Author's Notes: Entering the last half of the story. Crazy!
Disclaimer: Ultimate Spider-Man is not mine. Nor are any of its characters. That's Marvel's job. Any Original Characters and art you note, however, are all me. No. I'm not making money. Don't rub it in.

Chapter 16 - Sister

The night had always been Kevin Weir's favorite time. Ever since he was small, the soothing moon and embracing atmosphere of glistening galaxies gave him the comfort of another world. His parent's arguments over mutants would fall on deaf ears. He would forget the amount of stress on his sister that enhanced her solace in books. For that time, he felt weightless, serene—comfortable enough to watch the electric current of his body jump from finger to finger across his hands.

Unfortunately, morning always broke.

The ragged-clothed mutant frowned as warm rays of sunlight splintered over the monochrome cityscape before him. They melded into a vibrant haze that nearly blinded Kevin with their rainbow of oranges, pinks, and light reds. He squinted, raising a bare forearm for a shield, and didn't bother standing from his spot atop a tall stack of old steel containers in a lesser-used part of the Shipping Yard.

The familiar beating of wind reached his waiting ears, followed by a series of scrapes across the container then finally a thud. The blonde remained seated along the container's ledge as Kai joined his side. With a sigh, the avian mutant joined his friend then draped his long wings over the sides like a heavy burden. They took up so much room that Kevin could clearly examine the poor condition of their frayed, plucked feathers pushing against him. Still, he didn't complain in knowledge that flying was tiresome. And he had been asking that of Kai a lot recently.

"Any luck?" Kevin questioned, monotone.

Kai shook his head. "It's a SHIELD base, K; odds are high we won't find it without being invited."

"It's an air ship."

"With advanced cloaking technology. Unless I fly into it, it stays hidden."

Kevin sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Sorry, K," Kai added, "but you'll have to stick with piggybacking on radio waves. Fury's responded once, so you know SHIELD's scanning for them."

"Fine. And what about the food?"

"Security is tightening up around places. Getting food was…"

"Did you even try?"

"Of course I did!"

The electric mutant narrowed his eyes. After a long moment, the Asian huffed, broke eye contact, and ran a talon-hand through the greasy locks of his spiked blonde hair.

"I found one place, alright?" he said in clear discomfort. "A small Mom and Pop store. I could have gotten us fresh food for once. But—I…I couldn't."

"Why not?" By his tone, Kevin made it clear he wanted a good answer.

"We come from a small town, K. I know what it looks like when someone's struggling for business. When I did a check, I found that it's owned by this elderly couple with five kids. I don't know if they're being fostered or if they're the couple's grandchildren. Regardless, I couldn't. I couldn't do it. Could you?"

Kevin knew just the answer he wanted to use. Yes. They're humans; they'll recover. We need to look out for our own. When do you think you'll get another chance like that? If he said that, though, he also knew it would haunt him. He would feel dirty, and so his glare softened into an impassive expression as he sighed.

"I guess we're stuck with the moldy loafs and canned beans."

"Hey," Kai chirped with a relieved smile, "I like beans!"

"That makes one of us," noted Kevin before a pause. "How many loaves do we have left?"

"Not many. Probably four?"

"I planned the rations myself. We should have at least one and a half more than that."

The avian mutant shrugged his feathered shoulders. "We're been sticking to the docks recently. Rats are prominent."

"Yes"—Kevin frowned—"rats..."

"Oh great, I know that look."

"Have you noticed Thera's behavior recently?"

"Dude, I'm so fatigued nowadays I hardly notice I'm a bird."

"She's short with us—cautious. Could she be feeding the agent?"

"Would that be such a bad thing?" Kai countered so quick that Kevin's eyes barely narrowed before the Asian continued. "He's been with us a week and you haven't suggested any one of us should offer him food or water."

"Why would I?" the teleporter snapped. A crackle of blue-white electricity danced faintly across his tone body, causing Kai's feathers to twitch.

"Look. I know you're upset he hasn't said anything about Z—"

The crackling grew louder. "It's his own fault. He should just talk!"

"You're treating him like a war criminal."

"This is war!" Kevin could no longer sit, so he teleported to his feet beside Kai and glared into his friend's dark brown eyes. "SHIELD's done nothing but screw up my whole life. The visits. Manipulating Pop. M—mom's—Now Z?"

