Disclaimer: don't own it, don't pretend to make money off of it, don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.

Summary: Shalimar meets another feral, the two bond.

Spoilers: Cliffhanger, season 1 finale

1 Chapter two

Gabriel Ashlock walked through the rooms and rooms of stasis pods. He'd accessed the secret records of Genomex a few days ago and was slowly making his rounds of the New Mutants in the pods, finding those who's mutations could prove useful in his battle against the 'normal' people in the world. Most, if not all, of the newly bred mutants were solo powers; they only had one mutation. He had to go further back into the archives, and not so incidentally the pod storage, to find more mutants like himself, with multiple mutations. Curiously enough, many of them were feral, mixed with some other frame shift like telekinesis or elementals.

It seemed as though Genomex had been banking on a market for genetically engineered soldiers. That was before the 'genetic purity' legislation that prevented the deliberate altering of any DNA, be it human or animal, for commercial purposes. The legislation had forced Genomex's experimentation underground and overseas. They proceeded happily in the UK and Europe, until the State Department had put a halt to their 'human cargo transfers'. They'd given up on multiples when time proved to force most of the 'units' to go quietly insane or led to genetic meltdown, cheerfully referred to as 'complications' within the Genomex records.

Gabriel was looking for some of the most stable multiples, feral of course, but with some elemental or psionic gift as well. Mental stability was also welcome, but he could live with sub-dermal governors and restraints if the mutation was worth the risk.

The feral's with the most promise seemed to be stored in one room, referred to as "unit storage chamber 007". He chuckled slightly at the reference, they were indeed British, experimental models bred in the Scottish countryside. There was no stasis pods, it was simply refrigerated, cold, but not so cold as to corrupt the tissue samples. The doors themselves seemed to have not been opened in at least twenty years, the pods were welded shut and sealed from the outside with one solid block of transpari- steel. The precaution interested him; they must be truly dangerous if they had to be sealed into their cold storage. Then again Genomex had listed him as 'highly dangerous and possibly psychotic" so what did they know?

He moved from pod to pod, using his elemental fire to cast a small, but warm fire on top of one pod, so he stayed warm and comfortable in the below- freezing chamber. He scraped away some frost burn from one of the pods, trying to see the face of its occupant. He jumped back, startled at the result. The 'face' of this New Mutant was green. Not paint or makeup, the skin was green. He went around to the others scraping away two decades worth of frost. Some of the others were green, some had no nose or ears, some were completely hairless, and a few had forked tongues drooping listlessly out of slack-jawed mouths. They couldn't be…were they amphibian? This was remarkable. Every feral he'd ever heard of, including himself, were warm-blooded mammals. Cat, dog, rat, or bird, but they were all mammals. He'd never known that Genomex had tried to incorporate reptilian or amphibian DNA to create a feral.

This explained the cold storage, any cold-blooded animal would fall into a torpor if the temperature was dropped low enough. They didn't need true stasis pods, just raw temperature to keep these mutants immobile. He wondered at what powers they had, and immediately began checking the pods for the Genomex prognosis attached to each one.

Disappointingly most, if not all, were in one state or another of genetic meltdown. It seemed cold-blooded and human was not a viable genetic mix. They'd been put into storage for 'research' purposes. Some of the powers were interesting, one of them was half human half Chameleon and could adapt color to match her environment. Another was super strong and also a TK, tele-kinetic. Still others were trackers and used to Jacobson's organ on the tongue to track as well as having some psionic tracking ability. The most interesting was one, Mary Elizabeth Braddock, who was half human and half Gila monster with an elemental bit thrown in for spice. She was not only poisonous, but could also track like a bloodhound, fought like a feral, and was a (semi) human flame-thrower.

It seemed as though this is where Genomex had discovered that feral and fire did not mix. They'd finally managed to get a fairly stable genetic mix, but she'd terrified herself into a hallucinogenic stupor. It also read that she was extremely temperature and light sensitive, requiring a bio- suit to simply exist on a regular basis. This put her on the list of 'high maintenance' and she was quietly 'scrapped'.

He considered the risks of bringing her out of storage, she was by far the most useful of the amphibious/reptilian mixes, but discarded that idea immediately. The temptation wasn't worth the risk. He extinguished the small fire that had warmed the room considerably, and left.

Fortunately for his peace of mind it was too dark for him to see the little puffs of condensation that were forming on the newly scraped away surface of Miss Mary Elizabeth's pod. It seems as though that little bit of fire had been enough to begin to wake this particular reptilian. For all of Gabriel's genetically acquired genius he'd failed to heed the simplest of the Genomex warnings. Written in red and yellow block letters, directly on the face of the pod, was this warning: KEEP AT A TEMPERATURE OF 25F AT ALL TIMES.

It was a fight to consciousness, but it was a battle she fought all the way. She slowly opened her eyes, surveying her surroundings. There was nothing but scraped away frost covering her face shield. Panicked, she reached for the mutant power that both scared and fascinated her. Fire erupted from her mouth, melting the transpari-steel face guard. Terrified by her own abilities, she leaped out of the pod and into the chill of the cold storage room. Shivering, her steps became slower and slower as the cold gradually seeped back into her bones and slowed down her heart rate and respiration. Desperate, she reached again.

The solid steel door melted just enough to let her contort her body out of the storage room. Warmth struck her, she shivered over to the ventilation system prying off the cover of the grate. She slipped into the small opening, her genetically engineered body compressing itself to fit the hole. She crawled, following her instincts and thermal vision towards the furnace. She curled into a fetal ball, huddling as close to the heat as possible.

Slowly the heat seeped into her system. She was weak with a lack of food and residual cold, but was aware of her surroundings. She wanted out, now. Up was a good direction, she decided, and followed the ventilation shafts up to the roof. Once out of the building, she froze, blinded by the blazing midday sun. The roof of Genomex was aluminum, heated to almost burning by the sun. She curled up, in the very center of the roof, determined to absorb as much heat as possible. She slept, weak, but free.

Night fell. The cold woke her. She could see the red-orange heat of the roof dissipating into the atmosphere. Panicked at the loss of her heat, she scanned the lot of Genomex for an alternate source. A truck delivering food, not cold but hot for the cafeteria, was parked in the Genomex lot. It wasn't heated, but was insulated. That suited her purposes nicely. Muscles warm from her basking on the roof, she moved like lightening. Leaping from the roof to the fire escape to the truck top. She waited for the trucker to finish unloading, then quietly slipped into the back as he shut the hatch. She lay in wait, consuming the leftovers in the truck with an appetite not quenched in two decades. Food and heat was all she needed for right now, her strength would return. She knew the scent of the man who'd put her to sleep. He wouldn't survive the month, not if she had anything to say about it.