Sorry it has been so long since I posted a chapter but I had writers block and then revision and then a whole load of coursework and then I went to Rome for the week...not that I'm making excuses or anything.
Anyway here it is. I'm finally managing to get some action in. I don't really do a lot of action cos I'm not brilliant at writing for it but its Mutant X so what am I gonna do?
Hope you all enjoy. Please review, haven't gotten many for my last few chapters so here's hoping.
Have a nice day.
Jesse lay back on his bed. Shalimar may have had boundless energy, especially at night but he really needed his sleep. He was tired more emotionally than physically. Dealing with Gabriel always left him with some pretty mixed emotions.
He looked at the ceiling, completely drained. Adam was still trying to find Sara. The information Emma had gotten out of the guy on the rooftop had been a complete bust. She had found out about a house in the middle of the suburbs and they had all headed straight there. But it had been deserted by the time they had reached it. Gabriel had a psionic bond with all of the Links. They should have known that he would know what was going on before it even happened. And nobody knew where she could have gone. Her, Gabriel and the Strand had just disappeared off the face of the planet. Adam had tried all his contacts but as yet nothing had turned up. They were all getting pretty desperate.
Jesse was worried about the girl. She was only seventeen. Gabriel was scary enough to him and he had his powers (until they evolved again) pretty much under control. At seventeen he remembered how scared he had been of the world and himself. Sara couldn't have been faring much better. And now Gabriel wanted her for something...God only knew what.
Jesse closed his eyes and despite the fear he felt for Sara he couldn't keep himself awake any longer. His mind slipped into darkness and he was asleep.
Emma's eyes closed slowly as she drifted off into her own world of emotions and thoughts. It was two o'clock in the morning and she could sense Shalimar prowling around. She could feel the untamed wildness as Shalimar in her own way gave in to her mutant side. She could feel the contented peacefulness of Jesse and Brennan, both sleeping soundly. She could sense Adam, closer than everyone else. He was working in the lab as per usual.
The information they had gained from the link at the Trent's building had been pretty much useless. He had believed that Sara was at a house out in the suburbs being held there by atleast four members of the Strand. He had been telling the truth so the team had gone out to check the house and, if they could bring Sara back to safety.
But Gabriel's telepathic link to the new mutants who worked for him was clearly stronger than any of them had thought. By the time they had gotten to the house it had been cleared out. Nothing was left, not a scrap of furniture, just dust.
Emma couldn't even sense Sara. It had been hard before when she had tried. Her and Sara had never really met each other. That always made it that bit harder. It seemed that Gabriel was blocking her signal. He was so powerful that much as she had tried she had not been able to break through his barriers.
The thoughts started to move slower as she gradually drifted off into sleep.
Adam was typing furiously. He had to find where Gabriel was hiding out before they lost another new mutant to him. Her powers were impressive and Adam didn't know exactly what Gabriel was going to use them for but it had to be bad and not just for Sara.
And yet again, he blamed himself. If he had never started working for Genomex then none of this would be happening. Sara wouldn't have been kidnapped, Gabriel wouldn't have been able to cause so much pain. He wouldn't have hurt Shalimar so much... everything was just so messed up.
But as he had been told so many times before by the younger members of Mutant X he had to learn when to let go, when to stop blaming himself for everything he did in his past. He understood the logic behind what they were saying but that didn't make it any easier to forgive himself or to forget.
Maia walked along the corridor which housed all of the bedrooms in Sanctuary. She was at a slight loss as to what to do. Mutant X were working on this new case. Maia had seen Gabriel and atleast some of what he could do and she knew Sara in passing but she was no expert on new mutants or saving the world and figured it would be easier for everybody to get on with important stuff if she stayed out of the way.
Alex and Mac had gone off on one of their exclusive feral adventures. She didn't mind that they had stopped inviting her on these, it wasn't like she could keep up with them without her powers anyway. And if she chose to use her super-speed then she outran them by miles. Ever since they had discovered that they were both members of this huge feral family they had grown closer. She couldn't help but feel a little left out. And there was no one else like her in Sanctuary. Even Jesse, a molecular like her was still so totally different. Nobody really knew what she was going through. Or atleast that was how it felt.
She walked slowly up the steps leading to the dojo and sat down with her back against the smooth walls. She had always loved just sitting up there, observing everything that went on around her, listening to all the sounds in Sanctuary, he occasional beeps of machinery, the calming noise of the water. She had always been like that ever since she was a child, constantly curious about her surroundings. It had driven her parents wild. She wondered how they were doing. They weren't her real parents, her mother had died in child birth and her father had run off when he had realized the gravity of what was happening to his daughter. She had the feeling that the influence of his always eager to please secretary had had something to do with it. She had been placed with a foster family but they had been so good and kind to her that she had stuck with them. Adam had contacted them when she had first turned up at Sanctuary and although they were worried they understood why she had to be there, atleast for a short while.