"But torturing him—"

The blonde raised a hand then directed it towards his side at nothing in particular. "What about Yazuna? Or even Akashi? If one of your siblings had been taken, how far would you go for them?"

"Not so far as to kill like some low-end criminal," remarked Kai coolly. His words felt like a blow to the heart—deep and sudden.

Kevin's head shook, his glare faltering a fraction. "I don't plan to kill him."

"But you threaten it…and I believe you when I'm in there."

"Oh, it's called tactic."

"It's called sadism."

"Whatever," grumbled the blonde with a sneer. His arms crossed as his head turned towards the horizon and he let the following seconds pass in silence. "I know you don't agree with me," he added, softer than before. "But we've all lost enough at SHIELD's hands. I won't lose my sister, too."

"The agent is stubborn," Kai remarked. "We don't even know his name."

"If Fury wants to play a waiting game, I'll win."

"But keeping a prisoner makes it hard to move." Kai's left wing fanned across the carrier's top as its master twisted while still seated. "That's why we've had to stick to the docks, because we're keeping him in one place and moving the others. The Trackers—"

"Haven't been seen since Sunday when Trent and Mini spotted them fighting three of Fury's dogs."

"Doesn't that worry you?" Dark brown eyes drew into slits, yet the apprehension behind them shone clearly. "If they're growing this quiet, they could have been assigned a new task involving SHIELD instead. Which means…he could be called in by now. Ghost."

A slight tremble ran down Kevin's strong spine at the name, though he hated to admit it. "I—I don't think so. Sean hasn't been able to update us because our cells are dead, but Ghost should still be tracking down Alice; that girl is a master at running."

"And Ghost is a master at hunting. He's always been that way. Sean was chasing her too, but…what if Espello's been captured? And Sean's…"

There was no answer to that—not one Kevin would like to acknowledge, anyway. So he kept quiet as Kai's face grew downcast. Then, he walked towards the container's edge, intent on keeping calm in spite of the quiver within his gut.

Fish scent. Always the fish scent. It was pungent and curled the toes. Yet it was also welcomed because it meant a break—a break from the punches, the screams, the repetitive demands, and the shocks. His body didn't hurt as much now, thankfully, even though he still hung from a meat room ceiling.

He had Thera to thank for that.

"Mister Agent?" the hooded figure before him asked.

He sensed her before his eyes fluttered open. "M—my name's Sam," he replied without thought. When he realized what had just been done, he inwardly face-palmed and cursed how lax his mouth grew with sleeplessness. How would he ever remain strong if he let his guard down around the only person who treated him nice? Well, nicer.

"Oh, don't worry; I won't tell anyone," Thera said softly as she wiped blood from a new gash in his side. He heard her hiss under her breath then apply a little more pressure.

"Careful with that," retorted the bruised Hispanic.

"I carefully wrapped my hands this time," she responded with a tinge of dread. "No toxin should seep out…so long as you don't upset me."

A curt snort rung out, accompanied by Sam's scoff. "Upset you?"

"Yeah. That's what happens. And…sometimes it just seeps through the cloth. I…I'm sorry it got into your wound the other day."

"You paralyzed me."

"But it wore off!"

"After twenty-four hours! Do you know what it's like to be that still with your whacko leader wanting answers?"

In an instant, Thera's towel scraped his side wound. "Don't"—her North Dakota voice was dark—"call K crazy. He's grown severe, yes, but that's your organization's fault, Sam."

"How so?" Sam asked through short breaths.

Thera's bright eyes shot to his face, their orange coloring swirling like the surface of the sun. He could swear he saw flecks of red across her skin beneath the shadow of her hood. "Right," she said in tempered distain. "I forgot, you don't like to understand, just act."

"I—I'm serious now." The Hispanic flinched at a stinging in his healing eye. "I've been here for—for days with no way of countering Weir's tactics or—"

"Stop right there"—the mutant raised a cloth-hand, tone stern—"I won't tell you our history so you can use it against us."

"So…why would you tell it to me then?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Sam blinked blankly.

"I—I want you to understand us," continued Thera in a small voice that cracked. "God. I'm so tired of running, and fighting, and scrounging. I just…I want everyone to understand. You're the only one of SHEILD we've ever captured. And you don't act like a normal agent."

"How would you know?"

Thera stepped back on silent feet. "Trust me. I know. They're manipulative and pushy. You're just—"

"Just what?"

"You're different."

