I'm sorry its been so long since I updated, but now that school has begun it'll be a slow write for this story. Thank you to all of you who have reviewed, I appreciate them all. I promise to write when I can, I hate leaving people hanging. Here's my favorite chapter so far.
Disclaimer: NOT MINE, wish they were but THEY'RE NOT. However Corey and Analyn do belong to me along with a couple of others, if you use, ask first.
Bold indicates emphasis on a word.
Italics indicate thoughts, or time lapse
***** indicate time lapse or scene change
Chapter 8
A Walk In Each Other's ShoesEmma sat there scrunched against the wall, staring wide-eyed where Brennan lay. Slowly she got up, very shaky from the suppression of her anger. She walked to Brennan's form and bent down to take his pulse. She had barely touched him with a finger and a huge zap of electricity went from her to him and back to her. She could feel its movement. At this she ran backwards in panic and crashed into one of the walls and fell on her bottom, leaning against the wall. Suddenly everything started to shake and pieces of debris began falling from the ceiling. The force of her run-in was causing a cave-in. Quickly she got up and leapt across the space to shield Brennan's lifeless form from the weight of the objects. More and more began to fall and they were beginning to look heavier and heavier. She winced every time one of the heavier pieces hit her back. Emma shook in horror at the thought of being buried alive but her thoughts suddenly became clogged as she wheezed, there was little to none oxygen left.
"Fine and dandy," She thought in sarcasm, "I'll just suffocate before I can be buried alive" that was the last clear thought she had. Emma could feel her heart rate slow from the lack of air. She could no longer process her thoughts.
Now giving up hope since the room was now half buried in debris. That's when she noticed a figure come through the wall about six feet from where she was with Brennan. It took a second to focus her eyes and see that it was…
"Jesse?"
"Emma… hang on." He hurried over and touching Emma and Brennan phased them through the wall, practically dragging them both. When outside she gasped at the overwhelming amount of fresh air that began filling her lungs. She could hear and feel the rumbling of the rest of the rubble collapsing. Emma didn't have the strength to get up; all she could do was whisper.
"Thanks Jess—" Only he heard her say this before she began hacking a cough.
"Hold on Emma. It's going to be okay; you're going to be okay." He reassured her as he helped her up. Adam and Shalimar were bent over Brennan's motionless body; Adam was checking for a pulse.
"Is he—?" Shalimar broke off but didn't need to finish her question for Adam to know what she was asking.
Adam held Brennan's wrist with his right hand and checked his watch. "He's got a faint pulse, but he'll be all right. I would guess that by his signs that an electrical surge was the cause of this."
"You think he shocked himself by mistake?"
"I don't know, we'll only find out through a scan. He isn't going to come back to consciou—sness… real… soon." He slowed down his last part of speech because as he spoke Brennan woke up.
"Man!" He yelled holding his head. "It's getting worse!"
"What's getting worse?" Shalimar asked him as she helped him stand up. He hobbled around a bit but needed her support to keep from falling over.
"My head!" Brennan's eyes were shut tight from the pain. He opened them just a little and was staring at someone's shoes about six feet from where he was. He was surprised because when he looked up to see the person it was Jesse, not unconscious, standing there and they weren't trying to rip each other's heads off. Brennan seemed to forget the pain in his head for a while. "Hey man! You're conscious!" It was odd because he said that with a little too much enthusiasm.
"No one can keep me down."
"But I threw you for a loop with that blast! How could you come back from it so quickly?"
"It wasn't exactly a walk in the park, Brennan." Seeing Emma's expression he figured she wanted to know too. "All right I'll tell you but Shal, you'll need to help cause I wasn't exactly conscious for all of it." She nodded.
**Flashback** Shalimar and Adam had just quickened their pace at removing fragments of the former safe house to attempt to dig out Brennan and Emma. Jesse was behind them leaning, lifeless, against a larger piece of wreckage from the collapsed building. It had been about ten minutes before anything happened. It was the sound of a revving vehicle that caused them to stop because it sounded like it was right behind them. ****"Me and Adam had started to dig through all the crap when a couple black vans pulled up behind us. Before turning around I remembered that before we had left the collapsing safe house that there was no one else left to be seen. Eckhart's guys had vanished. Sure enough out of the vans came many agents armed with tasers."
