Old Friends & Enemies

After a restless night of fretting about Owen and Jamie, Shalimar gave up on getting any more sleep at dawn and went for a run. She returned to Haven half an hour later and went to her room to grab a change of clothes, intending to shower before investigating the possibility of breakfast.

On her dresser, Shalimar's cellphone rang when she entered her room.

Frowning at the UNKNOWN CALLER message displayed on the phone's screen, Shalimar hesitated to answer. Deciding it was most likely either a wrong number or someone who needed to speak to her urgently, Shalimar's eyes flashed golden as she shifted into Feral mode, realizing Adam could well be a desperate caller at an unknown phone.

"Hello!?" she snapped after accepting the call, hoping for the best and fearing it would be a wrong number after all.

'Miss Fox,' the gravelly voice of Lexa's contact rumbled in her ear. 'My apologies for calling your phone so early, but I do not have Miss Pierce or Mr. Kilmartin's new numbers as yet. I've made a discovery Mr. Kilmartin should look into.'

"I'm not gonna ask how you even knew I was awake," Shalimar muttered under her breath as she hurried out of her room and across Haven's main expanse to the central workstation. "What discovery?" she asked as she dropped into the workstation chair and activated a digital recording subroutine, leaning in so the workstation's microphone could pick up the sound of her cellphone's speaker.

'I have been researching Dominique's and the Dominion Council Head's past activities and bases of operations, looking for any commonalities or patterns,' he explained. 'Although there was nothing obvious, something else occurred to me as I considered their actions, the corruption they hid from the Creator that caused Dr. Kane to become suspicious of the Dominion in the first place.

'You are now at a workstation in Dr. Aybel's headquarters, correct?' he asked, making Shalimar blink in surprise.

"Um, yes..." Shalimar answered with a frown. "..Is that an educated guess, or are you somehow monitoring me?" she asked, blinking as several realizations occurred to her. "My phone rang when I entered my room, and Jesse wondered if the Dominion had access to our communications, right before Sanctuary was attacked. You can monitor our commrings, can't you!?" she scowled.

'Not quite,' he reassured her, but Shalimar could definitely hear a smirk in his voice as he did so. 'Ask Miss Pierce about the timing of rain dances, and she'll explain,' he told her, his bass voice sounding more smug than monotonous. A screen to one side of Shalimar blinked on, causing her to twitch in surprise, then frown at the screen as names began displaying themselves down it.

'You and Miss Pierce faced a Psionic New Mutant named Carter in Kristen Greg's casino, when Dominique was smuggling her prion weapon into the country,' he explained, Shalimar's eyes nearly flashing golden in angry memory when she noticed Carter's name topping the list. 'He was an ex-GSA New Mutant operative, as were a number of not only Kristen Greg's personnel, but both Dominique's and the Dominion Council Head's security forces, as well,' he went on, Shalimar nodding as she noticed a number of the names on the list of New Mutant Dominion employees said "former GSA associate" as well as listing their New Mutancy. 'However, these are only the New Mutants the Dominion and thus I are aware of. If Mr. Kilmartin were to compare them to a copy of Dr. Kane's New Mutant database, you may be able to uncover more information. There is also the fact that Mr. Tackleman told me the Psionics in the GEMS building were either clones or identical twins. If the database has record of a pair of Psionics, you may find a lead regarding Dominique's modification of New Mutants. Either may help you discover her current base of operations.'

"Or at least her people's, which ought to help us find her, and maybe the Council Head," Shalimar said, nodding in agreement as she realized the logic of his suggestions. "If you transmit us your records of their past operations and bases, Jesse or. . .or Eve might be able to figure something out from them. She is a genius," Shalimar told him, trying not to dwell on the fact she had almost mentioned Jamie and his photographic memory. Her early-morning run had only barely put Jamie's current status of 'in a stasis pod' out of her mind, and she grimaced at having reminded herself.

'Agreed,' Lexa's contact answered, another line of text appearing on the monitor as he added a file to his transmitted data. 'Dr. Aybel has the ability to contact me if you uncover further information,' he told her, then the call ended. Shalimar frowned at her phone, then sighed and opened the file he had sent, wondering if she should wake Jesse or Lexa.

Later that day, Mutant X was approaching the hidden refuge of Dominique's customized New Mutants.

It had been relatively easy to track them down, once Jesse knew what he was looking for. Checking the New Mutant database had revealed a pair of identical twin Psionics, Jeremy and Dominic Pendergrast. They had a unique combination of Psionic abilities, being both Telecybers and Illusionists, but weren't particularly powerful with either ability. According to the database, their psychic rapport with one another was stronger than any other Psionics on record, even other sibling pairs. Obviously, Dominique had modified their Psionic New Mutant genes, like she had modified the Feral genes of the Tiger, and the other New Mutants Mutant X had faced at the GEMS building in Washington, D.C.

Dominique's modifications aside, however, the Pendergrast twins shared an address in Maryland, less than twenty-five miles from Washington, D.C. . .along with four names from the list Lexa's contact had given them. The address turned out to be fake, or rather, not actually a residence. It was a small bookshop, and when Lexa called its number to ask for Dom Pendergrast, recognizing the nickname as what the modified-Psionic she had knocked out the day before had been repeating, she was informed the Pendergrasts lived in the apartment above the store, but the store was not at liberty to give out their personal information, such as phone numbers. Frowning, Jesse had called up the satellite view of the address. . .revealing it to be a single-storey structure.

Brennan had proposed someone else call the store asking for a different name from the list with its address, but Lexa cautioned against it, not wanting to tip off Dominique's modified New Mutants someone was investigating them, if her call hadn't done so already. Shalimar frowningly commented on the parallels to the original Mutant Underground if Dominique's New Mutants were using a bookstore as cover for their activities, and Jesse had an idea. A bit of further hacking revealed a total of nine names listed as residing at the address of "Tomorrowland Books"; correlating those names with the New Mutant database revealed them to be another Psionic to go with the Pendergrast twins, a Reptus and a Wolverine Ferals, a Crystalline and a Hydro Moleculars, a Magnetic Elemental, and a Thermal Elemental.

"None of these nine New Mutants are even above average in their power levels..." Eve had commented with a frown. She had hoped something about Dominique's selection of New Mutant followers might have given Eve some insight on how to stabilize New Mutants, since the Dominion's report had indicated Carter's genetic code was stable.

"You didn't see them in action..." Chris had muttered, crossing his arms where he stood behind Eve and watched her efforts to help the team follow up on the lead Lexa's handler had given them. "..They were seriously powerful. If this Dominique chick can pump their power levels up to what we saw at the GEMS building yesterday and she can stabilize them, her work could definitely help Lexa and—and Jamie, right?" Chris had finished quietly, glancing up to make sure Owen hadn't entered Haven to overhear him.

"It would," Eve had admitted, her eyes never leaving her computer screen as she continued to work. "But we'll need to find these New Mutants she's modified and either get samples of their genetic codes or use them to track down Dominique herself, or at least her work."

"Oh, damn," Shalimar had gasped, looking at Lexa with a guilty expression. "..We knew they were Dominique's modified New Mutants, and we also knew she had stabilized Carter. We should have thought to get samples from them!" she sighed with distress.

"We didn't exactly have time, Shal," Brennan had consoled her, glancing from Shalimar to Jesse, worrying that the reminder of his teammates still being under their expiry dates might distress him.

Jesse had been diligently hacking into governmental databases instead, continuing to pursue his idea to track Dominique's New Mutants down. Now that they had the names of the team of modified New Mutants they had faced the day before, as well as their supposed communal address, Jesse had hacked his way into the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles to see what cars the New Mutants in question were listed as owning.

"This would go so much faster with Jamie's help..." Jesse had muttered to himself in frustration that his fellow hacker was currently incapacitated, then glanced up just as Chris had done, checking to make sure Owen wasn't overhearing a statement he would surely find distressing. He hadn't; Eve had forced herself to get up early to start trying to help Jamie, and Chris had risen early as he normally did, but Owen had not. Josh and Kevin had dragged him off to bed the night before, to support him and not daring to leave him alone; none of the three of them had come down to Haven at that point.

A bit more work, and Jesse had discovered cars and license plates owned by three of the nine New Mutants. When asked how that would help track their team down, Jesse had merely smirked and replied: "Traffic cameras."

Eve had let out a cheer of delight, declaring she already had software for that. The two of them worked together for a few moments to hack into the traffic camera network surrounding Tomorrowland Books, then set Eve's software running to spot the relevant vehicles. . .and track their movements. The process had taken some time, time the rest of the team had spent trying to determine who the intruders that had broken into Haven and manipulated Eve's memory had been. Shalimar had thought to check Haven's access hallway, knowing there had not been any bleach nor fried electronics to mask any scents there, and that the team's scents should be the only ones present. She had determined there were two extra scents in the corridor, and one of them might possibly have been familiar to her, but they were faded enough by that point she couldn't be sure.

After some debate, they had decided to call Josh to come check, to see if his greater familiarity with Haven might let him determine more about the faint scents. Chris had called Josh's phone, knowing he kept it on vibrate so as not to wake Kevin if someone called while they were asleep.

"How's Owen?" Chris had asked quietly when Josh murmured hello. He'd answered before his phone had rang a second time, indicating he'd either already been awake or that he was still tense enough to snap awake at the slightest disturbance, even in the security of his own bed. On the other hand, his voice had been rough enough to make Chris think he hadn't been up yet. Knowing Josh would not have left his fellow Feral Boy alone after the previous night's trauma and also knowing how much of a wreck Owen had been, Chris hadn't been the least bit surprised to discover they were still in bed.

"Asleep," Josh had murmured, still pitching his voice not to carry in the slightest, knowing Chris would automatically use his power to enhance his phone's volume enough to still hear Josh's words. "What's up?"

"The Shriek Queen and the Nerd Wonder are working on locating Dominique's Freaks, so we ought to have a direction to proceed in soon. Meantime, the rest of us are trying to figure out who broke in and why the other day, and Shal found faint scents in Haven's access corridor. Think you might get more out of them, knowing Haven better?" Chris had asked.

"Hmm, maybe," Josh had replied with an audible frown. "But I'm pretty sure Shalimar's senses are more acute than mine, dunno if my familiarity'll make up the difference, but can't hurt to try. And if a mission's breaking soon, we should be down anyway. I'll be there ASAP, Kev an' Owen might take longer," Josh had warned, thinking of the difficulties Owen might have facing a new day but trusting Kevin to be able to handle it. Josh had wanted to be there for Owen, better able to understand his feelings as a fellow Feral, but he'd known investigating the scents Shalimar had found couldn't wait, or they would fade even more.

Josh hadn't discovered anything more than Shalimar had, other than checking Haven's actual access doors and detecting something like the scent of Eloy using his powers.

"A powerful Telecyber?" Lexa had groaned. "No wonder we can't find anything in the computer logs."

"It explains how they faked the video of Eve taking Chris' call," Brennan had agreed with an unhappy sigh.

Eventually, the team had gathered around Haven's main workstation as Eve's programs had located the vehicles in question arriving at the store, then tracked their movements through the city's traffic cameras. Upon reviewing the footage, all three cars had been found to go from Tomorrowland Books to a warehouse on the edge of the city's shipping district, and the second one belonged to the Crystalline Molecular they had faced the day before.

"That's it, they live there, just have their mail delivered to the bookstore!" Brennan had declared with excitement when traffic cameras and satellite passes revealed the three cars spent most of their time parked at the warehouse.

"Okay, People, 'Let's Do This'," Eve had declared, giving Owen a nod as she used his catchphrase and moved to another console to activate another program. "This is going to be a stealth mission, possibly with a diversionary tactic," she'd said with a smirk, giving Chris a glance as he grinned with delight at the opportunity to use his favorite tactics. "I'm prepping multiple nanite dispensers, so that whoever finds their computer or communications network should be able to let me hack Dominique's location from here," Eve had explained, giving one dispenser each to Kevin, Jesse, and Lexa once they had been configured.

"Owen, we're moving into new territory, here," Eve had continued cautiously, placing a consoling hand on Owen's broad chest even as she frowned worriedly into his eyes. "You've never been on a mission under this kind of emotional duress before," she warned him, her worried gaze bouncing back and forth between each of his eyes as she had tried to see that he was indeed as ready as he had declared himself to be when he arrived at Haven with Kevin. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

"Yes," Owen had snarled, making Eve blink and take a step back, but she had maintained the presence of mind to leave her hand on his chest, to not tense up the point of contact between them that was intended to be offering reassurance. "I am doing exactly what Jamie said," he had growled, his eyes unconsciously shifting to Feral mode as he thought of his wounded Packmate, his Jamie. "I am getting Adam back, and he'll help Jamie. He's done it before and can do it again. Tracking down Dominique gets us closer to figuring out what the Dominion has been up to and finding Adam, so that's what I'm doing."

