[noted]:

So, the plot thickened in the last chapter, didn't it? And we got our first glimpse at one of the Esoteric girls - Stutter! I'm so glad I can finally introduce at least one of the Esoteric kids, it's been such an antagonizing time waiting to finally give one of them their debut. Hopefully, this chapter will clear up any questions you guys have. Also, all the science stuff in this chapter, is all made-up and none of it is real or makes any sense. Whoops.

Also, thank you all again for your lovely comments, faves and follows, as well as the messages in my inbox about the story - and even if you guys ask for early sneak peeks, no deal! Anyways, enjoy this chapter.

Fun fact: Ultimate Spider man was on when I started this.

MoonlightMistBorn: I'm glad you enjoyed it so much ! I adore Stutter and she fits perfectly into this, so thank you for allowing me to use her. There's more Aiden coming up, don't worry.
Minx98: I'm glad you're enjoying !
Guest(1): Yeah, and there's more examples in the future.
Guest(2): i'm not sure what you mean, but if you continue reading, you might find out.

[ chapter five ]

enfermedad

Translation - disease

Appropriation - "el virus de la enfermedad fue contrarrestando contra era..."

Doctor Kurt Connors was known for his mind, and a few various other lizard-related escapades a few years ago, but mostly for his mind. Yet, as his eyes pulled and tweaked and prodded at the skeletal structure that was bled onto his computer through megabytes and data, and still, his mind pulled a blank. He'd isolated isotopes, atoms and even the ionic structures and lattices that had woven themselves through the liquid medicine. It was thin, yet could slice through metal if molten; the atom could desecrate areas and lives if split.

He was a smart man - he'd pulled the particles apart, examined them individually and concluded what they were meant for. But once rearranged like puzzle pieces back into their proper places, the structure should have fallen apart. Should have. But it stayed completely solid.

He was searching and pulling up files when a few of the teenaged heroes slid into the lab, amongst the bumbling professors and stressed lab assistant's to weave themselves along his area space. The doctor didn't still in his work, until he had to tap Stalker off of one of the benches to retrieve a piece of equipment. It seemed to spark Spiderman's curiosity as he leaned back against a rickety piece of hardware. "So...what's up, Doc?"

"Please don't lean on that, I'm in the middle of repairs."

"Sorry," he amended, pulling his shoulders off of the hardware, before returning his attention, "but really, what's up? It's been a couple of days and I gotta tell you, we're getting antsy. No offence to you or anything."

He sighs around his discomfort, ballooning his uncertainty into his lungs and out into the air around him in one quick swoop of exhaustion. Stars scatter themselves in his words, bleeding out the confusion that usually, he doesn't have. "I'm going as fast as I can; I've tried to distinguish what the medicine counteracts - I've pulled it apart, to the last particle and found it goes against a number of diseases: cancer, leukemia and blood clotting to name a few. But when it's reformed, it shouldn't...it shouldn't work, but it does. I can't seem to find the actual disease it's targeting, unless it's...all of them."

They can see the unknown pull through his skin, and White Tiger flinches in instinct at the slight frenzied look that tweaks his eyelids wide. The cat-themed hero rises from her perch, crosses the space in one quick stride and her hand laces careful claws over his shoulder, even if he is a few inches taller. "Doctor Connors, it's okay. You'll figure it out, you always do."

"But jeez, how can someone survive through all that?" Shark sneers slightly in disgust at the thought of going through such suffering, pressing back against a far wall. His face is shadowed by something darker than the shade he's half covered in.

"Fortunately, Fury allowed me to call in some help," answers the doctor, and he's already pulling through the group of teenagers to greet the newcomers that cross the threshold as silent as pins dropping in a loud room. On the far right, is the second tallest of the three, clad in warm red and gold armor that sparks with life as he touches down, pressing through a holographic screen with the face panel pulled upwards. In the middle, with a regal air curving every fold of skin wet from water, is a green-skinned teenager with a smirk on his angular face. Beside him, with hair that's more white than clouds and hands more soft than velvet, is a dark-skinned girl with a plucked smile on her face and a blinded eye. Connors calls them in loudly, and Triton approaches first.

"Triton? A?" speaks Tempest hopefully, as if staring at a dream that's walked into reality. Both boys immediately grin at her, sunlight filtering through every scar their new lives have offered them and all they can see is sunlight. She gives a bright laugh and flings herself into Triton's arms, where he collects the small brunette like puzzle pieces with a fond smile. "Oh my god, it's like you're back from the dead! Ink-hand!"

