Brennan carefully didn't look at Lexa across the kitchen table. "I'm not so sure that asking the Dominion for help would be a good thing."

Lexa didn't have say anything. A mere lift of her brows conveyed her meaning elegantly: Oh? Why not?

Brennan was ready for her. "Do you really want the Dominion to be in control of a device as powerful as Maguire's collar? I don't know about you, Lexa, but I'm not completely certain of the Dominion's ultimate goal. Sure, they talk of the good of mankind, but I'm not convinced that they consider New Mutants to be part of mankind. And until I am, I'd just as soon keep them at arm's length." Now he did stare her down. "Can you live with that?"

It was late. Lady Esther had insisted that Tom and Tess go to bed, but Mutant X was holding a council of war. Ernest, with everyone afraid that Tom's psionic link would create more havoc, was allowed to pull an all-nighter playing Havoc OnLine. The eleven year old graciously acquiesced to his elders' concern with a heartfelt screech of "Yes!"

Lexa lifted her chin. "For now. And that's assuming that you can come up with a better plan, Brennan. What I'm seeing right now doesn't look promising. All we've got is a teen-ager with the power to make moleculars create lethal creatures during their sleep, one of which may be creeping around outside as we speak. Just how do you propose to handle this little crisis, Brennan?"

"I don't know." Brennan slumped on his chair. "But killing Tom isn't the answer. If Tom goes, so does Tess. What other mutant would be able to keep up with her psionic drain?"

"Look at the alternative," Lexa said. "Let's assume you buy into what Tom has learned from Tess's father. Suppose we come up with a collar labeled 'Maguire Special'? Do you propose to use it on Jesse? Those things kill, Brennan. Jesse almost died the last time Maguire put it on him." She flicked a sideways glance at the molecular, but Jesse sat stone-faced, refusing to say anything. He had the same bleak expression on his face as Tom had earlier, Lexa noted. He took another sip of high-octane caffeine, determined not sleep while Tom was.

"There has to be another way," Shalimar insisted. "Lady Esther?"

The older woman refreshed Jesse's coffee cup, and sat down herself. "Look at the root of the problem. That's what my own father always used to say. Look at the root of the problem, and trace the lines from there."

"All right, what started the problem?" Shalimar asked obediently.

They looked at each other. "Tess."

Jesse looked at the blonde. "Shal, I thought you'd worked on that. Didn't you have a heart to heart with her this afternoon?"

"Yes. That part is solved. I think Tess will back off. Who knows? Without jealousy as a motivating factor, Tom may lose the nightmares." She grinned. "But how do we get Tom to believe—Hey!" Her head whipped around. "What was that?"

Every member of Mutant X went on instant alert.

"Where?" Brennan demanded, fear edging his voice.

Shalimar's eyes narrowed, and she pointed out through the kitchen window into the night. "There."

This smoke cloud was larger than the one they'd vanquished back at Sanctuary. Its dimensions were easily the size of an elephant, roiling in the darkness of night, small and vicious lightning flashes promising mayhem. It sauntered—if a cloud could be said to saunter—across the driveway, pausing only to stab at Brennan's red sportster where Lexa had parked it earlier. Sparks flew, and the smell of burning leather seats filled the air. Mutant X dashed outside to confront the enemy.

"Hey," Lexa protested mildly, more to forestall Brennan's outraged outburst than anything else, "I just had that car washed this afternoon."

"Spread out," Brennan ordered. "Time to take this thing down." Remembering their experience back at Sanctuary, the voltage that Brennan prepared was higher than usual. Ozone crackled as lightning sparked between his own fingers. He twisted the energy into a spear and flung it at the menacing thing.

It opened a hole in itself to let the bolt sizzle harmlessly through the center.

Seeing that, Lexa's own foray was better directed. Instead of a slender rod of photons she used a wide-spread flash of light, illuminating the scene like a photographer's spotlight gone wild. The cloud groaned, a deep thunderclap of anger. It advanced on her.

