Chapter Three: Enter Brandi (or It Hits the Fan)

He wanted to sleep on the flight, but Ray wouldn't stop talking.

"Eye masks have a universal meaning," he said.

"I know you kissed her."

He lifted his mask and opened an eye. "How?"

"Men are so transparent. Wanna talk about it?" she asked sweetly. "I know you're confused… Maybe I could help. Been helpful so far, haven't I?"

He pushed the mask up to his crown. "How can a woman so beautiful be such a bad kisser?"

"Maybe she's not into you."

"Have you seen my abs? What's not to like?"

Obnoxious laughter exploded from her mouth, throwing spittle in his face. "Sorry, I-"

"Go away, I'm going to sleep." He pulled his mask down.

"Don't be like that, Nate. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

He sighed deeply and wondered aloud, "What's wrong with me? All the attainable girls bore me… The only woman I ever loved was my mother's clone. And now I'm obsessed with a girl who thinks I'm a figment of her imagination and she may as well be to me!... I'm brain damaged, aren't I?"

She patted his arm. "Your life's been anything but normal. Cut yourself some slack. You're a good person and you deserve to be happy. Incestuous or imaginary or whatever floats your boat."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You think she's not into me?"

She looked pained. "Look, you don't really know her and she doesn't know you at all. It's easy to build someone up in your mind. You think she's your destiny, but she's only a person. She has dreams and faults like anyone else. To her, you're a guy she just met. Don't you think you came on a little… strong?"

"Perhaps. I sometimes find it difficult… I don't know how to communicate like normal people."

"You can love her without being… clingy."

He nodded sagely as if he understood, but he was more confused than ever. Why did women have to be so contrary?

Fortunately, tracking Brandi proved a straightforward task. They began by telepathically scanning dock workers and customs inspectors. It was dull, tedious work, but they finally picked up her trail again. Nate followed her imprints to a heavily guarded factory in a run-down town.

"They've only got guns and locks," said Ray, "No superhuman defenses. This'll be a piece of cake."

They put two scouts to sleep, hid them, and then used their telepathy to assume their identities. When the others looked at them, they saw the two armed guards, not two gringos. Obviously, Nate and Ray couldn't ask for directions or appear confused, but they were wandering and the workers noticed.

"Something's not right," he murmured.

They'd been picking clues off the unaware minds around them, and Brandi had definitely been here… But no one wanted to accept it. What were they afraid of?

"Look at the product," she whispered.

They were liquefying powder and pouring hot, orange-ish liquid into metal tanks. No one knew what they were making, but it definitely wasn't narcotics.

"There!" he gestured with his chin. Brandi's imprint was so fresh he could practically feel her body warmth. "She's in there."

They approached the door and two big men stepped between them and their target.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" one of them asked.

Rachel touched her temple. "We're supposed to go in."

Their faces relaxed and they stepped aside.

As soon as the duo entered, they froze everyone who wasn't the girl. Two men were looking out a window, wondering where the scouts had vanished. Five more were circled around a table. All of them were heavily armed.

"What the hell?" A petite brunette stepped away from the circle of men, looked around in confusion, and then laid eyes on the "scouts". Ray and Nate dropped their disguises and she gasped.

"Brandi, we're here to take you home," he said.

"I don't think so," she sneered and pulled a firearm from her waistband.

Before she could pull the trigger, they both attacked her mind. They'd only meant to defend themselves, but the combined assault knocked her out cold. After the briefest of considerations, they carried her out telekinetically. Nate, the weaker one, struggled to run while supporting the girl's feet. He kept dropping them in the dirt.

Irritated, Ray took Brandi and lifted Nate, too. "Can you keep up now?"

"Unhand me!"

She obliged and he belly-flopped on the ground.

Before he could complain, gunshots fired and bullets bit into the ground around them. Nate turned and in a flash, telekinetically knocked down the snipers.

"Would you stop that?!" his sister hissed.

"You stop it!"

Anxious and irritated, they struggled back to the highway where their rental car was parked. More gunshots whizzed by as they peeled away.

"We need to get her home ASAP," he said.

"How? She doesn't have a passport. All the illegal routes could be watched by her kidnappers."

"Our old friend." He tapped his temple.

She rolled her eyes.

Brandi came to her senses in the car. She admitted that she'd been blackmailed into transporting goods across the border, but she didn't know what she was carrying. At the drop off site, there'd been an altercation when someone accused her of stealing. In self-defense, she grabbed a gun and killed her handlers. But that was hardly the end of her troubles. The men who'd been guarding the perimeter came when they heard gunshots. Through pure bravado, she managed to convince them she wasn't a random mule but the legendary and mysterious 'Godmother of Death'. Said she knew these men had been stealing from her and once she caught them red-handed, she didn't hesitate to act.

What began as a desperate ploy for survival spiraled into a hungry grab for power. Everyone looked to her for orders. It was a welcome change from her dead-end life, and dangerous or not, she wasn't willing to surrender it.

"You guys don't know what it's like for me back there," she said. "My mom doesn't love me. She didn't even want me. She only reported my disappearance because she wants to hurt Bruce. That's who she blamed, isn't it?"

"Is that your married boyfriend?" Nate asked.

"He's going to leave his wife! He's just waiting till after Christmas so the kids aren't upset."

"Funny," he said, "I don't see Bruce here. And Bruce didn't hire us. Or even try to help us find you! You are a terrible judge of character."

"Fine, I'll go home, but I need to go back and settle things at the factory first."

"You need to?" Ray asked.

