For disclaimers, see chapter 1, please.
If it surprised Adam that Jesse didn't argue to go on the evening's mission, he didn't show it.
Instead, Adam sat back and observed the new dynamic between him and Brennan. Tonight's mission entailed nothing more than a meet and greet, followed by a handoff to the mutant underground. While Brennan always demanded to be on the higher risk missions, if not all the missions, he'd occasionally back off and not fight Jesse's insistence on going.
Tonight, Jesse didn't even ask to go and Brennan made no mention of Jesse during the entire briefing. Adam knew that something had altered their, well, tenuous friendship, and needed to find out what happened.
This did not follow the plan, and that worried him.
Jesse sat through the mission briefing, the discussion between the others flowing around him like water, never disturbing the pool of his own thoughts. He focused on one thing – the metal plate that had phased before him.
After it had fallen through the floor, he quickly raced down to the basement level and retrieved it. When he picked it up off the concrete, it was hard and solid and heavy – completely normal. The floor showed some chipping where it landed, indicating it had phased back to normal density while still falling.
Jesse closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Since he'd seen the plate fall, something itched at the back of his mind, as if he had a familiarity with all of this that he couldn't recognize, like a name on the tip of his tongue but just out of reach.
Adam's voice over his comm-ring had jolted his eyes back open. After agreeing to join everyone in the briefing room shortly, Jesse rushed the plate back up to the gym and then took a quick shower.
Once again, Adam's voice startled him back to awareness. "Jesse – you okay? You were silent during the whole briefing. Did something happen with Brennan?"
Jesse looked around to see that the others had left; only he and Adam remained. He opened his mouth to tell Adam about what had happened, but the words wouldn't come. The itch in the back of his head suddenly grew insistent. He looked up into Adam's eyes. "Nothing to worry about, Adam. You know how me and Brennan get sometimes." He forced a wry smile on his face, one he knew Adam had seen countless times before.
Adam held his eyes for a moment, and Jesse struggled to keep his face open and passive, instinctively feeling he needed to keep the true situation to himself.
"But come to me if you need to talk about it, okay?"
"Sure, Adam. I always do," Jesse replied, his smile still firmly attached.
Adam nodded, and Jesse watched as he turned around and headed out the door. After he left, Jesse released the breath he hadn't known he held.
"What's wrong, Bren? Got ants in your pants or something?"
Brennan looked over at Shalimar, his eyes sweeping the empty warehouse. "Wanna come look for yourself?" he shot back playfully.
Shalimar's smile grew larger. "Oh, I'm sure there's nothing I haven't seen in there before." She paused for a moment. "Other than the size difference, of course."
Emma glanced quickly at Brennan's crotch and then over at Shalimar. She didn't join many of the missions, but as tonight's involved a psionic, Adam had requested her assistance. She knew that Shalimar and Brennan had attended many of the missions by themselves, and now she wondered what they had gotten up to on those late nights. "Size difference, Brennan?"
Brennan looked over at Emma cockily. "Well, you know how I hate to argue with a lady, Emma."
Shalimar cut in quickly, eyes rolling, "Yeah, right." She turned to Emma. "We're just teasing. I have no idea what Brennan keeps in his jeans. Though," she added, the feral gleam brightening her eyes as her look drifted towards Brennan's crotch, "my hopes aren't high, based on the evidence at hand."
Emma giggled as Brennan's jaw dropped. It amazed her that Shalimar could tease him so easily. From watching his workouts, Emma knew quite well that Brennan filled out his gym shorts nicely.
"Now that does it. Don't make me prove you wrong right here, Shal." Brennan's hands went to the button at the top of his jeans.
Emma perked up at this comment. She ran through taunts in her head, wondering which one might make him drop his trousers. Before she could say anything, Shal looked to far side of the warehouse.
"He's here. And I don't think he's alone." Shal leapt up onto a crate, seeking higher ground. "And, seriously, stop fidgeting, Brennan. It's distracting. You've been on edge all night."
Brennan ignored her, and spoke into his ring. "Jesse? What's going on? I need a reading. Shal says there are multiple targets."
Brennan waited a few seconds for a response.
"Jesse? Where are you, man?"
His ring remained silent.
Back at Sanctuary, Jesse toyed with a quarter, tossing it up in the air while he waited for word from the team at the warehouse. Ever since he'd gained his mutant powers at 16, he'd worked on his control with random objects, usually a coin, just in case someone saw him. He'd toss the quarter into the air. By the time the quarter had reached the top of its arc, he'd try to snatch it out of the air. If he could, he'd failed. If instead his hand passed through the quarter, he'd made it halfway. The next part involved getting his hand back down, and back to normal, in time to catch the quarter before it fell. Over and over he had practiced this move until it felt as natural as breathing. Adam had given it to him as a drill shortly after they'd met, attempting to help Jesse gain some control.
Earlier in the afternoon though, he'd had no control. His breathing had failed him. That left him with two objectives – get his control back and find out how he had phased the plate.
After a good 50 successful tosses, he felt confident in his control. He hadn't missed one toss.
"Okay," he breathed aloud to no one but himself. "Let's do this."
He laid one of his hands flat on the table, palm down. With his other hand, he placed the quarter on the back of his stationary hand. This setup traced back to the first exercise Adam had ever given him. He'd phase his hand, and the quarter would fall through it, landing on the desk. He'd lift his hand away and return it back to normal. The simplicity of it taught Jesse well.
Later, after Mutant X had experienced the various power boosts, Jesse had retreated back to this exercise to gain control over his new abilities. Walking through it once again, he placed the quarter on the back of his hand, but this time he held his hand aloft. This time he focused on the quarter, and watched as it phased and fell through his hand, solidifying again as it broken through the other side, losing contact with his skin. It clicked against the desk as it landed, twirling a little as it settled against the flat surface.
