Author's Note: I decided to add a scene from Emma's P.O.V., to see what it does for the story (and the reviews, *hint hint*). So the last scene in this chapter is in third person P.O.V., limited to Emma.
Another Author's Note: I tried for damsel in distress, but all I came up with was a Shalimar. Oh well.
Disclaimer Mock V: For those of you who have not been paying attention these last few chapters, allow me to summarize my disclaimers: I do not own Mutant X. I own the clothes on my back, an industrial strength weed-wacker, Danny, and a big-eyed fish named Monty. If I did own the show, I would stop writing fan fiction about it, and there would be Mutant X Season 1 on DVD.
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"Come on!" I yelled at the TV, forgetting that it was five o'clock in the morning. "Cover your right side! He's gonna break away! See! I told you!" I threw a pillow at the screen. "Shoddy defense!"
Brennan shuffled into the room, followed by Shalimar. "Who plays football at five a.m.?" He asked, scratching his scalp groggily.
"Not football," I told him, mind still on the TV, "Discovery Channel."
"Oooh," Shal said as though that explained everything. "Who's winning?" She climbed over the back of the couch to sit next to me.
"At the moment, the gazelle. But the lions are re-grouping and should come back full force." I pulled another piece of pepperoni out of the package and bit it thoughtfully. "Though if their attack patterns don't shape up, they're gonna run themselves out."
Shal nodded and ate a piece of pepperoni. "These things are so bad for you."
"And yet you're eating them."
She grinned. "Doesn't mean they don't taste good."
Brennan leaned on the back of the couch between our heads. "Lemme get this straight: You're telling lions how to hunt gazelle at the top of your lungs at five o'clock in the morning."
I looked at him and tried to keep my face straight. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."
He rubbed his eyes. "You're crazy. Both of you."
I hit him with a pillow. "And you're still asleep."
Jesse and Emma chose that moment to walk in, still pulling their clothes on. "What's up?" Emma yawned.
"Hey, you two," Shalimar said playfully. "What took you so long, huh?"
Jesse grinned. "Emma couldn't find her underwear."
Emma gasped and shoved him. "Well, if you hadn't taken them off by your desk them they wouldn't have been in the trash can, now would they?"
"Woah," Brennan said. "That's a little too much information a little too early in the morning."
"You could always go back to bed," I teased, shoving him towards the door.
"Maybe I will," he said, and started walking away. Then, quick as a flash, he turned and lunged at me.
"No! No!" I shrieked, squirming around, trying to get enough arm space to tickle back. "I surrender! Media violence made me do it! Ahhhhh!" Finally I managed to get a hold on him and pushed him over my head with my legs, keeping a hold on him so I ended up on top. "Your turn," I said, with no little satisfaction, and began tickling him mercilessly.
"What's going on?" Adam's voice came from the doorway. I stopped tickling Brennan, but didn't get up off his abdomen. Adam looked amused. "Can't I leave you guys along for two seconds?"
"We're not the problem, Adam," Jesse said. "It's the girls who are acting up. They've got us out numbered." Emma and Shalimar shoved him simultaneously.
"Danny," Brennan gasped, "I can't breathe."
I grinned down at him. "Breathing is unnecessary." I turned back to Adam. "Sleep well?" I asked, a bit sarcastically, because I knew perfectly well that he had fallen asleep on the keyboard in his lab around 2 a.m. I had been on my way to meditate, being practically nocturnal myself.
He glared at me as thanks for my kindness. I grinned, not about to let anything destroy my good mood, and was about to say something sarcastic when Brennan grabbed my shoulder and rolled, distracting me slightly. But I used his momentum against him and ended up pinning him again, this time holding his arms down so he couldn't try that again.
"HA!" I said triumphantly, "I win again."
"You need to work on your wrestling, Brennan," Jesse remarked. "She's gotta be at least forty pounds lighter than you, and she's still kicking your ass."
Brennan struggled at bit, trying to get loose and possibly attack Jesse. Finally he managed to get a foot hooked around my ankle and pulled in, collapsing that side- and then he was on top.
"How about that, huh?"
I smiled sweetly. "Yes. How about that?" That was all the warning he got before I flipped him over my head and he landed on his back, rather hard.