"Yes! I need to! We've got a big delivery coming up and if no one's in charge, they'll fumble it! It's a million dollars. I'll split it with you fifty-fifty. That's an easy two-hundred-fifty thousand each. All you have to do is let me stay one more day!"

The siblings exchange a look.

"What's the delivery?" he asked.

"Noneya business, that's what."

"We know it's not drugs," Ray said. "What's the product?"

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "I don't know! Some kind of chemical compound they call 'Omega Fuel'."

A chill ran up his spine and Ray gasped, looking at him in the rear-view mirror. Telepathically, she said to him: 'For the Omega Machine? Can't be… Sugar Man's gone.'

Nate's short life had a lot of lows, but being drained down to nothing by the Sugar Man's Omega Machine took the prize. He'd lost track of time down there. How long had he been forgotten? Abandoned by the Dark X-Men to slow, torturous death. Every heartbeat was unbearable agony until Dani and her team finally rescued him. By then, the Sugar Man's machine had enough power to open a portal to another dimension and he escaped justice. The "battery" was an Omega level mutant, but if it had been altered to accept another power source, there was no telling what could be accomplished. Nate doubted any good would ever come from it.

"Okay," he said. "Let's make the exchange."

Brandi lit up. "Really?"

Weary, Ray turned the car around.

"What're you guys gonna do with your share?" she bubbled. "I'm gonna buy a house with four bedrooms. Then Bruce won't have to worry about his wife getting their home. And when his kids visit, they'll have a place to stay, too."

"How're you gonna explain coming by that much money?" asked Ray.

"Oh, gosh… Hadn't thought of that!"

The whole thing stank. Headed by an interloper and operated by ignorant workers (but heavily fortified), this hidden factory produced a chemical that could destroy worlds. Someone knew what they were doing. But Nate wanted to discover the truth so badly that he ignored his internal alarm bells, and he took Ray and Brandi with him.

At the exchange the next day, Brandi's team was completely overwhelmed. Outnumbered two to one, they were cut down by soldiers in HYDRA uniforms. The Grey siblings tried to fight and then tried to escape, but were finally caught and taken away in a helicopter. The terrorists brought anti-superhuman weapons, specifically devices against telepaths. They knew who they'd be fighting.

"Wanna kick yourself, don't ya?" his captor taunted. "No worries. It's comin'."

He looked down, trying to see if Brandi had survived. Then he looked at his sister, her brave face scarred with the marks of a Hound. In her youth, she'd been tortured, brainwashed and modified to use her psionic powers to hunt and kill mutants – including her own family. Would they ever be anything more than tools in the hands of monsters?

They were taken to a military base and Nate knew their chances of survival had just dropped. Then they were wheeled into a lab where he saw the Omega Machine, and he knew their chances had vanished. He would sooner die than get back in that thing.

"Look at him! Squirming like a worm on a hook!" someone jeered.

If he could get free, he could free Ray, and she could bring the whole building down on them.

A tall, slender woman in a green and black body-suit entered coolly. Although Nate had never seen her before, he knew she'd been born Ophelia Sarkissian and now answered to 'Viper'. She knew how to hold her own against the Avengers and the X-Men… And Nate was pitifully below that caliber.

"I wondered if a chemical compound would be as effective as organic fuel," she sneered. "Now we'll know!"

Despite struggling hard enough to dislocate bones, he could not escape. Terror black and blinding gripped him.

"Ray!" he shouted, "Give it everything you've got!"

"What?!"

"Trust me!"

"He's trying to overpower the machine," scoffed Viper. "Someone has a high opinion of himself."

It was like gripping a red-hot iron when he wanted to pull away, except the iron wasn't just in his hand. It entombed him like a coffin. And he embraced it. His screams, her screams melded into one.

There was light – sweet and soft and loving.

Was he dead?

"Nate? What's happening?"

"For Christ's sake, help!"

The red-hot iron coffin dumped him out and he shivered with relief. Without his telepathy, he felt deaf and blind. His body felt awkward without his telekinesis. But he was alive and not in agony.

"Thank you…" he chattered. "…Thank you…"

He was vaguely aware of shouts, gunfire, and explosions, but they sounded far away. His cheek pressed against the lab floor, which felt as lovely as plush.

Someone kicked his ribs. "Move your ass! You, too, Red! Re-enforcements are on the way!"

He struggled to his knees and saw Honor re-loading a stolen firearm. She checked two magazines and then yanked him to his feet.

"Do you still have your powers?" she asked.

He shook his head. Was this a dream..?

"Then you'll need this," she gave him the pistol she'd been re-loading. "How 'bout you, Red?"

"A little weak, but… I'm okay."

"We're going back out to the hanger. Once we're in the air, we're clear. I'm on point. Nate! Stay with me."

Vision swimming, he said: "You're… not armed."

She pointed to the Omega Machine, which was glowing with a purple kinetic charge. And getting brighter. With a smile, she said, "We've got two and half minutes till it blows and it's takin' the place with it. Don't think I won't leave your sorry asses 'cause I will!"

Ray touched her temple and power radiated from her. "Let's do this."

They didn't get far before back-up caught up with them. Without Honor, they wouldn't have stood a chance. She was a spectacular fighter and seemed to know the enemy's actions before they did. But his head was spinning and he couldn't keep up. He went limp and heard Ray say: "I've got him."

…

To Be Continued…

…

Author's Notes: Sorry this chapter was a little late getting posted. I'll try to be more consistent – no one likes a story to update willy-nilly. If you enjoyed or disliked something, please let me know in the reviews and thanks for reading.