"Okay," Eve had agreed, meeting Owen's eyes as she nodded, to show him she understood and supported his decision. They were just going to have to deal with its repercussions as they came. "The potential drawback to this plan is if Dominique simply ignores her test subjects when she's not utilizing them for anything, if they don't have direct contact with her," Eve had explained as she turned back to the rest of the team. "On the other hand, some of them were just on a mission for the Dominion Council Head yesterday, so they ought to have had recent contact with him, if not with Dominique. You may have to steal their cellphones, so remaining undiscovered as long as possible is a priority," she'd warned them, giving Chris a stern look as he made a show of pouting and snapping his fingers in disappointment.

"Genetics," Shalimar had said, making Eve pause and raise a confused eyebrow at her. "Dominique stabilized at least one of her New Mutant minions, according to Lexa's guy," Shalimar had explained. "Even if we can't track her down from their base, if we can collect samples of their genetic codes, you might be able to figure out how she stabilizes her people, use it to save ours," she had said, waving one hand at Lexa and then in the general direction of the medical lab, still frustrated that the possibility hadn't occurred to her before.

"That's only if she's stabilized her people as well as enhancing them, but it's certainly something to check," Eve had nodded in agreement as she hurried to the medical lab to fetch some sampling kits for the team as well.

"Sedatives, maybe?" Kevin had asked as he followed her. "Those guys were crazy-tough; taking them all down so we can gather samples could be tricky."

"Good idea," Eve had nodded, gathering another kit for Kevin to add to the cargo pockets of his chinos.

An hour later, Mutant X had parked the cloaked Double Helix in an empty, overgrown back lot behind a different warehouse and stealthily approached the one Dominique's modified New Mutants were using as a base.

"Okay, new position," Kevin commented when the team had gathered around the corner of the neighboring building. "You sit in my lap, hunched forward, and I'll drape my arms over your shoulders," Kevin told Josh, who nodded, seeing the sense of Kevin's idea with his back still being burned. Josh dropped down to take a seat on the ground, ankles together and knees somewhat raised, leaning forward to put his chest closer to them.

"I don't think I like it as much, but this might actually be better than our usual scouting positions," Josh commented as Kevin put his hands on Josh's shoulders and slid down his back to crouch immediately behind him, his feet framing Josh's hips as he laid his arms over Josh's shoulders, his hands on Josh's knees. "If push comes to shove, I can just grab you under the knees as I stand; you're already piggy-backed for carrying away."

Kevin grinned as he slumped forward, resting the left side of his face against the right side of Josh's head as Josh leaned the other way.

"Like you didn't like me rubbing my groin down your back to get in this position..." Kevin murmured softly with a smirk as he closed his eyes.

"Feels like you liked it, or you've got a soda bottle in your pocket," Josh said in the barest whisper with a smirk of his own, knowing Kevin's astral form would be able to hear him before he flashed forward to reconnoiter the enemy's hideout.

Kevin was impressed by Dominique's New Mutants' hideout; they had clearly turned it into both a base of operations and a home. He was somewhat disturbed by the similarities to Haven, other than the lack of truly advanced technology. Feeling something familiar —which was unusual in and of itself, to be feeling anything in astral form,— Kevin recognized the sensation as similar to the Pendergrasts' Psionic presence in the GEMS building the day before.

Homing in on the sensation, Kevin's astral form passed through a wall to discover an odd bedroom, decorated in silver and dark blue. . .one side being silver with blue accents and the other being the exact reverse, with silver accents on dark blue. The two futons had been dragged away from the outer corners of the room where they were normally placed, moved to the center of the room. One of the Pendergrast twins was lying on the dark blue futon with the silver pillow, his head almost in the center of the room. The other twin sat on the edge of his silver futon, the fingertips of his hands touching the sides of his brother's head.

"..Just feel me, Dom," Jeremy was saying, his voice pitched low and slightly consoling. "You can still feel me, feel my mind, when I'm touching you. You know I'm here; there's no need to panic. No need to lose it when I let go," Jeremy said, the somewhat exasperated undercurrent to his voice suggesting he was growing tired of the activity. Given the torments that one or both of them had put Kevin's teammates through the day before, Kevin couldn't find himself feeling too sorry for their being inconvenienced by the Dominion's anti-Psionic technology Eve had copied into her nanites from Lexa's handler.

Moving deeper into the warehouse, Kevin hoped to find a computer terminal he might be able to telekinetically introduce Eve's nanite dispenser to, possibly completing their mission without Dominique's New Mutants ever knowing they had been there. If he could telekinetically float the sedative hypospray in and sedate the Pendergrast twins, the team could collect genetic samples from them and be on their way. The New Mutant they knew Dominique had stabilized, Carter, was a Psionic, so maybe the Pendergrasts had received the same treatment.

Hearing a crash from farther down the hallway, Kevin's astral form frowned and headed in that direction. There was a snarl, and the wall trembled next to where Kevin's astral form was passing by it when something large slammed into its other side. Frowning more, Kevin moved through the wall, wondering what was going on.

The wolverine pseudo-Feral Josh and Shalimar had fought the day before was standing amidst a pile of wooden, leather, and padding wreckage, shredding a full-length leather couch with his claws. He tore one arm off the couch, turning to hurl it with a backhanded motion into the corner where Kevin's astral form was floating, the chunk of furniture sailing harmlessly through his hovering form to slam into the wall with another thud, before falling to join the remnants of a love seat and other furniture that had already been smashed and thrown. Even as Kevin turned back to stare at the berserk wolverine-thing, it picked up the remains of the couch and smashed it into the warehouse floor, shattering its frame.

"Geeze, man, I just stole those, you know..." a well-built man with longish hair said from where he was stuck to the wall above a door in the opposite corner of the room, rolling his purple-ringed Feral eyes as he curled a dumbbell with one arm. Kevin noticed that not only was he barefoot, with the balls of his feet as well as his toes and the fingertips of his free hand touching the walls, he had faint pale-purple scales on his hands, feet, and neck. That meant he had to be Jordan Adenric, the Reptus Feral from Eve and Jesse's list. Or pseudo-Feral now, apparently part gecko, or something else that could cling to walls with its toe-pads.

"Too damn bad!" the wolverine pseudo-Feral snarled, one Jack Howlett, according to the New Mutant database. He was still enraged as he snapped at his fellow pseudo-Feral, obviously getting off on the wanton destruction he was wreaking. "You didn't have to wait all night for Jeremy to pull his head out of his crybaby brother's ass and use his damn illusions to get us out of custody subtly. I coulda tore my way outta there anytime; any of the rest of us coulda smashed our way out, but noooooo, we gotta do it the boys' way; we can't attract attention or Mommy Dominique and Daddy I'm-Too-Important-To-Have-A-Real-Name would cut us off!" he snarled furiously, picking up the largest piece of the smashed couch and throwing it into the middle of the room to smash against the frame of a car that had been stripped down to nothing.

Well, that confirms they're in contact with Dominique and the Dominion Council Head, if they're providing this group's funding to the point where they have pet names... Kevin thought to himself as he turned to flash across the room to the wall behind the Reptus Feral and see what was behind it.

Kevin gasped in surprise to meet someone's eyes as he turned. . .meeting his eyes meant she could see him..!

"Hiya, Cutie," the blonde woman said with a smirk as her head and all the air around her for a few yards began glowing in shifting shades of pink. It wasn't a Psionic starburst; it was something more, a radiant glow that seemed to energize everything it touched as it rapidly expanded from the Psionic's head. Pseudo-Psionic, Karen Spalding, according to Eve and Jesse's list. The pseudo-Ferals had turned to watch Karen, wondering what was going on when she began speaking to nothing. Kevin realized they couldn't see the glow of her power emanating from her, the auras it was putting around the wreckage and gym equipment in the room. . .she was somehow energizing the psychic imprints of the world around her, charging the psionic energies of their psychic impressions with her own mental powers.

Grinning malevolently, Spalding whipped the jump rope she had been using when Kevin entered the room at his astral form, maintaining her grasp on one handle. The rope whizzed through the air, faster than Kevin could instinctively raise a forearm to intercept it. He knew a physical object couldn't hurt his astral form, but she was a highly-modified Psionic who had energized everything around her with psychic energy...

Kevin's astral form tried to scream as the jump rope whipped through his neck. The rope passed through harmlessly, as any physical object would, but its psychic aura wrapped around the neck of Kevin's astral form, as if they were both in the real world. The burning pain of being "strangled" by the psionic jump rope shattered Kevin's concentration, but he couldn't snap back to his physical body when the entire room was psychically energized, effectively trapping him inside a box of psychic forcefields.

"What's going on?" Adenric asked as he scurried along the wall to Spalding with three limbs, still holding the dumbbell in one hand. He sprang off it to land on the scaled balls of his feet, then tipped his head to peer at the nothing she was confronting with his bizarrely-patterned gecko eyes.

"We've got an intruder!" Spalding declared with sadistic glee. "Astral projector, I'm guessing. . .that's really rare; this is so exciting!" she said, pulling on the psychic impression of her jump rope to drag Kevin's astral form closer to her, even as the real jump rope just dangled from her fist. "He's adorable, hott face, plush lips, wide shoulders..." Her head tipped to one side as she considered Kevin, grinning lasciviously. "..Hair's a little long, but livable. And I know every guy thinks their dick is the most important thing in the world, but this one projected his clothes along with him. If he's manifesting his impression of his clothes, that means the representation of his body should be accurate, and that means he's hung like a horse!" she declared.

Kevin was reflexively gasping, not for breath that his astral form didn't need, but out of sheer panic. He had occasionally been disoriented while projecting, but he had never been trapped before, not away from his physical body, not caught, like he was in her grasp. The blazing pain around his neck made it nearly impossible to concentrate, but the way Spalding was grinning at Kevin, not to mention how she was talking about him, finished the job.

"Is this for real, or are you just pulling our legs?" Adenric asked Spalding with a puzzled frown. As far as he could tell, she was just simpering at a corner of the room. "You and the damn twins; I can never tell what's legit with you freaking psychics," he muttered, folding his arms in irritation.

"No, she's actually aroused; I can smell it," Howlett said, the scent caught by his wolverine senses stimulating his own sadistic side, attracted to the abuse she was clearly dishing out.

"You know what the best thing about being the most powerful Psionic in the building is?" she crooned as she drew closer to Kevin's astral form, raising his chin with one pink-glowing finger so she could stare into his fear-brightened eyes. "I can do this!" she declared, plunging her glowing nails into the bottom of the psychic image of Kevin's shirt, through the abdomen of his astral form and curling them around the hemlines of the images of his cargo pants and boxer briefs, "tearing" them away from his astral form, then tossing them aside to dissipate into nothing.

Kevin's astral form screamed, in pain from the Psionic energy of her fingertips and their nails passing through the energy of his astral form, and at the pain and anguish of her violently forcing him to reconstruct his psychic impression of himself. Kevin knew it was in a sense psychosomatic, that his astral form only looked like what he believed it looked like, but psychosomatic was all too real when the psychic was the extent of one's reality. If Kevin's astral form had bloodflow, he would have been blushing as she exposed him.

"OhmyGOD!" she crowed at his nudity, using both hands to bind the slack of the jump rope's psychic image around Kevin's wrists when his astral form reached to cover his groin, yanking them back up above his head.

"Oh, my god," Howlett murmured, incredibly aroused by watching Spalding be sadistic, even if he couldn't actually see the victim of her sadism or their reactions. "I heard that; make him scream!" he moaned, stepping up behind her, letting her feel how aroused he was by pressing up against her rear, running his hands down her sides and reaching under her arms to cup her breasts, growling in anticipation as she purred with satisfaction.

"Oh my god, are you two going to do it right here while she abuses some schmuck?" Adenric asked in disgust, dropping the dumbbell and turning to leave.

"You heard him?" Spalding gasped. "Oh, God, Yes!" she moaned deliriously, mind awash with the sadistic possibilities. She neatly rearranged both the jump rope and its psychic impression to hang from the bottom of her left fist as she held it above Kevin's astral head, reaching for his groin with her pink-glowing hand. "Both at once, psychic and physical, both huge boys. . .just get it up, honey, sooner you do, the sooner it'll all be over," she cooed, knowing her burning psychic touch would make the process take quite some time, even if her victim had been willing.

Kevin and his groin weren't anything even remotely approaching willing, and his being gay didn't really have a thing to do with it. Howlett's comment that he heard Kevin's astral form cry out meant Kevin's astral vocal cords had vibrated the air they were touching, even if it had only been faintly. That meant he could fight back just by moving; he didn't need to be able to focus on his telekinesis.

Twisting his hips to his right, away from Spalding's reaching right hand, Kevin snapped his left knee up, knocking Spalding's hand away with the outside of his left thigh. Even as her eyes were widening in shock, Kevin thrust the heel of his right foot into her solar plexus as hard as he could, the full extension of his leg. The breath wooshed out of Spalding's shocked lungs, her power vanishing as her concentration was shattered, and the psychic image of the jump rope vanished along with it as she dropped the real one.

Howlett gasped in surprise as Spalding's ass rammed into his erection uncomfortably; Kevin glared at the dumbbell Adenric had dropped and mimed yanking at it; the dumbbell telekinetically flew through the air and smashed into the back of Howlett's skull, slamming his forehead into the back of Spalding's skull and sending them both crashing to the floor. Even as Adenric spun back to see what was going on, Kevin telekinetically threw him straight up, smashing the top of his skull into the ceiling.

