A/N

The second chapter today! I hope you like it!

I ditched the car at some gas station around three o'clock later that day. I bought a small cup of popcorn chicken, ignored the 'ten minute parking' sign, and wandered off to lose myself in the streets of some city in the border of the southern edge of Pennsylvania.

After walking for about an hour, I found some hotel to spend the rest of the day and night. I was tired and cranky and my shoulders ached a bit.

When I finally got checked into a room that was fifteen dollars overpriced, I locked the door, made sure the windows were closed, and flopped onto the bed.

My eyes burned from keeping them on the road for so long. My arms felt like they had been picking up seventy pound weights, probably from bracing my body against the wheel. I felt like I was due a nice long nap.

About twenty minutes later, I began to feel a horrible buzzing in my head. I moaned and threw a pillow over my head.

"Why doesn't it go away?" I groaned to myself after it showed no signs of stopping.

I tossed and turned as it steadily got worse. I dug my fingers into the sheets and curled up into a tight ball as it got so loud I couldn't hear myself think.

It didn't exactly hurt, but it felt as if something was pulling at bits of my brain, not enough to hurt, but certainly enough to be very, very, VERY uncomfortable.

I moaned again. It wasn't stopping! It felt like my head was ready to explode.

Now it was beginning to hurt. I curled up tighter in defense.

There was something wrong. I needed a doctor, maybe even a neurologist. Maybe my brain was swelling. People died from that!

I felt something sliding down my cheeks. I was crying. I hadn't even realized I had begun to do it.

I gasped as the buzzing got to a keening pitch and the pain in my head got to the point where I wanted to scream.

Somewhere…somewhere deep in my head, deep inside that place that always adored Lord Jaakeni, that worshipped him and praised him, a dam broke. There was no water, but a finely tuned rush of thought that immediately released the pressure building in my head. Suddenly, the buzzing wasn't buzzing anymore.

It was voices.

Dozens of them, in every sort of dialect, gabbering away with an intense fervor. I couldn't believe it.

You hear us now? One voice rose above the rest, more powerful, more demanding.

"Yes." I breathed. "Where are you?"

Unimportant. You are important. You hear us now. That means you are back with us. You are where you belong.

His voice had a certain quality to it, one I had heard of years ago…What was it? Some sort of water creature.

"Where I belong?" I whispered to the voice.

You were gone for so long. You were in Jaakeni's grip. He told you things, and you followed blindly. You shut us out.

He sounded reproachful. My mind felt foggy, like I was waking up from a long sleep and couldn't remember everything that happened.

"I don't remember." I said.

You'll remember again soon. But now, now you must listen. You followed someone blindly and did not understand. You lost something that made you Danny. You have it again, but when you were not Danny, you did things. Things that could destroy you. Things you did for something else.

"What do you mean? You mean Jaakeni and his missions?"

Yes. You give him power, for the good of Jaakeni. You follow blindly, without purpose. Now, this world is in danger. Your actions made him stronger.

"He's stronger. He'll defeat the other side."

And what happens after that? The voice demanded. He will stop on his own world when so ripe fruit lies for the taking?

It took me a second to put it all together.

"Damn!" I uncurled myself and rolled out of bed. "He's been using me so I can give him earth on a silver platter! I've been working for the wrong team."

Should you be on a team at all?

"Good question." I pondered for a minute. "When I help one side, like Jaakeni, he becomes stronger. He gets earth. I help the other side, they smear Jaakeni like jelly and they get a nice open path to earth. I help my side too much and they may decide to take the fight to the two other sides, which, when they both tag team on our side they still get earth. On the off chance earth wins, well, some creatures shouldn't be given so much power. They tend to do some stupid stuff. Maybe just finding a way to neutralize the threats would be best."

And how will you do that? The voice asked interestedly.

I sighed. "I wish I knew. I have no idea about this stuff. It's all magic and I'm stuck in the mutant scientific pit."

You were there once.

"That was a long time ago. And it wasn't as if I learned anything. I tripped, I fell, I caused trouble, I was sent home. Nothing else." I put my head in my hand. Then a thought began to creep in. "I don't know anything at all about magic…but I can find someone who does. I can use the birds to look. I can find what I need, get someone's help, find out what those artifacts are for and use them to stop everything. I can use them to stop anyone from getting in, hopefully. Or getting out. That's just as important."

You are starting to act like the Danny you are. The voice observed.

"I'm surprising myself, actually. It's a little scary." I said truthfully. I scratched the back of my neck. "Now, I need a plan. First, I find someone. Then I figure out what to do about this. Then I start cutting ties."

Ties?

"It wouldn't do to cut off Jaakeni just yet. He usually gave leeway since I was only one person, but I still have one of those orbs in my bag. If I smash it now, there's a good chance he knows things aren't kosher. If I keep it to the side, I have a bit of time. I just have to move fast. He won't get suspicious until I don't show up for another week. Then I'll get what I need and get out."

You should be careful. The voice warned.

"I know. But that time will pass soon and I'm going to need to be able to hold my own. No one else can hold it for me now."

We'll help. You just need to ask.

"I intend to." I said, running a mental list of things I needed to do. There was so much, and so little time till I'd have all of Jaakeni's other pets at my throat. I needed a plan, perhaps some allies…

And above all, time.

"Okay, that was kind of creepy. Those dogs in there…is that natural?" Kitty asked worriedly.

In her arms she held a small terrier, one that had been a regular customer at the shelter. Its stark refusal to stay penned had gotten it several new owners a year. Now it belonged to her. The three girls had volunteered for the day through some twist of fate, partially because of causing some damages back at the mansion.

Jubilee shrugged. "I have no idea. Maybe it was Rahne?"

