For disclaimers, please see chapter 1.
"I'm gonna kill him," Shalimar snarled, her feral eyes flaming.
Emma sent waves of calm to Shalimar, hoping to avoid a bloodbath. "It was just a holographic Jesse, Shal. Not the real one."
Shalimar whirled to face her. "Just the mere fact that he thought about hurting Jesse is enough. Look at that screen!" Shalimar pointed to the monitor and the paused security video which showed Jesse's body on the dojo floor. "No one hurts my family."
Emma stepped up her broadcast, trying to soothe Shalimar. "We just need to find out why first, okay? There has to be a reason. Let me go talk to Brennan and sort this out."
"By yourself, with that monster? I'll never let that happen."
Emma sighed. "He's not a monster, Shal. Your feral emotions are running high – you want to lash out and defend your family. I want to do the same, you're just feeling it much stronger."
"You can rationalize this all you want, Em. I'm going."
Emma took a deep breath. "Okay, let's go. But control yourself, alright?"
Jesse fell back onto his bed, thoughts racing through his head. He desperately wanted to talk to Adam about this, yet another part of him resisted. That part wanted him to work through this himself, to find his own answers.
If I'm mutating again, that wouldn't explain the memories, or whatever they were. It wouldn't explain why I remember having powers at twelve that I didn't have until just now.
Jesse's headache throbbed, and he rubbed his temples trying to alleviate the pain.
I've known other moleculars who could do these things. Well, maybe not the reappearing water thing, but certainly the ice.
"So, is there any limit on what you can freeze, Sarah?" Jesse asked.
"Nothing too big, unfortunately. I'm great at keggers, barbecues, that sort of thing though - the drinks are never warm." She laughed.
Jesse cast a look over at Brennan, as he threw his arm around Shalimar and cozied up to her. "Think you could freeze him?" he asked.
Sarah looked over. "Nah, people are too big. Why would you want to freeze him anyway, I thought he was your teammate."
"Oh, he's the team leader alright. Let's just say that he thinks he's hot stuff."
Sarah laughed evilly. "Well, I could freeze parts of him, but then they'd probably fall off."
Jesse gazed at Sarah as if it were any idea worth considering. They both burst out into laughter. Jesse looked back at Brennan to catch the taller man glaring at him, as usual.
Jesse remembered that he had looked into how Sarah's molecular mutancy worked. Her power let her slow down molecules, decreasing the interaction between them. The heat of an object is the total kinetic energy of its molecules. In other words, reduce the movement between the molecules, and the heat dies down. Remove enough movement, and the object freezes. He even remembered that she'd had a few accidents learning her powers. He recalled one story about a frozen aquarium when the water temperature had risen to high on a hot day. She'd tried to cool the water just a little, but instead froze the whole tank.
Jesse thought about his own powers. His worked on a similar molecular basis. When he phased, his molecules would… spread out, causing him to become insubstantial. Jesse felt another sharp pain in his head, and he gasped. The pain intensified, and then abated sharply when it felt like something broke free.
"Oh fuck, that hurt."
He thought back to where he had left off. "Wait a minute," he said aloud to the empty room. "That doesn't make any sense."
The laws of basic physics rose up in his mind, as if they had been suppressed previously. If his molecules were expanded, spreading out while he phased, he would have to get larger when that happened. He would have to grow tremendously larger to go insubstantial. But that's not what happened to him. He stayed the same size. And when he massed, growing denser, he would have to shrink, and that didn't happen either.
My powers don't work that way at all. Why didn't I ever realize it before?
"Cynthia?"
"Adam, is that you? What time is it?"
"Cynthia, this is an emergency. I need you to come to Sanctuary immediately." Adam gripped the phone tightly.
"It's four in the morning. What's wrong, Adam?"
"I need you to put in some more memory blocks."
"On Jesse?"
"Probably. You should look at his just in case. But I need blocks and suggestions on other members of the team."
"Adam, maybe it's time we stopped all of this."
"No, Cynthia, we have to do this. It's the only way."