****They stood in two lines, waving their weapons threateningly. Out of a car came Darnel with a very different look about her."You have no chance with me feral! I am your weakness, and no matter how much you deny it you still fear fire." Darnel spoke in an eccentric sort of voice, as she powered up a flame on the surface of one of her hands. The fire shot off and Shalimar ducked…but not in time. It grazed her right arm. She cringed in both fear and pain at contact with that heat.
"Shalimar! We don't have time!" Adam shouted at her and continued to dig through the rubble. Shalimar's eyes flashed feral in Darnel's direction but she knew Adam was right. They had to get Brennan and Emma out as soon as possible, before it was too late.
"For all we know it is too late." Thought Shalimar to herself. ****"It was frustrating, I had to resist fighting that bitch Darnel to keep digging. Of course she wasn't just going to let us turn our backs and leave. That would be giving up from her point of view. So she just had to make it that more difficult for us."
****Darnel's eyes glowed like fireballs, and it almost looked as if smoke came from her mouth and ears in little puffs. She was breathing very deeply, in anger. She stretched her open palm forward and a stream of red heat waves poured out. Everything in its path was lit ablaze. Including Jesse's foot. Though it had missed Shalimar, Darnel's desired target. Even though his shoe began to burn he didn't wake up."EVERYONE! Get them!" Darnel screamed and pointed at Shalimar and Adam. One by one each agent charged forward with their tasers. One agent's taser accidentally brushed against Jesse' shoulder, shocking him. He leapt to his feet, putting his foot fire out, and knocked into that agent, pushing him down. Shalimar was beginning to panic when she saw her other teammate leap to his feet.
"JESSE!" Shalimar shouted, her voice strained as she dodged another fireball. He was about to run and protect Shal from her attacker but she wouldn't let him. "Save THEM!" She pointed at the pile of debris and he didn't even need her to explain, somehow he knew. ****"Okay, Shal I think I can take it from here." Then Jess took over the story. "Well, I had only just gotten up, obviously, I was confused. Last time I had opened my eyes I had seen a bunch of white hallways. It was strange … cause I immediately got an adrenaline pump even though I hadn't been involved in the action. Shalimar didn't even need to explain what she meant, but it wasn't exactly easy getting through that mass of agents."
"Hold on." Brennan interrupted. "If you got us out so 'fast' then where are all the agents that you fought with."
"I'm getting to that part and it took longer than you think." Jesse told him. "Okay, so where were we…"
****Jesse delivered a couple punches to several agents as he plowed through the fight. That is until the chemical mutant, Robby, came up to him and blocked his path."Hey! I thought you were unconscious!" He began powering up chemicals that resided in the air around them but Jesse massed and bulldozed him like a football player by holding his right arm straight out and knocking him in the neck, causing him to fall backwards from the force. More agents came at him but in the blink of an eye Shalimar fell from the sky in front of Jesse about to take them on. They exchanged a look and Jesse nodded. She began kicking the crap out of all the agents and he made his way to the fallen safe house.
"Hold on…" He whispered to himself. "I don't even know how deep they are. I could lose my breath before I even get there." Before he did anything flashes of lights coming from behind him distracted him. Jesse turned around to see the chemical mutant standing on top of a van with all these streams of energy around him.
"YOU CAN'T STOP ME!! I'LL THROW EVERYTHING I'VE GOT AT YOU!!!" He yelled as he discharged the energy around him. It went in every direction, hitting everything in its path. It melted the vehicles and burned agents' skin that was in its path. Shalimar leapt onto the side of a building and landed on its emergency escape stairway. Adam wrenched himself free of an agent's grip and hurried to the Helix and took off into a hover to avoid the blast. Jesse looked at the blast coming for him and then back at the pile of debris. Making up his mind he phased and dove in.
Jesse moved carefully and quickly through the mass of stuff. After a bit there was a rumble that shook the rubble. He assumed that was the blast he had barely dodged by entering.
"Come… on. Come on, come on, come on." He thought to himself with only seconds of breath left. Just then he reached forward and almost fell into the caved area where both Brennan and Emma were laying on the ground. It was beginning to cave in and he could tell that there was very little air left.
"Jesse?"
"Emma… hang on." He reached out and grabbed her hand with his left and grabbed Brennan with the other. He rapped his arm around his waist and phased the three of them out into the open. ****
"That's all?!? You made it sound like this was going to be some epic story."
"What do you mean? That's all." Shal shot angrily at him.
"What's the big deal? And—and you still haven't answered what happened to all those agents. You said there was a whole bunch and…" He waved his arms around, pointing everywhere. "I don't see any agents. What? Did they vanish?"
