Chapter One
"Pain in the present is experienced as hurt,
Pain in the past is remembered as anger."
-Gaelic Proverb
In a rundown part of a town in eastern Canada, stood a one story abandoned warehouse, which had been home to a profitable business that was now long forgotten. The afternoon light shown though the broken glass windows creating beams of light in the dusty air. The cracks and corners of the walls had became home to many creatures and birds; the cement floors were stained with stale water that had pooled from leaks in the deteriorating ceiling; and the distinct smell of dust and urine filled the thick air. In the mist of all that, two shadows walked carelessly together though the skeleton building, one shadow towering over the other.
The shadows arrived in the center of the warehouse, the most lighted place, revealing the details of the dark figures. They were men, both in their late twenties; the taller one had a gray beanie covering his shaggy black hair that just reached his neck, his broad shoulders held a long dark brown leather coat that was dusted with black and just reached his dark faded blue jean calf. The second man had dark, long feathered blonde hair that brushed his neck. He wore a sleek black leather jacket that stopped at his hips just above where his black pants started.
The shorter man lifted his right hand to his head to scratch a spot just behind his ear. Light hit his hand and bounced off of a thick sliver ring on his ring finger. He let out a sigh, "Why is it, that we always get stuck with these no show missions?" His voice echoed through the void of the warehouse. He let his hand fall as he turned to face the taller man. "I mean you never hear of Shal or Emma having to wait in these run down places for hours."
"I don't like it any more than you; but Adam thought it would be better for us to meet this new mutant because he's male." The taller man stated, his voice merely hinting at his own frustration of the whole situation.
"Well if I was him, I would prefer to go anywhere with two hot chicks, instead of a couple of men." Jesse Kilmartin flashed a perfect white tooth filled smile at his partner.
Brennan Mulwray just smirked before he scanned the place again with his dark eyes. "I think we've waited long enough, this guy isn't coming. Let's get out of this dump." Brennan started to walk toward the exit with Jesse right behind him, both men staying on the lookout for the new mutant. Once they got outside, they both took a deep breath of fresh air. Brennan lifted his right hand close to his mouth, his thumb touching the side of a sliver ring that matched the one the blonde wore in the same place. "Hey Adam?"
"Go ahead Brennan." An older male voice replied almost instantly from the ring.
"Jess and I are heading back. The mutant was a no show." He informed their leader as he got into the driver's seat of a four door sliver Audi. Jesse shrugged off his jacket and tossed it in the back seat leaving him in a short black sleeved shirt.
There was a pause on the other line, before Adam spoke clearly confused by the change in plans, "Okay, I'll see you when you get here."
"You know I really wish if people changed their mind about the Underground that they would at least call and let us know." Jesse complained as he got into the car. Brennan didn't wait for him to buckle his seat belt, the elemental just shifted into drive and accelerated out of the abandoned ally.
As the silver Audi drove down the long ally, a figure silhouetted from the sun behind him appeared on the roof of a building across from the warehouse. The shadow moved to the very edge and proceeded to look through a pair of black binoculars. As the binoculars followed the car, the man pulled out a walkie-talkie. "They are doing just as planned. They are coming your way."
"I see them." A static masked voice replied on the radio followed by a click.
"He's in the passenger seat."
"Roger that." The radio went dead and with one more look though the binoculars, the man disappeared off the roof, just as the sky turned bright orange an explosion echoed through the empty ally. Birds flew away with a fearful cry and the few buildings in the ally trembled in the shock wave as nearby parked cars let out a chorus of horns in alarm. Yet in a black limo three blocks from the ally, a small monitor in the back played the explosion. And in a cloud of cigar smoke, an evil smile of delight appeared.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So what do you say about heading to a club to salvage what we have left of our day?" Brennan suggested as he drove down the alley way.
Jesse was slouched in the passenger seat; his elbow was rested on the door as he had his hand outside the open window, drumming the top of the roof. "Sure. Sounds like a plan."