Sadly for Kevin, he had been under too much stress and in too much shock and pain to truly focus his powers properly. All three pseudo-New Mutants were snarling in anger as they scrabbled to get their feet back under them or shake the stars from their vision, even as Kevin ended his astral jaunt and snapped back to his body.

"Move, we've got trouble!" Kevin yelped as he sprang off Josh's back, spinning in a circle as he fumbled with one of his cargo pants' many pockets, trying to retrieve the nanite dispenser Eve had given him.

"Kev, what is it!?" Josh asked as he scrambled to his feet, alarmed. "Your scent. . .you're panicking, what happened!?"

"It's done; I'm over it, barely escaped," Kevin gasped out as he pulled the dispenser from his pocket and shoved it in Josh's hands. "The other psychic, saw me, caught me, she's coming for me, so we gotta book!" he spat out desperately. "We gotta split up; they'll be looking for me, but they don't know about the rest of you. We blew our element of surprise, but the other stealth-types might still pull this off!" Kevin declared, looking from Josh to Jesse to Lexa. "The Pendergrast twins are in there, but Dom's still powerless; the wolverine guy's there, too. We have to assume the rest are, as well."

"She's the slim blonde, right?" Lexa asked rhetorically, knowing she was correct. "Take her out, then Kevin can split the scene, TK the sedative back and thin their ranks by surprise."

"Good idea; let's go," Brennan declared. "Chris, no element of surprise means the diversionary tactics are now our best bet!"

"Oh, Hell Yes!" Chris declared as the team bolted around the corner of the building and charged the pseudo-New Mutants' warehouse, drawing a deep breath as he prepared to cut loose. Lexa put a hand on Josh's and Jesse's shoulders, activating her power and cloaking all three of them from sight.

"I hear voices, on the other side of that wall!" Shalimar called out as they rushed the warehouse, pointing to the right of a doorway.

"Plug your ears; I'ma make them hear my voice!" Chris warned, dashing ahead as Shalimar fell back, she and Owen clamping their hands over their ears.

Chris bellowed.

The sonic shockwave of his voice slammed into the cinderblock wall of the warehouse, sandblasting dust and grit off its surface. The wall began to vibrate as Chris charged it, the voices on its other side rising in confused alarm. Brennan was rolling up a massive tesla coil between his hands as Mutant X drew near the warehouse; Owen bent low as he ran to scoop up a concrete parking chock from the end of a parking space. Hefting over 100 pounds of stone with one arm, Owen reared back to hold it like a spear behind his head with the grip of one massive hand.

"NOW!" Owen shouted when his Ursine eyes saw the wall begin to fragment under the onslaught of Chris' voice, hurling the parking divider forward like a javelin. Brennan lanced his right arm forward as he ran, the formidable tesla coil surging off his hand like a lightning bolt. Concrete and electricity smashed into the warehouse wall as it shattered, sending energized hunks of stone spraying into the building's interior.

Lexa, Jesse, and Josh hustled to the left, passing by the exterior side door of the warehouse and approaching a blank section of wall.

"Keep going," Jesse told his teammates as he reached to his left and grabbed Josh's cloaked forearm when his hand ran into it, then exhaled all three of them into a phase. The three New Mutants passed through the wall into the warehouse, pausing to take stock of where they had found themselves. It looked like a service hallway, probably leading from the side door around the corner to both the warehouse proper, probably the receiving area, and the offices. Seeing no one present, nor any security cameras, Lexa dropped her cloak as Jesse ended their phase and drew a breath.

"Invisibility and going through walls; you guys are just like Kevin. . .I'm feeling a little superfluous; what do I bring to the stealth party?" Josh asked with a wry, self-deprecating twist to his mouth.

"The sensory acuity, not to mention agility," Jesse told him, moving his hand from Josh's forearm to clap him reassuringly on the shoulder. "You're more likely to find a hidden cache of communications technology than we are, hearing the electronics hum or following a scent trail we can't perceive."

"Try the roof," Lexa said, giving Josh a nod. "If there's a satellite dish or broadcast antenna on the roof, they don't have any reason not to be using it, and you can spray Eve's nanites there," she explained. "You could get up to the roof, check it out, spray the dispenser a few times, and make it back down here faster than Jess or I could even find the roof access."

"Huh, okay," Josh agreed, after frowning in thought about it for a moment, then glanced at Lexa for a split-second before looking at Jesse with a guilty expression, instead. "What am I supposed to do when I can't help checking on the fight, and see Kevin in trouble?" he asked sheepishly.

Lexa scoffed, rolling her eyes as she turned away.

"Well, if you see someone in trouble, Kevin or otherwise, you should help them," Jesse said with a grin that announced the unspoken "duh" loud and clear. "As for not being able to help checking, well, as long as you check for the satellite dish first, I'd say you're still doing okay. It's not worrying about Kevin or checking on him that's the problem, Josh, it's letting those things get in the way of completing the job that you have to be careful of."

"You're right, of course," Josh agreed with a sigh. "It's just. . .you didn't smell him, the panic in his scent. Something happened to Kevin in here, the blonde psychic bimbo did something to him, something that freaked Kevin out on a visceral level," Josh growled, his eyes flashing green and shifting into their Feral mode.

"He'll be fine," Lexa said dismissively, raising an eyebrow that suggested Josh get with the program. "He's with the rest of the team, has backup. You are running around in enemy territory —very powerful enemies— all by your lonesome, allowing yourself to be distracted," she finished, giving him a very direct look.

"Stay focused, right," Josh agreed with nod, squaring his shoulders and forcing his thoughts to align themselves where they needed to be. "Okay, off I go," he said as he rolled his neck to work the tension out of it, then turned and trotted silently down the hallway. "Sooner I'm done, sooner I've got Kev's back again. Or that bitch's throat," he muttered.

"Her name's Karen Spalding, if name-dropping helps," Jesse called quietly after him, then gave Lexa a grinning shrug as she turned and went the other direction; Jesse phased through the wall into the warehouse proper.

Seven of Dominique's nine pseudo-New Mutants were gathered at one side of their warehouse headquarters, the direction Kevin's astral form had retreated in.

"What the hell, Spalding?" a lithe young black man demanded as he folded his arms crossly. "What gives, usin' your damn creepy psychic everywhere-at-once voice to call us over here? What th'hell did you guys do?" he asked, raising one expectant eyebrow as he glanced from Spalding and Adenric's disheveled forms to where Howlett was holding himself up with one arm against the wall, the other hand clamped to the back of his head. He was snarling angrily under his breath, weaving unsteadily on his feet, and one of his pupils was dilated more than twice as much as the other.

"Shut it, Vance!" Spalding snapped back at him, her eyes beginning to glow pink as she narrowed them at him angrily. "We had an intruder, a psychic intruder, who's apparently a powerful telekinetic, as well as an astral projector!" she explained, turning to the group at large as she went on. "It has to be Mutant X; they were the ones who stopped the Pendergrasts' team at the GEMS building yesterday. They tracked us down, somehow, so we're gonna go flatten them!"

"Izzat a siren?" Howlett muttered, trying to cock his head at the strangely continuous noise he was hearing outside. He hoped Mutant X's psychic hadn't called the police when he escaped; Howlett didn't want to be arrested when he'd just broken out of jail less than 24 hours earlier...

"What is that!?" a wide-shouldered man with stubble so thick and black it was practically a beard despite his jawline still being visible asked, his heavy eyebrows rising as he noticed the sound.

"Oh hell, it is Mutant X; that's their sound Elemental!" Crystal declared unhappily, her stocky frame growing tense as she worried over transforming into her crystalline state. She didn't want to find out if he could actually shatter her or not.

"Alright! Let's—" Spalding began, turning toward the door, then cut herself off with a startled scream as the wall exploded in electrified chunks of cement. Her team cried out in shock and scrambled for cover, most of a concrete parking divider smashing into Howlett and knocking him off his unsteady feet.

Crystal flashed into her crystalline form just before half an electrified cinderblock bounced off her shoulder. She was crouching even as it struck her, the instinctive reflex of using her Molecular powers to protect herself overriding her worries about Chris' abilities. Crystal slapped the warehouse floor as her companions scrambled away from the exploding wall, a quartz barrier springing up and shielding her teammates from some of the debris.

Shalimar pounced through the hole in the wall, eyes flashing golden as she noticed Adenric's purple-ringed eyes snapping to spot her, talons sprouting from his fingertips above their oddly-scaled toepads as he dropped into a crouching combat stance. Realizing he was one of Dominique's pseudo-Ferals and thus physically capable of dominating any of Mutant X's invasion force besides herself and Owen, Shalimar turned and sprang for Adenric, deliberately landing short of him and ducking the swipe of his taloned hand. Shalimar spun on one bootheel as she ducked, pistoning her other foot out behind her as she turned her back on Adenric and smashing her second bootheel into his gut, knocking him off his feet and away.

Owen smashed through the door the pseudo-New Mutants had been approaching, ripping its shattered frame from its hinges and hurling it at the not-Dominic Pendergrast twin and the slim blonde next to him, the enemy Psionics. Pendergrast squawked and hurled himself back down to the ground, where he had just been straightening up after diving away from the exploding wall. Spalding's eyes flared magenta and she merely held up one pink-glowing hand, draining the psychic energy from everything around her and forming a hazy, wavering bubble of vaguely pink energy around herself that absorbed the flying door's impact, causing the remains of the door to drop to the floor as she relaxed her hand and the bubble dissipated.

Jesse explored the warehouse's main expanse quietly, keeping both an eye and an ear out as he searched for the pseudo-New Mutants' communications center, ready to mass or phase at an instant's notice if needed. Partitions had been put up to divide it into separate rooms and areas, much like the conversion of the Majestic hotel's bomb shelter into Haven. Half-empty drinks and a partially spilled bowl of barbecue chips were scattered around the entertainment center, some sort of Grade Z horror movie still playing on the screen. All the electronics in the room were clearly for relaxation and not work, so Jesse moved on. The next room seemed to be a gym or workout area, with exercise machines and free weights, but it also had a pile of destroyed furniture that made Jesse pause to frown at it in confusion. Glancing around in perplexed curiosity, Jesse's frown creased his face further when he noticed the dumbbell lying in the middle of the floor with blood on one of its ends. Looking around carefully as he tried to deduce its cause, Jesse noted the bent ceiling support partway to the door, wondering what had happened.

Shaking his head as he decided it was irrelevant, Jesse phased through the wall into the next room. Whatever had happened in the enemy's gym, their communications and computer equipment still weren't there, so it didn't matter for tracking down Dominique and the Dominion Council Head.

Jesse paused when he discovered the other side of the gym's wall was a corridor, not another room or partitioned area. He glanced around as he solidified, noting several doors on the far side of the corridor, and the fact that it turned the same way he was already headed at its far end. Jesse had just begun to step forward when he froze at the sound of a harsh voice:

"I. Am Not. An INVALID!" the voice protested, coming from the doorway to Jesse's right, farthest from the hallway's turn at its other end. Frowning, Jesse silently crossed the hallway and put his back to the wall, creeping up to the edge of the doorway.

Owen had channeled his inner turmoil over Jamie into aggression, and did not want to bother with thinking tactically about outsmarting the Psionics. A normal Psionic could potentially handle a Feral, whose animal abilities didn't give them much defense against mental attacks, and these were Dominique's super-freaks, so Owen ignored them after slowing them down with the door. The crystal chick put her hands on the edges of the hole Owen and Chris had made and Shalimar had leapt through, filling it with a mesh of crystals to keep the rest of Mutant X from having similarly easy access to the fight. She stepped around the far end of her first quartz barrier, heading for Owen with the pale yellow glimmer of her Molecular power flickering over her crystalline fingers.

Not wanting her to encase him in quartz like Jesse had described her doing to him the day before, Owen turned and grabbed the near end of the barrier where it sprang up from the floor, and heaved. Owen bellowed his fury and frustration with Jamie's and his situations as he pulled on the spar of crystal, his Ursine eyes flashing greenish-brown as every sinew and tendon in his upper body popped out in stark relief against the sudden heave of his enormous muscles.

Crystal blinked in shock and paused in surprise as the biggest member of Mutant X literally tore a chunk of her quartz barrier off of it with his bare hands. Realizing he was indeed especially dangerous, Crystal dashed forward to coat him in quartz, hoping it would paralyze him when he had little leverage to break it from inside of it. Unfortunately for Crystal, her hesitation had lasted a split-second too long. Owen heaved the four-foot tall, six-inch wide column of quartz up into the air, snatching it by the base with both hands as it rose past them. He reared it back behind his head like a baseball bat as he turned to his left, his left arm pressed nearly flat across his chest. As Crystal dashed closer, Owen swung the spar of quartz as hard as he could, shifting his feet to give it a broader arc. Crystal attempted to bring her forearms up to block the surprisingly swift attack, but she was too slow. Owen slammed the fractured end of her construct into the side of Crystal's neck, bowling her off her feet with a cry of pained alarm and a mighty CRACK of quartz-on-quartz.