"So far so good."
Jesse slid the quarter to the edge of the desk, perhaps only an inch from the edge. He slipped his hand under the desk, touching his palm to the underside. Keeping his fingers in contact with the wood, he cupped his palm at little, preparing to catch the quarter. With this exercise he would phase the desk and the let the quarter fall through into his solid hand. It required a little more concentration, keeping an object phased while he himself stayed solid. He ran through this exercise many times, catching the quarter and returning it to sit on the edge of the desk.
Jesse glanced around the room, ensuring that Adam hadn't walked in quietly. Jesse had passed on the mission so that he could have some time by himself to try this next part. With three of the team gone on the mission, and Adam working in his lab, he had the most privacy he'd be likely to get.
Jesse set up the quarter once again and then dropped his hand below the desk. This time though, he let his hand drift away from the desk, not touching it at all. He focused on phasing the desk, as if he touched it, the same routine as always – just that he didn't have contact this time.
Stubbornly, the desk did not phase. Jesse tried over and over, but it simply would not lose density.
"Damn it! Just fall through already!" he ordered the quarter in frustration.
His eyes opened in surprise as the quarter did just that. It phased and fell through the table, regaining density before it landed in his grasp. Jesse felt none of the concentration he would normally need to phase anything. It simply happened.
Jesse put the quarter back on top of the desk, and his hand took its position below. This time he looked at the quarter and didn't concentrate at all, blocking out all of his training. He willed the quarter to phase, and suddenly it did, dropping into his hand.
"Whoa. That was weird," he said, sitting back in his chair.
"What weird?" Adam asked, entering the computer lab. "Something wrong with the mission?"
"Uh…" Jesse quickly glanced at the monitors to get a status on his team members, and found that he'd lost their signals. "Yeah, they just suddenly went dark."
A wave of guilt hit Jesse in the chest. His team needed him to watch their back, and instead he'd been more concerned with himself. He scanned the logs quickly, and the guilt eased slightly when he saw that only a few seconds had elapsed between losing the signal and him looking at the monitors. He hadn't really screwed up.
Though if Adam hadn't walked in, how long would it have taken me to notice?
Shalimar signaled to Brennan that 12 GSA agents approached. She leapt again to a better vantage point and disappeared from his view.
"There's twelve, Em, too many for just Shal and me to fight. Sanctuary won't answer. How many can you take on?"
Brennan watched as Emma considered it. "I could probably generate a psionic blast big enough to knock 5 or 6 of them out, if they were all standing together. If I had to do it one on one, I might only get 2 or 3."
Brennan looked at her, taking his own measure of her abilities.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do," he whispered. "I'll use some tesla coils to herd as many as I can together. Knock out as many as you can with one big burst, but save some energy for defense in case you need it. Once you've dropped your psi-bomb, I want you to run like hell. Shal and I will deal with the left overs."
Brennan planned on only bringing together 2 or 3 of the agents, wanting to ensure Emma didn't over-exert herself. He mainly wanted her to get out of there and reach safety, but he knew she wouldn't leave while she thought she could help.
"Okay, be ready."
Brennan slipped out from behind crate they had hid behind and exposed himself to the agents. He knew Shalimar would circle behind the agents, probably up in the rafters of the warehouse. Once he made his move, she'd jump into the fray.
The agents had spread out, diminishing the odds of a group attack succeeding against them. The agents carried a variety of weapons, from the standard electrical stun wand to some high-tech looking guns. Looking at the group, they all appeared to be standard GSA agents, not a mutant among them.
"Well, that makes things easier," he thought. "And I've been itching for some fun for weeks." The electrical hum beneath his skim picked up in intensity. "I so need to blow off some volts."
"Hold it right there, Mutant!" he heard one of the agents say.
"How about not?" Brennan shot a tesla coil at the agent on his far left with his left hand and another coil with his right hand at the agent on his right. Both leapt inward, tightening their ranks a little.
The agents suddenly charged towards him, and he let the electricity surge out of him, trying to drive them closer to each other. Only this time, he didn't throw individual coils – his charge flew at them in a continuous current, striking all around them.
He watched as Shalimar plunged from the ceiling to the floor, landing easily next to a guard and dropping him with a well-planted kick. Shalimar looked at him, confused.
Brennan felt the confusion as well. He normally didn't stream electricity like this, not a constant flow. He tried to pull his charge back, but it wouldn't listen to him, and if anything, it grew.
An arc raced towards Shalimar, out of his control. She jumped out of its way, just missing it. At least half of the agents had already fallen – hit with more voltage than they could handle, even with their protective gear.
Brennan started to panic. "Shal! Em! Get out of here, I can't control this!" Brennan watched in a combination of horror and fascination as his streaks of electrical energy began to coalesce together, strengthening into a tighter, stronger current. The feeling of the million ants beneath his skin hummed louder than ever, tying into the current, feeding it life and strength.
He pulled back with everything he had, every bit of control he had to exert, attempting to draw the electricity back within himself, needing to ensure Shalimar and Emma's safety. As he fought to reign in his power, he felt an expansion within his chest as the electricity raced back towards him.
He felt pain and then soon after he felt nothing at all.
Author's Notes:
Marie Crosby – thanks for the encouragement.
Lady Lenna – I'm glad you like it. Brennan always struck me a little smug on the show, and I wanted to play around with that. He'll be a much bigger ass by the time this is over, believe me.
Feral's Revenge – Thanks so much for the extended feedback. I do have a storyline plotted out; let's hope I can stick to it! The boys aren't getting out of "Hard Times" anytime soon.
Reviews are kinda like a Pringles - you can't eat just one. Feed me! ;-)