"Ooof," he gasped, winded. I rolled over and propped my head up on my elbows, smiling down into his eyes in a distinctly cat-like way.
"Judo classes, every Tuesday night, back when I was eleven," I said, wrinkling my nose playfully at him while he tried to catch his breath. "Amazing, how it all comes back."
"Yeah, yeah," he said, pulling himself up. "I'll get you someday. Just not at five a.m., k?" Looking up from the floor, I didn't reply. He trudged off down the hall. "Don't wake me up till noon!" he yelled over his shoulder.
"No promises!" I yelled after him, beginning to get up.
There was silence after he left, broken by a beeping noise on the main computer, which Adam went over to investigate. "New Mutant," he said after a moment. "Wants into the Underground. Says to meet him at Ajax Warehouses in an hour."
"Ajax Warehouses?" Shalimar said, turning away from the TV. "Thats right near here."
Adam nodded and looked at me thoughtfully. I looked back, trying to look just as thoughtful. After a second or two, he spoke. "You seem to have yourself pretty under-control, right?" I nodded. "Do you think you could control yourself around a stranger? I heard what you did to Ruby."
I held up my right hand, beginning to see where he was going with this. "Scout's honor," I promised him.
"OK, you can go with the others." He looked at the rest. "You guys are all going, in case Danny can't handle it."
I made a face. I was being baby-sat, but oh well. I walked over to the sink and began filling a pitcher with water.
"What are you doing?" Emma asked.
"I," I said, deftly turning off the faucet, "Am going to wake up Brennan."
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We exited the plane, which was called the Double Helix, and Brennan, Shalimar and I went to meet the New Mutant, leaving Jesse and Emma with the Helix and a lot of time on their hands.
Something smelled off when we entered the room, but Shalimar didn't look bothered, so I didn't say anything. We walked through the warehouse silently, as I tried to look as cool as Brennan and Shalimar did, but I wasn't wearing leather, so it was hard. Near the back door of the warehouse stood a figure, and a nervous one, shifting from foot to foot and craning his neck around the door as though to watch for approaching enemies.
Sensing the presence of others, I stopped, but being her usual bold self, Shal strode right up. "Hi, we're from Mutant X-" She was cut off when the figure whirled around and shot a hypospray into her neck, which made her instantly unconscious. In the same moment, two men jumped down from the ceiling between Shal and Brennan and I, and spraying Brennan and I with a high-powered jet of water, effectively blinding my senses and completely disabling Brennan.
Then, as soon as they had come they were gone- and they had taken Shalimar with them! That on top of being wet sent me into a full-on feral rage and I started after them, but Brennan grabbed me.
"No, Danny!" he yelled, fighting to hold onto the hissing and screaming me, "You can't get caught too! We'll find her!" But he was wet, and so he was weakened, and I wasn't listening to reason anymore. I tore away and ran after the van they had driven away, determined to bring pain to the people who had stolen a member of what I was beginning to consider my new pack.
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Emma had to shut out the panicked feelings of Jesse, Brennan, and Adam, and try to sift through her own emotions at the same time, which wasn't easy. The others seemed to think that Shal was already dead and that Danny was going to be soon. But Emma had more faith in Danny than that. Just as Danny had seen through her, she had seen through the tempestuous feral with her seemingly on-the-sleeve emotions. Danny wasn't as cocksure as she wanted people to think, but she wasn't stupid. She had gotten basic control over her powers in two days, give or take, and though she couldn't handle strong emotions, that was a commendable feat, considering the power of the emotions Emma had felt earlier. Only a strong person could feel that kind of hate and come out unscathed. She felt sure that Shalimar and Danny would be fine.
Jesse, however, was as unsure as he could be. Shalimar was one of his best friends, and he knew how competent she was, but he tended to see the worst about a situation, and so he was already planning a funeral speech in his head. Emma knew she could do little to help him, but she laid a hand on his back and sent him a quick calming thought. His back muscles relaxed slightly under her hand and he shot her a half-smile that made her heart skip a beat, even in the present situation. She stroked his back with her thumb to remind him that she was still there, and turned her attention to the other two.