Brennan took the hint. His next attack took the form of ball lightning. He shaped the electrons into a wide globe, crackling and snapping, and shoved it at the cloud. The smoke seemed to dim, looked like it was losing its battle with coherence.

"Again!" Shalimar shouted gleefully, dancing around the edges in frustration that her own powers were useless against this life-sized version of a video game gone wild. "Hit it again!" She picked up a rock and hurled it at the thing. The rock sailed through the smoke cloud with no effect, and Shalimar ground her teeth.

Jesse too encircled the cloud, uncertain of how he could affect the nightmare. If rocks didn't hurt it, then punching it with an arm turned dense as stone would have just as little effect. He could deflect any lightning bolt it chose to send, so defense was not a problem, but that was not their objective. Destroying the creature was.

Lexa got artistic: she slashed at the thing with a saber of light, whipping a giant 'Z' across its mid-section. The cloud wailed in pain.

"Zorro!" Shalimar shouted gleefully. "Go for it, Lexa!"

Lexa paused to give the feral a disdainful glance. "Zorro? Grow up, Shal." She did two quick crosses, diagonally and intersecting at the middle. "'X' marks the spot."

Shalimar threw another rock. It had no effect other than to assuage Shalimar's frustration and anger. "You're killing it, guys. Keep it up!"

"That thing burned my car!" Brennan hurled another ball of lightning. Power crackled in every electron. "My favorite car!"

So intent was everyone on the smoke cloud that no one noticed the black creeping figure that emerged from the wooded side of the house. It sidled up through the darkness, pausing to let the shadows consume the evidence of its approach. It was a man-sized shadow, an amorphous shape that covered its evil intent. It slipped up behind Jesse.

Shalimar, feral senses ablaze, finally caught the movement. "Jesse!" she cried out.

The thing caught Jesse's head between two cloaked hands. A splash of energy sparked out, and the molecular collapsed into the shadow's all too solid grasp. The remaining members of Mutant X dashed forward, but it was too late. Specter and molecular vanished in a puff of blackness.

"Where is he?" Shalimar raged. Of all of the New Mutants, Jesse was her little brother, the mutant closest to her, the remaining one of Mutant X who had known her the longest. They hadn't quite grown up with each other, but it was a near thing. "Where is he?" She turned on Tom, who was sleepily rubbing his eyes, trying to take in what had happened. "You know! This came out of your head. Where did that thing take Jesse?"

"I don't know." It wasn't quite a wail, but it came close. Tom's new found maturity wasn't up to coping with this level of horror. He hugged himself, putting long arms around his chest in misery. "I don't have control over anything that this thing does."

Lady Esther stepped in before anything more could be said. "Quite likely Tom doesn't know, Shalimar. This is coming from his sub-conscious, and he doesn't have access to all the terrors hidden there. We must find another way to search."

"He could be anywhere," Lexa said grimly. "Who knows what that thing is doing? We've already seen that it can make a molecular create things out of thin air, just by rearranging the molecules around him; just like Dr. Maguire did with his collar. Obviously that's what it wants Jesse for, to create more horrors. This nightmare has taken on a life of its own. We have to stop it, before it gets any more powerful."

"I know how to find it," Ernest piped up from his spot on the lowest step of the stairs leading into the kitchen. Tess sat next to him, scrunched into herself, eyes big and scared, wanting to help and knowing that things were out of even adult control.

They ignored him. "We've searched the house," Shalimar said, trying her best to stay calm, to reason it out. "We've searched the grounds. It can't have gone far."

"It could have gone anywhere," Brennan contradicted. "That thing isn't human; it's the stuff that nightmares are made of. Who knows what it can do?"

"I know how to find it."

"We know some of what it can do," Lexa said, ticking them off on her fingers. She tried to reason it out, apply logic in this horrific situation. Better than tears, Lexa. Don't let them see you cry over Jesse. Especially don't let Tom see Tess see you cry over Jesse—oh, crap. Soap operas aren't this complicated. Lexa pulled herself together. "It can shoot energy bolts; we've all dodged a few. You and I damaged it, Brennan, when we found it standing over Jesse last night."

