Disclaimer: if you don't know by now that NO ONE who is writting fanfiction owns any of the original works, then you need help. If there is SOME one who does own the originals, then show us proof.

Here's the 4th chap of Xmen meets Firefly. hope you enjoy. at the end I'll have a list of the crew and who the first gen mutant relative(s) were and who's power they've inherited if it is one that's inherited and not one of those popped out of nowhere powers.

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Jayne was not a happy man. By the time they reached Greymalkin, Zoe, Kaylee and Mal had all tripped their abilities. Though it seemed that Mal and Kaylee had been affected by mild levels of their talents for a long time. Kayle's particular gift was the instinctive knowledge of machines and how they worked. One of the replacement parts from the repairs was a little shoddy, and almost in a trance, Kaylee had pieced together a replacemt for it. The new replacement worked even better then the part that originally came with the ship. She'd been on a tear since then, and the ship was operating at more then 200percent normal standards.

After the first repairs revealed her ability, Mal had allowed her to grab a bunch of parts and she had cobbled together a room full of useful devices and improvements for their equipment. She'd even repaired the Lassiter, which they never had been able to find a buyer. Once it had been repaired, Mal's talent had kicked in, and right before they departed the last refueling stop, a cortex call came in and they had a sale. It seems that Mal's talent was that was the ability to alter chance. He too seemed to have small healing factor, not as strong as Jayne's, but much stronger then a normal human's. He'd sliced his hand open on a grating during a pit stop in a local bar, and it had healed within a couple of hours when it should have taken days.

Though the gash was painful and annoying, the fall that caused the wound had saved his life, as some unknown bounty hunter had taken a shot that would have punched directly through his heart if he'd been able to take those last two steps onto the platform. Jayne had shot the hunter without looking, laughing at Mal's luck. It seems that what they'd always taken as rotten luck, had been Lady Luck's way of teasing Mal, causing him enough trouble to be annoying, but making sure that in the end, everything worked out better for the Browncoat. Sadly, there were things that were beyond the powers of even the gods, and no amount of luck would have helped the Independants.

As for Zoe, while everyone appreciated that they now had unlimited free fresh water, no one was overjoyed by the stray electrical discharges. Especially not Kaylee with her newly aware connection to mechanical and electrical systems. Through it all, Simon levitated and attracted all manner of loose metal bits to himself, and the whole ship had become a hazard.

Luckily the boy had learned enough control to make a quick trip into town during their last stop. Jayne had sent River along with him as a control. Everytime metal started to shake or move on it's own, she would kick him or punch/elbow him to break his train of thought. The system worked surprisingly well, but when Jayne offered to perform a similar service for Zoe, he'd been forced to remember how painful it was to be both drowned and electricuted as Zoe filled his bunk with water, then threw several lightning bolts into the ship's new pond. Jayne had been fried nearly bald, as the hair was burned off his body. Happily he was able to heal immediately, having something that no other Healer had ever possessed.

Control. He had learned at a young age that he could control how quickly he healed or aged. Within a certain age range, he could even age/ grow younger or older as he chose. His standard appearance was as a mid thirty year old who could pass for mid to late 20's. He could, in about a week, age himself up to his true chronological age or down to about River's age. It had been about that age that he'd first accessed this part of his gift. This extra ability to control his healing had allowed him to survive once he'd left the confines of the Greymalkin's influence. At first he'd hell as quickly as the severity of the injury would dictate for the least amount of pain and blood. But after one of his partners grew suspicious and hired a group of 6 toughs to beat on him, he'd learned quickly to slow his healing.

He had even thanked his former partner because one of the former toughs and new corpses had been carrying a badly mistreated Vera. Jayne had fallen in love with the lady at first sight. It had taken all the money he'd had, and the money he'd taken off the toughs and his former partner to be able to afford what was needed to repair or replace the worn parts until she was better then new.