"Shal? Could you take that one?" The look on Jesse's face obviously said that he had no clue.
"Of course. Anything to put down Mr. Thinks he knows it all. What happened was that when that chemical mutant sent off this HUGE blast (it had to be some dangerous chemicals for the effects it had) that liquefied everything it touched. Luckily I got out of its way just in time—"
"Wait. If it liquefied everything it touched…" Jesse started. "Then what caused the collapsed safe house to shake like something big hit it. When I got there the inside cave was crumbling, about to bury Emma and Brennan."
"Oh…um. That was me." Emma said sheepishly. "I kinda fell backwards into the wall which caused the cave-in." Emma regained her composure after that 'Emma' moment, remembering that she was working for Eckhart. "Okay! Enough of this I'm leav—"
"Come ON! What happened?" Brennan asked, ignoring the last thing Emma said along with the others.
"You're so impatient! Can't you just HANG on?!? I was getting there before someone interrupted me." Shalimar looked accusingly over at Jesse.
"Well?" Brennan prompted as she looked back at him with a bit of disgust.
"What happened to the agents was that when the blast hit them they didn't duck so they were liquefied. OBVIOUSLY the chemicals have deadlier effects on humans otherwise that Darnel woman would be dead as well. She escaped in the only working van out of the three that had pulled up. I'm not quite sure what happened to that dangerous chemical mutant." She paused. "Happy?!?"
"Very." Brennan said smugly.
"Enough of this," Adam came on the scene from the Helix. "We need to get you back to Sanctuary. And Emma—"
"Is going back where she belongs!" Emma finished Adam's sentence. She turned to leave.
"Emma I need to check up on you too."
"Why?!? It's not like I'm part of the team anymore! If I want a check-up then I'll ask one of the scientists, okay?!? So you can just leave—me—ALONE!!"
Right when she said the last word another bolt of electricity shot out of her forehead, but instead of it hitting just one of them it branched into four separate bolts and struck all of them down. None of them had time to dodge it because they were all so stunned. Emma gasped when this happened and stood there speechless. Then, realizing this was her chance she bolted in the opposite direction. Brennan recovered first and stuck out his hand to power up his electricity, but instead of blue static crawling along his hands an orb began to glow a white and lavender in his palm. Not noticing (the thick kind of guy he is) he fired it at the retreating Emma. He too was stunned when this happened as the others also noticed. The orb went straight for Emma's back with an opaque silvery tail behind it as it went quite fast. When it hit Emma she was knocked out cold.
***Sanctuary***
"Okay Adam. So… what do we do now?" Jesse asked as he laid Emma on the lab table back in Sanctuary.
"Well, we're going to find out what exactly caused this… event to take place."
"It doesn't take a genius to know that Emma just shocked us with electricity, Adam."
"That may be, Brennan. But… it does take a genius to find out why!" Adam pressed a few buttons on one of the consoles. "Commence scan." The familiar gold beam passed up and down Emma's unconscious form.
"You know Brennan." Started Shalimar. "It also doesn't take a genius to figure out that you shot off a psionic blast from your hand instead of an electric one."
"Oh, you guys noticed that too…" He whispered sheepishly.
"Kinda hard not to notice." Said Jesse in a louder voice to let him know they all could still hear his little whisper. He continued to stare at Emma even through his somewhat rude interruption.
"Yeah Brennan. I'm going to have to scan you too. If there's any abnormalities in your genetic make-up that are shared with Emma then that'll probably be what we're looking for."
"How will you be able to tell if there's any difference without comparing us?" Brennan asked.
"Simple. I'm just going to compare these scans to your most recent ones and find any peculiar differences. So if you don't mind, you can get in the other lab chair and I'll start your scan." As Brennan walked past Emma in the lab chair to get to the other one Adam spoke again. "Oh and could you attach the restraints on Emma's chair?" He said this distractedly as he continued working. Everyone else, on the other hand, shot their eyes in his direction full of surprise. None of them moved a muscle, unable to believe what he had just asked Brennan to do.
"Are you serious?!?" Shalimar started, getting all feral and protective. Adam looked up and saw them all staring at him.
"Look! If we don't take the precautions of restraining her then when she wakes up she could go ballistic."
"but…" She started frantically.
"It's Emma!!!" Jesse finished her sentence for her.
"I know it's Emma! You guys don't seem to remember our conversation after she blasted us all. That specific psionic power may be disabled for now but until she changes her mind she's a danger to us and our cause, powers or no powers." Only silence filled the room after Adam's statement. There was no more to say on the matter.