"We may not have hurt it," Brennan argued. "It shattered, but it reappeared tonight."

"Whatever," Shalimar put in. "No matter what, we have to stop it. Here and now, before it gets any more powerful." She clenched her fists.

"I told Jesse he ought'a kill me," Tom muttered resentfully. "Wouldn't have happened if he'd done what I said."

"Dying is not an option around here, Tom," Brennan told him. "The three of us have had a little too much of that recently, and we don't intend to lose anyone else. Not you, and not Jesse."

"May not have a choice," Tom said under his breath.

Lexa spared him a glare. "If that's the best plan, Tom, rest assured I will carry it out. Happy?"

"No," Lady Esther said firmly, "I am not. Ernest, what did you mean when you said that you could find the specter? Do you know where it is?"

"Nope. But Tess can find out."

"Shut up, twerp. Can't."

"Yes, you can," Ernest insisted. "You told me that you can read Tom's mind, after you do your psychic thing in the morning."

"You're crazy, Ernest. I never said that," Tess insisted. She punched him in the arm. "Shut up."

"Ow."

"Tess, don't hit your brother," Lady Esther said automatically.

Shalimar pounced on the more important aspect. "Tess, is that right? Can you read Tom's mind?"

"No."

"Yes," Ernest insisted.

Tom looked at Tess with a challenging air. "Yeah. She can. And I can read hers." Which is how I knew that my girl was in love with another man. One who makes me looked like chopped liver on toast, hung out in the wind for all to see. You can't lie to me, Tess.

Shalimar carried the concept to its logical conclusion, carefully avoiding the emotional complications. "So Tess can dig into Tom's sub-conscious and find out where Tom's specter would go."

"Not my specter," Tom grouched. "Not mine."

"Tess?" Brennan cut through the murky teen-age angst. "You can find out where Jesse is?"

Tess stared at her feet. Ernest poked her in the ribs. "Quit it, dork wad. Yeah, I can find out. If Tom knows, then I can find out."

It was almost eerie watching Tess put her gift into action. They had all seen Tess work but of the mutants currently present only Brennan had been on the giving end of a thorough jolt of psionic vampire drain. Both Ernest and Lady Esther had donated, but Tess had been completely in control when she touched them, bare skin to bare skin and taking the bare minimum that she required—or sometimes less.

This was different. Tess didn't have to hold back. Tom had enough mutant energy and more to spare; draining him of the psionic excess on a daily basis kept him sane and Tess alive. With a sullen expression at being the center of attention, Tess put her hand to Tom's cheek.

The drain started almost at once. Tom's face took on a slack look, drooping at the edges, eyes going blank. His head lolled back in the chair, cushioned by the pillows, and his hands dropped limply to the sides. He looked as though a great weight was being lifted from his not ample enough shoulders. In contrast, Tess began to glow with an unearthly light, a sensation more felt than seen by her audience. Her hand seemed to flicker with the power that it was drawing from the psionic. Her face lit up.

Tom sighed, settling into his chair, his body finally at peace with itself as the excess energy was pulled from him. Tess's eyes went hooded, and she touched Tom's face with her other hand as well, seeking the information that they all needed.

Shalimar nudged Lexa. "Look," she whispered, although neither teen-ager was in any condition to hear, "that's where you can really see how they feel about each other. What's their problem?"

"They're teen-agers," Lexa whispered back. "You ever know a teen-ager who didn't have problems?"

"Yeah, but they don't have to create more."

It was over in moments. Tom looked accusingly at Tess. "You never went that deep before."

"You never wanted me to."

"Did, too."

"Didn't say so."

"Shouldn't have had to."

"Like I should have known?"

"How was I to know that you didn't know?" Tom shot back. "You're the one poking around in my head."

"Hey, you listened to the same teachers that I did! No eavesdropping. Besides, you could've done the same thing any damn time you wanted." Tess flopped onto a nearby chair, folding her arms across her chest with finality.