She wished none of this had ever happened. She wished that she was back at school and that Gabriel and the Strand had never come. She wished that everything could go back to the way it was before, when her life was that bit more ordinary. She had always known that her life was going to be extraordinary but she figured that if she kept her weirdness to herself she could retain some semblance of normality.
She was drawn out of her thoughts by the sound of footsteps. She looked down the stairs and saw Jesse walking towards her. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts and she giggled when he looked up at her in suprise. He smiled at her and walked absentmindedly up the steps to the dojo. He sat down heavily on the top step and sighed.
'How's it going in there?'
'Its not going too badly...its not going too well either but Adam seems to think we're on the verge of finding something.'
Maia looked at the scuffed toes of her sneakers, deep in thought mostly about how Sara must be feeling. She couldn't imagine being held captive, by yourself with no help on the horizon. It was bleak but that must have been going through Sara's head at some point.
'Is she gonna be okay?' Maia asked quietly.
Jesse turned around and looked straight into her eyes. 'We're gonna try and make sure of that.'
She nodded her head gently a couple of times, still thinking.
'So, how are you doing?' asked Jesse, trying to change the subject from such melancholy thoughts. He hadn't really had much of a chance to talk to any of the teenagers due to the whole Sara thing and figured that this was as good a chance as he was gonna get any time soon.
'Not bad.' Maia had been desperate to find someone who would understand what she was going through but now that the opportunity had presented itself she found that she was shy and a little nervous.
'You feeling left out?'
She looked at Jesse. He was smiling a wry smile that put her slightly more at ease.
'A little. Mac and Alex don't mean to leave me out and I get that they have to come to terms with their own mutancy in their own way but...I don't know. It just feels like we're drifting...' She came to a stop unsure what else she could say. She looked at Jesse expecting to find a look of complete bewilderment and confusion on his face but instead she found one of understanding.
'I get what you mean. When Brennan and Emma first joined Mutant X I guess I felt kind of useless. You know?' Maia nodded. 'Both myself and Emma felt like we were always the ones who did the researchy stuff and then Shal and Brennan got to go off and do the actual work. But then, gradually and believe me, it took some time I got used to the fact that I could help, that I wasn't just tagging along with missions. I may not have the flashy powers of Brennan, I may not be as aggressive as Shalimar but I pull my weight. You may have to wait a while but eventually you will feel like you fit in, you'll realize that you are just as worthy as everybody else.'
Jesse suddenly stood up and stretched his arms above his head trying to stretch the kinks out of his joints.
'You wanna help me get supplies for the troops?' he asked with an open smile.
'Sure.'
'Coffee!' Shalimar said with enthusiasm. She was tired and needed to sleep but knew that if she lay down she would just spend the rest of the night tossing and turning and wondering, wondering what was happening to Sara and how they should be helping her but couldn't.
The lab door closed behind Maia as she brought in a tray with six mugs of steaming coffee on it. She was happy to help, glad to be given something to do no matter how menial.
Adam didn't even notice that anybody had entered the room until Shalimar's outcry. He turned around and was happy to see that Maia was with Jesse. He had been meaning to talk to her sensing that she might need a chat but hadn't had time what with Sara's disappearance. It appeared that her and Jesse had talked and it left Adam feeling relieved. But he still had a lot to worry about. He still didn't know where Gabriel was, or why he wanted Sara and it was getting more and more frustrating by the minute.
Emma accepted her coffee with a smile. Her head was aching from receiving all of the emotions of every person in the immediate vicinity. Her defenses always became a little weaker when she was tired and right now she was beyond tired, she was exhausted. But like everybody else she couldn't afford to rest. She couldn't afford to stop looking for information, couldn't afford to stop telempathically searching no matter how hopeless. She had to carry on for Sara's sake.
Mac jumped over the fallen tree log and landed lightly on her feet on the other side, next to Alex. They had been running through the woods around Sanctuary for hours now. And neither of them were even breathing heavily yet. This feral thing had turned out to be pretty cool.
Alex looked around him. He was never one for thinking about the beauty of landscapes but this view was a good one. There were trees as far as the eye could see, all of them stretching up into the sky. The carpet of the wood was covered in bits of tree bark, roots of trees and the occasional evergreen bush. The smell of grass and fresh air (something, living in the city he didn't get a whole lot of) bombarded his nostrils. Being canine feral his sense of smell was definitely his most powerful.