Brennan was distraught. It was as plain as the nose on his face that he considered the whole thing his fault, and was beating himself up for it inside. Surprisingly, he was more worried about Danny than Shalimar, prompting Emma to wonder what was between the two of them that she hadn't sensed, or if it was a one sided thing. Danny flirted with him, sure, but Brennan was the only single guy in Sanctuary, besides Adam, whom everyone thought of as a father figure with no sex life. And Danny was like Shalimar in that area- she flirted with everyone, male or female. But she'd seemed genuinely happy this morning, wrestling with Brennan... She'd think about that later. Right now she had to reassure her teammates.
"It'll be okay, guys," she voiced softly. "Give them some credit. They're both strong. They can fight their way out of anything."
"Not if Shalimar's unconscious and Danny's out of control," Adam said, knuckling his forehead in frustration. "I should have never let Danny go. She wasn't ready."
"If it had been Danny who'd been grabbed, Shal would have lost it, too. It's really not Danny's fault." She realized how stupid that sounded and winced. "What I mean is, Shal would lose control if any of us got grabbed. And with Brennan soaked, he wouldn't be able to stop either of them. You letting Danny go has nothing to do with this. So-" Not breaking her contact with Jesse, which was keeping her upright as far as she was concerned, she reached over and gently pulled Adam's fist away from his head. "-no use beating yourself up about it now. Why don't we focus on trying to find these kidnappers and pin the blame on them." She smiled but the other's didn't catch the joke.
"We have nothing," Adam said through his teeth, "No logo, no lisense plate number, not a com-link signal. I couldn't even trace that e-mail to it's source. We are flailing around in the dark here."
"We do know something," Emma reminded them, willing them to wake up and think about it. All three looked up at her in surprise. "They know about Mutant X. They know about Brennan's weaknesses. They even know enough about us to take Shal's com-link off. Who would know stuff like that? Think, guys..."
All three reached her conclusion at the same time and they shared a moment of shocked, horrified silence.
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Da-da-da-dummmmmmm. Thought I'd give you a nice cliff-hanger-ish ending. Please review and comment on the P.O.V. thing. If you don't like it, I don't have to do it again, but I thought it'd be nice to have a different perspective on things. Danny is still the main character, and most of the story will still be from her P.O.V., never fear. But let me know.
Another Author's Note: I tried for damsel in distress, but all I came up with was a Shalimar. Oh well.
Disclaimer Mock V: For those of you who have not been paying attention these last few chapters, allow me to summarize my disclaimers: I do not own Mutant X. I own the clothes on my back, an industrial strength weed-wacker, Danny, and a big-eyed fish named Monty. If I did own the show, I would stop writing fan fiction about it, and there would be Mutant X Season 1 on DVD.
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"Come on!" I yelled at the TV, forgetting that it was five o'clock in the morning. "Cover your right side! He's gonna break away! See! I told you!" I threw a pillow at the screen. "Shoddy defense!"
Brennan shuffled into the room, followed by Shalimar. "Who plays football at five a.m.?" He asked, scratching his scalp groggily.
"Not football," I told him, mind still on the TV, "Discovery Channel."
"Oooh," Shal said as though that explained everything. "Who's winning?" She climbed over the back of the couch to sit next to me.
"At the moment, the gazelle. But the lions are re-grouping and should come back full force." I pulled another piece of pepperoni out of the package and bit it thoughtfully. "Though if their attack patterns don't shape up, they're gonna run themselves out."
Shal nodded and ate a piece of pepperoni. "These things are so bad for you."
"And yet you're eating them."
She grinned. "Doesn't mean they don't taste good."
Brennan leaned on the back of the couch between our heads. "Lemme get this straight: You're telling lions how to hunt gazelle at the top of your lungs at five o'clock in the morning."
I looked at him and tried to keep my face straight. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."
He rubbed his eyes. "You're crazy. Both of you."
I hit him with a pillow. "And you're still asleep."
Jesse and Emma chose that moment to walk in, still pulling their clothes on. "What's up?" Emma yawned.
"Hey, you two," Shalimar said playfully. "What took you so long, huh?"
Jesse grinned. "Emma couldn't find her underwear."
Emma gasped and shoved him. "Well, if you hadn't taken them off by your desk them they wouldn't have been in the trash can, now would they?"