Brennan unwillingly attached the restraints on Emma's chair and sat in his own. All to do now was await the results of the EDD-scan. The lack of sound was sickening, as the only thing heard has the beeps and humming of the machines. Finally the results popped up on the hologram computer monitor. Adam's face went from all serious, to emotionless, to… was that relief? Some of it had to be.
"Adam?" Shalimar broke the silence. She paused, waiting for an answer, then realizing she wasn't getting one, "Is it good?"
"What?" Adam answered, distracted. "Oh, well its not as bad as it could have been, but there could still be some problems." Adam saw in Shalimar's expression that she was still asking what it was. Jesse stood off against the wall, listening, but not involved. "It's remarkable, that's what it is. I never even believed such a thing was conceivable. What has happened here is that, unwittingly, their DNA was switched… partially. The majority of Emma's psionic DNA now resides in Brennan, while the majority of his elemental DNA is now contained within Emma."
"What are you saying… they've switched powers?!?" Jesse chimed in and Brennan twisted around from his laying position in the lab chair so he could participate in the conversation.
"Not… exactly."
"Well, then what?!?" Brennan asked, frustrated.
"I guess the best way to put it is that you've switched the effects of your powers but the cause of your abilities is still the same." All three gave him clueless looks. "Alright, for example, you, Brennan, shoot off electrical currents from your palms. Now with this effect you shoot of a psychic energy blast in the exact same way. Emma, on the other hand, always shoots her psionic blasts from her mind, but now she can shoot a stream of electricity instead. I think your powers will be used in the same way its just something different will happen when you do."
"So I just do the same thing to make those—those mental energy things come up as I do with my—as I did with my electricity?" Without waiting for an answer from Adam he opened his palm as if waiting for an electrical arch and a whitish orb powered up in his hand. "Not bad… not bad at all. I could get used to this."
"Hey be careful with that!" Jesse ducked as Brennan accidentally released the orb. He laughed at his own fun.
"Brennan, this is something quite serious. It's not to fool around with, especially at anyone else's expense. You need control because it could be even more fatal than your electricity if you hit someone. We're lucky it only knocked Emma out."
As they were discussing the situation, no one noticed Emma was stirring. As she became aware she tried to get up, only to find that she couldn't. "UGGH!!!" The entire team jumped at her exasperated noise, as she kept trying to lift her hands and neck. "What's the big idea?!?!" She yelled. "RESTRAINTS?!?!? What do you think I am?!? Some sort of—monster?!?"
"You could've fooled us, Emma." Shalimar replied calmly. Everyone else began to see more clearly why Adam had insisted on confining her.
"You know what? I don't have to take this." She concentrated and her forehead began to glow electric blue. Shal's eyes narrowed and she reached out and slapped Emma across the face, breaking her focus. Emma glared back, flabbergasted. She began struggling with her binds to get at Shalimar and before anyone could do anything the cuffs that held her crackled with electricity and opened. Emma leapt up and lunged at Shalimar but she did a backward flip onto a table, dodging her. Shal then launched an attack and kicked Emma in the chin but she didn't fall. Emma in turn powered up an electric bolt on her forehead, she was about to fire it at the feral Shalimar.
"Both of YOU!! Contain yourselves!' Adam yelled, and both girls stopped in place, Emma's blast yet to be discharged and Shalimar held back a punch. They just stared in his direction without moving from their place. "I know there are things we must work out but for the time being—all of you," he glanced at the guys. "Hold your tongue and your fist. No matter the intention we won't be using our powers on anyone!" Obviously it was a generic we he was using as he himself did not have powers. "Once everything is sorted out then Emma you can go where you please and so on and so forth." Everything said they split up, as it was getting late.
******
The sun had just risen over the horizon as morning dawned. It was as quiet in Sanctuary as it was outside in the fresh air. Everything was still and quiet… except for the movement in the dojo. A simulation was underway and Emma was in the middle of the fight. She wore a workout bra, bike shorts and finger-less gloves, all of them black. Surrounding her was a couple of particularly difficult simulations with tough moves and tasers in hand. Even though she was 'working' for them she didn't mind giving their counterparts a beating, which she was doing quite a job on. Sheen came off of her in the morning light from all the sweat, and every now and then a drop of sweat sparked as it fell off her from the mass amount of movement she was doing. Bringing down bad guy after bad guy with combinations of kickboxing and gymnastics. Normally she wasn't ever this active but recent training inspired her to do so. That wasn't all, though. Every now and then she delivered extraordinary blows with an electric charge. Nearing the end of her session she turned the difficulty up a notch and only used her powers to take them out. She would get surrounded by eight or so agents to attack her, and she would give them a lightning bolt from her head, knocking them all back and bringing on the next wave. She continued on with this for several minutes until, suddenly, all the agents stopped moving and then disappeared in a jumble of data.