Lexa intervened. "Enough. Stop acting like a couple of spoiled brats. Where's Jesse?"

Tess still wouldn't meet Tom's gaze. "In the woods."

"No, he's not," Shalimar contradicted. "I checked."

"Maybe not then, but he is now. He's at The Rock."

The others understood the reference at once. 'The Rock', rather than being a massive stone outcropping, was actually a shallow cave. More of an overhang, really, with just enough protection to shield the inhabitants from any rain that fell straight down. Give it a bit of wind, though, and the interior would be soaked.

That didn't matter to the Maguire children. Even before Tom had joined them, that was Tess and Ernest's private place. Lady Esther knew of it but declined to visit, preferring instead to allow the pair to have a place entirely to themselves. Tom, having suffered the same tortures at the hands of Maguire Sr., was invited to join.

Of Mutant X, only Jesse and Shalimar had seen the Rock. Jesse had been taken there by Ernest when seeking out Tess, and a few weeks later, while everyone was recuperating from Maguire's misbegotten experiments, Tess had shyly invited Shalimar to see it. The pair had engaged in some serious girl talk, one on one, exploring what it meant to be female—and a mutant.

"You're sure?" Brennan asked.

Tess nodded, still not looking at Tom. "Yeah. He's there."

"Then let's go." He looked at the three children.

Lady Esther correctly intercepted that glance. "No. We all go."

"It's safer back here," Lexa started to disagree.

Lady Esther put up a hand that brooked no argument. "From a specter that can pop here and there with no regard for normal space and time restraints? I think not. And I would prefer Ernest, with his own peculiar powers, to be in the company of those with stronger abilities than my own. We will remain as a group," she declared. "There is safety in numbers."

There were a few times in his life that Jesse could remember feeling as bad as this. One of the more prominent episodes in his memory was shortly after being drained by a certain young psionic vampire mutant intent on reviving her brother through the selected application of stolen molecular powers. It had worked then, and it had worked the several times after that when Jesse had subsequently willingly donated his strength to saving Ernest's life.

It had also meant spending much of the intervening time flat on his back. Adam had carefully monitored both moleculars, prodding Tess to push a little more here, and pull back a little there, until Ernest had recovered. Once Adam had successfully come up with a permanent solution to give to Ernest and stabilize the kid's mutant genes, the problem was solved. The Maguire children moved on to live a quiet life with Lady Esther as their adoptive parent—until their father entered the picture once again.

Which ended up, for Jesse, in another long and protracted recovery in bed. See the Maguire kids, get slammed by whatever trouble was stalking them. Jesse was heartily sick of it. The fact that the other members of Mutant X had also crept around Lady Esther's house groaning the last time was little comfort. Misery loves company didn't apply when he was around the Maguires.

Wait a minute. That was several months ago. Why did he feel like that now?

Open your eyes, Kilmartin, and he quickly wished that he hadn't.

It wasn't really Absalom Maguire's face. The sharp blade of a nose was there, the squinty little eyes, and the shock of white hair that looked like a bad Einstein imitation; there was all that and more.

But Absalom Maguire never had a head that was stretched into a parody of the creature from Alien, and his eyes, ice blue and cold, never had the dead of nothingness sucking light into his pupils. Absalom Maguire never had fingernails like talons, raking furrows of blood along Jesse's flesh. Absalom Maguire never wore a black cloak that covered who knew what horrors beneath dark fabric.

Jesse tried to spring to his feet. His muscles laughed at him. But he managed to actually lift his head up two inches before falling back in exhaustion.

It hurt to breathe, and his throat suggested waspishly to him that he'd been screaming for far too long, far too recently. In fact, everything hurt. It felt like…like…

Like he'd worn Maguire's collar again. The same collar that Maguire had used to make Jesse remove the internal neural inhibitor that Tom had had to prevent him from going insane. The same neural inhibitor that prevented Tom from making the rest of the world insane along with him.