"Alright, I'll be there in a few hours."
"Hurry, please."
Shalimar burst into the lab, calling Brennan's name. Emma followed her, urging her to be quiet.
"I don't care. I'm waking his loser ass up." Shalimar strode over to the bed and shook Brennan, and not very gently. "Wake up, asshole."
Emma radiated calm again, but it didn't do much. She wondered if she'd have to knock Shalimar out soon, until clearer heads prevailed.
"Brennan! Wake up!" Shal called again, shaking him harder.
"Shal! Stop it, you could be hurting him!"
"It would serve him right."
"Shalimar Fox! What do you think you're doing?" Adam boomed, walking into the lab.
Shalimar immediately froze, just like she had done when she was a teenager and Adam yelled her full name. Snapping herself out of it, she turned and faced him. "We just found out that Brennan created a hologram of Jesse, and has been beating Jesse to death every night for the past few weeks." Shalimar's eyes flashed yellow again.
"Shalimar, you need to calm down. I've given Brennan a sedative for the night. You won't be able to wake him right now. We'll deal with the hologram issue later."
"Later? What do you mean later? He's been beating Jesse to death!" Shalimar roared. Her yellow eyes stared at Adam for a moment, and then suddenly she grabbed her stomach and cried out.
Adam looked quickly at Emma. "Did you…"
"No," Emma cut him off. "This isn't me."
Shalimar felt to the floor, clutching her abdomen. "Oh god, it hurts, it hurts."
Adam tried to look at her stomach to check for a wound, but Shalimar wouldn't allow him to move her arms.
"Emma, could you?"
A moment later, an orb of light floated down and entered Shalimar's forehead. She immediately relaxed and her body went limp.
Adam quickly pulled Shalimar's arms away and looked at her stomach. Both he and Emma gasped.
Shalimar had six extra nipples running down her stomach, three on each side, running in parallel.
Jesse's stomach growled fiercely. He glanced at the clock and read 4:30am.
He crawled out of bed, noting that his headache felt much better, though he felt more and more confused with every thought he had.
His stomach growled again. "Okay, okay", he said to it, "I heard you the first time."
Jesse made his way down to the kitchen and grabbed a protein bar to tide him over until breakfast. As he made his way back to his room, he heard voices from the lab. He wandered over and saw Shalimar collapsed on the floor and Emma and Adam hovering over her.
"Hey, what's going on? What's wrong with Shal?" he said, concern evident in his voice. "Why didn't anyone call me?"
"It just happened, Jess," Emma replied, blocking his path. "You should go back to your room."
"No way, not if Shal's hurt." He edged around Emma and gasped as he saw Shalimar's extra nipples. "Um, those are new."
Shal slowly came back to awareness. "Ow – what happened? Emma, did you knock me out?"
Emma came and kneeled by her. "Yeah, I'm sorry, Shal, but you were in pain."
"What happened?"
"Shalimar," Adam said. "This is going to be a bit of a shock, but it appears you've mutated again, very quickly." Adam stood up and walked over to a counter, pulling open a drawer and removing a mirror. He walked back over to her. "Try to stay calm." He angled the mirror so she could see her stomach clearly.
"What the hell? What are those?"
"Nipples, by the looks of them, Shal," Jesse piped in.
"This can't be happening," Shalimar cried out. Then she froze as the impact hit her. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
Jesse, Emma and Adam all looked at her questioningly.
"My new mutant power is that I can have a fucking litter? You have got to be fucking kidding me."
Emma and Adam all took a moment to ponder that possibility, but Jesse couldn't help but laugh out loud, to the glares of everyone else in the room.
After Shalimar had recovered and been examined by Adam, Jesse and Emma offered to take her back to her room, but she refused. "I'll go by myself. But Em, you gotta take care of that thing we talked about."
Emma nodded.
After she left, Emma asked Adam, "How did that happen? How did she mutate so fast? It was only a few seconds."
"I don't know, Emma", Adam replied, looking into a microscope. "I won't know until I look at her lab results."