Brennan dashed through the door only a few steps behind Owen, his hands already crackling with electricity. Scanning the entry corridor, he spotted Shalimar engaging another pseudo-Feral, the wolverine one they had faced at the GEMS building lying dazed on the floor. Owen had just torn a giant crystal from the end of the pseudo-Molecular's wall and was knocking her off her feet with it; the blonde Brennan knew they had to take out for Kevin to get back to their subterfuge plan had just lowered her hand and was eying Owen speculatively. Brennan threw one handful of electricity at her, which Spalding blocked with another hastily-erected psi-bubble. Noting that her psychic forcefield vanished as his electrical bolt hit it and that Spalding's face had creased with either effort or concern, Brennan thrust his second hand at her, its bolt spearing directly at her.

The sprinkler head just past Spalding burst free of the pipe running along the ceiling, but the pressurized water inside did not come out in a spray, nor even a stream. It surged out in a collected, flowing column, almost like a tentacle of water, stabbing forward to intercept Brennan's second bolt before it could strike Spalding. The bolt fizzled, short circuited by the watery tendril, which fell to the floor with a splash even as the water that continued to spray from the sprinkler system formed itself into multiple tendrils.

"Awww, an Electrical Elemental," Vance sneered, a pale blue nimbus of energy writhing around his lithe fingers. "..My favorite!" he declared, his sneer stretching into snarlingly bared teeth as he jabbed his hand forward, the tendrils of water lashing down at Brennan.

Brennan thrust both hands forward, blazing bolts of electric-blue energy arcing off each of his fingers to intercept an incoming tendril of water. His own teeth were bared in a grimace of effort as he poured forth his voltage, electrostaticly splitting the water into its component hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Kevin ran into the hallway just a moment after Brennan, his eyes immediately homing in on Spalding as he felt her tapping the psychic impressions of her environment, just like she had before when she trapped him. He knew he'd be at her mercy if he projected again, but Kevin didn't have any intention of doing that. He also noticed the younger, lithe black man behind Spalding, who was sneering at Brennan with a faint blue glow crawling over his long fingers. Kevin figured he must be the Hydro Elemental, using his control of water to attack Brennan. He also figured the pseudo-Molecular wouldn't expect someone else to be able to manipulate water, and grinned as he struck.

Thrusting both hands forward, Kevin ripped the tendrils of water from Vance's control and flung the mass of water into Spalding as hard as he could. Both Spalding and Vance were caught completely by surprise; she had seen Kevin enter the hallway and grinned to see his real body, her malevolent eyes glowing pink as she prepared to prevent his telekinesis from affecting her body by Psionically energizing the psychic impressions it was making on the world around her. Her glowing eyes widened in shock as the watery tendrils collapsed and smashed into her face and upper body like a full-on belly-flop, bowling her off her feet.

Vance blinked in surprise as the water was wrested from the grasp of his power, then cried out in shock as Spalding flew into him. He staggered to one side as she violently brushed past his shoulder; she made a distressed grunt as she began falling to the floor.

With a wrenching motion of his other hand, Kevin telekinetically grabbed the spraying end of the sprinkler pipe, squinching it shut as he tore it from the ceiling. The loose end of the pipe twisted away from the ceiling and tuned back along its length as it dove down and wrapped itself around Spalding from her left collarbone, down across her front and around underneath the right side of her ribcage. Disoriented from the literal slap to her face of the water and unable to bring her powers to bear, Kevin telekinetically seized Spalding and twisted her away down the hall, pulling the length of the sprinkler pipe from the ceiling to wrap around her as she went, pinning one of her arms and both legs.

Brennan cried out victoriously as Vance's watery attack was torn away, removing the insurmountable defense it provided him. Taking another step forward, Brennan shifted his hands from where they had both been braced in front of him, holding back Vance's tendrils. His left hand curled into a fist as he moved, dropping back to his left hip; Brennan's right hand stabbed forward, a bright blue bolt of electricity surging off of it to slam into Vance, knocking him down as it crackled over his collapsing form.

Lexa had reactivated her cloak as she went down the hallway and grinned after closing the door at its end behind her, having found the office area of the warehouse. Mostly-empty corkboards adorned one wall of the room, with a long, barren countertop projecting from beneath them. Across the room from the hallway door, the shorter wall was covered in color-coded clipboard slots and a large, out of date calendar. The second long wall contained three doors, labeled "MANAGER", "RECEPTION OFFICE", and "RECORDS". Debating between the manager's office and the receptionist's, Lexa decided to check the reception office first, figuring it would be more likely to have multiple phone and computer lines that Dominique's agents might have co-opted.

She began to cross the room to the middle door, still moving slowly as was her habit when cloaked, to keep the outline of her cloaked self from flickering into a visible silhouette. There was a camera in the corner of the room that looked like it could watch both the hallway door and the three office doors if it panned, but it was currently only pointing at the hallway door. Lexa didn't see a red light on the camera's base, but it seemed to not have an indicator light, so she couldn't be sure if it was active or not.

Lexa froze as she was reaching for the middle office door's knob, when the hallway door opened behind her to the right. Turning her head just enough to see from the corner of her eye, Lexa saw it was the tall pseudo-Elemental they had faced in DC the day before, his broken jaw wired shut. She watched nervously as his eyes narrowed, worried his electromagnetic abilities might enable him to detect her, but his gaze slowly panned back and forth across the room, not resting on anything in particular. Lexa exhaled a silent breath of relief, figuring he must have been on monitor duty because of his injury and spotted the hallway door opening all by itself. The rest of his team was being distracted by the rest of Lexa's team, so he had come to investigate.

After another moment of surveying the room, the pseudo-Elemental crossed to the manager's office, unlocking it with a keyring he had already been holding when he entered the room, and closing the door behind him after he entered.

Excellent, Lexa thought to herself as she opened the reception office's door and slipped inside. If they're using the manager's office and keeping it locked, it probably has the information I'm after... she decided as she turned on the secretarial computer, putting one hand over the ventilation grill to muffle the system's startup beeps. ..He didn't detect me, probably just controls electricity and shoots plasma beams, whatever energy he can channel, so he won't notice this computer being turned on... she reasoned as she sprayed a few puffs of Eve's nanites into the computer's tower, hoping it might have information Eve would find useful. Even if it didn't, she could just wait for the injured pseudo-Elemental to leave, then apply another network of Eve's nanites to the manager's computer, and see if she could find anything else useful in the neighboring office.

Deciding she could also search the secretarial office, Lexa pulled the rolling office chair back and opened the middle desk drawer, riffling through the papers within to see if they were from the company that had owned the warehouse, or something useful its current tenants had placed there.

Lexa's head snapped up when the door opened, her cloak visibly shimmering from the rapid motion.

She hadn't anticipated that the enemy pseudo-New Mutant might only simply check the manager's office, then move on to check the secretarial office as well. Lexa felt foolish, since she knew the security camera in the communal office room hadn't been monitoring the three office doors; of course he would check them.

Lexa gasped when he waved one hand in her general direction, wavering bands of energy radiating from it for just an instant. The computer in front of Lexa short-circuited, electricity crackling over the tower, monitor, and keyboard before the whole thing went dark, smoke rising from the tower and monitor vents.

"Gee, I don't think the nanites you introduced to the computer could have survived that," the pseudo-Elemental said through his clenched teeth with a smirk. "I thought I felt something weird in the parking garage yesterday, but then your buddies kept me busy," he went on, pointing his palm at Lexa and frowning as he radiated his electromagnetic waves at her until her light-cloak was disrupted. "There you are," he murmured, his wired-shut teeth already in position for his sneering grin. "I knew something was up when a door opened all by itself while we've got intruders, then I felt you again outside. I knew you'd do something if you thought I didn't know you were there, and sure enough, you did. Nanites, even. . .man, I could have fried those when I was a drunk teenager!"

Lexa raised one unimpressed eyebrow at the tall pseudo-Elemental.

"You talk an awful lot for a guy with a broken jaw," she told him, shaking her head slightly and waiting for him to make his move.

Chris ran through the door Owen had shattered a short distance behind Kevin, cursing the length of his legs that went with his five-seven frame. He'd also had to take a moment to recover his breath after shattering a cinderblock wall from some distance, but he was glad he had done so when saw the fight. There were seven DominiqueFreaks in the entry hall, and even though Mutant X numbered eight field agents at the moment, three of them were carrying out the subterfuge portion of the plan, leaving the enemy with two more members in the fight. There was also the electromagnetic guy who had trapped Brennan the day before, and the male psychic had a twin somewhere, which meant the enemy still had at least one more member than Chris' team did.

Frowning because he knew their numbers would be even if Jamie weren't out of commission, Chris focused his power and shrieked a tightly-controlled sonic beam at the wolverine pseudo-Feral they had faced at the GEMS building, who was beginning to crawl to his feet. Kevin and Brennan seemed to have the two pseudo-Psionics and one of the other DFreaks down, Owen had just knocked over the crystal chick from DC, and Shalimar was keeping another pseudo-Feral occupied, but they had seen how ridiculously powerful the wolverine guy was; Chris wasn't taking any chances with him and didn't think they wanted to take any risks with any of the other super-freaks, either.

Howlett clamped his hands over his ears, his howl of pain at the sound piercing his pounding head cutting off when he collapsed forward, cracking his forehead against the wall after getting halfway up. One arm instinctively snapped down to try to prevent his sliding down the wall to the floor, but he immediately plastered it back to his ear as Chris magnified the volume of all the sounds around Howlett. The wolverine pseudo-Feral slumped sideways to the floor with a keening whine, too overwhelmed by his concussion and the electrified beating he had just taken to handle Chris' shrill assault on his ridiculously enhanced hearing.

"That's enough!" the last of Dominique's pseudo-New Mutants snarled at Chris, thrusting one hand at him. The guy looked like he could be another type of Feral; he was hairy enough and had wide shoulders, along with some seriously scowly eyebrows, but a strobe of cold blue energy flared from the man's hand as he gestured.

The energy was literally cold, bathing Chris in frosty blue light that quickly began to coalesce actual frost on Chris' clothes and face. The breath of Chris' shout instantly became visible, its sound starting to waver as Chris' entire body began shivering. He wrapped his arms around his torso, his power-shout choking off as he felt his core temperature beginning to drop. The wide-shouldered man held up his other hand as he bathed Chris in the freezing blue light, the heat energy he was draining from Chris' environment swirling together into a small, glowing ball of reddish light over his palm.

Chris turned and staggered to his left, dropping to his knees and collapsing behind the rest of Crystal's quartz barrier, ducking out of Hartlich the Thermal pseudo-Elemental's sight, and out of exposure to the man's freezing aura.

Adenric was sent flying back by Shalimar's surprise kick; he landed on his back and instantly kippuped back up to his feet, hissing in anger. Shalimar completed her rotation and drew the heel of her kicking foot back in to rest on the ball of the foot, against her first foot without rising, so that she was crouched with her arms spread at the ready facing Adenric, waiting to see what his next move would be. The Reptus pseudo-Feral ended his angry hiss with a snarl of displeasure and charged Shalimar, sprinting at her with shocking speed, aided by the traction of his bare feet's gecko toepads on the floor.

Shalimar feigned a gasp of surprise and began to throw herself to the right, as if she were attempting to dive away from Adenric's rushing advance, but it was a bluff. She had fought Howlett in close combat the day before at the GEMS building; Shalimar was well aware of how enhanced the speed of Dominique's pseudo-Ferals was. Her outreaching arms suddenly flung back up over her head as Shalimar arched her back, her springing legs actually thrusting down into her toes, propelling her up instead of forward. The arc of her back and arms combined with her Feline Feral flexibility resulted in her performing a stationary backhandspring, carrying her lower body up out of the path of Adenric's charge to his upper right, instead of diving to his lower left as she had tricked him into anticipating. Shalimar bent one knee to her chest as she flipped, firing that foot out in another thrusting kick, this time in the direction that was now behind her, into the side of Adenric's head instead of his abdomen.

A grin began to break out over Shalimar's backflipping face, thrilled to have deceived the enemy pseudo-Feral twice in a row and proving that fighting smarter worked better than just harder. The grin snapped off Shalimar's face as she felt something seize her ankle; Adenric's super-enhanced reflexes enabled him to snatch her ankle even as his head was being snapped to one side, and the gecko toepads of his palm let him cling to her ankle just as easily as he did to walls or the floor, making his grip that much harder to break.

Owen was taking maliciously gleeful delight in treating his fight with Crystal like a game of Whack-A-Mole, bringing the giant quartz crystal whistling down from over his head to CRACK across Crystal's skull or back whenever she tried to rise. It was keeping her from supporting her teammates, and Owen was finding it remarkably therapeutic. He figured he was supporting his teammates by keeping her occupied, but in reality, he was deluding himself.