But that collar, and all others, had been destroyed by Brennan the last time they'd tangled with and vanquished Absalom Maguire. There were none left. Jesse knew that for a fact; had heard from both Lexa and Shalimar that they'd searched Maguire's facility thoroughly and found no more.

Except for the one that he held. The collar fell out of Jesse's hand; he hadn't even realized that there was one in his grasp until it dropped to the floor of the cave.

"No," rasped the specter, though its mouth didn't move, "you weren't holding it. I created it. I used you to create a perfect replica of the collar." It giggled, a high pitched imitation of the real thing. Jesse had heard that giggle come out of the real Maguire's mouth. It didn't sound good then, and it sounded even worse coming out of a nightmare.

I wish this was only a nightmare. I can't seem to wake up.

The specter grinned. "No, you can't wake up, because this is no longer your dream—it's mine. Tom dreamed, and you gave me reality. You and your gift of molecular mutancy. Now I own your gift, and I own you. Your gift is mine." It liberated the collar from Jesse's hand and flexed it. "Now we'll see how the collar is supposed to work."

This imitation collar buckled snugly around Jesse's throat. The silver embedded wires dug into his flesh, little irritants that were only a prelude to the real thing. The specter giggled again, and played with the dials on the black box. Jesse hadn't even realized that the specter had made him create the control panel to the collar until the specter picked it up and fiddled with the buttons.

But he did realize when the screaming began.

Shalimar pounced. The bush quivered that she aimed at, and the others looked at curiously, pausing in their trek to The Rock. Shalimar snatched up a rainbow lizard, one of the ones that had skittered out of Ernest's room, and held it up for all to see. It dangled by the tail, legs flailing and trying to reach around to nip her. "Anybody recognize this?"

"Yuck," said Ernest, recoiling. "That's one of the lizards in my dream. Get it away from me."

"Kind of pretty." Shalimar turned it around so that she could look at it from both sides. The thing twisted in her hand, legs flailing, unable to get a purchase on thin air. It reached around to snap at her, and Shalimar maneuvered it back into helplessness.

"I'm with Ernest," Brennan said with a grimace. "The Great Outdoors is best left outside."

But Lexa scanned it, less curiously and more suspiciously. "It's missing a couple of feet."

"Some reptiles can do that," Shalimar said. "This one probably met up with a cat or some other predator."

"But it lost one back foot and one front," Lexa pursued. "If it escaped being something's lunch, it should have just lost one leg. And it would have a ragged torn off look. These look like they're melting."

Shalimar tilted it around in the air, examining it more closely, keeping it just far away from her nose to prevent being bitten. "You're right. What's going on here? Hey—!" She dropped it suddenly. Or, to be more accurate, it slipped out of her grasp, the body of the lizard turning to slime. A rainbow puddle landed on the dirt and seeped into the ground. She looked up at the others.

"Lizards don't tend to behave in that fashion," was Lexa's opinion.

"Apparently they do if they're created out of a molecular's nightmare," Brennan said. "What does that tell us about Big, Black, and Ugly?"

"That he'll melt away like the lizard if we leave him alone?" was Tom's hopeful reply.

"Yeah. Only he's got a pretty powerful molecular mutant for a recharge," Brennan told him grimly. "That's probably why he took Jesse. We're not out of the woods yet."

Lexa looked around at the trees they were walking through, headed for The Rock. "Another pun like that, and I'll take you out myself."

Lady Esther had had enough. "Just as long as you get Mr. Kilmartin out, I'll be satisfied."

Shalimar perked up her ears, and paused. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That." The feral swiveled her head, locating the noise. "I heard a cry. There it is again; it's Jesse! C'mon!" She broke into a run, the others following. None could hear what Shalimar did, but none doubted that she heard it.

The Rock stood in a large clearing, moonlight drifting down to illuminate the scene. Mutant X could easily see what was playing out: Jesse was writhing on the ground, hands clutched to his neck, while the black-cloaked specter held him close. None but Tom and Lady Esther could see the psychic rope that connected the two, but all saw the specter glow brightly as it inhaled the molecular life-force with more ferocity than anything Tess had ever done. The specter grew, and became more solid.