"Woah," Brennan said. "That's a little too much information a little too early in the morning."
"You could always go back to bed," I teased, shoving him towards the door.
"Maybe I will," he said, and started walking away. Then, quick as a flash, he turned and lunged at me.
"No! No!" I shrieked, squirming around, trying to get enough arm space to tickle back. "I surrender! Media violence made me do it! Ahhhhh!" Finally I managed to get a hold on him and pushed him over my head with my legs, keeping a hold on him so I ended up on top. "Your turn," I said, with no little satisfaction, and began tickling him mercilessly.
"What's going on?" Adam's voice came from the doorway. I stopped tickling Brennan, but didn't get up off his abdomen. Adam looked amused. "Can't I leave you guys along for two seconds?"
"We're not the problem, Adam," Jesse said. "It's the girls who are acting up. They've got us out numbered." Emma and Shalimar shoved him simultaneously.
"Danny," Brennan gasped, "I can't breathe."
I grinned down at him. "Breathing is unnecessary." I turned back to Adam. "Sleep well?" I asked, a bit sarcastically, because I knew perfectly well that he had fallen asleep on the keyboard in his lab around 2 a.m. I had been on my way to meditate, being practically nocturnal myself.
He glared at me as thanks for my kindness. I grinned, not about to let anything destroy my good mood, and was about to say something sarcastic when Brennan grabbed my shoulder and rolled, distracting me slightly. But I used his momentum against him and ended up pinning him again, this time holding his arms down so he couldn't try that again.
"HA!" I said triumphantly, "I win again."
"You need to work on your wrestling, Brennan," Jesse remarked. "She's gotta be at least forty pounds lighter than you, and she's still kicking your ass."
Brennan struggled at bit, trying to get loose and possibly attack Jesse. Finally he managed to get a foot hooked around my ankle and pulled in, collapsing that side- and then he was on top.
"How about that, huh?"
I smiled sweetly. "Yes. How about that?" That was all the warning he got before I flipped him over my head and he landed on his back, rather hard.
"Ooof," he gasped, winded. I rolled over and propped my head up on my elbows, smiling down into his eyes in a distinctly cat-like way.
"Judo classes, every Tuesday night, back when I was eleven," I said, wrinkling my nose playfully at him while he tried to catch his breath. "Amazing, how it all comes back."
"Yeah, yeah," he said, pulling himself up. "I'll get you someday. Just not at five a.m., k?" Looking up from the floor, I didn't reply. He trudged off down the hall. "Don't wake me up till noon!" he yelled over his shoulder.
"No promises!" I yelled after him, beginning to get up.
There was silence after he left, broken by a beeping noise on the main computer, which Adam went over to investigate. "New Mutant," he said after a moment. "Wants into the Underground. Says to meet him at Ajax Warehouses in an hour."
"Ajax Warehouses?" Shalimar said, turning away from the TV. "Thats right near here."
Adam nodded and looked at me thoughtfully. I looked back, trying to look just as thoughtful. After a second or two, he spoke. "You seem to have yourself pretty under-control, right?" I nodded. "Do you think you could control yourself around a stranger? I heard what you did to Ruby."
I held up my right hand, beginning to see where he was going with this. "Scout's honor," I promised him.
"OK, you can go with the others." He looked at the rest. "You guys are all going, in case Danny can't handle it."
I made a face. I was being baby-sat, but oh well. I walked over to the sink and began filling a pitcher with water.
"What are you doing?" Emma asked.
"I," I said, deftly turning off the faucet, "Am going to wake up Brennan."
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We exited the plane, which was called the Double Helix, and Brennan, Shalimar and I went to meet the New Mutant, leaving Jesse and Emma with the Helix and a lot of time on their hands.
Something smelled off when we entered the room, but Shalimar didn't look bothered, so I didn't say anything. We walked through the warehouse silently, as I tried to look as cool as Brennan and Shalimar did, but I wasn't wearing leather, so it was hard. Near the back door of the warehouse stood a figure, and a nervous one, shifting from foot to foot and craning his neck around the door as though to watch for approaching enemies.