For the most part, Owen's emotions were actually running rampant, his fear and anguish over Jamie's condition and the fact that they had only just admitted they could be more to each other than just friends were actually driving him to frenzy almost as badly as they had the night before, but this time there was a difference. The uncertain and emotionally abusive household Owen had grown up in had resulted in his developing codependent all-star syndrome, becoming the best ahlete with the most sanguine demeanor he could, to keep the attention of anyone looking on him, his exploits, and his personality, rather than on his father's bipolar behaviors, his mother's alcoholism, or the fact that his father semi-frequently beat his mother. Owen's true personality was actually fairly easy-going and laid back, but his childhood had taught him to project an in-your-face bravado that had served him well when he had joined a street gang at sixteen, after his father had accidentally beaten his mother to death. Owen's ability to repress his actual emotions and project the personna he believed those around him desired to see had been the only things that had enabled him to retain his sanity during the nigh-constant physical torture of having his Ursine Feral abilites tested by Genomex after the GSA had caught him, and he had only barely done so, having been on the brink of psychological collapse when Mutant X rescued him.

Owen's mental and emotional instabilities had been horribly stimulated and brought to the fore of his mind by the trauma of nearly losing Jamie the night before, and his long practice at suppressing his emotions and covering them with a false personna were serving him poorly at the moment. He was psychologically transferring, expressing cruel malice instead of his fear and anger, venting his anguish through aggression on an arguably acceptable target instead of allowing himself to be overwhelmed by the intensity of his worries and the anxiety they were producing in him. This was all occurring on a subconscious level, of course, but the the amount of mental effort it took prevented Owen from being as aware of things as he should have been, his external awareness limited by how deeply in denial his internal awareness was. Owen thought he was fine, or at least capable of operating at full capacity, telling himself he was doing his part, when he was actually focussed on abusing Crystal, to the point that he didn't notice Howlett managing to pull himself back up to his feet, with an enraged snarl on his concussion-distorted, partially-wolverine face.

Chris heaved for breath behind the quartz barrier, using his power to mute the sound of his labored breathing and briskly rubbing his hands up and down his upper arms, trying to warm himself back up. He knew it would only take the enemy Thermal pseudo-Elemental a moment to reposition himself where he could see Chris again, and the rest of the team was already occupied. The problem was, Chris wasn't sure what he could do about it. His body was still wracked with tremors from the literally bone-chilling cold the enemy pseudo-Elemental had subjected him to; he wouldn't be able to use his power shout to blast anyone for at least a few more moments, which was more time than he had. He wished he had a smoke bomb, to keep the enemy from spotting him, maybe then he could use his new sonar-imaging ability to sneak past the uber-freak. Sadly, Chris did not have a smoke bomb.

Desperate and still trying to regain his breath, Chris did the only thing he could. His new ability to feel all the sound around him in a 360-degree "sonar visual" wouldn't help him in his current situation, but it was possible his original ability of manipulating the volume of sounds could. When the enemy Thermal pseudo-Elemental stepped into Chris' view past the end of the wall of quartz crystals, Chris immediately muted all the sound reaching the man's head, surprising him and causing him to pause as he raised the hand with the orb of collected heat energy hovering over it. With a frown of concentration, Chris reversed the effect to the maximum of his capabilities, magnifying every sound he could. Hartlich's ears were suddenly assaulted by the sounds of Brennan's electrical bolts, Kevin telekinetically wrenching steel pipes and Spalding's cries of surprise and pain, Shalimar and Adenric trading blows and snarling at one another, Owen's vindictive growl, and the mighty CRACK! of his bringing the quartz crystal smashing down into Crystal's back, all at several dozen decibels louder than they should be, when his ears were already instinctively straining to hear in the silence Chris had immersed him in.

Chris grinned when his plan worked, the sudden shock of sound to his straining ears breaking Hartlich's concentration and causing the orb of collected heat hovering above his hand to dissipate as he reflexively slapped both hands to his ears. Hartlich's eyes had widened in shock for a split second, then narrowed in appreciation of what had Chris had done with his Elemental abilities. Chris scowled; the guy had ridiculously enhanced energy control abilities as a pseudo-Elemental, so of course he could recognize what Chris had done, even if it was with sonic instead of thermal energy. Hartlich's considering look of skillful admiration spread into a grin as he kept his eyes on Chris, confusing Chris slightly. He'd already figured out what Chris had done, what would...

Realization struck Chris an instant too late; he whirled around and sucked a breath into his not yet recovered lungs even as Howlett lunged forward on his unsteady feet, one hand on the quartz barrier to keep himself upright.

Frowning in puzzlement, Jesse cautiously approached the last doorway of the corridor. The voice declaring its owner wasn't an invalid sounded both strained and emotionally wrought; had Dominique's people kidnapped someone? With their ludicrously powerful abilities, the torments they might dish out weren't something Jesse wanted to contemplate, but if they were being careful about it, maybe trying to break some poor soul for information? Jesse certainly couldn't ignore the possibility...

Jesse cautiously peered around the edge of the open doorway, his jaw dropping open and his eyes opening wide in shock as he nearly kissed one of the Pendergrast twins, who was leaning on the other side of the doorway, both hands clinging to the frame as he struggled to make himself walk through it. Dominic's expression was even more shocked, and he had already been struggling to suppress his panic over being cut off from his Psionic abilities and mental link to his brother. His face had been flushed with the effort of keeping himself calm and forcing his body to obey his mental commands, but all the color drained from Dominic Pendergrast's face as he gasped wordlessly at a member of Mutant X entering his bedroom. Jesse merely stood there for an equally motionless second, utterly stunned not just by the freak coincidence but by the fact he had suspected the pseudo-New Mutants to have been tormenting someone, not that one of them was the person being tormented, to make no mention of the fact he had nearly run into the guy lips first.

Is this what Josh's wacky luck is like for him? some idle part of Jesse's mind wondered as he and Dominic Pendergrast blinked at one another. All the time? No wonder he can be a basketcase... Jesse's mind commented to itself. Then Dominic screamed.

"JEREMY!!!" Dominic cried at the top of his lungs, panic obviously lacing every syllable of his twin brother's name. "JEREMY!!! HELP!! QUICK—" Jesse massed as he straightened up, slugging Dominic Pendergrast in the solar plexus and knocking the wind and voice out of him. De-massing, Jesse clubbed Dominic over the back of the head with a double-fisted hammerblow, then paused after he collapsed into unconsciousness, listening to see if the other Pendergrast twin was responding to his brother's alarm. Jesse's expression shifted to confusion again as he looked around the room and its bizarre silver-blue mirror-image decor, then his eyes lit up in delight when he spotted the Pendergrast' twins' cellphones plugged into their extensive computer setups.

Yes! Jesse thought to himself. Kevin said he dosed the Dominion's Telecyber with Eve's anti-Psionic nanites; that must be this guy, why he's freaking out... Jesse reasoned. Looks like he's dark blue, and the reality-bending Illusionist is the silver twin. I can introduce Eve's nanites to Blue's computer system while he's powerless; he won't know they're there to do anything about it! Jesse thought with glee, heading over to the dark blue computer setup and spritzing it with several sprays of Eve's hacker nanites.

"System, dial Eve," Jesse whispered into his commring after he had delivered the nanites.

'Talk to me, Jesse,' Eve responded only half a moment later.

"Dunno if it's what we're looking for, but I found the computer system of the Telecyber Kevin incapacitated yesterday, applied your nanites," Jesse explained. "Spalding detected Kevin's astral jaunt, so we lost the element of surprise, but he and the rest of the team are keeping Dominique's people busy while Josh, Lexa and I look for their communications."

'Excellent. I'll get on that and see if I can at least map out their system, let the three of you know where you should be looking,' Eve replied. "Take care, and let me know if anything else develops," she finished.

"Will do," Jesse reassured her, then jumped when he lowered his hand and his commring automatically switched to an incoming transmission.

'JESS! I NEED YOU, NOW—' Shalimar's voice cried desperately from his commring before being cut off strangely, then the commline closed. It had almost sounded like the ring was muffled by something for an instant, its mic no longer capable of picking up Shalimar's voice before its vox-system automatically cut the transmission because she was no longer speaking to it.

Jesse didn't bother contemplating that; he simply turned to face where the rest of the team had stormed the warehouse and sprinted in a straight line, phasing through anything in his way.

Chris shouted what little breath he had managed to suck into his lungs in as powerful a concussive shout as he could, trying to blast Howlett away from his incoming lunge even as Chris dove to one side. Chris' plan worked by a few inches, Howlett's claws raking through the lower corner of Chris' unzipped leather jacket, instead of tearing through Chris' abdomen as they both hit the floor. Howlett was in poor enough shape that the double impact knocked the wind out of him, but he was still strong enough and fast enough to backfist Chris in the abdomen as Chris tried to scramble away.

Owen's head snapped around at the sound of Chris' clipped power shout because there had been a note of desperation in it. His green-brown from lid-to-lid Ursine eyes widened in alarm as he heard the impact of a large fist into flesh, as well as the sound of a bone snapping. Chris made a pained noise, then gave a breathless gasp as his upper body rose into Owen's view above the quartz barrier, Chris' back smashing into its upper edge painfully before he collapsed back behind it. The sound of his fall was that of a body hitting the floor either unconscious or in no shape to do anything about the landing, not even slapping out of it with one limb or tucking and rolling. Owen's eyes narrowed in Ursine rage as he realized Howlett had snuck up on Chris, attacked him, injured another member of Owen's Pack, the one he had known longest after Jamie and Eve, possibly injured him badly...

With a bellowing roar of fury, Owen turned from Crystal's prostrate form and leaped nearly twenty feet across the entrance hallway at an angle, dropping behind Crystal's quartz barrier with his massive arms spread and ready to do whatever they had to in order to protect his Packmate.

Howlett had sneered in delight at feeling one of Chris' floating ribs snap under the impact of his fist, which also sent the little man flying up into the air. He hoped to put the noisy midget in enough pain and panic he would start hyperventilating. . .Howlett planned to tear his jacket and shirt away just so he could watch the unattached portion of the broken rib flex in and out of the pale punk's torso, maybe step on him and break a few more ribs, both sides; he'd like to see the midget do his fancy screaming tricks when half his lungs were smashed...

Owen landed between Chris' collapsed form and Howlett's only beginning to rise again one. Howlett's head snapped up in surprise, then winced when his concussion responded badly to the sudden movement. Owen snapped one combat-booted foot out, kicking Howlett in the bridge of the nose. He wanted to kick Howlett as hard as he possibly could, rearing his leg back and hunching his entire body into bringing it forward, but he'd had a glimpse of the wolverine pseudo-Feral's speed and strength the day before. Instead, he used his own impressive Ursine strength to flash his foot forward faster than Howlett could respond to from his only partially-risen position, keeping tension in his hamstrings to snap his foot back out of reach before Howlett could grab it. There was a reason martial artists like Josh and Brennan called such kicks "snap kicks", and there was another advantage to it:

Howlett was stunned and blinded by the blow to his nose, so Owen delivered the kick he'd wanted to.

A fair number of Howlett's own ribs cracked when Owen's combat-booted foot plowed into his sternum with all the force Owen could muster. The blow actually lifted Howlett's broad form off the ground, not all the way back up to his feet, but high enough for Howlett to stagger his feet back under himself when he had already been getting up. He straightened up a little bit as he gaspingly tried to regain his breath, then suddenly lashed forward at Owen's gut with one clawed hand.

"No," Owen spat disgustedly as he swatted Howlett's clawed hand away with the back of one fist. "You caught me by surprise yesterday, now I know how fast and strong you are," Owen snarled at him, bellowing back in rage when Howlett snarled at him. "Now it's a REAL fight!" he growled, stepping forward to meet Howlett as the wolverine pseudo-Feral rushed him.

Hartlich had grinned to see Howlett creeping up on Mutant X's Sonic Elemental, then winced when the two of them managed to clip each other, but he smirked at how the short guy came out on the predictably worse end of that deal. His bushy eyebrows rose in surprise when the Ursine Feral jumped over the wall, then frowned when he saw him do worse to Howlett than Howlett had done to the Elemental. The two huge Ferals dove into each other, but the Ursine had better control. He was channeling his rage into his attacks, but it was a cold rage, watching, analyzing; he was blocking or dodging everything Howlett threw at him, then venting his fury in controlled bursts when he struck. It all only made Howlett even more furious, which just made him make more mistakes, letting the Ursine block him and strike him all the more easily...

Scowling in irritation, Hartlich gestured at Owen, the pale blue glow of his power radiating from his hand. Just draining the heat from Owen instead of the entire environment around and including him was far more difficult for Hartlich, but he wanted to shift the advantage in their fight over to Howlett, not inconvenience him along with Owen.

Owen's eyes widened when his vision suddenly dimmed slightly, his breath simultaneously fogging out of his snarling mouth and his torso contracting painfully as violent shivers set in along with a bone-deep cold. Howlett grinned and lunged for Owen's throat, recognizing what his teammate was doing, but Owen simply let the convulsion of his torso make him hunch over that much faster, ducking neatly beneath Howlett's reaching hands. Inhaling deeply, Owen forced his ribs to expand and the interior muscles of his torso to relax, restoring his full range of motion even as the heat bled out of him faster. He reached one long arm out, twisting to one side to reach behind himself to snatch the shredded corner of Chris' jacket, tearing the head of the zipper free with a sharp yank.