"Hey!" Brennan yelled furiously. He stopped, twisting a bolt of lightning between his fingers, and shot it forward.

"No!" Shalimar screamed, deflecting his aim. The lightning streamed across the sky, startling a rumble of thunder from clouds ill-prepared for the onslaught. "You'll hit Jesse!"

"We have to stop it now!" Lexa cried out. Shalimar was too far away to stop the chromatic, but Lexa's eye was good: the flash hit the specter in the head, high above Jesse still struggling to remove the black collar from his neck. The specter was rocked back.

It took notice. It didn't like what it saw. It lashed out with its own massive bolt of energy.

No time for subtlety. Mutant X grabbed all four of the Maguire family and hit the dirt. The energy bolt went straight through where several necklines had been, and sawed off two trees directly behind the group. Brennan and Lexa barely had time for another jolt each to blast the falling tree trunks into splinters before the heavy logs could crush the family.

The specter took advantage of the distraction. It effortlessly hauled Jesse to his feet, slamming him against the back of the wall of the shallow cave known as The Rock. It flipped the toggle on the black box—where did it get a Maguire Collar Special? Brennan wondered in horror—and the wall wavered. With a snarl tossed backward at its pursuers, the specter forced Jesse through the suddenly insubstantial stone. The wall returned to solid with an almost audible thunk.

Mutant X scrambled to their collective feet and dashed to The Rock. Brennan slammed his fist on the solid rock. "Damn!"

"Language, Mr. Mulray. There are children present."

For once, Brennan ignored the elderly lady. "Stand back," he ordered, and turned up the wattage. He blasted the wall. Chips scattered out like shrapnel, and the kids hustled back to avoid being hit. Lexa put in her own efforts in between lightning bolts with devastating laser beams fueled by desperation.

Shalimar grabbed Tess and Ernest. "Where does that cave lead to? Where's the exit?"

Tess's eyes grew big. "I didn't know there was a cave behind that wall. Honest, Shalimar, I didn't know!"

"Ernest?"

Tears were leaking from the eleven year old, but he didn't care. He was that scared he was shaking. "I never tried to phase it, Shalimar. I didn't know, either."

"How thick is that thing?" snarled Lexa. All her and Brennan's efforts had produced only an inches-thick dent in the rock. It was hard granite, proving itself impervious to their efforts to batter it down. "What about a back door? Is that thing going to escape that way?"

"I'm on it," and Shalimar was away before Tess and Ernest could tell them that there was no other exit around here that they knew of.

"Best that Miss Fox looks around, children," Lady Esther said, serene in the face of disaster. "After all, you didn't know that there was a cave within, either."

Neither Brennan nor Lexa were getting anywhere trying to batter the wall down. Brennan's gaze lit on Ernest, and a light sparked in his eye. "Ernest, quick! Jesse could gauge the thickness of a wall, feel how wide it was. Can you do that?"

"Ummm… sort'a."

"Sort of?"

"I'm not real good at it," Ernest admitted. "I keep trying, but Jesse thinks I might get better when I'm older."

"Don't have a decade," Brennan said, and indicated the indentation in the wall. "See what you can tell."

Hesitantly, Ernest approached the back of the shallow cave and put his hands upon it, jerking back at the heat still radiating from the beating the surface had just taken. He settled them again, this time knowing that the heat was still there, and closed his eyes. The wall seemed to quiver a bit, not a thorough shudder such as Jesse would have done but still a respectable quake.

Lexa had a hard time waiting. "Well?"

"Kind of thick," Ernest said, his eyes still closed. "It's like about a foot thick. Maybe a little bit more in spots."

"And then what?"

"An open area. I can't tell how big, but big enough for me to stand in. There's air inside. Enough room for a bunch of people, I think."

"You think—" Lexa started to say when Tom broke in.