Mac's head twisted round quickly to look behind her. She had been uneasy for a while, sensing that they were being watched. At first she had put it down to being in a new environment, and she figured her feral powers were probably playing on the fact that she was a little nervous because of Gabriel. But now there was no denying it. Something was out there and it would not be pleasant if it managed to catch up with them.
She nudged Alex in the ribs lightly, trying to get his attention. He had been preoccupied with a familiar scent. He didn't know where he had smelt it before but he got that it probably shouldn't be there.
They both looked at each other, the panic evident in their eyes. They both took off as fast as they could into the trees knowing that their only hope lay in running until they got to Sanctuary.
Split seconds after they took off, ten new mutants burst through the trees and bushes and sped off after them.
Branches tore at Mac and Alex's clothes and scratched the skin on their faces leaving tracks of blood as the pair rushed on through the wood, trying to remember, without having to stop, where exactly Sanctuary was. Thanks to their feral powers they could keep running for quite some time but eventually they were going to have to stop and knowing that they couldn't possibly hide from the predators behind them they had no idea what they could do. Keep going was the obvious answer, but for how long?
Annie walked out from behind a tree and watched as the links took off after the two teenagers. She had been
given strict instructions to capture the girl and if necessary kill the boy. He was useless to Gabriel. But Annie had her own agenda. She wanted to impress Gabriel, she wanted to be the dominant female in the Strand for good. Her position was in constant jeopardy. Gabriel got bored easily and she intended to keep him interested.
'The kids went with Adam's people,' she thought aloud. 'So, they have to have come from wherever it is that Mutant X have been hiding out.' She laughed to herself. Her plan was so perfect, she couldn't believe that Gabriel hadn't thought of it himself. She would let them lead her to Sanctuary.
She smiled as she walked off into the depth of the wood to intercept Mac and Alex.
Mac and Alex came to a halt in a clearing. The trees had previously created some kind of ceiling for them but now there was nothing above. They felt exposed, like they had nowhere to hide. Not that that would have done any good. They would have been found anyway.
They both spun round at the same time hearing the links approach the clearing and then come out into the open. They were surrounded with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They had only one option left to them. They both took up a defensive stance as the links crowded closer around them.
Anyway here it is. I'm finally managing to get some action in. I don't really do a lot of action cos I'm not brilliant at writing for it but its Mutant X so what am I gonna do?
Hope you all enjoy. Please review, haven't gotten many for my last few chapters so here's hoping.
Have a nice day.
Jesse lay back on his bed. Shalimar may have had boundless energy, especially at night but he really needed his sleep. He was tired more emotionally than physically. Dealing with Gabriel always left him with some pretty mixed emotions.
He looked at the ceiling, completely drained. Adam was still trying to find Sara. The information Emma had gotten out of the guy on the rooftop had been a complete bust. She had found out about a house in the middle of the suburbs and they had all headed straight there. But it had been deserted by the time they had reached it. Gabriel had a psionic bond with all of the Links. They should have known that he would know what was going on before it even happened. And nobody knew where she could have gone. Her, Gabriel and the Strand had just disappeared off the face of the planet. Adam had tried all his contacts but as yet nothing had turned up. They were all getting pretty desperate.
Jesse was worried about the girl. She was only seventeen. Gabriel was scary enough to him and he had his powers (until they evolved again) pretty much under control. At seventeen he remembered how scared he had been of the world and himself. Sara couldn't have been faring much better. And now Gabriel wanted her for something...God only knew what.
Jesse closed his eyes and despite the fear he felt for Sara he couldn't keep himself awake any longer. His mind slipped into darkness and he was asleep.
Emma's eyes closed slowly as she drifted off into her own world of emotions and thoughts. It was two o'clock in the morning and she could sense Shalimar prowling around. She could feel the untamed wildness as Shalimar in her own way gave in to her mutant side. She could feel the contented peacefulness of Jesse and Brennan, both sleeping soundly. She could sense Adam, closer than everyone else. He was working in the lab as per usual.
The information they had gained from the link at the Trent's building had been pretty much useless. He had believed that Sara was at a house out in the suburbs being held there by atleast four members of the Strand. He had been telling the truth so the team had gone out to check the house and, if they could bring Sara back to safety.
But Gabriel's telepathic link to the new mutants who worked for him was clearly stronger than any of them had thought. By the time they had gotten to the house it had been cleared out. Nothing was left, not a scrap of furniture, just dust.