Owen thrust with his legs to stand up abruptly, driving his shoulder into Howlett's torso as he rose and raising the elbow of his free hand with his hand at his own sternum, laying the back of his forearm and his biceps against Howlett's front as Howlett gasped in breathless pain from the impact to his snapped ribs. Owen unfolded his arm with a downward-sweeping motion of his hand, flinging Howlett into the floor dismissively. His other hand came up to his shoulder as he turned to spot Hartlich directing his thermal powers at Owen; he flung that hand forward directly at Hartlich, hurling the metal and leather chunk of Chris' jacket at the man's forehead as hard as he could.

Harlich's eyes widened in surprise at how suddenly Owen responded to his attack, instinctively flinging his other hand forward to blast the incoming projectile with the pale reddish orb of heat he had drained from Owen. Unfortunately for Hartlich, he hadn't had time to drain too much heat from Owen, which was a significantly lesser amount than he had drained from both Chris and his surrounding environment. Hartlich's enhanced Thermal abilities still magnified that heat impessively, but the only result of that was Hartlich being struck in the forehead by a red-hot chunk of metal traveling at nearly a hundred miles per hour, not to mention reeking of burning leather.

Hartlich keeled over, unconscious.

Jeremy Pendergrast had decided to play possum when the rest of Mutant X's team stormed in after the Ferals, waiting to see what would happen. He and Dominic were identical twins, both Telecybers and Illusionists, but after Dominique's modifications, their abilities were no longer evenly split. They could channel them through one another, but Dominic was now so much of a Telecyber he was practically part of the internet himself, and Jeremy's Illusionist abilities went so much farther than simple hallucinations. He could make people believe they were in an entirely different environment than they actually were, like he had done when he made Mutant X enter the GEMS building through the parking garage rather than the server room the day before. That was actually a rare Psionic ability in unmodified Psionics, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. Jeremy could also rewire his victims' brains, putting them in states of synesthesia or altered consciousness, even combining them with more traditional hallucinations to make them question their very sanity and reality.

He could also incite flashbacks, and specialized in his victims' most traumatic moments.

Watching the fight through slitted eyelids, Jeremy was pretty sure Vance was faking being taken down by the Electrical Elemental's blast, but Mutant X's Psionic had handled Spalding fairly handily. Jeremy hadn't noticed the Projectionist's astral form invading their compound because he had been focused on his brother, but that didn't matter now. There had been too much strange interference from whatever they had done to disrupt his mental hold on Mutant X's non-Psionics the day before for him to figure out where their Projectionist had gone, but that didn't make the broad-shouldered young man immune to Jeremy's powers. He had made the deep-voiced Psionic hallucinate he was actually entering the GEMS building's server room and prevented him from hearing any of their communication devices clamoring for their attention, after all.

Dominic had said he channeled Jeremy's flashback ability into someone who had been approaching the real server room with advanced electronics the day before, shortly before he had been overwhelmed by his connection to the servers and something had blocked his powers. Jeremy had a feeling the missing Mutant X Psionic had been that something, given that Dominic's bodyguard had been pinned to the server room wall in humiliating fashion. The idiot hadn't wanted to talk about it, but said that Mutant X's Psionic was named Kevin Tackleman. Jeremy had a feeling that if he made the fool relive his worst trauma now that it would just be his failure and humiliation the day before, but he could tell there was something else connected to this Kevin Tackleman person, something in the guard's and Tackleman's past.

Carefully keeping his lips and face from expressing the smirk he was internally feeling, Jeremy Pendergrast closed his eyes fully to keep their magenta glow from showing, then thrust Kevin Tackleman into his worst personal memory.

Kevin felt something wash over him, an odd sensation that also might have been somehow familiar, but he couldn't place it. He blinked in surprise and confusion, and when his eyes opened again, he was somewhere else.

A locker room. Cool, echoing, dank, fairly well-lit but still dim in areas, smelling of mildew, a melange of hair products, deodorants, and high-powered inexpensive colognes, and an overwhelming background of unwashed adolescent male. Something was pulling at Kevin's hair; he wanted to blink in surprise and look around, figure out what was happening, but his view didn't change in the slightest. He was still staring into a locker, watching as his own hands placed a hairbrush inside it when the pulling sensation stopped.

Oh, SHIT. Kevin thought as his hands picked up a watch from the locker's shelf, strapping it onto his left wrist. Even as his mind was freaking out, Kevin's body checked the time, the display on the watch reading 3:06 PM FRI APR 04.

This is that day; I dawdled after gym, hoping the team would leave when school let out, that I could avoid... Kevin's thoughts crashed into one another as realization and panic struck, his mind a stumbling wreck of gibberish as he tried to avoid remembering what happened next, as he tried to understand how he was reliving that day...

It was almost like the panic of Kevin's current mind triggered the panic in Kevin's past body when raucous laughter and jeering calls echoed through the locker room as a number of footsteps entered it. Kevin's body froze for a split second in panic, then hastily shut the gym locker door as swiftly as possible without making noise. Kevin's view spun as his body dashed to the end of the row of lockers, putting his back to the sides of the lockers that stood back to back on the end of the row, one facing the aisle Kevin's locker was in and one facing the next aisle over.

"YOU IN HERE, TACKLEMAN?" an angry, egostistical voice called out, a voice full of machismo that was being driven on by the supportive laughter and belligerent cries of the speaker's fellows.

Jason Johnson, both Kevin's current and past selves thought, his conscious mind with disgust and anger, his teenaged self with fear, despair, and longing. He had found Jason attractive since the start of their sophomore year, and that attraction had only grown as Jason joined the football team and grew into a star player, lifting weights and adding muscle, growing into his height. He had become the team quarterback and a Big Man On Campus even if he was only a junior and not a senior, and Kevin had responded "God, yes," in a distracted tone of voice when Shannon Leigh had commented, "Lord, he's hot," the day before when Jason had walked by and taken a seat in their study hall.

Kevin had believed Shannon to be a friend he could confide in; they lived only a few blocks apart and had often walked home from school together from a young age. Shannon had still spoken to Kevin even though she had become a part of the "in" crowd as a cheerleader and Kevin had been deemed an accident-prone freak, despite his good looks and deep voice. He had blushed at the look she had turned to give him, and shrugged; Shannon had merely shaken her head with a smirk. Kevin had thought that was it, his old friend had discovered he was into guys, so what? But whispers and snickers and girls speaking to one another behind their hands had been all around Kevin the entire day, even the term "Cocksucker!" being hollered across the cafeteria, just as Kevin had entered for lunch.

Shannon had obviously told someone, probably her fellow cheerleaders after school, and now everyone knew.

Kevin had blushed more that day than he had since beginning puberty, and every time that day had been from humilating embarassment. He had gone to the library to do his homework instead of study hall, and loitered in gym, his last class of the day, hoping the football team would leave for the weekend and he could avoid being confronted by the object of his crush.

So much for that plan.

"There you are!" Jason exclaimed as he came around the corner, his face lit up with delight. Kevin blinked in shock; the rest of the football team was still carrying on and making noise in the middle of the locker room, closer to the door...

"Kevin..." Jason said, drawing out the second syllable of Kevin's name teasingly, but it sounded. . .well, teasing, amused, not at all taunting. Kevin's teenaged hopes had soared, maybe Jason wasn't holding Kevin's attraction against him? Maybe he saw it as a compliment? Could Jason Johnson actually be open-minded, instead of just the all-star jock cliché? Maybe, Kevin's teenaged subconscious had dared to hope, just maybe even. . .something more than that?

"Kevin..." Jason repeated his name as he stepped closer, the noise of the rest of his team falling away, but Kevin had stopped noticing them, able only to pay attention to Jason as he stepped closer, as his hand raised up... "..You got something you want to say to me?" Jason asked as he moved right up into Kevin's space, his reaching hand landing on Kevin's shoulder, just like a bro, like Kevin was one of the guys, like he could confide in Jason, but then the hand slid across his shoulder, gently but firmly, sliding up to cradle the side of Kevin's neck...

Kevin's eyelids had fluttered as he gasped out Jason's name, breathlessly. Was he really going to...

"Jesus, your mouth..." Jason had murmured, his first two fingers beginning to cross Kevin's jawline as he stretched his thumb to stroke its tip over Kevin's plush, flushed and panting lips. Kevin made an inarticulate noise of pleasure and desire as Jason's arm surged forward, grabbing Kevin by the back of the neck and beginning to haul him forward, pulling his lips towards Jason's...

..Then Jason shifted his hand slightly, dropping it down just a bit and opposing his thumb across the other side of Kevin's neck as his fingers pressed beneath Kevin's jaw, his forefinger's knuckle and the span between his forefinger and thumb stretched across Kevin's layrynx. He stepped forward at the same time, all the way into Kevin and suddenly raising his knee to smash it into Kevin's groin even as his hand shoved Kevin away from him, smacking the back of his skull into the sides of the lockers he had just been pressed up against.

"..Your mouth has fucking faggot cocksucker lips!!!" Jason snarled, allowing his true emotions to show on his face as he sputtered at Kevin in rage and disgust, tightening his grip on Kevin's throat and ramming him bodily into the lockers again as the rest of the foorball team cheered and hollered in delight, cackling at how their quarterback had played the silly faggot, how his plan for them to hang back and quiet down had worked perfectly, tricked the cocksucker into falling for it hook, line, and sinker...

This isn't happening... Kevin told himself. This isn't happening; it isn't real, you're just remembering it! Kevin insisted to himself. It's just a flashback... and he knew it was, but that didn't make his re-immersion into the experience any less intense. Knowing it wasn't actually happening didn't keep the sensations, the pain, the building fear and overwhelming anguish from feeling any less real, even if he knew they weren't.

The football team had harassed Kevin across the boys' locker room, pushing him, cuffing the back of his head, stepping on his feet and tripping him as they forced him to keep moving, passing him back and forth as he stumbled, never quite managing to regain his footing before someone else was knocking him around. They had jeered, sneering his name, laughing at him, calling him faggot and cocksucker and worse. The abuse continued once they had reached the showers, keeping Kevin stumbling along inside the knot of their bodies, herding him through the showers into the pool. One of Jason's sycophants had spat on Kevin while they moved through the tiled corridor, and then they were all doing it. They had spat in Kevin's hair, his face, in his eyes, still hurling verbal abuse all the while.

Kevin had staggered into the pool's room, blinded, off-balance, and in pain, hyperventilating in his panic. The abuse had turned up a notch once they were in the isolated pool room, the chances of anyone overhearing and stopping them minimal, much less with the privacy of the serpentine showers and whole locker room between them and any witnesses. The football team's voices had grown harsher, louder as they spread out slightly by the pool, Kevin staggering that much farther between one of them and the next between shoves, still never quite being allowed to catch his balance. The cuffs to the back of Kevin's head had stopped when they had all begun spitting on him, but then the pushes turned into punches. Only to his shoulders, his back, his chest as he tried to fend them off, just a new way of passing him back and forth and keeping Kevin off balance.

He had been blinded by the spit in his eyes, seeing the world only as whirling colors and blurry, mocking forms that abused him as Kevin was propelled into the pool's room, then knocked back and forth at its edge. Kevin had tried to flail his arms into his attackers, tried to catch himself against them so that he might hold on and regain his balance, but he was denied at every turn and stumble. Finally, a fist struck him across the jaw, and the sudden shock and pain brought his arms up unexpectedly quickly as he fell into the next football team member. Kevin's survival instincts lashed out in his panic now that the line of violence had been crossed by the team in gerneral and not just their leader, and Kevin had unknowingly used his telekinetic punch ability for the first time, his flailing fist and other elbow striking the two linebackers he stumbled into far harder than he should have been able to.

The linebackers had fallen with cries of surprise and pain, toppling into several of their teammates each and resulting in half a dozen football team members collapsing to the tiled pool room floor. Kevin had wiped frantically at his eyes with both hands, trying to rub the spit and tears away so that he could see properly as he finally regained his feet. Kevin had raised his sixteen year old head to see Jason Johnson standing right in front of him, still sneering in disgust.

Jason spat directly in Kevin's face, which was somehow all the more startling, even though it shouldn't have been.

"You disgust me, Tackleman!" Jason had snarled, heaving for breath in his fury, to the point that his frame was quivering with rage. "You cocksucking little faggot, you don't deserve to live, you fucking FREAK of fucking nature..."

Jason had simply cut himself off like a switch had been thrown, going from speaking to moving, stepping forward with his chest outthrust, like he was just going to bowl Kevin over, but then one arm flashed forward. Jason's fists had been held back at his hips to project the menace of his posture, then one was hooking up in an arc to slam into Kevin's solar plexus. Kevin hadn't seen the blow coming at all, was thrown off by Jason's sudden switch from furious snarling, and the impact drove all the breath from Kevin's lungs. It also stunned the nerve cluster that directed his diaphragm, preventing Kevin from drawing a new breath. Not only that, but the unexpected blow propelled Kevin into the air, sending him flying back a pace to land badly on his stumbling heels.

Kevin's body had instinctively backpeddled even as his conscious mind tried to grasp what had happened; the backs of Kevin's heels struck the raised plastic moulding at the edge of the pool even as he was beginning to go down.