"They're both in there. There's no exit; it's simply a pocket that was created when this area of rock was formed. It's large enough for all of us. I can see it through Jesse's eyes." Tom's own eyes were unfocussed, staring off into the distance. "That thing has a collar on Jesse, but it isn't using it right now. It's feeding off of him, kind of like Tess but more vicious. It lives on molecular life-force."

Brennan tossed a glance at Ernest; they'd have to keep the specter away from the child-sized snack food. Lady Esther had been right to keep Ernest safe with the group. He then turned back to the fifteen year old. "How big is the place? Big enough for the three of us to move around in?"

"Yeah. Plenty big enou—aah!" Tom broke off into a scream, doubling over into Brennan's arms. He clutched at his neck. "The collar! The collar! Get it off! Get it off!"

"Tom! Tom, it's not on you! Break the link!" Brennan shook the gangly teen-ager, trying to dislodge the psychic connection.

Lexa acted. She slapped Tom hard across the face, rattling his teeth.

It worked. Tom went limp in Brennan's grasp, hanging on to keep from falling to the ground. Tess danced around the trio, scared stiff, gloved hands trying to figure out how to help him.

Brennan lowered Tom to the floor of The Rock, the psionic pale and trembling. Tom clutched at Brennan. "You've got to get him out of there, and fast! It's using the collar on Jesse!"

"Why?" Lexa demanded. "What does it want from him?"

"I don't know! I don't know!" Tom shook his head, plainly terrified. "Just get him out of there before it kills him!"

Brennan almost put another blast at the stone wall, but thought better of it—Ernest was still in the way. Shalimar came loping back. There was no outlet to the pocket inside. The only way in, or out, was to batter in through the rock.

Or phase through.

"Ernest," Shalimar asked, "can you get us through?"

Ernest shook his head, sandy brown hair flying. "I don't think so. It's pretty thick."

Tess moved in. "Yes, you can, Ernest. You've got to."

"Tess…"

"Try," Tess urged. "Remember what Jesse's done for you, twerp. You gonna let him rot in there?" She punched her brother in the shoulder.

"Ow."

"You gotta try," Tess demanded. "Jesse'd try, if it were you in there. Like he did when you were sick. You think it was easy for him, letting me get a charge off of him for you? Like for fourteen days straight?"

"Okay."

"What kind of ungrateful stupid kid are you, not gonna do what you can? You gotta—"

"Tess," Brennan interrupted, amused despite the gravity of the situation, "he said he'd do it."

"Oh." Tess punched Ernest again.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"For making me look like a dork, twerp. Get over there."

With a look that only a sibling could appreciate, Ernest walked to the back of the shallow cave and placed both hands on the wall. It was like watching a miniature Jesse in action: Ernest took a deep breath, and exhaled. The stone shimmered, and faded.

No one wasted a moment. The entire group, Mutant X and the kids as well as Lady Esther, rushed through the artificial opening before Ernest lost control of the molecules and the wall snapped back to its usual state of rigidity.

Now it was Lexa's turn. The chromatic danced a torch of cold light on her hand, illuminating the interior of the cave, a place that had never been seen in the history of man—until now.

The pocket was astoundingly large, stretching some twenty feet in either direction, ovoid rather than circular. The walls were smooth and unmarked by anything so crude as a Neanderthal-style drawing, though such would have fit well in so primitive an environment. Three boulders parked themselves along the side, and would have served nicely as chairs had the intruders cared about leisure.

They didn't. Their interest lay solely in what was occurring at the far end of the cave.

The black specter stood over Jesse, cloaked hands clasped firmly to the molecular's head. In the eerie cold light of Lexa's handfire the psychic drain was clearly visible. The specter was drawing power from its victim.

"I think you've had enough for one day," Brennan said angrily, and launched a blast of electricity.

The specter almost negligently let Jesse slide to the cold cave floor and deflected the stream of electrons with a gentle wave of its hand. "You cannot stop me."

"Heard that before," Lexa grouched, and loosed her own bolt. That staggered the specter, but only momentarily. It launched its own energy beam, sweeping it across the front of the cave.