Emma couldn't even sense Sara. It had been hard before when she had tried. Her and Sara had never really met each other. That always made it that bit harder. It seemed that Gabriel was blocking her signal. He was so powerful that much as she had tried she had not been able to break through his barriers.
The thoughts started to move slower as she gradually drifted off into sleep.
Adam was typing furiously. He had to find where Gabriel was hiding out before they lost another new mutant to him. Her powers were impressive and Adam didn't know exactly what Gabriel was going to use them for but it had to be bad and not just for Sara.
And yet again, he blamed himself. If he had never started working for Genomex then none of this would be happening. Sara wouldn't have been kidnapped, Gabriel wouldn't have been able to cause so much pain. He wouldn't have hurt Shalimar so much... everything was just so messed up.
But as he had been told so many times before by the younger members of Mutant X he had to learn when to let go, when to stop blaming himself for everything he did in his past. He understood the logic behind what they were saying but that didn't make it any easier to forgive himself or to forget.
Maia walked along the corridor which housed all of the bedrooms in Sanctuary. She was at a slight loss as to what to do. Mutant X were working on this new case. Maia had seen Gabriel and atleast some of what he could do and she knew Sara in passing but she was no expert on new mutants or saving the world and figured it would be easier for everybody to get on with important stuff if she stayed out of the way.
Alex and Mac had gone off on one of their exclusive feral adventures. She didn't mind that they had stopped inviting her on these, it wasn't like she could keep up with them without her powers anyway. And if she chose to use her super-speed then she outran them by miles. Ever since they had discovered that they were both members of this huge feral family they had grown closer. She couldn't help but feel a little left out. And there was no one else like her in Sanctuary. Even Jesse, a molecular like her was still so totally different. Nobody really knew what she was going through. Or atleast that was how it felt.
She walked slowly up the steps leading to the dojo and sat down with her back against the smooth walls. She had always loved just sitting up there, observing everything that went on around her, listening to all the sounds in Sanctuary, he occasional beeps of machinery, the calming noise of the water. She had always been like that ever since she was a child, constantly curious about her surroundings. It had driven her parents wild. She wondered how they were doing. They weren't her real parents, her mother had died in child birth and her father had run off when he had realized the gravity of what was happening to his daughter. She had the feeling that the influence of his always eager to please secretary had had something to do with it. She had been placed with a foster family but they had been so good and kind to her that she had stuck with them. Adam had contacted them when she had first turned up at Sanctuary and although they were worried they understood why she had to be there, atleast for a short while.
She wished none of this had ever happened. She wished that she was back at school and that Gabriel and the Strand had never come. She wished that everything could go back to the way it was before, when her life was that bit more ordinary. She had always known that her life was going to be extraordinary but she figured that if she kept her weirdness to herself she could retain some semblance of normality.
She was drawn out of her thoughts by the sound of footsteps. She looked down the stairs and saw Jesse walking towards her. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts and she giggled when he looked up at her in suprise. He smiled at her and walked absentmindedly up the steps to the dojo. He sat down heavily on the top step and sighed.
'How's it going in there?'
'Its not going too badly...its not going too well either but Adam seems to think we're on the verge of finding something.'
Maia looked at the scuffed toes of her sneakers, deep in thought mostly about how Sara must be feeling. She couldn't imagine being held captive, by yourself with no help on the horizon. It was bleak but that must have been going through Sara's head at some point.
'Is she gonna be okay?' Maia asked quietly.
Jesse turned around and looked straight into her eyes. 'We're gonna try and make sure of that.'
She nodded her head gently a couple of times, still thinking.
'So, how are you doing?' asked Jesse, trying to change the subject from such melancholy thoughts. He hadn't really had much of a chance to talk to any of the teenagers due to the whole Sara thing and figured that this was as good a chance as he was gonna get any time soon.
'Not bad.' Maia had been desperate to find someone who would understand what she was going through but now that the opportunity had presented itself she found that she was shy and a little nervous.
'You feeling left out?'
She looked at Jesse. He was smiling a wry smile that put her slightly more at ease.
'A little. Mac and Alex don't mean to leave me out and I get that they have to come to terms with their own mutancy in their own way but...I don't know. It just feels like we're drifting...' She came to a stop unsure what else she could say. She looked at Jesse expecting to find a look of complete bewilderment and confusion on his face but instead she found one of understanding.
