REBELs, Traitors and Vampires

Wow, so much happened today, it's hard to take it all in, but I'll try and tell it like it happened:

First, unfortunately, Healthbar did end up losing half a finger. It didn't heal like the rest when Playwrite helped her heal herself a bit, and it fell off earlier today. I know she's lucky to be alive, but still, losing half your ring finger is hard for anyone. She was still in bad shape generally, but we thought we could save her completly, you know?

Next, I'm on my way home from college (Yeah, I still go when I can, we all do, we've managed to keep certain parts of our lives separate, I've made us unfindable by anyone outside college searching the records, etc, but our attendance is appaling!) and I go to sit near the back of a nearly deserted bus. I'm folding my bus ticket up, just messing around, when I feel a slight shimmering behind me. I turn, and find Rachel Mills! We got on quite well when we first met, but now she's with danko....
She gives me an urgent look , puts her finger to her lips, and grabs the bus ticket from me. Pulling a pen from her pocket, she scribbles frantically on the back, hands it back to me, smiles nervously and teleports away again. I mean what on earth! But I look at the ticket, and see six sentences in tiny writing:

Team just down the road, be careful.
Rebel wants me to help, I will if I can.
Messages from rebel (He said you'd know who these are?):
Healthbar will be different now, don't let her become the Vampire.
You must stop John, but keep him alive so Damian can redeem himself, he must have a chance.
You must find Pete, he has a vital role to play.

Weird huh? But I know what the vampire one means now, I think I'm already too late....
So I get off the bus in town, and head to base, hoping to meet with the others, we had nothing planned but I wanted to check on Healthbar and I knew the others would too.

I get into the base and see two people heading upstairs. I follow them and see John and another, scruffier looking boy head into the flat! I storm after him, literally, and burst in to see him frowning at Healthbar 'You should all be dead by now, but at least you seem quite far along. TELL ME EVERYTHING.' His voice went weird on the last bit, like mine does when I use persuasion, but deeper, and it seemed to come from every direction at once, it was sort of hypnotic but jarring at the same time, and that was just what I felt, and it wasn't even directed at me! So Healthbar catches him up on events so far, you can see that so much talking is a strain for her, but she can't stop, and I don't know, John must have been putting out a general 'No-interference' signal or something, because for some reason, I just stood there and let her. When she'd finished, he just looked at her and said 'Damn. still, I can finish you of myself.' and he put his hand on her arm, almost consideratly, and grinned 'You know, you might have been worth keeping alive if you'd had a power I'd wanted, but there's no point waiting for Tempest's transfer boy with you, there's nothing in your power for me.' Healthbar looked up at him, and her expression seemed darker than I'd seen it before, it was missing her usual bouncy, cheering, willing-to-help smile. 'Damian thought something similar' she whispered 'I could see it in his eyes, I think he may have remarked as much, I'm not sure, I was barely consious because of what YOU made him do to me. You're both right. My power did leave me defenceless. I couldn't fight back or even help myself. But since the attack, I don't know, I feel....different. Something in my power showed itself, unlocked. And now that I'm SO near your brain power, it's showing itself to me properly. Your power's opened mine. I know what I can REALLY do if I try, and if I find someone deserving...' John suddenly looked shocked, and stared at her head with something close to horror. 'What is that...in your mind...no..no...DON't!' But his command came too late, and faded on his lips. Healthbar had grabbed his wrist, and her hand had started to glow white slightly, like when she healed, but then it darkened, and glowed faintly black, as did her eyes. John cried out, and suddenly the passive command to stay was broken. I could move, and started shakily towards them, as the scruffy boy was blinking and looking confused. A black streak shot across John's arm, and he yelled again, as the black faded to reveal a gaping gash, which started to bleed, as Healthbar sighed with relief. I looked at her, and saw some of her cuts fading, and heard the fractured bone click a little closer to being healed. All this seemed to take place in about a second, and I realized what she was doing before I really understood how. She was draining his body of health in order to heal her own, and I hated to see her of all people doing something so cruel. John needed to be stopped, true, but I was not going to let Healthbar do it. She was too good. I got to them as another painful clicking sound was heard, this time from John, who screamed. 'STOP!' I yelled, throwing the full force of my persuasion at her, and she was forced to let go. She started to look confused, and seemed torn between bursting into tears and trying her new skill out on me. I looked at John, who was clutching his left wrist, as if it was broken, which, given the clicking sound, it probably was. 'Thank you Tempest' he said cordially, 'Now I order you to..' "Oh no, don't think I did it to save you, I don't want her morality tainted by your death. That's for me and Damian' I replied, glaring at him.

'Ah, I'm afraid not Mr Leader sir' he smirked sarcastically 'You see, I'm in control again, and I order you to kill all your teammates!' I looked at him aghast, and then stopped puzzled. He looked quite surprized too. 'Go on Then! he yelled at me, almost a shriek from the pain in his wrist. 'Nah, don't feel like it' I told him, which was true. I really didn't feel like I was being forced in any way.

'Aww, so close! Are the good guys immune to the nasty traitor's power?' said a smug but exhausted voice, and I turned to see Playwrite in the doorway, wincing with the mental strain of blocking John's power but very, very pleased with himself. 'SO sorry' he grinned, 'I'm afraid you won't get anywhere with us at the moment!' Then he turned to me 'Can't you zap him or something? His power's weak at the moment for some reason, but I can't sheild us for long!' 'Oh, yeah, right!' I realized, noticing I'd just been standing watching events unfold again. I looked for John, and saw him being held by the scruffy boy, hovering outside the window. 'Playwite, please say that other kid's protected too!'
'No such luck, it would take too much effort getting into a new mind to protect it, I couldn't help him and you two! I've been in your heads loads of times.' I could feel Playwrite's barrier glitching, it kept flashing on and off in my head. I flew out after John, and heard him say 'West, we will be needing a healer. Find one'
So that's West that Cleo mentioned! John has obviously been keeping him enslaved a long time. His t-shirt was tatty, had huge holes, nearly falling off, he had really tattered shorts and no shoes or socks. His hair was a mess too. I felt sorry for him, but knew I had to stop John. John turned and saw me, winced and gave one last effort, just as Playwrite's barrier failed again 'GO BACK TO your friends and kill THEM. YOU ARE not ALLOWED TO FOLLOW ME.' I was forced to obey the commands that had got through, but Playwrite had saved everyone. I managed to hit him with some Forcebubbles as I was being made to return, I needed to do SOMETHING. I went back through the window and saw Playwrite crouching on the floor. He collapsed into my arms as I got there. Healthbar was in tears. 'That barrier of yours saved us all' I told Playwrite 'and it failed in just the right places'
'I knew it was failing,' he told me' and I may have.....directed it's lapses' I grinned at him, impressed at the amount of control he had over his power even under that much pressure. 'We've not had a very good week though, have we?' he muttered, smiling. And with that, he fainted. Again.