"Hit the dirt!" Brennan yelled, taking the nearest two people down with him. They happened to be Tess and Tom. He rolled over and fired off a return volley, as much to get the specter off guard as anything else. "Spread out!"

He and Lexa crossed to opposite sides of the cave, shooting short and hard blasts, not going for damage but control. Too close, and they would fry their teammate. The specter knew it.

"Get Mr. Kilmartin away from the spirit," Lady Esther directed Shalimar. "It feeds off of him. Without Mr. Kilmartin's strength, it will be weakened."

"Right." Shalimar bounced off the wall with a single leap, turning a flip in mid-air to land next to the specter. She spun into a back kick and landed a satisfyingly solid blow to the specter's mid-section. It whoofed, and stumbled back.

"Hah! Being solid isn't all it's cracked up to be," Shalimar told it, surprised but delighted that the thing had become more substantial over time.

The specter had no sense of humor. It back-handed the feral, and Shalimar went crashing into the all too close cave wall. It turned back to the other two members of Mutant X, still launching energy-laden missiles.

Shalimar jumped up, shook herself off, and jumped. She planted both feet onto the specter's back, jamming it into the center of the cave. Then she grabbed the barely conscious molecular and hauled him away to the questionable safety of the Maguire family. "Watch him," she directed. "Keep him out of the specter's reach."

Brennan and Lexa had the specter squarely in a cross-fire, peppering it from both sides. It put up some sort of an invisible force field, deflecting the energy beams every which way, endangering the bystanders until the pair learned to aim their bolts just so to let them bounce harmlessly off the ceiling. Hope the ceiling doesn't fall in on us, was written plainly on Lexa's face. She kept going. This thing had to be destroyed. Now.

Tom came into his own on that day. Standing in front of his adopted family, he called on his own powers, hurling one psionic blow after the other, a determined expression on his face. He looks too much like Emma, was Shalimar's fleeting thought, and it sent a pang of sorrow through her. Another psychic blast arched out.

Those the specter felt.

"You created me!" it howled at Tom. "You can't destroy me! You can't!"

"Watch me," Tom replied grimly, and loosed another blast at his nightmare.

It wasn't enough to kill the thing, but it was enough to jar it loose. Brennan and Lexa pounced on the opportunity, redoubling their efforts, keeping the specter off footing and unable to do more than defend itself against the blows raining down on it from three sides. It stumbled backward. Shalimar leaped from vantage point to wall and back again, jumping in to lash out at the thing's head, then its knee, crippling it and glorying in the opportunity to finally revenge herself on the thing that had so hurt her own make-shift family.

Brennan, sensing victory, put a little extra whammy into his next voltage. It scorched a lock of Shalimar's hair leaping away, but it hit home. The specter cried out, and Mutant X could tell that the end was near. It was a mortal blow.

Down, but not out. Sensing its demise, the specter sought to take with it the very people who had given it pseudo-life: Jesse and Tom. It took aim.

Jesse was still on the floor behind Tom, surrounded by Lady Esther and the Maguires, gathering his strength enough to help his team mates. There was no time to think, no time to plan. Just time to react.

Both Jesse and Ernest darted in front of Tom and, grabbing hands, phased solid. The specter's death blow shattered off their rock-hard bodies, throwing harmless splinters everywhere, causing Shalimar to duck and Lexa to yelp as one sliced a scant layer of skin from her arm. Lady Esther automatically sheltered Tess behind her, cowering behind the solid shield put up by Jesse and Ernest.

It was a massive blow. It lifted both moleculars off of their feet and sent them crashing into Tom, and all three careening into the unforgiving cave wall. They collapsed in a pile of arms and legs and blood.

"Time to end this!" Brennan gritted out. He twisted a mega-wattage of electrons in his hands, ozone crackling with sheer force. On the other side of the cave Lexa called upon a photon flash more powerful than any she had dared used before.

The two forces met at a single dark spot known as the specter. And when they were through, so was the specter. All there was left was a small pile of ash on the cave floor.

And a number of terrified and damaged New Mutants.