"Adam." Brennan called through his com-link again. "Jess and I--"
"See if the girls want to meet us there." Jesse whispered to the driver as he was talking with Adam.
"--are heading to a--" Brennan was cut off when an explosion appeared in front of the car. He slammed on the breaks and tried to swerve around the fire and smoke. However when the shock wave hit the car, the men were tossed like rag dolls even with their seat belts on. Before they knew it they were heading straight for a brick wall, then everything went black.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Adam was walking out of the lab when Brennan called him for the second time. He heard him mention that the two were heading somewhere before a loud explosion cut him off. Adam froze in fear as he heard tires screeching and the two men yelling loudly before another sound of a crash. "Brennan? Jesse?" There was no response only static filled the feed.
"Adam what the hell was that?" Shalimar almost demanded as she and Emma ran from the Dojo. The sound of the blast had echoed out of Adam's ring loudly enough for Shalimar to hear with her feral hearing; and the fear from the older man was strong enough for Emma to feel.
"Something happened with the guys. Go take the Helix and head to the warehouse now!" Before he could even finish his sentence, Emma and Shalimar were running down the long hallway towards the hanger which housed a sleek state of the art jet.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Brennan slowly opened his dark brown eyes and for a second he thought that he was in the passenger seat, for how else could he be sleeping in a moving car? But as the haze from his mind cleared he noticed that this was not the case. His ears were ringing loudly while his head and rest of his body hurt like he had just rolled down a steep hill. He moved the deflated air bag out of his way so he could unbuckle his seat belt, but in doing so caused a puff of white smoke to fly up in his face.
He cleared his lungs of the white powder as he waved his hands to clear the smoke from the air, and then he saw it. He was staring at a brick wall with dark smoke was rising in front of the car. 'That can't be good.' Adenine started pumping though his veins, they needed to get out of the car and fast. He looked over at the passenger seat to see if Jesse was okay, but he found the other man leaning as far forward as his locked seat belt would let him, with his head hanging.
"Jesse, wake up." Brennan said pushing him back against the seat. As Jesse fell back his head flopped and rested on the head rest. It was then that Brennan noticed blood dripping down his forehead beneath his golden blonde bangs. "Damn-it." He cursed softly. He brought his right hand up and spoke into his ring. "Adam?"
"Brennan, thank god. What happened?" Adam's voice was filled with relief as he let out a sigh that made it sound as if he had been holding his breath since the explosion.
"I don't know. We crashed into a wall; Jesse is unconscious and bleeding from a head wound." He answered as he cut Jesse's seat belt with his pocket knife, before doing the same to his.
"Shalimar and Emma should be there shortly with the Helix. Are you okay?"
Brennan let out a short cough due to the smoke before answering, "Yeah, I just got a bit of a headache, and I'm sure going to be hurting tomorrow. I think we need a new car." He joked, ending the link.
After a little struggle, Brennan got out of the car and he realized that he was in a lot more pain than he thought, it was more like a rocky hill that he rolled down. The elemental looked around to see what might have caused the accident only to find a reasonable sized smoking hole in the trashed ally. He walked around the now shorter car to get Jesse out, trying to think on how he could to it without hurting the man anymore, not knowing the extent of younger man's possible injuries.
It took Brennan a while to free his partner from the wreck, the door was smashed shut and his hurting muscles had a hard time prying the door open. Thankfully, he managed to carefully drag Jesse away from the car without it bursting into the flames he was afraid of. Just when he got Jesse a safe distance from the damaged car, Brennan felt a strong booted foot jab him right below the shoulder blades. The sudden and unsuspected attack forced Brennan to stumble forward, dropping Jesse's limp body on the hard asphalt. He managed to regain balance before he could fall flat on his face.