Sam frowned at her frank, weak smile below her hood.

Alright. What were his choices? Sitting tight for a rescue had proved a dud. Countering Weir only made matters worse. He could take the pain, of course; his body was strong and the beatings were incomparable to training with Drax. But the days were growing longer and longer and he found Thera's company was the only thing keeping him focused. Regardless of her toxic skin. Or mean wound tending and moldy food. If they could see eye-to-eye…maybe she would let him go.

Sometimes the wisest thing to do is to understand before acting.

Dammit, Danny! Even after a week? Were his head closer to the stained walls, Sam would've banged them together. The words were making more sense now. Which actually frightened the Hispanic some.

"Um…Sam?"

With a straight face, Sam faced Thera. "Alright."

The slender figure tensed. "Alright?"

"You want to see if I can understand, so go. Tell me. Why does your group hate SHIELD so much?"

"Aside from you kidnapping Z?"

"We didn't kidnap her. Well, we did. But that wasn't my team's intent. That was all Fury."

Orange eyes narrowed, darkening behind the hood's shadow. They felt animalistic almost, leading to Sam's nervous grin. However, after a moment, Thera stepped forward with her fish smell and continued cleaning his side.

"Where do I begin?" she asked.

"How about you tell me why you knew of SHIELD before Enderlin."

"Okay. You might be familiar with it, the SHIELD Training Program."

"Fury asked you to be a part of that? Wait"—the Hispanic paused—"were you supposed to be our teammate?"

Thera's hood shook before she traded her towel in for another that she wet lightly. "I think we were supposed to be another group entirely. Kai and Kevin had also been asked, as well a few others from home. We all denied him."

"And, let me guess, he kept insisting."

"For years. Especially with K."

"Why wouldn't you want to be heroes?" Sam couldn't stop the question from leaving his cracked lips and it sounded insensitive in hindsight. Still, he added, "It's awesome! All the challenges and thrills."

"You have no family, do you?" the mutant countered frankly.

Sam flinched under her soft gaze. "Yeah, well—that's…"

Thera tended to another wound as the hero faced away. "I thought so. It's probably the same with the rest of your team."

"Not exactly," Sam grumbled, thoughts dwelling on the boisterous Aunt May and smiling faces of Mister and Misses Cage.

"Well, for us, that was the deal breaker. We were supposed to be uprooted, taken to a big city where we would fight crime. But we're small-town kids. Enderlin's our home, and none of us were willing to leave our families. Not to mention our mutations…" A light sigh left Thera. "I have parents who love each other. An older sister, Kyrin, and a younger sister Kenzie. I—I haven't been as close to them since my…abilities started to show two years ago, but…I thought it would be alright if I could maintain control. Thanks to SHIELD, I didn't."

"What do you mean?" Sam inquired, low. His brows knit as the towel dropped to the floor and Thera wrapped her arms around her waist.

She drew a deep breath then said, "They always came in a pair—Director Fury and Agent Reyes."

"The agent that Zeelan—" Sam cut himself short by clearing his throat.

"Yes. She was a nice lady." Something in the mutant's Midwestern tone lead Sam to believe Thera had liked Agent Reyes. "She was…Let's say a compliment to Fury's assertiveness. They never said anything about it, but I think she was one of his lead agents and would have been the head of our hero branch if any of us had agreed. It's—it's a shame those other agents pushed Z and Trent into that corner…"

"What corner?"

Thera glanced up. "The corner that forced Z to use her powers that she can't control. The one that cost Agent Reyes her life because she was trying to keep the peace. If SHIELD should hold anyone accountable for her death, it should be their own agents!"

"Alright. Alright. I get it. Dirty agents. Not sure if I believe it— "

"You should."

"I'll consider it. Anyway, didn't you have a point? Something about control?"

"Oh…right." The mutant stepped back, free of any task. She glanced at her hands—wrapped like little mummies in two different colored cloths. "Before the Enderlin Uprising, my mutation was hidden. Sometimes it was hard, especially when around water. But I had never been caught. I knew the others from school, but I didn't know they were mutants…until then."

"How…did it start?"

"How does any fight start? With a spark. And our spark came from the unlikeliest of sources…I—I had never been so terrified in my life. I was just walking back from school with my best friend Eorl when, suddenly, the streets were filled with mayhem. It's like the people were under a spell—some terrible influence. It started with a cloud—"

"A cloud?"

"Can you stop interrupting me?"