"Huh?!?" She got in a more relaxed stance since no one was attacking her now. Looking up towards the computer controls she saw Brennan standing there, leaning on the console. For once she didn't get upset over such a little thing (him cutting her simulation short), which Brennan found as a good sign. She simply stared at him, clueless.
"I was thinking… maybe we could talk." Brennan's voice didn't sound too foreboding so she thought, 'what's the worst that could happen?' and agreed. She trotted down the dojo steps as he went around to meet her. She took off her sweaty gloves and wiped her forehead with a towel that was hanging on the wall. "Walk with me?" she merely answered by his question by following him. They just began moseying, to nowhere in particular.
"So… Brennan?" Emma said after a long silence passed between them. She was a little calmer than most times because she had just had quite a workout. Out of the corner of his eye Brennan hadn't been able to help but look at Emma, a shine to her skin still from the sweat only made her look more beautiful. He snapped to attention once he heard her speak, but it was obvious that she didn't notice a thing. It was hard to get used to her not picking up on even some quite noticeable emotions. He saw the rest of her question was in her eyes, and somehow he could tell she was better than she had been in days.
"Well, we haven't really had a chance to talk since… you know. It just seemed a lot of things were left up in the air."
"I kinda know what you mean…" she just trailed off after speaking. Emma really wasn't ready to talk about this openly with Brennan and was surprised that he was being so open, it was very unlike him. Brennan sensed a slight dread radiating from Emma about this subject, although they had not yet spoken it aloud. Hoping to bypass the subject matter quickly, Emma made a comment to quickly change their focus. "You know? Your… powers are a lot harder to handle than I thought, I mean, I thought I had it difficult but this is even harder! I can never seem to hold back when I really want to, like I'm standing on one foot the entire time and with no help whatsoever and I cannot switch feet, no matter how badly I want to. At least with my telempathy it didn't reach its full potential unless I actually tried to, but with this, full power is pouring outta me every second and I don't know how to hold back."
"Hey… you'll get it soon enough. Emma, you're the strong one. You think these powers are a walk in the park either? I had no idea…" he trailed off. Both of them finally looked into each other's eyes. This was the first real connection he two of them ever made. They actually understood the hardships the other one went through with their powers.
"Did you mean what you said?" Emma asked, not diverting her gaze.
"Of course Emma, you don't give yourself enough credit. Your powers are—"
"I wasn't talking about that." Her face was searching his. Brennan finally realized that she was talking about what he had said to her back when they were trapped. They hadn't really talked for several days, since that incident.
"...yeah… I meant what I said. I would never say something like that unless I was serious—"
"All those times… was that what your feelings were? Like when I was with Tyler, that precog? Or… or when I was possessed by that firefighter who died in my arms?"
"When we first met…" he added in. "Emma, I was drawn to you for some reason. Hey… if it wasn't for you I may have never joined the Mutant X team. You have to admit there've been moments—"
"Yeah Brennan, I'll admit there were moments, but those were meaningless. I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined this was how you felt! Those moments were just that, moments, and nothing more." Emma began to quicken her pace to escape Brennan, but he chased after her.
"What is it with you?!? Some times you seem like you merry old self and others you're a stranger. It's not like I don't understand you any more, Emma! I know exactly what it's like now!" he lowered his voice to a calmer level, "The pain in your head, every waking minute. You don't even know when the emotions you're feeling are your own. Yeah you have all this power and influence, but it isn't really worth the struggle you're forced to deal with." Emma stopped as he said this, bowing her head, and then turning around to face him. "You're not alone any more."
Emma could hear her heart pounding in her ears, and then she strode forward. Wrapping her arms around Brennan's neck she kissed him. Surprised at first Brennan then returned it. Neither of them noticed Jesse in the background, watching from afar.
TBC…
I'm sorry but from now on it'll take much longer for me to get chapters up especially now that school has started. Please keep reviewing cause your wonderful reviews are the very reason why I decided to finish this chapter quickly and post it.
Now, I'd like to know which you'd rather have. Short chapters I can post a bit faster or long chapters with more information that take longer to write.