She switches from the green-skinned mutant and winds her arms around Ink-hand, who smiles warmly as her arms wind around her shoulders. When Tempest pulls away, White Tiger is clutching the girl in a tight hug, murmuring about the new dreadlocks for hair and the scruff on a razored beard on Amadeus' chin. Spiderman pulls the iron-clad boy into a headlock, laughing when he squeals at the action and Triton exchanges pleasantries with Doctor Connors. Ink-hand shrugs a hand through her hair, something at ease in bones built from ice. "It is good to finally be home again, sisters. And Nova."

"Hey!"

Triton huffs a laugh, trying to ignore the girl at his side as she peers up at him for confirmation. "It is good to see you, my friends. We are glad to be working on this project with you."

"We missed you too, fish-boy. How's the solo life treating you guys?"

"It is quite well - we recently intercepted a barge on it's way to Bonnota, to exchange a rare item stolen from a museum. What about you?"

"Eh, we're kinda in the middle of an epidemic. But anyways, A, what about you and SG? She behaving?" Amadeus peers up with a shy smile, rolling his eyes as Powerman's eyebrows lift rhythmically over the ridge of his eyebrows. But as the dark-eyed boy moves to answer, when Stalker approaches the middle of the group. There's a set of concrete between her shoulders, a wall of brick across her chest towards the new-comers and immediately, Ink-hand bristles from the action. She's been taught to assess threats for years, and the girl in black is no different.

There's a beat before Stalker, having finished her internal assessment, turns her head to the doctor. "Doctor Connors, I believe we were in the middle of assessing the medicine?"

Doctor Connors jerks, nodding his head and flagging down the arrival of heroes, who follow behind towards the row of tables scattered with medical supplies and microscopes. Immediately, Amadeus is drawn towards where samples of the medicines are gathered, picking one up and inspecting it and swirling the liquid like wine in a glass. Immediately, his face features screw up like discarded paper. "It's pungent, bleeding acidic qualities into the airspace."

Doctor Connors nods. "Yes, I deducted that at the start - I believe that the liquid is meant to dissolve or even completely destroy the toxins that have entered the bloodstream."

"Not just the bloodstream, good doctor," remarks Triton as he peers at the vial caught between Amadeus' metallic fingers, "There are neurotoxins too; I have seen this kind of liquid back in Attilan. May I have a look through the microscope?"

Triton approaches the microscope, slotting a green eye over the neck of the microscope, peering downwards with a noticeable hum. A soft tap on his shoulder automatically moves him, and the Attilan ambassador smiles when the white-haired aura-seer looks into the microscope with her good eye. Her mouth turns downwards slightly, and she looks up, almost shyly, as if favors are still a distant memory of a life un-lived. "May I ask that you put the molecular structure on a screen please?"

Moments later, Ink-hand is ghosting her fingers over the screen, staring as molecules bounce and bump against each other in the liquid. She gathers her courage like mothballs in her chest, wheezing as she breathes. "I studied the molecular structure of atoms back with...with Queen, due to what could effect their anatomy and what could destroy it entirely," there's a song hidden in the words, a story untold only by the shake in her fingers as she remembers the books and texts that told her 'radiation can completely desecrate the composition of a human's anatomy. Any radiation can brutally destroy the molecules of a normal, healthy human.' Fear is something bred into her, and she feared her powers so much, she read and read until she knew how to stop them from hurting anyone.

Beside her, Triton laces a hand through hers and the shaking calms and a slight smile pulls at her mouth. However, she doesn't let go as she turns back to the screen, ghosting a hand across a particular part of the screen where an atom and another part of the structure bonds. "These atoms are designed to combat different toxins respectively - some cancer and leukemia, streaming right to tooth decay. But because of their incompatibility, they should be falling apart, but I guess you already knew that, Doctor Connors," the Doctor laughs slightly, answering her question, "But because of this incompatibility, it makes them stronger and the ionic bonds between them strengthen too - sort of like 'opposites attract'. This kind of medicine is meant to combat many diseases, all at once. It's not even recorded in medical history - this medicine or the disease it combats."