Sam bit his lip with a pout, meeting Thera's stern eyes.

"Yes, a cloud. Like a fog. None of the mutants were affected by it, but it caused humans to act violently. They weren't delusional. They were cognitive, knew mutant from human. And that's how they could bring out the guns…and shoot accurately..."

"None of that was in the report," Sam whispered with a heavy stomach. Memories from the mission debriefing filled his vision, but their brutality must have paled to Thera's memories of first-hand experience.

"How could it?" the mutant replied after a long silence. "The only agents present at the time died."

"How do you know that?"

"I watched them die." Her orange eyes were stony, her figure rigid. But the air around her felt dense and a crack in her voice caused her to pause. Sam stared with widened eyes, waiting for her to continue. "As you can guess," she said just above a whisper, "the clouds weren't natural. Think tear gas containers, but larger. I came across one with my family when—we were trying to flee Enderlin. It was guarded by a figure in a familiar uniform and he wouldn't let us leave. My father threatened him. He turned out to be a mutant, though. Trickster."

Sam was almost too scared to ask the question. "What did he do?"

"Immobilized him. I, uh, found out for the first time that day that"—her tender voice dropped—"my father hates mutants. Trickster found this funny because he knew I was mutant."

"How?"

"Hell if I know. But the gas he was guarding needed to be released at a particular time. He thought it would be 'splendid' to release it sooner. Two SHEILD agents intervened then. They could have led Trickster away and let my family go.

"But no. They wanted us to stay put. With my father barely functioning. When we tried the leave, they disregarded Trickster entirely just to stop us! And you know what happened?"

At the mutant's indignant cry, Sam shook his head, silent.

"The tank broke. The agents grabbed my sisters, pulled them back, and they fell into it. It almost broke Kenzie's arm! And when the gas began seeping out…If—if they had just let us leave, I would—I wouldn't be like this." Cloth-hands gestured towards Thera's slender form then hesitated before reaching towards the hem of her dirty hood. She paused, though, glancing at the chained Hispanic. "No jabs about fish. Or I'll poison you again. Got it?" She waited for Sam's firm nod then pulled the hood back.

Sam stared as the fabric slipped behind her head. Then blinked. So that's what those red specs were! Scales. It was maddening not knowing, but now he could see they spread across her face and neck. They sort of formed a pattern in their shielding of her moist, tanned skin, but he couldn't tell if it matched any particular fish. He wasn't a fisherman; he was gamer. So his gaze drifted from the shimmering scales around her oblong face upwards—to the strange color of her scraggly hair that she kept in a high ponytail.

If he stared at it, thinking it was orange, it would look redder, and if he thought it looked red, it would look more orange. It sort of pissed him off; he had never been fond of illusionistic puzzles because they always gave him a headache.

"Not one word about the smell," remarked Thera with a clear scowl behind her jagged bangs. It felt playful, though, so Sam gave a brief smirk then frowned.

"So…what's the connection between the gas and your mutation if you were already a mutant?"

"I could hide it before," the redhead muttered. "The gas…"

"What? Was for mutants instead?"

Slowly, she shrugged. "I just know one moment I looked normal and when the gas entered the town, I couldn't contain my fins and scales any longer."

"You have fins?"

Thera sent a hard look. "Two months I've been away from the area and I still can't revert back. None of us can."

"Did it affect all the mutants? I mean, Weir doesn't seem…you know."

"That's the weird thing," Thera answered, low. "It only targeted mutants with animal qualities. A lot of us changed in front of our friends and family…that's one of the reasons we can't go back. And why I hate SHIELD so much."

"Those agents—"

"Trickster killed them, just before"—her vision fell—"before my mother dragged my sisters away from me. So, you understand now? Why I won't ever trust SHEILD? All those agents had to do was let us go. They didn't. Now, I can't ever see my family again…"

"But you could still—"

"I'm sorry," interjected the mutant strongly. "K should be back soon and, well, I should—yeah. Bye."

He could tell in her voice that she wanted to cry. Her face remained dry of tears, however, as she gathered the torn towels and capped water bottle before placing them into her hoodie pouch. Then, she flashed a sour smile and headed for the door. Sam swallowed hard when a loud grind sounded then stopped and he realized something.

Damn, he had forgotten to ask for water.

Author's Notes: Next chapter, we get back to the Tricarrier. Meanwhile, don't forget to review!