'I get what you mean. When Brennan and Emma first joined Mutant X I guess I felt kind of useless. You know?' Maia nodded. 'Both myself and Emma felt like we were always the ones who did the researchy stuff and then Shal and Brennan got to go off and do the actual work. But then, gradually and believe me, it took some time I got used to the fact that I could help, that I wasn't just tagging along with missions. I may not have the flashy powers of Brennan, I may not be as aggressive as Shalimar but I pull my weight. You may have to wait a while but eventually you will feel like you fit in, you'll realize that you are just as worthy as everybody else.'
Jesse suddenly stood up and stretched his arms above his head trying to stretch the kinks out of his joints.
'You wanna help me get supplies for the troops?' he asked with an open smile.
'Sure.'
'Coffee!' Shalimar said with enthusiasm. She was tired and needed to sleep but knew that if she lay down she would just spend the rest of the night tossing and turning and wondering, wondering what was happening to Sara and how they should be helping her but couldn't.
The lab door closed behind Maia as she brought in a tray with six mugs of steaming coffee on it. She was happy to help, glad to be given something to do no matter how menial.
Adam didn't even notice that anybody had entered the room until Shalimar's outcry. He turned around and was happy to see that Maia was with Jesse. He had been meaning to talk to her sensing that she might need a chat but hadn't had time what with Sara's disappearance. It appeared that her and Jesse had talked and it left Adam feeling relieved. But he still had a lot to worry about. He still didn't know where Gabriel was, or why he wanted Sara and it was getting more and more frustrating by the minute.
Emma accepted her coffee with a smile. Her head was aching from receiving all of the emotions of every person in the immediate vicinity. Her defenses always became a little weaker when she was tired and right now she was beyond tired, she was exhausted. But like everybody else she couldn't afford to rest. She couldn't afford to stop looking for information, couldn't afford to stop telempathically searching no matter how hopeless. She had to carry on for Sara's sake.
Mac jumped over the fallen tree log and landed lightly on her feet on the other side, next to Alex. They had been running through the woods around Sanctuary for hours now. And neither of them were even breathing heavily yet. This feral thing had turned out to be pretty cool.
Alex looked around him. He was never one for thinking about the beauty of landscapes but this view was a good one. There were trees as far as the eye could see, all of them stretching up into the sky. The carpet of the wood was covered in bits of tree bark, roots of trees and the occasional evergreen bush. The smell of grass and fresh air (something, living in the city he didn't get a whole lot of) bombarded his nostrils. Being canine feral his sense of smell was definitely his most powerful.
Mac's head twisted round quickly to look behind her. She had been uneasy for a while, sensing that they were being watched. At first she had put it down to being in a new environment, and she figured her feral powers were probably playing on the fact that she was a little nervous because of Gabriel. But now there was no denying it. Something was out there and it would not be pleasant if it managed to catch up with them.
She nudged Alex in the ribs lightly, trying to get his attention. He had been preoccupied with a familiar scent. He didn't know where he had smelt it before but he got that it probably shouldn't be there.
They both looked at each other, the panic evident in their eyes. They both took off as fast as they could into the trees knowing that their only hope lay in running until they got to Sanctuary.
Split seconds after they took off, ten new mutants burst through the trees and bushes and sped off after them.
Branches tore at Mac and Alex's clothes and scratched the skin on their faces leaving tracks of blood as the pair rushed on through the wood, trying to remember, without having to stop, where exactly Sanctuary was. Thanks to their feral powers they could keep running for quite some time but eventually they were going to have to stop and knowing that they couldn't possibly hide from the predators behind them they had no idea what they could do. Keep going was the obvious answer, but for how long?
Annie walked out from behind a tree and watched as the links took off after the two teenagers. She had been
given strict instructions to capture the girl and if necessary kill the boy. He was useless to Gabriel. But Annie had her own agenda. She wanted to impress Gabriel, she wanted to be the dominant female in the Strand for good. Her position was in constant jeopardy. Gabriel got bored easily and she intended to keep him interested.
'The kids went with Adam's people,' she thought aloud. 'So, they have to have come from wherever it is that Mutant X have been hiding out.' She laughed to herself. Her plan was so perfect, she couldn't believe that Gabriel hadn't thought of it himself. She would let them lead her to Sanctuary.
She smiled as she walked off into the depth of the wood to intercept Mac and Alex.
Mac and Alex came to a halt in a clearing. The trees had previously created some kind of ceiling for them but now there was nothing above. They felt exposed, like they had nowhere to hide. Not that that would have done any good. They would have been found anyway.
They both spun round at the same time hearing the links approach the clearing and then come out into the open. They were surrounded with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They had only one option left to them. They both took up a defensive stance as the links crowded closer around them.