He stayed in his bunk, not wanting to see the world as they dropped through the atmosphere. He was glad that River was needed to land the ship since she'd taken to following him around, spouting random thoughts and statements, most of which were in regards to things he hadn't thought of since leaving the moon more then 45 years earlier. He had been 18 when he left, and cocky. It had taken a few unfortunate incidences before he'd learned to put on the act of a strong, stupid merc, and for 35 years, it had been so ingrained in him, that he was having trouble reconciling his real abilities into the make up of the greedy merc he'd shown the 'Verse for all that time.

He occassionaly found himself replying to River's odd questions on things like physics, math, and other sciences or history without thinking about it. It scared him in some ways that he couldn't conciously call up his education any more, but that the feng le could cause him to spout an hour's worth of arguement about the various political structures of Earth That Was. Yet he couldn't even conciously name more then a handful of countries that had existed on the World before it's dissertion and destruction.

He was not looking forward to the meeting with his parents. As much as he loved them, it had been more then 40 years since he had been home. That was a long time and a lot of bad tidings had taken place since then. He was no longer the person who had left home eager for the chance to be free and away from the shadows of his long lived family. He'd been full of his own self and it had been beaten into him early and often after leaving that even though he could heal from the physical, the emotional scars were impossible to heal.

He'd done things he knew his parents wouldn't be too happy about, though in truth they had done much the same over the centuries. His father in particular would likely understand, considering the work and lifestyle he had engaged in before finding the Xmen and his mother. And that is what would be hardest to deal with over even his mother's disappointment. He didn't deserve to be understood. Not for the shit he'd down. There might have been some lines he'd never crossed, but they were very few. His worry was already affecting him.

Part of the reason he had rarely left his bunk for the last few days. He had started to loose full control of his abilities and was started to deage. He suspected that he would look as he had when he'd first left, maybe just a few years into his twenties by the time Serenity landed. There was no mirrors in his bunk and he hadn't looked into any reflective surfaces so he wasn't sure. It had meant he'd cut himself shaving a few times but they had healed even before they'd started to bleed.

He hadn't really spoken to anyone any more then he had to. He left only to get food, and to try and help Simon and Zoe learn to control their gifts. He had only had a few minutes worth of time to get Kaylee comfortable with her own, and Mal's were not exactly something anyone could control so there was nothing to be done there. Inara's hadn't peaked yet, but he suspected they would within a few days.

River was the only one trying to be sociable. She banged on his hatch every few hours asking him all kinds of inane questions about crap he didn't care about any more. She was very curious about history and he answered her questions as best he could, knowing that she would just continue to badger him until he replied. He never let her in, and she respected his wishes enough not to just come in without invitation. They both knew that she could easily over ride the security code of the lock, but she was smart enough to know that this wouldn't help with their tentative friendship. He couldn't do much for her powers either not having any of the mental gifts or being willing to help with her obvious physical mutations.

No matter what they had programmed into her head, only her own genetics could explain her physical abilities. Training could only take a body so far, especially when a slip of a girl was perofrming feats of strength that Jayne knew were beyond even the most powerful of normals. The strength she'd displayed in the Maidenhead bar fight and against the Reavers could not have been created by artificial means. A human body could only be enhanced a certain percentage by those means, and usually required a means of steadily injected hormones and steroids. And while Simon had been regularly drugging the girl up until the whole Miranda thing, none of those drugs were any kind of strength enhancers, merely mood stabilizers and other emotional controls.

He felt a faint vibration in the hull and grunted, turning another page on his novel. They had become common place since Simon's power manifested. This particular effect was a slight loss of control on Simon's part, something that all of the crew had come to learn meant he and Kaylee were privately occupied. Just then the lights flickered and there was a hum from the engine and squawk from the electrics and Jayne shook his head. Must have been a good one for Kaylee to let loose enough for the engine to rev.

He snorted as a thought occured. Kaylee was likely the only woman in the 'Verse who literally got her engine revving when she was turned on.