He turned around just in time to block another kick that came to his head, with his forearm. The man kept throwing punches and kicks at Brennan, who was having trouble blocking them all. The mystery man never let up keeping the mutant on the defense. Still being disoriented by the accident, Brennan wasn't at his full game and that pissed him off not being able to shoot lighting at this man. During the fight Brennan was unaware that the mysterious man forced Brennan back around to the driver's side of the car, separating the two mutants. Out of nowhere a foot made contact with Brennan's jaw. The sudden blow sent him to the ground and to make sure that he wasn't going to be getting up anytime soon, the man punched him once again in the face knocking Brennan out.
The man wasted no time, he ran over to Jesse who was still unconscious lying on his side on the other side of the car. He grabbed the young man's arm, pulling it straight out causing to revile a light blue vain to show in the crook of his arm. He pulled out a syringe and jabbed it in the vain and proceeded to inject a neon yellow liquid in the mutant. Jesse let out a soft groan and slightly moved but the man wasn't worried, the liquid was gone, the syringe was back in his pocket and just as he came, the mysterious man left totally unnoticed.
Just then a dark gray jet landed in the alley coming straight down from the black smoked sky. A ramp folded down and two women came running out of the plane. One was just a few inches taller than the other and she had short layered brown hair with light brown highlights. She was wearing a low cut red shirt that made her light skin even fairer, and a pair of lose fitting black pants that were a little too long for they were covering her flip flopped feet. The slightly shorter woman had long golden blonde layered hair that came down to her shapely chest. She had a nice warm tanned skin that almost made her well defined muscles glow. She had on a short sleeved cream shirt that looked like it was a size to small as it bundled up reliving her slightly washed board abs, her faded dark blue jeans clung tightly to her hips just adding to the sexiness that this woman had. Emma DeLauro and Shalimar Fox ran to Brennan but both were in shock to see the car with its new brick wall hood ordainment and the dying flames of that explosion that Shalimar heard. Brennan was slowly coming to when they reached him.
"What the hell happened?" Shalimar asked as she helped Brennan to his feet.
"I honestly don't know. Just as I pulled Jesse out of the car, some guy came out of nowhere an attacked me." Brennan reported, frustration clearly in his voice as he rubbed his throbbing jaw.
"There is nobody here." Shal replied her eyes turned yellow as she used her feral senses. "He must have heard us coming."
"Where's Jesse?" Emma asked as she looked around the chaos. Before Brennan could answer, they heard a muffle moan followed by a "crap" on the other side of the car. They all ran around the car to see Jesse slowly turn over onto his back and immediately touched his forehead. His hand had came upon a warm wet substance and another "crap" came from his lips.
"Oh my god, Jesse!" Shalimar gasped when she got a good look at her surrogate brother. With some help from the others Jesse sat up, as he did so he brought his hand down to eye level, only to see blood covering his hand. Emma looked around trying to find something to use to cover the wound. It was Brennan's black beanie that caught her green eyes. She jumped up in order to rip it off his head.
"Hey!" Brennan protested but Emma ignored him and placed it on Jesse's forehead. However when the cotton fabric touched the open wound, he let out a scream pushing her hand and the beanie away.
"Jesse I need to stop the bleeding."
"Well it hurts Emma." Jesse replied sharply. Shalimar gently pushed Emma out of the way as she crouched in front of Jesse and got very to his face, which made him feel a little uneasy. Without any warning, she pulled out a piece of glass from the cut.
"DAMNIT SHALIMAR FOX! That really hurts!" Jesse shouted.
"Emma hand me that beanie." She said acting like Jesse didn't say anything. Once she had the beanie she put pressure on the wound. Jesse tried to move away but Shalimar grabbed the back of his neck with her free hand. He shot a look of annoyance to the feral, causing her to smile.
"Hey let's get going." Brennan said knowing that cops would be coming soon, though he was surprised that no one had already shown up, "Jess, can you walk?"
