her grasp.
The masked lady narrowed her eyes. In a flash, she swung a small knife towards Nisha’s head. Nisha not only blocked it, but smacked it to the ground instantly, like she was dealing with a child.
“I’m stronger than you and I’m losing my patience. Turn the kids back to normal and you won’t get hurt.”
The masked lady sighed.
“You shouldn’t be so quick to start a fight here. It’s true, you may have more power than me… But I have this whole gymnasium as my hostage.”
Just as she said that, the whole room looked at her. Each pair of eyes stared directly at Nisha, unblinking. Nisha’s pupils shrank a bit as she looked around. Steven, who was still with Izzy, seemed equally startled.
Just then, the masked woman lunged, her lips puckered. What was she doing?! She was trying to kiss Nisha!
“Awk!” Nisha evaded like her life depended on it, confused and mortified that a grown woman would try such a thing. The lady used this opportunity to jump back a good distance.
“This dance was going to be a lost cause anyway- I just happened to make it actually worth going to.” The lady said innocently. “I’ve decided I’m going to make every prom this fun. After all, it’s what these stupid kids deserve.” That last part didn’t sound nearly as innocent, as her voice lowered to a raspy growl.
“Alright then!” She jumped back again, missing Nisha’s grab by a hair. “Kill the Gold Mada!”
Just as she said that, every single kid in the gym lunged at Nisha! Nisha tried pushing and kicking against the clawing hands, but was ultimately helpless against so many. If she was able to use her full power she’d be able to ward them off, but if she did… she honestly thought she’d end up killing somebody!
Truly, it was hell. She was only thankful her dress stayed relatively intact, hopefully enough to deliver it back to her mom in one piece. This was scary, sure.. But nothing was as scary as that woman’s anger. Trying to crawl in literally any direction, Nisha suddenly felt less and less hands on her, until she was suddenly pulled upright in somebody’s grasp.
Steven ran swiftly to the exit with her in his arms. Nisha could only grab onto him and cough a bunch, unable to speak.
Closing and locking the doors to the gym using a lock he made with his ability, Steven set Nisha down in the grass and let her catch her breath.
“You alright?” Steven said concerned.
She nodded her head slowly, still a bit disorientated. Steven let out a breath of relief and stood up.
“I’ve.. never seen anything like that.” He said, rubbing his forehead. “I have a hunch the Distributor is behind this. He always goes after insane people..” He watched the door as it shook violently from the large pounding coming from inside.
Nisha finally started to recover and glanced down at her arm. They were covered to the brim with scratches. She could only imagine what her face looked like. After a moment, she exhaled.
“God damnit– what the hell!”
Steven, who was checking for any openings in the building, turned back towards her.
“I can’t go up to Jackson looking like this! The plan is ruined!”
Steven looked at her like she was speaking another language.
“Not only that- but my necklace is gone!”
Steven just stared at her, and after a moment he turned away, back to his scouting.
“You honestly have the worst situational awareness I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Nisha ignored the comment and tried to bring herself together. Of course he wouldn’t get it. When it comes to love the guy is like a brick wall. Nisha thought about this and it made her feel better. When she finally collected her thoughts she asked.
“Where did the Masked Eris go? We need to go after her.”
“I don’t know. I lost her after you got ambushed.”
Nisha was about to scold him for not going after her but stopped herself. What a silly thing to think. Did she want him to abandon her? Nisha cleared her throat and was about to say something when they heard laughing in the distance.
“What’s that?” She stood up, leaning against the gym wall. Luckily nothing was broken, though her body still felt it was being pricked by a thousand needles.
“I think there might be kids that were outside from the start.” Steven said. “There were only a few but still. Stay on guard.” After a pause he continued. “Izzy mentioned that the masked woman was able to control the kids by kissing them on the forehead. That’s probably why she tried kissing you earlier.”
They looked at each other and shuddered.
He started. “Not just that- ”
Just then, a few kids came running from around the edge of the building. Among the group was Jackson!
“Steven! It’s him!” Nisha’s eyes lit up.
“What do you want to do? He’s under her spell still.”
“Knock out the rest but leave him.” Nisha responded.
Steven and Nisha swiftly and carefully took care of the kids, leaving Jackson tied up on the ground with Steven’s rope.
“Jackson, it’s me, Nisha. How are you feeling?”
Jackson looked at her, puzzled.
“Everythings going to be ok, we’ll get you back to normal, I promise. Hopefully you were having a good time- you know.. before all this happened.. We were actually going to show up… and then I was going to…” She trailed off “Well none of that ended up happening so it doesn’t matter now.”
Jackson still looked at her with an unreadable expression.
“What is it?” Nisha asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Then after a long pause, he said.
“You look terrible.”
Nisha didn’t respond.
“Why come to the dance at all if you were going to end up looking like that.”
Nisha just remembered that she had scratch marks all over her and quickly put her hands to her face.
“Oh- Right- this..”
“You don’t deserve to go to the dance. Not with me and not with anyone.”
Nisha’s blood ran cold. Well this certainly wasn’t a pleasant thing to hear. In fact, it was the last thing she wanted to hear- especially from him!
Even Steven was taken aback, and he wasn’t even being insulted.
“Alright. That’s… That’s fine. You’re just under the spell right now.” Nisha said solemnly. “I can’t get mad at someone who’s not even in control of themselves.”
Just then Jackson spat.
“You’re worthless.”
“…”
“Trash. Ugly.”
“…”
“You shouldn’t have been born-”
Just as he said this Steven kicked him square in the stomach, yielding him unconscious. Nisha looked up in surprise.
“He’ll be fine. We don’t have time to sit around. We need to get going.” Steven said.
Nisha stood up.
“Where? You know where Masked Eris is?”
“She mentioned that she wanted to make every dance as fun as this one… well, the only other dance going on right now is…”
Nisha’s eyes widened.
The dance they had the Waferen go to!