Emotional Storm

Note: I am putting this in the X-men section because the X-men will be coming into the story in the next chapter. The Fantatstic Four will appear in this story but the Human Torch will be the only one to be a major Character and this will be a SLASH story. The paring will be my original character Joseph Lara and the Human Torch.

Run. That was all he could think of. He had to keep on running. He felt like he had been running forever and if he ever forgot what he was running from he could look behind him and see the gigantic machine that was bent on destroying him. It was called a sentinel a machine created for the sole purpose of hunting down mutants. They generally just captured the mutant, but on the rare occasion they ended up killing them.

He had known he was a mutant for a few months now, but he had never thought that this would happen to him. He had sat in his house hearing all these news reports about sentinels causing destruction and mayhem in their hunt for mutants. He had sat there and felt safe telling himself that those types of things only happened to stranger, it wouldn't, couldn't happen to him.

Well, he was wrong. So now he was running for his life. He was not as fortunate as some of the mutants they showed on TV. He didn't have a power that would have any effect on this machine. So he did the only thing he could do…He Ran.

For the fifth time he wondered why no-one was helping him, he was after all in the middle of New York in broad day light being chased by a monster as big as a ten story building.

He was getting tired. He was an average college student not fat but not exactly in the best of shape either. He looked behind him to see if the sentinel was catching up to him but to his shock it wasn't behind him. He stopped gasping for air. He heard a voice yell behind him, but he was too tired to hear what the voice had said. He looked up just in time to see a sentinel in the air pointing his hand at him.

The next thing he knew he was flying through the air and he hit something very hard. His world was turning dark. When did it become night? He tried to fight back the darkness but he soon succumbed to the night with the words "Flame on" etched into his memory.

Johnny was having a boring day…well that was until he had come across a boy running for his life from what looked like a sentinel. He had seen them on the news. The Fantastic Four didn't really support the sentinels and thought that the government was making a big mistake allowing the sentinels to hunt down mutants. They felt that the sentinels should be hunting them down to after all they had powers like the mutants the only difference was that they hadn't been born with them.

Every time Johnny thought about it he got mad thinking about the hypocrisy of the whole situation. So of course when Johnny had seen this guy running from the machine he had to help especially when the sentinel had knocked the boy unconscious. Easy to say the sentinel was now toasted after all he was the legendary Human Torch after all. No tin can was gonna kick his ass.

He couldn't leave boy alone in the streets, so that was how he ended up in Reed's lab waiting for the boy to wake up. Reed was working over the boy using a whole bunch of equipment that Johnny had no idea what they did. All that Johnny knew was that it was taking Reed forever to finish up with the kid.

Reed put down the equipment he was using and turned to Johnny "It's a good thing you brought him here. That hit to his head was causing some brain swelling that could have caused some serious brain damage. I took the liberty to do a full scan of his DNA and you were right he is a mutant."

"What I don't understand is if he is a mutant why he didn't try to fight the sentinel instead of running away from it" Johnny said.

"Well, I was able to discover that he has some sort of psychic power. I think it's safe to say he is not telekinetic since he could of used that power against the sentinel." Reed explained to Johnny.

"So what is he a telepath or something?" Johnny asked not certain if he liked the idea of having a telepath around him. He had of course met the professor and Jean Grey from the X-Men but you knew that they would never go into your mind unless it was absolutely necessary.

"There is a definite possibility of that being his power. Most psychic mutants are either telekinetic or telepathic and the rare few are both. There are of course a few other psychic abilities that have shown up I think there is a mutant called Destiny that can see the future, but the chances are that he is a telepath."

Johnny was about to say something but was interrupted by a groan coming from the table. The boy was waking up. Reed smiled down at him and said "Don't worry the sentinel that was chasing you has been dealt with you are currently in my lab. And I am glad to tell you that besides having a large head ach you will be perfectly fine." The boy seemed slightly disoriented.

He sat up and looked around the room. As he started to gather his wits he started to look from Reed to Johnny. The boy finally said "Hugh…I thought if anyone was going to save me from the sentinels it would be the X-Men. Don't get me wrong I just didn't think that the Fantastic Four had time to save one mutant from a sentinel."

"We usually don't but we do lend a helping hand when we happen to stumble upon a mutant in trouble." Johnny said smiling. Johnny finally looked at the guy and saw that he wasn't exactly a boy. He looked to be in his early twenties, he had short black hair and dark brown eyes. His skin had a slight brown tint to it that suggested Latin descent. He wasn't muscular but he was in pretty good shape.

"So what's your name" asked Reed.

"My names Joseph Lara."

"So we know you're a type of psychic are you a telepath?" Reed came out and asked in a way only a scientist could pull of without being rude.

Joseph blushed and in a whisper said "Nope I can't read anybodies mind."

Johnny couldn't take the suspense anymore and asked "So what is your power?"

Joseph smiled at Johnny because he had sounded like a little kid on Christmas that couldn't wait until they could open their presents. He finally decided to just tell them even though he had what he considered the lamest power ever.

"Well, I am an empathy." Joseph finally said

Reed stared at Joseph and got a sudden look in his eyes that kind of scared Joseph. "I've never heard of a mutant having empathy as there main power. I was starting to think that it was impossible to have empathy as a main mutation. I have to study your DNA further." With that Reed rushed out of the room to run some more tests or whatever brilliant scientists do.

Silence filled the room. "Is he always like that?" Joseph asked Johnny.

Johnny smiled and said "Only when a mystery has presented itself. So what is empathy anyways?"

Joseph ducked his head and said "It's the ability to feel what other people are feeling. It's a pretty useless power if you ask me."

"So you can feel anybodies emotions. Do you feel every body's emotions all the time?" Johnny asked.

"Yep, I feel them all the time."

"That has got to be tough to live with." Johnny said thinking that sometimes having super powers was not always a good thing.

"Yeah at first I thought I was going crazy you know. I would suddenly laugh in the middle of class or I would suddenly burst into tear, but you learn to live with the emotions. I have been able to build some mental shields, but occasionally a few emotions get by."

"Can you project emotions as well as feel them." Johnny asked.

Joseph thought for a few seconds and said "I don't know I haven't really tried."

Johnny smiled and said "Well there is no time like the present."

Joseph looked at Johnny and came up with an idea when a stray emotion flooded into his mind. A mischievous smile appeared on his face. Johnny had no idea what hit him, one second he was perfectly normal and the next thing he knew he was hit with an intense feeling of lust. He was so in heat he was about ready to jump the closest living thing around him. Right when he was about to jump Joseph the feeling disappeared.

Johnny let out a gasp and said "I guess that is a yes." Johnny finally dug up the courage to look at Joseph and saw that he was staring at his groin. Johnny looked down and to his horror saw that he was sporting a very impressive wood that was very obvious in his skin tight uniform.

"Wow…That's a pretty impressive tool you got there." Joseph said still staring at Johnny's groin. Johnny blushed a bright red and tried to cover himself with a pillow from the bed and said "Thanks."

Reed entered the room and said "I called the X-mansion but no-one answered so you are welcome to stay here until I can get a hold of the X-Men."

"Thank Mr. Reed." Joseph said.

Reed smiled and said "If you'll follow me I'll show you to your room."

Reed left the room. Joseph walked up to Johnny and said "Don't worry I'll play nice. Next time I'll get you hard without my powers." With that he left the room.

Johnny mentally smacked himself as he couldn't help watching Joseph's ass. Johnny sighed and said "This is going to be interesting."