Phelan's Grunts

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I do not own the Marvel Universe or any characters that originated there, I just own the Grunts

Notes: Same as in chapter 1

Beginnings - chapter-3

April 1998

Frank Morrison stands beside a huge green dumpster going through the purse he had just snatched two streets over. He smiles to himself; the cops didn't stand a chance at catching him. He was too quick, knew the streets and building too well and he was too smart.

"20 dollars." He grumbles. "Not even a credit card. I should have killed the bitch."

He pockets the money. As he tosses the purse on the ground he sees them. Three girls, two white one black, are walking down the alley heading right for him. The center one is too young and too little but, the other two. The black girl is tall, at least six feet with a long lean body. Her black hair is cut short. Not too bad but, the other one, man she had to be one of the most beautiful girls he has ever seen. She is almost as tall as the black girl. She is stacked with an hourglass figure. She has full firm breasts. On her head is a mass of yellow and gold curls; they flow down her back to a point on her butt. Frank's mouth almost waters just thinking about what he was going to do to her. He knows an old building a block east that will give him all the privacy he is going to need. He will run the others off first then take Miss Curls and have some fun.

* * * * * *

Janna Martin is feeling put out as she walks between her friends Rebecca "Becca" Conroy and Florence "Flo" Smith. They are still laughing about what happened at the movie house. "It isn't funny you guys. I'm fifteen damit. I'm supposed to be able to see a PG-13 movie."

Flo swings an arm around Janna and hugs her, "Don't fret little sister, the G movie was god."

Janna looks way up at Flo, who is a foot and half taller than her own 4foot six. "I appreciate you guys watching it with me. I know you really wanted to see the other."

"Hey, this is about us doing things together." Becca said.

"That's right girl-friends, being together and speaking of together, we're going to be trouble together with Mother Superior. It is almost six o'clock. Flo said as she looks at her watch.

Janna sees the man first as he steps out into the alley in front of them. Flo and Becca see him next and they all come to a stop. Janna places her hands on her hips, "Great what a time for some drunk to want a hand out."

Flo steps up "Beat it man, we've got no more money"

He just grins showing yellow teeth, a couple are black, "I want them purses, backpacks and butt packs. Now!"

Janna steps past Flo, "I don't think so. Now, crawl back in your dumpster and we'll forget this happened. Come on Flo, Becca."

Frank looks down at the small girl, her brown hair cut short in a layered fashion. She had a definite look on her face. His wife and daughter use to get those same kinds of looks till he found a way to get rid of them.

Quick as snake he strikes, backhanding the girl across the face. Pain! It rocked his hand, flowing up his arm. It's as if he had hit a brick wall. Then as cradles his hand he sees the girl standing there with a smirk on her face. She hasn't moved an inch and there isn't a mark on her face. Frank knows he hit her hard enough to break her nose at the least.

Then Janna moves, "You just couldn't leave it alone could you?" She moves to his side grabbing his arm and with sickening ease she spins him around. She then grabs him by his neck and butt, "Man, you stink. I know only one place for you. Flo get the lid will you?"

In the blink of an eye Flo covers the fifteen feet to the dumpster, she raises the lid. Frank tries to pull loose, but is held tight. He screams at Janna, "You're them freaks, them mutants."

Again with ease Janna tosses him the fifteen feet into the dumpster. After he lands Flo drops the lid, "Good shot, next time we play b-ball you're on my team." She walks back to Janna and gives her a high five.

The dumpster lid crashes opened. Frank stands up pointing a large gun toward Flo and Janna. "Now, you gonna get yours freaks."

Becca drops her backpack and steps forward, "Put the gun down and you might live over this."

The air in the alley suddenly changes, the smell of ozone fills the area making it smell like the air does after a lightening storm passes through.

"Oh, no little girl. After I cap your two friends you and I are going to party."

Becca smiles, "I don't think so." Her light blue eyes become bluer and begin to glow. In the mass of curls that hangs down her back, little sparks of electricity begin to jump from curl to curl running up and down her hair. She raises a hand and points a finger at him, "Last chance."

"Wrong bitch!" He begins to swing the gun toward Becca, but he never makes it. A blue-white bolt of electricity jumps from her finger and hits the gun. It flies out of his hand as he slams into the back of the dumpster.