"Then it's an entirely new disease," concludes Amadeus, as he looks towards Spiderman for confirmation, who gives a vague shrug, enraptured by the new pursuit of knowledge. A burst of excitement flares in Amadeus' stomach as he turns towards the screen, staring at the sample. "Which we get to name. T-This is absolutely incredible. This could hold the keys to curing cancer, abolishing leukemia forever a -"

"Esoteema."

"What?" The group turns to where Rouge was perched, half leaning against Powerman's arm whilst staring at her hands. The timid girl peers up underneath a few stray locks of hair, teeth sinking into her bottom lip and red blooming wildflowers on her cheeks. Her fingers twitch before shuffling themselves beneath her thighs. "E-Esoteema. You said we get to name it, s-so why not name it after the ones who need it? Esoteric."

There's a pause of confusion between Triton, Ink-hand and Amadeus, but Spiderman waves it off in return to turning his gaze towards Rouge. "Esoteema it is."

"Now," started Powerman, leaning forwards on his knuckles to narrow his gaze towards the bumping particles, "we gotta find out why they needed it so bad."

The worst thing about the wind in her veins is how it effects her hands. They bleed red with exertion all the way from her fingertips to her wrists, and the coldness they propel is not her own. But it beats strong in her chest when she can feel the groan of the tide against her ears, the wind that presses it's mouth to it's waves and kicks up it's heels towards her. Her feet swing across a few crumbling bricks as she stares out at the ocean, Spiderman pacing behind her with Rouge fluttering somewhere across the edge of the building, scouting for any sight of their targets.

She taps a beat, unbeknownst to her that it's the hum that Nova blows through the comms unit and suddenly, there's a crackle of life in her ear and below her. She watches, with avid curiosity, how there's a sudden tumble of a body onto the docks, how it scrambles and skitters and twists into something out of a fairy-tale - a monster built from fright. Her shoulders lift, her fingers curl. There's something angry beneath the wounds in the girl's chest and the rise of sickness over her ribs that poke through the skin like bars.

There's a predator beneath low pigtails, ripped and cut ragged from years of uncleanliness and the blue headband that pulls her dark hair out of her eyes. Her clothes are a mismatched symphony of shorts and an old t-shirt, sleeve of a borrowed jacket ripped and her nails are curled like she's digging plants out of the ground. As Shark approaches her, confidence playing music in his bones, she pulls back, feet pressing to the jagged teeth of the dock's edge. His smile widens as the water laps at her feet.

"Not smart of you specifically to be near water, right, thorn bush?"

She doesn't flinch at the nickname, but skin, dark like dirt, seems to raise like hackles at the boy with gills across his shoulders. Her tongue, swapped for a language she's learnt on her toes, clips around uncertain words. "Just go! Go away! Leave them alone!"

"Sorry, Rosette. Not gonna happen." White Tiger's learnt the name like a slip of paper, and when she staggers forwards, there's ellipsis shuddering across her skin. There's fear digging it's heels into the base of her spine and she straightens.

"You have friends now, ja'? More than your dogs?"

"A lot more, if I'm honest," he remarks, and there's a silent rumble as Spiderman drops behind him, as Nova and Iron Fist's energy spikes through the darkness. There's a tell-tale click of boots, not unlike stampeding hooves, from two different directions and Bolt's energy lights up over his shoulders. And wherever she looks, tucked behind Stalker, Tempest see's her friends - but between them and Rosette, it looks more like a battlefield with a one woman-army fighting against evil. Wherever she looks, she can see villain's tucked in her friends chest and the thoughts scare her - she shouldn't feel like they're the villains in this. They shouldn't be the villains. Is she one by association?

Rosette pauses around the edges, every line of her body going sharp, predators against prey. But the fear in her heart is put on a shelf, on an apple-box shelf, when there's a sneak of feet towards a boarded up window, a closed door that sparks with movement. There's hurried silence between those walls, and when Rouge's body twists to inspect vaguely, there's an explosion across Rosette's heart. Something rattles like scared laughter beneath their feet.

"DON'T. YOU. DARE."

Something cracks, like vines stretched too far beneath their feet, but there can't be any possible plant life there. But somehow, there's a sudden crack of a whip, and something thick and green and wreathed with plants pulls it's way into existence, snapping sharp around someone's throat with a thick gurgle. They're pulled forwards, and Tempest's heart drops through her throat when she can see Nova's legs dangling, Nova's fingers twitching at the vine that's found it's way to cut off his air supply. Beside him, Lux is tangled upside down and her eyes are already closed, already unconscious, the headphones in her ears falling behind her. Somewhere, there's a vibration of rage from Stalker and Spiderman, even though his own hands curl, stops Tempest when her feet finally touch the ground.