Kevin had fallen ass-first into the pool, his arms clutched around his stomach, still unable to breathe.

Josh cocked his head, listening to the sound of Owen roaring in fury. A moment later something that had to be another Feral snarled, then Owen bellowed back, cutting the enemy pseudo-Feral off. Josh scoffed, shaking his head —Owen sounded unimpressed and disgusted, as well as furious, so that portion of the fight was going fine, at least— then vaulted his way up into the steel racking that formed the storage bays at the back of the warehouse.

It took him only a second to spring from one column of bays to the ones across the aisle from them, landing a bay higher. Zig-zagging back and forth over the aisle, Josh ascended the warehouse's full height in mere moments, springing from the top of one rack up to the steel rafters that supported the building's industrial ceiling. Swinging from arm to arm almost like they were monkey bars in a playground, Josh swiftly reached the safety-railing enclosed ladder that led to the roof hatch. Easily squirming through the eighteen-inch gaps in the safety structure with his feline flexibility, he ascended the ladder to discover the roof hatch was padlocked shut, with a shiny new heavy-duty padlock, its hasp nearly half an inch in diameter.

"Well, Hell, I'm not tearing that free. . .or if I do, the momentum it would take would throw me back down this ladder..." he muttered unhappily, peering at the hatch and trying to brainstorm a solution; he didn't want to waste time going all the way back into the warehouse to find a crowbar or something he could use as a tool to force the hatch. A moment later, Josh snarled in frustrated disgust; there wasn't any way to remove the lock, short of unlocking it. The hasp it was threaded through fit flush to the bracket attaching the hinged portion to the frame, so there wasn't even the tiniest bit of slack to budge the door open even a crack, much less wide enough to fit the tip of some sort of pry bar in. Twisting around to check the hatch's other side, Josh discovered the hinges were on the inside, to prevent exposure to the elements, but it was actually a jumbo-industrial sized piano hinge, fitting flush across the length of the hatch in its frame. The stupid thing was even soldered or welded into place, not screwed or bolted in, so he couldn't unscrew the hinges to open the hatch the wrong way, even if he went back to find a screwdriver!

Josh snarled in frustration with his continuously bizarre luck.

"Wait a second...!" he exclaimed under his breath happily, squirming back around to face the ladder properly again and looking up at the lock. "Yes!" he declared in a whisper, seeing what he'd hoped for. The hasp built into the hatch was part of a four-inch square plate the had been attached to it the same as the hinges had, but the hinged portion was only an eighth of an inch thick, screwed into the hatch's frame. The frame and the hatch itself were clearly not a matched set; the hatch being heavy sheet steel and the frame made of some sort of fiberglass or other artificial material. "I am totally bendy enough to make this work!" Josh enthused, then stepped off the ladder.

Putting one foot on a horizontal portion of the safety railing enclosing the ladder, Josh hiked his other knee up to his chest, then extended his leg across the enclosure at chest height, putting the ball of that foot on the next horizontal strut up. Reaching up, Josh grasped the vertical portion of the safety railing just below where the top horizontal strut was flush with the building's ceiling. Twisting away from the ladder, he bent over backward in mid-air, stretched awkwardly across the interior of the safety enclosure at an angle. Stretching out with his free hand, he reached the other vertical strut across from his first hand, his shoulders against the ladder and his first foot now dangling in mid-air, pulled away from the lower horizontal strut when he twisted. Hiking that knee to his chest just as he had the first one, Josh straightened his hips to raise his pelvis, lying horizontally in mid-air, braced across the interior of the ladder's railing, the sole of his free foot facing upwards.

With an explosive exhalation of breath that tightened his torso the same as a bellowed kihap, Josh fired his foot upwards, smashing his heel into the edge of the hatch, just above the square of its locking hasp. He grinned at the soft crack-snapping as the hinged portion of the hasp tore its screws free of the fiberglass frame, the hatch swinging upward and open violently on its well-maintained hinges. The satisfied grin on Josh's face fell off and transformed into an alarmed expression as the hatch finished its 180-degree arc and banged noisily onto the warehouse's rooftop. Dropping his hips, then thrusting pelvically, Josh thrust both feet up through the opened hatch and back over his own head; yanking with his arms and rotating them at the same time, he flung himself up and back through the hatch, in the reverse of a curling dive forward.

Leaping forward again as soon as his crouching landing had folded his legs beneath him, Josh sprang over the hatch's opening and the hatch itself, twisting in mid-air to land facing the hatch's edge. He snatched it up, lifting it even as he rose and stepped around to the side of the hatch, continuing its motion with one arm as he crouched and positioned his other hand over the edge of the rooftop access. Catching the hatch as it fell back toward its closed position, Josh carefully lowered it closed and slid his fingers out of the way, gripping the hatch's edge with his other hand and lowering it into position as far as he could before releasing it, hoping to minimize any further noise and avoid attracting the curiosity or attention of any of Dominique's pseudo-New Mutants.

Head cocked to listen for sounds of alarm that the enemy had noticed him on their roof, Josh peered around the warehouse's rooftop and grinned. There was indeed a satellite dish on the southeast corner of the roof, not all that far from where the roof access at the rear of the building emerged. Looking around the rest of the rooftop to be sure there weren't any other potential surprises or places for surprises to lurk, Josh grinned more to see a few skylights spread over the open portions of the warehouse's floor. He could even tell where the fight was by the electric blue of one of Brennan's tesla coils reflecting off the underside of one of them. Josh was pleased that he'd be able to go check on Kevin, see how the fight was going, then frowned when a brilliant magenta-pink flash lit up the same skylight, far brighter than Brennan's bolt had been.

That can't be good, Josh thought to himself. Psi-pink like when world went totally skewy yesterday. Gotta do like Jess and Lexa said, finish this up... he decided, hurrying over to the satellite dish and fishing the nanite dispenser Kevin had given him out of one pocket and his phone out of the other. He thumbed the second speed-dial without looking even as he spritzed nanites over the dish's wiring and into the harware box the wires were connected to.

'Talk to me, Josh,' Eve said barely half a ring later, the tone of her voice sounding the slightest bit distracted, like she was actively working on something while waiting for Josh to explain why he'd called.

"Eve, I checked the roof and found the satellite dish, on Lexa's suggestion. Dominique's goons don't have any reason to not be using it, so I spritzed its wiring and the box it's connected to with your nanites," he explained.

'Oh, excellent,' Eve replied, her voice's tone shifting to pleased. 'Jesse just introduced them to the Telecyber's computer setup. If they're maintaining contact with Dominique or the Dominion Council Head at all, it's got to be through one of the two, if not both. Dual input should let me map the system and track everything down that much faster; Good Job,' she told him.

"Alright, there's skylights up here, so I'm gonna go check on the team; these guys were scary powerful yesterday," Josh replied. "If it looks like the team has things well in hand, I'll go see what else I can find, but I have a feeling I'll be making a surprise entrance, instead. You're confident with two communications areas hit by your nanites, right?" he asked, even as he pocketed the nanite dispenser and began quietly heading for the skylight he'd spotted before.

'Definitely, and Lexa and Jesse are still searching. Let me know if you find anything else, or if someone needs backup. Eve out,' she finished.

"Out," Josh muttered distractedly in response, then closed his phone and re-pocketed it. He hadn't seen any more flashes of light from the skylight over the fight, that he could identify or otherwise.

He also wasn't hearing Chris, Owen, or anyone else fighting, either.

Smiling to himself as he approached the rear door of the building, the Creator was pleased to have almost all of his goals reached. It would take some time to go through Dominique's research and correct the flaws, but he was certain the process would inspire him with even more new ideas, and learning from the mistakes of others was always prudent. He merely needed to clean up her loose ends, gathering any data they might provide to be sure he had gained everything he could from his former assistant, and he would be one step closer.

After that, he only needed to deal with Mutant X and Dr. Aybel. She alone might have enough genetics knowledge to potentially counter his ultimate plans for modifying the human race, but there was also much he might learn from her, since the Dominion had been unaware of the second Mutant X team until recently. Who knows what strange and wonderful genetic secrets she might have discovered over the years since she'd left Genomex? And certainly over the last few while running the Californian division of Mutant X.

The Dominion Council Head was dead, the wretched traitor, and most of the Council itself was, as well. It would take very little effort to restructure the Dominion to serve his purposes directly, since it was already doing so for the most part. With most of the upper echelon of leadership deceased, it would be simple for him to take full, direct command and switch the Dominion's purpose from suppressing the ideas he didn't want discovered to implementing his own ideas upon the world. And he could begin the turning of the wheels of that process while he dealt with following up on Dominique's and Dr. Aybel's research. Perhaps he could even coordinate things so that Mutant X investigated one of those operations and set a trap for them, eliminate that threat while accomplishing another goal entirely.

Yes, that would be splendid.

Still smiling, the Creator let himself in the building through the back, Dominique's protocols at the ready.

Owen spun back to Howlett, knowing the wolverine pseudo-Feral was hurting but that he wouldn't be out of the fight yet. Howlett was indeed gingerly getting back up to his feet, snarling angrily, but holding his chest carefully, like it was only his ribs bothering him. He was no longer moving with the staggering motions of his concussed state. . .was his Feral healing enhanced enough he had already recovered from that?

As Howlett advanced on him warily, Owen snarled and shook himself, throwing off the chill and resultant weakness of Hartlich's power. Owen strode forward to take care of Howlett, finish ripping him to pieces for hurting Chris, just like Jamie, his poor Jamie was hurt...

The Feral vision of Owen's green-brown Ursine eyes narrowed into tunnel vision focused on Howlett. In his emotionally distracted state, Owen didn't notice the fact that the edges of his vision had actually greyed out, darkness slowly closing in around the target he was focussed on...

"Guess again, Sparky!" Vance declared with a laugh, jumping back up to his feet as Brennan whirled from looking towards Owen's fight by the crystal barrier back to face Vance again. The pale blue nimbus of Vance's power was writhing around his lithe fingers once more as he rose, the layer of sweat he had used his pseudo-Molecular powers to manipulate hovering just above his skin. It had conducted Brennan's electricity and caused it to go around Vance, rather than passing through him and knocking him out. With a gesture at Brennan with one hand while he turned and swept his other blue-glowing hand at the puddle of water that had bowled Spalding over, Vance swept it up into the air to combine with the half-evaporated mist cloud of his sweat and interposed the mass between himself and Brennan. Brennan frowned with frustration at Vance having his electricity-proof shield back; Vance turned to face the direction Brennan had been a moment ago, a frown of concentration on his young face as he gestured with one blue-nimbused hand.

Brennan turned with alarm to see what Vance was doing, seeing Owen advancing on Howlett. The back of Owen's shirt was half-darkened with the sweat between his shoulder blades and along the muscles of his lumbar region. Even as Brennan noticed this and saw that Owen was literally dripping with sweat, he saw the darkened portion of Owen's shirt spread another inch or so wider. There was a salty rime forming on Owen's skin; Vance was literally draining the moisture out of Owen's body.

An angry growl built in Owen's chest as he advanced on Howlett, rising up and spilling out from under his snarling upper lip. Subconsciously and emotionally distracted, he hadn't noticed when he slipped from rational thought into Feral instinct; Howlett had hurt his Pack, so Howlett had to be put down. Owen was completely unaware of the strange sensation of sweat flowing out of his every pore despite the fact he wasn't overheated—he had been mildly exerting himself beating Crystal down with her own quartz, already sweating just slightly, and Hartlich had thrown off his body's temperature, making everything feel warm to Owen after how cold he had been a moment ago.

Owen staggered in mid-stride, blinking in surprise as his limbs began to fail him without his awareness anything was wrong. He blinked more as he realized his vision was dimming; he was actually almost blind, had only been able to still see Howlett because the pseudo-Feral had been his point of focus, also advancing towards Owen himself...

Slowing to a stop, Owen looked down in confusion at the odd sensation of his clothes being soaked, his socks squelching in the liquid in his boots, his jeans chafing and shirt and underwear clinging unpleasantly. He looked up again when Howlett laughed at him, but the wolverine pseudo-Feral choked his mirth off when laughing made his broken ribs flare up in pain, one hand coming up to brace his chest as he also halted his advance.

"My pals are better'n yours..." Howlett sneered at Owen with a grin, knowing Vance was immobilizing Owen since Howlett was too injured to take him properly. Howlett was more than sadist enough to have no qualms about tearing into Owen when he couldn't defend himself, and slowly began moving forward again.

Owen frowned angrily, opening his mouth to protest that Howlett was full of shit, Mutant X was his family, the best friends anyone could ever have, far better than Howlett and his pack of sickos...

..But there wasn't enough moisture in Owen's mouth and throat for him to be able to speak.

Owen's dry eyes rolled back in his head as he passed out, Howlett closing in to maim him.

"NO!" Brennan cried out as he saw Owen collapse bonelessly and Howlett moving in. He knew he couldn't blast Vance to stop him from dehydrating Owen, but the fact that he was dehydrating Owen while maintaining the screening mist between himself and Brennan meant he couldn't stop Brennan from blasting Howlett.