"But… do you think she's done?"
"I really don't know, Emma. I need to look at the labs, like I said." Adam turned to face them. "Both Brennan and Shalimar have mutated unexpectedly. Have either of you seen or felt anything different?"
Emma answered first. "Nothing yet, Adam. But Brennan and Shalimar both had their mutations really suddenly. Shal was fine right up until it happened."
"No changes over here, either, Adam."
Emma felt Jesse's lie, but didn't react to it.
Adam frowned. "Well, just stick to your basics, Jesse. Remember your exercises."
"Of course, Adam."
Emma felt a weird vibe coming from Adam, and couldn't quite place it. She didn't know if it was disappointment or dread.
"You two go get some sleep," he said. "I'm going to work on these lab results."
"Okay, Adam. But try to get some sleep yourself. You've been up a long time." Emma grabbed Jesse's arm and pulled him out of the lab.
"Spill," she ordered.
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, come on, Jesse. Do you honestly think I didn't feel that lie in there? What's going on, and why are you lying to Adam about it?"
Jesse quickly looked around and then pulled her towards a solid wall.
"Where are we g…" she broke off as she saw the wall shimmer in front of her, the wall that was still several feet in front of them. She stepped through the wall, Jesse right behind her. The wall solidified behind them.
"You just phased the wall without touching it!" she exclaimed. "You have mutated again! I knew it! But why did you lie about it?"
"Emma, can you keep a secret?" Jesse asked.
"As long as keeping it doesn't hurt someone else, then yes," Emma replied carefully.
"Have a seat first." Jesse gestured to a couple of office chairs in front of desk. Emma looked around the room, realizing she'd never been in here before. "What is this place?"
"It's the server room. It's the computer core of Sanctuary. It's shielded and private, especially after the work I did this afternoon."
Emma took one of the chairs, and rubbed her arms. "It's a little cold in here."
"Just a minute." Jesse turned to a cabinet and pulled out a sweater. "I keep one in here for emergencies." Before he handed it to her, he stared at it for a moment, and then passed it over.
"It's warm, Jesse. It feels like it just came out of the dryer or something." She quickly put it on, and smiled at the warmth. "That's better," she said, looking at him directly. "But now you need to give me some answers. What's going on? And was there a warmer in that cabinet, or was this another power?" she asked, indicating the sweater.
Shalimar made it back to her room, and stood in front of the mirror for a while. She had pulled off her shirt and bra so she could see her whole torso unobstructed. Her new nipples seemed small, tiny in fact. They didn't have any breast beneath them; they were just nipples on the skin.
She sighed, thinking they were probably just large enough to show through a shirt. She grabbed a shirt from her closet and pulled it on. Of course, the shirt barely concealed her normal breasts, stretching the fabric tight. Her new nipples stood out and she groaned at the sight.
She didn't even own a baggy shirt. How could she live like this?
Shalimar crawled into bed, hoping that the whole night was just a dream.
"Wait. So you think you've had these powers for a while?"
"I think that was a memory, Emma. Odd things have been happening, and I've had a headache for a while now. Earlier, it got really bad and it felt like something broke free. That's when I remembered the basic laws of physics and that my powers couldn't possibly work the way I thought they did. It's just impossible – and it's like I'd never thought about it before."
"Because you couldn't? That's what you think?"
Jesse nodded. "Something's happening to me, Em. And it's not a mutation. The more and more I think about stuff, the more I realize I can do. And it's not because I just get the idea, it's because I get a little flash of a memory that I've done it before, like heating up that sweater."
"Why would Adam hide this from you?"
"I don't know. But I don't want him to find out that I'm remembering. When we were down in the lab, I got flashes of having been there as a child. Little bits and pieces are coming back to me the more I think about it. I don't want Adam to know."
Emma felt the emotion coming from him. "You're afraid of him. Oh god, and he was like a father to you." Emma reached over and hugged him.
"How could I not be scared, Em? I think he erased part of my life."