Sensing the presence of others, I stopped, but being her usual bold self, Shal strode right up. "Hi, we're from Mutant X-" She was cut off when the figure whirled around and shot a hypospray into her neck, which made her instantly unconscious. In the same moment, two men jumped down from the ceiling between Shal and Brennan and I, and spraying Brennan and I with a high-powered jet of water, effectively blinding my senses and completely disabling Brennan.
Then, as soon as they had come they were gone- and they had taken Shalimar with them! That on top of being wet sent me into a full-on feral rage and I started after them, but Brennan grabbed me.
"No, Danny!" he yelled, fighting to hold onto the hissing and screaming me, "You can't get caught too! We'll find her!" But he was wet, and so he was weakened, and I wasn't listening to reason anymore. I tore away and ran after the van they had driven away, determined to bring pain to the people who had stolen a member of what I was beginning to consider my new pack.
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Emma had to shut out the panicked feelings of Jesse, Brennan, and Adam, and try to sift through her own emotions at the same time, which wasn't easy. The others seemed to think that Shal was already dead and that Danny was going to be soon. But Emma had more faith in Danny than that. Just as Danny had seen through her, she had seen through the tempestuous feral with her seemingly on-the-sleeve emotions. Danny wasn't as cocksure as she wanted people to think, but she wasn't stupid. She had gotten basic control over her powers in two days, give or take, and though she couldn't handle strong emotions, that was a commendable feat, considering the power of the emotions Emma had felt earlier. Only a strong person could feel that kind of hate and come out unscathed. She felt sure that Shalimar and Danny would be fine.
Jesse, however, was as unsure as he could be. Shalimar was one of his best friends, and he knew how competent she was, but he tended to see the worst about a situation, and so he was already planning a funeral speech in his head. Emma knew she could do little to help him, but she laid a hand on his back and sent him a quick calming thought. His back muscles relaxed slightly under her hand and he shot her a half-smile that made her heart skip a beat, even in the present situation. She stroked his back with her thumb to remind him that she was still there, and turned her attention to the other two.
Brennan was distraught. It was as plain as the nose on his face that he considered the whole thing his fault, and was beating himself up for it inside. Surprisingly, he was more worried about Danny than Shalimar, prompting Emma to wonder what was between the two of them that she hadn't sensed, or if it was a one sided thing. Danny flirted with him, sure, but Brennan was the only single guy in Sanctuary, besides Adam, whom everyone thought of as a father figure with no sex life. And Danny was like Shalimar in that area- she flirted with everyone, male or female. But she'd seemed genuinely happy this morning, wrestling with Brennan... She'd think about that later. Right now she had to reassure her teammates.
"It'll be okay, guys," she voiced softly. "Give them some credit. They're both strong. They can fight their way out of anything."
"Not if Shalimar's unconscious and Danny's out of control," Adam said, knuckling his forehead in frustration. "I should have never let Danny go. She wasn't ready."
"If it had been Danny who'd been grabbed, Shal would have lost it, too. It's really not Danny's fault." She realized how stupid that sounded and winced. "What I mean is, Shal would lose control if any of us got grabbed. And with Brennan soaked, he wouldn't be able to stop either of them. You letting Danny go has nothing to do with this. So-" Not breaking her contact with Jesse, which was keeping her upright as far as she was concerned, she reached over and gently pulled Adam's fist away from his head. "-no use beating yourself up about it now. Why don't we focus on trying to find these kidnappers and pin the blame on them." She smiled but the other's didn't catch the joke.
"We have nothing," Adam said through his teeth, "No logo, no lisense plate number, not a com-link signal. I couldn't even trace that e-mail to it's source. We are flailing around in the dark here."
"We do know something," Emma reminded them, willing them to wake up and think about it. All three looked up at her in surprise. "They know about Mutant X. They know about Brennan's weaknesses. They even know enough about us to take Shal's com-link off. Who would know stuff like that? Think, guys..."
All three reached her conclusion at the same time and they shared a moment of shocked, horrified silence.
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Da-da-da-dummmmmmm. Thought I'd give you a nice cliff-hanger-ish ending. Please review and comment on the P.O.V. thing. If you don't like it, I don't have to do it again, but I thought it'd be nice to have a different perspective on things. Danny is still the main character, and most of the story will still be from her P.O.V., never fear. But let me know.