"I'll kill them. Both of them," there's something other than a threat there, as she angles a glare at Stalker, and when the shadows pull their way through towards the girl in anger, Spiderman pauses. He throws a hand out towards the two teams, subtly saying 'I'll handle this.'

"Look, flower girl," there's a rare drum of rage that beats in Tempest's chest when she hears the joking matter, even when his own teammate's life is slipping through his fingers. "Look, we just want to talk. We - "

There's a snort of suppressed laughter, and Rosette shakes a brown head of hair. "SHIELD's lackeys never want to talk. They are always looking for fists and bloodshed," Nova chokes on his own lungs and fear spikes Tempest's heart, "perhaps it is time we give it back to them."

"Wait! If you don't wanna talk, then we can give you something back." He holds out a hand, an unconscious action that deposits a thick duffel bag in his hands. There's a loosening of limbs, a gentle untightening of vines as cautiously, the spider-themed hero steps forwards, bag held out like a gift. His hands shake the straps.

"The-The -"

"Your medicine. God knows you guys need it - just please, let them go," he begs, and slowly, when she snatches the duffel bag out of his hands and rifles through, breathing a sigh of relief, the two heroes are pulled out of their constraints. Instantly, Tempest is thrown forwards like a bullet, hooking an arm around the Latino who grips her hand like a lifeline, the other holding him up as he gulps air greedily. Lux is supported against Powerman as he lifts her, unconsciousness bleeding out of every corner.

"Thank you," breathes Spiderman as he turns to make his way over towards the two newly-rescued heroes, but there's something that pushes hostility into the air; behind Rosette, there's a tower of water that spills itself upwards against gravity, against imposing, impossible forces and vaguely, it's shaped like a serial killer's hand. Eyes turn towards Shark, whose fingers look like he's playing harp-strings beside his hip.

Sudden realization threads itself like needles in their chests and Rosette can feel it too as she turns towards the wall of water from the docks, that sends boats tipping on their axis' and her hands throw themselves over her head as the water falls like a fist. Rouge's eyes bleed wide, and unbidden, throws a hand out towards Shark. "Wait, stop!"

But as the water descends, the world falls to pieces. It's like the water has hit a wall that arches over Rosette, and the way it splits apart reminds them of slow motion CGI animation. Thick bubbles of water fall apart and hang in the air, like gravity has been manipulated. They're paused in time for a moment, staring at the world on it's edge before Rosette's eyes glance up, towards somewhere far off and they turn with her.

Behind them, hands held out, shaking like weights are tied to her wrists is a girl, eyes twisted shut with strain, pony-tail hair ripped with paint splattered clothes and beside her is Stutter. Her own name is true when she hesitates on her feet, before shooting forwards. Shadows from Stalker twist towards her, trying to block her path but behind her, the blond throws out gravity manipulation like lifelines. They pause Stalker's attacks and Bolt's electricity arches upwards. Spiderman's webs are thrown to the ground and at one point, he is twisted to an entirely different part of the docks when eh swings to block Stutter as she ducks and weaves through the barrage of heroes.

Her hands find purchase on White Tiger's shoulders, arching over claws and soldier-made rage and landing gently on her feet, she side-steps a punch from a shadow and someone lifts Bolt off his feet into the air when he's dangerously close to sending a jolt of electricity at her. Tempest is on her own feet, throwing out a force-field of air around Nova, Lux and Powerman, praying it will hold, when...

She isn't going for them.

She bends under Iron-Fist's punch, kicks him in the back and sends the martial artist sprawling with a sneer, and her hand reaches out like the world has been waiting for this. Rosette falls into Stutter's arms and when the truth finally bleeds raw, time is paused and started and any remnants of the two girls and the gravity wielder is gone. Labored breathing is the only sound, other than the waves of the docks as they begin to settle and the screams of the boats as they rock. Tempest slips Nova's arm over her shoulder to hoist him up, whatever little body strength she has and Powerman holds a hand out towards Iron-Fist.

Exhaustion seeps everywhere, from their bones to the slump of the vines that had sprouted from the ocean floor beneath their feet. But the fact that those aren't gone, is because they heard them. They heard Rouge. They heard her say 'wait.'