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River frowned as she was again assaulted by the sensations floating through the ship from the coital connection of the brother and her friend. She was really annoyed that she was still subject to being aware of all the emotional states of the crew, though now with enough concentration or distraction she could mostly block them out. Only the strongest could get through then, but unfortunately the strongest were usually the most private and the ones she wanted to be able to block more then any others.

She toyed with the idea of going to the cargo bay and performing a combination dance/gymnastic/martial arts kata but decided that she needed somethign to draw her mind not her body. And while physical exertion could usually blank her mind more then other activities, she was more in the mood for mental stimulation then physical. So she had loaded a series of novels and mathematical essays from Earth that Was onto a portable cortex screen, wandered down to what passed for a den, and sprawled on the more comfortable of the two sofas to enjoy reading. She knew the she had chosen several of Jayne's prefered novels. She was hoping that by reading them she could get a better understanding of the surprisingly more complex mercenary.

Though even from the first clear thoughts she'd experienced once being released, she had known that there was more to Jayne then met the Eye. She had never been able to fully read him, and though it had become a little easier once she'd shared blood with him during the knife/punch incident, there had always been a part of him that was blocked from her. Even now, she was only able to read what he permitted her to see. He'd been more open since Miranda, but since the revalation of the shared genetic heritage of the crew, he'd been nearly verbose in what he shared with her. She doubted he even knew how open he was being. She was quite sure that he never meant her or any one to see into some of the humorous moments of childhood or the less savory occssions of his adult hood since leaving home.

She had no trouble accepting what he'd done. Though she would never tell anyone, except perhaps Janye himself, during her time at the academy, she had been forced to perform some truly vile acts. Not the worse of which had been the slaughter and mutilation of several of her former classmates, including children as young as 4-5 years old. Despite the feats of horror in Jayne's past, he had never allowed himself ot be in a position to be forced to hard a child or a woman who had not harmed him first.

And unlike her brother thought, she was not so innocent of other matters either. Some of the early training had been on Seduction and Murder. She'd been put through sexual training designed to allow her to remain in control to complete any mission, weather it was gathering infromation or assassination during or post coital relations. She was no where near as accomplished in either as Jayne or Inara, but she had been forced/controlled to enact the situations often enough to technically be more experienced in such matters then most of the crew. Kaylee might have been going along the road, not towards the women Jayne had seemed to prefer, but she had discovered boys early and if not for joining the crew of Serenity, might have become more experienced then her in a short time.

By the time Simon had rescued her, she'd alreayd been on nearly 2 dozen of those missions and over 60 missions in total. Despite her near flawless mind, it was hard tro tell due to the continued experimention she'd been enduring at the time. She was unsure if some of what she remembered was real of extrapolation of simulations. Either way, she was tainted by the darkness as surely as Jayne believed himself to be. She would have to find some way to let him know without sharing the entire details, if it was possible. Though if needed she would let him know the full details. With a little help from the Readers and Projectors from Greymalkin, she might even be able to share some of those memories with him. She just hoped that he wouldn't be too repulsed by what he saw.

Oh yes, there was also the matter of meeting potential legally and spiritually binding relations to deal with. As well as possible acquired siblings and other familiar ties. Perhaps Jayne's mother would be able to assist her in easing her way into her unsuspecting paramour's affections. She had afterall managed to entrap her own mate who from what she gathered was of much similar nature to River's chosen specimen.

Sh tore her thoughts from the state of her lacking physical/emotional relationship to focus again on the reading material before her, easily reading the text of the massive novel in it's original tongue. She never would have pictured Janye as enjoying something like War and Peace, but then againt, it was a Russian novel detailing the lives of various and sundry characters throught a rather harsh period of history. He likely saw a great deal of himself in many of the characters.

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sorry it's taking so long to update, I had actually started this chap back in june/july 2007, but other things got in the way and I haven't been up to typing it up. hopefully over the next week or so I'll have some updates for other stories as well and that it doens't take as long to update any of these again.