"I've been to a lot of shelters and never before have dogs just stopped barking or playing and all looked in the same direction." Rahne said, casting an uneasy glance back at the shelter. They were waiting by the street for Mr. Logan to pick them up, but the sounds of loud barking and other sounds were carried over them.

"I hope Mr. Logan likes the dog." Kitty quickly changed the conversation. "I mean, who could resist this cute little thing?"

Both Rahne and Jubilee thought about Mr. Logan's reaction, but quietly kept the comments to themselves.

I was having difficulties.

To say what was around me with the aid of animals was easy enough. It was like being a TV set-they were the signals, I just had to put it together and create a picture from the signals. The more animals, the clearer the picture. Enough animals, and I could see a muscle flex on a person's arm.

And I could turn that around, to look for a specific object or building or even energy, just so long as I had a specific to go by.

But it's one thing to look for something by specifics, another to look in generality.

Looking through animal reports is like doing a search on the internet. You get maybe ten good results out of five thousand, and they get mixed in, so you have to figure out which ones to push to the side and which to investigate.

I was patient. Not very, but enough. You had to have a degree of patience to understand what goes on in the animal world. Most of it took being able to figure out the different dialects.

First was an elderly woman, gray haired, and from my sparrows, a faint shimmering outline of power.

I sipped a bit from my water and shifted a little from my position on the floor. I couldn't be there, and they were hundreds of miles away, but the information they sent through the grapevine of bird minds sent a clear enough picture.

Before, I would have to stretch my mind out, to touch a specific animal, to get their information, but now they sent it to me. I didn't force them, like I knew I must have when I was still being controlled.

I pushed the nasty thought aside. Instead, I found myself wondering what it must be to have wings.

I may get information of all types from the animals, but I never have been able to get much farther. Information, scents and sights and the feel of things to them…that's all I ever got.

I swirled the water in the bottle as the birds followed the elderly woman from the air.

She was powerful. The sparrows told me so. But not…right.

I asked them what they meant. They had some other birds send me some…disturbing images. I told them I would look at her again later. The sparrows broke off the pursuit and went off to find some bugs.

She may be a scary old woman, but in my position, shutting off a potential ally would be a bad idea, no matter how…wrong…she was.

"Good day, Miss Agatha. We will look upon you again." I carefully put her down as last resort.

I took another sip and got ready for the next potential candidate.

A boy was sitting in a classroom, using crayons to draw pictures of ghosts and demons. Beside him, a faint outline of distortion, connected to him at the hip.

I watched the boy a bit. Without warning, the distortion snapped out and swatted a little pony tailed girl across the cheek. The girl screamed and held her cheek and cried. The boy looked up from his drawing, looking horrified. The classroom dissolved into yells, and a teacher blocked the view of the pigeons looking in.

"Frightening. But not what we're looking for." I said, sipping water. I dismissed the pigeons with a thank you and looked for the next.

I only had five returns of any good quality. The rest were magicians and some of strange energies, but they were still so normal and human, I had to throw those out.

A woman in a bayou was crooning to large alligators. There was various magical paraphernalia, but somehow I could tell she was the type that saw everyone's problems as that-everyone else's problems. Plus, judging by the chewed up boat in the water, she wasn't much of a people person.

I stuck her next to the Agatha woman.

The next was a man I knew too well.

"It's not magic." I muttered half to myself and half to the large crow pecking food out of the bird feeder by his window. "It's psychic energy."

Professor Xavier was putting a phone back on the hook. He looked out the window directly at the crow. The crow sent me a picture of the Professor looking straight at him, curiously.

"Forget him. I know where to find him anyway. You'd better get out before he calls out his mutant weedwhacker." I stretched a little as the crow left my consciousness.

Four out of five. I really wanted the last one to be someone I knew I could use.

A small blue jay, a younger one, was the conveyor of the last choice.

You Danny, right? He sounded a little nervous.

"Yeah?"

You say you want all the possible ones, and I know you want people you can use, but you said all, and—

"Spit it out already, I know what I said."

He sent me some images of a red suited, helmeted man standing on a roof, looking out across the streets.

All around him was a haze of pure energy.

I couldn't tell if the energy was magic or psychic, but it was there in abundance.

Figures my last choice would be a Ghallian soldier.

I watched him for awhile. The way he moved was familiar. I must have ran from him before.

I tapped my fingers on my knee.

On one hand, he was a Ghallian soldier. An enemy of mine right now. He would more than likely attack me as soon as see me. And I had no idea how powerful he was, so approaching him about anything that might remotely sound like treason if he wasn't that sort of guy, well, that was a different ball of wax.

On the other hand, a guy that had a front seat view to the conflict as I did might be able to provide valuable information to the intentions of both sides. Plus, he came from that other world, which had two potential invaders. He was part of them, so it was entirely possible he knew how the artifacts worked, and how to stop everything.

On the cusp of that argument, there was a matter of compensation. A person may be noble, but in general, people want to know what's in it for them. And I had nothing to give right now.

But maybe I could find out something he wants. Or I could bluff him. I could be a pretty good actress when the need arose.

Of course, I could count on him being a noble soul, wanting to help a poor girl save her planet, at the risk of his potential torture and death.

Somehow, I think that may be stretching hope a little far.

"Where are you right now?" I asked the jay.

The bluejay rattled off some directions, which I checked across some other birds, and managed to get a town forty miles past the state line.

"Tell me if he runs off. I'll be there tomorrow."

I broke the connection and rubbed my eyes. I had to get some sleep. I climbed into the bed and flopped onto the pillow. I had to get to sleep, and be in good shape in case running was involved tomorrow.

I felt my eyes grow heavy, and I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

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