"I hurt my head, not my legs." Jesse replied as he took Shalimar's hand, and got up with help from her and Brennan. Shalimar put the benne back agents the molecular forehead, where he replaced his hand for his. The four of them started walking to the Helix, however a few steps Jesse's head started to spin and he started to lose his balance. Brennan noticed that he was swaying so he walked over to him.
"You okay bro?" The elemental asked as he put a hand behind the young man's shoulder.
"Yeah, I think I just lost some blood." His blue eyes moved up to the right as if pointing to the bleeding gash.
"You think?" Brennan said with a smile. The girls were already in the Helix when Brennan and Jesse started walking again. But as they got closer to the plane, Jesse started to see spots dancing mockly in front of his fading vision. He lost his hearing when high pitched ringing sound that seemed to be in a wind tunnel, replaced it. His body cried out in a new kind of pain, it felt like fire was moving though his veins. His knees buckled and he thought he heard Brennan call his name but it sounded so far away and so muffle. It was like somebody messed with the audio speed to the slowest setting. That was the last thing he remembered before his world went black.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Voices, voices that sounded like they were coming from inside a tin can, 'Why is that always the first thing?' Jesse thought, 'Can I just wake up without people talking around me?' But slowly a throbbing that started from his head moved down his body with each beat it was like an ocean of pain as each wave grew more fierce and painful. He tired not to breath, hoping that no movement would stop the white cap waves, but it only seemed to make it worse. His blue eyes shot open as if it would save him from his drowning. But that just cased him more pain as bright lights overwhelmed his eyes. They quickly shut with a morn that was filled with a sorrowful frustration with the increasing pain.
"Hey," One of the voices that had pulled him out of the peaceful darkness spoke. He heard it continue to speak but he was unable to process the words. Yet with each mumble it became more human, a male voice, until he was able to make out the words. "Welcome back." Jesse opened one eye to see a man with black curly hair in his fifties staring down at him with dark brown eyes. His face was full of aged of worry lines, yet when the man saw the blue eye looking back at him, he smiled softly. "How are you feeling?"
"Like crap." He bluntly replied squinting at the older man. It took a few blinks before his eyes adjusted to the lights. He then realized that he was in the lab, with the whole team standing around the blue chair that he had always swore Adam must have bought off a demented dentist. Adam left his side momentarily before returning with a small metal pen shaped tube and put the end agents Jesse's arm. With one push of a button, Jesse felt a slight prick before the storm like waves died down to a steady roll. "What happened?" he asked, clearly confused.
"You passed out on us." Brennan smiled, even though when he saw his brother fall in the ally his heart had stopped.
Jesse squirmed around in the chair trying to find a comfortable position, but could not find one, "Why?"
"We were in a car accident." The elemental said in a matter of fact way, but from the blank look on the young man's face he didn't remember. "There was an explosion. We crashed into a wall. The cover of your air bag hit you in the head."
"And a nice piece of glass got stuck in your forehead. You were bleeding pretty bad." Shalimar added, remembering all that blood that was socked up by Brennan's beanie and that had been on his face.
Jesse moved his hand up to his forehead where he felt a piece of gauze as the memory of earlier came back. "Oh." Was all he said as he was wrapped up in trying to figure out why that all happened. But he wasn't the only one; everybody around him was also wondering that same thing.
"But what caused the explosion?" Emma asked bring the question out in the open as if she read their minds.
"I don't know." Adam said honesty.
"Well someone was after us, because once I got Jesse out some guy attacked me." Brennan informed as he crossed his arms.
"Really, did you get a good look at him?" Adam asked.
"I think so, that guy knew how to fight, maybe military training."
There was a pause as their leader ran the information though his mind. "Well, it's pretty late, why don't all of you get some sleep and we'll figure all of this out tomorrow." Everyone started to move towards the door, Shalimar and Adam helped Jesse off the chair and the feral stayed just a step behind the injured man in case he lost his balance. As the lab doors closed Adam sat down in a chair on the other side of the room. His mind was racing as guilt ran though his veins. How did one simple pick-up turned into an unknown attack on his team?