Flo is beside the dumpster instantly dropping the lid again, then she is back beside Becca. "Huh, Becca. You didn't kill him did you?"

"No silly. It was like the charge of a stun gun, lots of volts but no amps. He will wake up in about an hour, but I'll bet it will be a long time before he tries to rob anybody else around here again." She takes Flo's arm and looks at her watch, "God! The time, we're late."

Becca grabs her backpack and the three of them begin to jog back to St. Mathew's Orphanage where they lived.

* * * * * *

Becca and Flo have just finished their homework when their dorm room door opens and Janna sticks her head in. At St. Mathew's only seniors get semi- private rooms; everyone else sleeps in large barrack like dorms with up to fifty kids to a dorm.

Flo smiles at Janna "Hey girl-friend, what's up?"

Janna sticks three bags around the door, "Popcorn?"

"My savior, come in."

She walks in and gives each of them a bag. She then sits on the bed.

Becca looks at Janna for a minute, "Ok, talk. What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"Bull." Flo flops down beside Janna making her bounce.

"It's just that you two are leaving in a month."

"Janna, everybody leaves after graduation. You know that."

"I know, just it's been the three of us for so long, that I'll.Miss you."

"Well, we've been meaning to talk to you about that." Becca says as she flopped down on the other side of Janna.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Flo and I are both going to work at the Phelan International clothing plant, immediately after graduation."

"And you know that Becca and I have all ready put down a deposit on an apartment."

"Yeah. You guys didn't even let me go with you."

"Well, love. That's because we wanted it to be a surprise."

"What kind of surprise?"

Becca gets down on her knees in front of Janna and takes her hands, "We have also been talking with Mother Superior and Father Charles"

"About What?"

"Bout you coming to leave with me and Flo."

"What?"

"The apartment has three bedrooms."

"Three bedrooms?"

Flo swung an arm around Janna, "Yes, that's the surprise. You didn't really think we'd leave you behind. Hell, girl we're family or as close as we're going to get to family."

Becca noticed tears in Janna eyes, "Janna this is not a done deal yet. Father Charles said he would have to think about it and talk to you about it as well. But, you are fifteen and the law pretty much lets fifteen year olds make their own decisions about where they live."

"You mean it will be up to me?"

"You and Father Charles. But listen up, if we do this, Flo and I will be your guardians. So, think hard, do you think you can put up with us telling you what to do for the next two years?"

"Yes. Oh, yes."

* * * * * *

"Look out! Make way, make way!"

Brian McCall steps through the door that leads up from the basement, where he had been working, into the lobby to see a sight that amazed him. He watches as the smallest of his three new tenants carries a huge couch, without any help, up the stairs. She looked like she was twelve but he knew her age was fifteen. The other two tenants were walking in behind her and did not seem shocked by the sight. He still could not believe his eyes at the sight of the blond girl, Rebecca, but he had noticed that her roommates called her Becca.

Brian steps back into the doorway of the basement so he can watch Becca for a while. He wouldn't be able to stand here long, he wouldn't want her to get the idea he was stalking her. He notices that they were making two piles of boxes, one by the stairs and the other by the elevator. The building is nine stories tall, well ten really, but since he lived on the top story alone there were only nine for tenants. The outside of the building looked old, but the inside had been completely redone. Most were two bedroom apartments but there was one three-bedroom apartment on each floor and these girls had gotten the one on the seventh floor, as eight and nine were still being worked on.

He watches as Becca blocks the elevator door open and begins to set the boxes she had piled, into the elevator. Movement causes him to notice the black roommate as she picks up one of the boxes she had piled at the foot of the stairs. She then looks around for a second, starts up the stairs and 'poof' she's gone. Then just as suddenly she's back again but without the box she had been carrying. She picks up another, faces the stairs, starts up them, and 'poof', she's gone again. Speed! She was fast, incredibly fast, she had carried the box up seven flights of stairs and back again in less than a second. If Brian hadn't spent three years at Charles Xavier's school he might have been shocked by these girls, now he just pleased that here where mutants like him. He wondered if Becca was a mutant like the others. Even if she wasn't it was obvious that mutants, and being around mutants, didn't bother her.