Thrusting one arm forward, Brennan cut loose with all the energy he could, determined to blast Howlett away from Owen, off his feet, and knock him unconscious, no matter how tough the pseudo-Feral was. If the blast accidentally killed Howlett, Brennan might feel bad about it later, but only a litte. The guy was a monster and about to maim or kill one of Brennan's teammates; they had seen him take ridiculous amounts of punishment and still get up, so Brennan wasn't holding back.

The titanic bolt streaked across the warehouse's side entrance hallway, over Owen's crumpled, sweat-soaked form and slamming into Howlett's already-injured chest. Howlett cried out in pain as he was blown off his feet, limbs twitching with electrical jolts as he attempted to bring his hands to his chest, blue crackles of static sparking from the bits of metal on his jeans and boots, from his belt buckle, the ends of his hair and overgrown sideburns, and even across his involuntarily-clenching teeth. He slammed into the quartz barrier Crystal had erected, far harder than his backfist had propelled Chris into its other end, and collapsed at its base, crumpled, unconscious, and smoking slightly.

Brennan turned even as the enormous tesla bolt left his hand; he had thrown most of his remaining energy into it, but he couldn't use his electricity to take Vance down, anyway. He had to strike while Vance was distracted by Brennan switching targets, before he coallesced his mist cloud into a dense enough form to strike or restrain Brennan with, before he shifted to draining Brennan's body of water like he had done to Owen.

Sprinting forward at Vance, Brennan poured on as much speed as he could, his booted feet pounding into the warehouse floor as he charged at Vance as fast as he could. Brennan sneered angrily as he ran, plastering the fiercest expression of 'I'm coming over there to kick your ass into next week!' on his face as he could. Given that he had been on the streets at ten years of age, joined a rough crowd in high school and became a fighter, ran a gang in his twenties and been to prison more than once, it was an expression Brennan was well-practiced at.

Vance gasped and snapped both hands down at the floor between him and Brennan's speedily approaching form, ceasing his control of the water in Owen's body and slapping the mist cloud he had floating between himself and Brennan down to the floor, forming a thin, slick surface. Vance intended to refocus his powers on Brennan when Brennan slipped, to control the moisture in his body and propel it away from Vance, yanking Brennan off his feet and possibly even tearing his cells apart. However, Brennan had been counting on that reaction; he had put the threatening expression on his face for precisely that reason.

Brennan bent the knee of one leg deeply as that foot smacked into the ground just before Vance's instant puddle, thrusting that leg into a full extension that propelled Brennan into a flying jumpkick. He twisted in mid-air as Vance's eyes widened even further in greater alarm, raising the knee of his other leg to the opposite shoulder as he turned his side to Vance. Although he normally conserved his breath when fighting, used silently explosive breaths to focus his martial arts strikes to avoid attracting any other attention, this time Brennan bellowed a violent kihap as he fired his heel into Vance's solar plexus, knocking the young man off his feet and folding him around Brennan's foot as the wind was devastatingly knocked out of him. Brennan retracted his leg as he completed his jump, he and Vance both falling to the floor, Vance collapsing while Brennan landed on his feet in a low sideways crouch. Even as he was landing, Brennan smashed the point of his elbow into the back of Vance's skull where it was bent over the spot Brennan's knee had just been, ensuring the pseudo-Molecular was out for the count.

"Good job, Jeremy!" Spalding called out when she saw the Illusionist had immobilized Kevin in a fugue state. She was still entangled in the sprinkler pipe and dangling precariously from the ceiling, but she was no longer nearly being crushed by it, nor spinning in mid-air to keep her disoriented. Her eyes snapped up to examine the rest of the fight when Brennan's titanic lightning bolt dropped Howlett; she frowned when she saw him take out Vance with equal ease. Her frown shifted into a smirk as Brennan straightened up, turning to see Adenric grab Shalimar's ankle as they both fell to the floor.

"You like lightning, huh?" Spalding said darkly as her eyes lit up magenta and an aura of shifting shades of pink expended from her blond head where it was suspended almost against the ceiling. Brennan spun around to face her and Pendergrast, his eyes widening as he realized Kevin was standing there motionless, his body twitching with violent jerks of distress, like he was having a nightmare. Brennan drew an arm back, to throw a tesla bolt at Spalding before she could follow through on her mocking threat, but he was too late; Spalding still had one arm free with the way the sprinkler pipe had coiled diagonally across her.

Thrusting her own arm forward, Karen Spalding fired every iota of psychic energy in her immediate environment at Brennan. Jeremy already had a Psionic link to Tackleman, so she wouldn't affect his powers unless she deliberately drained it, but she didn't bother. She merely drained everything else around her, including Kevin himself. The resultant phenominal charge of Psionic energy was blasted at Brennan in something considerably more than the average Psionic starburst, boosted by as much of her own pseudo-Psionic power as Spalding could put behind it.

The shifting pink bubble of her power extended from Spalding's head to her outthrust hand, its aura filling her end of the hallway only visible on the Psionic plane. The blazing bolt of Psionic energy that speared from her hand was entirely visible, however, streaking across the small number of yards between her and Brennan to smash into his torso. The blast was not just Psionic, not even just Psionic and concussive. . .there was so much energy being propelled through it that the blast ionized the air it streaked through, striking Brennan with a combination of force, mental disruption, and alien electricity his Electrical Elemental physiology could not adapt to fast enough.

Brennan's eyes had widened, then he collapsed, unconscious, without even a cry of protest.

Shalimar and Adenric crashed to the floor as Brennan's focused tesla coil took out Howlett, Adenric landing on his front with one arm folded beneath him and the other stretched out to grasp Shalimar's ankle. Shalimar landed awkwardly on her back, yanked out of her backhandspring by Adenric's grip, but she managed to tuck her chin forward and slap both arms into the floor as she hit, absorbing most of the impact with her ams and glutes and avoiding slamming the back of her skull against the warehouse's concrete floor.

Thinking quickly, Shalimar threw her free leg up into the air and across herself, rolling to one side of Adenric's supine position and attempting to force him to let go by twisting her ankle against his grip, hoping that would force his gecko-adhesion to let go as well. Sadly for Shalimar, Adenric's pseudo-Feral abilities were enhanced enough that her momentum wasn't enough to break his hold, and her boots were form-fittingly tight enough that she couldn't complete the revolution of her ankle, which resulted in her awkardly rolling over her own leg, only her Feline Feral flexibility keeping her from seriously injuring herself in the process.

Adenric sneered with glee as he pushed himself up off the floor with his free arm, shuffling his knees under himself as he withdrew his extended arm and dragged Shalimar closer to him.

"Jordan! Let's see how claustrophobic the catgirl is!" Crystal called over to him, having gotten to her feet once Owen had been distracted by Howlett and Hartlich.

Jordan Adenric grinned viciously, his purple-ringed gecko eyes looking all the more malevolent as he planted his free palm in the middle of Shalimar's back, between the bases of her shoulder blades. Shalimar had scrabbled against the floor in an attempt to keep Adenric from manipulating her position, but the warehouse's smooth concrete floor didn't give her hands any traction. She attempted to roll back over onto her back again, trying to kick her free leg back across herself once more to relieve the tension of being twisted against her pinned leg, but Adenric's palm came down between her shoulder blades before she could, pinning her in the awkward position.

Shalimar twisted her arms behind her back, one reaching backwards over its shoulder, trying to grab Adenric's wrist where it was just above her back. Her Feline Feral flexibility enabled her to reach his wrist with one hand, but she couldn't exert enough leverage to even budge his arm, much less break his adhesive gecko grip. He didn't have his fist clenched in her jacket; he merely had the Reptus pseudo-Feral toepads of his palm bonded to the dense canvas of her coat, dragging her backwards by the jacket's tension against her shoulders.

Adenric got one foot under himself and heaved with his arms as he straightened up, yanking Shalimar off the ground and hurling her in Crystal's general direction as he twisted, his gecko toepads releasing her jacket at the same time he let go of her ankle. Adenric wasn't as strong as Howlett, probably not even as strong as Owen, but that was still more than strong enough to hurl Shalimar's 5'6" frame several yards through the air.

Shalimar's limbs flailed as she flew through the air not under her own power, her eyes flashing gold as they converted to feline slits. Since she was already facing the floor, it was a simple enough matter to pull her hands and feet beneath herself, tucking her legs up under herself to land in a crouch. Crystal shouted a protest when she saw Shalimar prepared to land, diving forward to catch her. Shalimar sprang the instant she landed, her feet whisking out of the reach of Crystal's sparkling crystalline fingertips by less than an inch.

Crystal bellowed in outrage where she had landed on the floor much as Adenric had, one arm beneath her and the other reaching for Shalimar's foot. She slapped her splayed palm against the floor as she yelled, sending her power racing after Shalimar. Quartz crystals erupted from the warehouse floor in a line, each taking only a few hundredths of a second to spring up from the concrete and each crystal growing a few inches taller than the one before it. Crystal scrambled to get her hands and knees under her as Shalimar cried out in surprise when the wall of crystals sprang up beneath her, knocking her sideways out of the air. Crystal sprang forward awkwardly, landing in a clanking quartz belly-flop as Shalimar fell to the floor, but the maneuver got her close enough to brush the glimmering pale yellow glow of her power over the toe of one of Shalimar's boots with her quartz fingertips.

Shalimar gasped in panic as she felt her foot and whole leg immobilized by the crystalline structure growing over it in the blink of an eye. "JESS!" Shalimar desperately cried into her commring as the crystals spread down her other leg and up her torso, "I NEED YOU, NOW—" she screamed as her head was enveloped by the racing quartz, crystals spreading up her arm and hand to engulf her commring, freezing her in place.

She attempted to flex her arms, bend her knees, shatter the crystals, but their matrix was too strong.

Still smiling as he explored the building, the Creator was amused by the efforts of Dominique and her minions. He supposed their efforts at concealment were acceptable, and they seemed to have manufactured a decent enough headquarters —he had to admit (if only to himself) that it might have taken him some time to track the location down if Dominique hadn't confessed it to him. It was rather adorable, the way they had set themselves up in the middle of a city, rather than in isolation the way the Creator had always hidden himself– –he supposed they hadn't wanted to risk having him stumble across their existence in the middle of nowhere by accident someday.

The Creator paused to frown as he peered curiously into one room as he went by. Was that. . .a demolished assortment of leather furniture? Other than being smashed into several dozen pieces, it appeared to be brand new. That was rather strange; what sorts of mental defects or personality flaws did Dominique's altered New Mutants have?

Shaking his head, the Creator continued on his way, wanting to be at the center of the building when he unleashed his surprise. Adam Kane's senses were only those of an admittedly perceptive middle-aged man, but even with that limitation, the Creator could still hear the howls and crashes of combat going on elsewhere in the compound.

Well, if Dominique's creations want to keep themselves busy and thus out of my way, that will suit my plans just fine, the Creator thought to himself with a smirk.

Lexa kept her eyes on Ferris as she shook her head dismissively, waiting for him to make his move. He chuckled at her reaction, lowering his eyes and his chin as he slowly raised one hand to flick his fingertips up at her in an equally dismissive 'you're ridiculous,' gesture.

Ferris suddenly thrust his upraised palm forward, wavering bands of electromagnetic energy radiating into it and blasting out in a less intense version of his ionizing maser blast.

Lexa had noted the relish with which he had explained how he'd outsmarted her, and she had seen how he enjoyed controlling Brennan and attempted to manipulate Jesse during their fight at the GEMS building the day before. She had been anticipating some sort of misdirection on Ferris' part and thrown herself out of the way even as he had been raising his hand, diving behind the steel utilitarian desk between them.

The desk absorbed the blast, beginning to glow with heat and the papers and blotter on top of it bursting into flame, but that single moment was all Lexa needed. She had figured the steel desk would interfere with a quick blast of electromagnetic energy, providing her cover for one shot. If Ferris focused on his plasma-generating maser beam, that would slice through any steel apparatus as well as her, but Lexa didn't intend to give him that chance. She was fumbling to use one shoe to slip the other off, cursing the fact she had chosen to wear above-the-ankle shoes with laces that morning, keeping her hands free and her eyes on the desk to make sure Ferris wasn't moving to where he could see what she was doing. Risking a glance to point at the bridge of her foot and firing her laser from her fingertip, Lexa sliced the laces of the shoe and pushed it most of the way off her foot with her other shoe. The sounds of her feet scrabbling against the floor bought her another half a second, making it sound like she was moving toward one side of the desk.

Lexa got her shod foot under her and rose slowly and smoothly in a crouch as she kicked her other foot forward, flinging the half-removed shoe from it to go flying past the edge of the desk. To Ferris' point of view, it was the sudden burst of motion the sounds of her repositioning herself behind the desk had suggested, and his next blast caught the upper rim of her removed shoe as it flew by. Lexa's rising crouch brought her head up above the top of the desk so she could see Ferris as he fired; she finished straightening up abruptly once she saw he'd fallen for her distraction.

Even as Ferris was realizing he'd been fooled and his head was snapping to the side to see Lexa standing up, still behind the desk, she made her move. Lexa clapped both hands together hard, pointed at Ferris' eyes, a massive strobe of brilliant light flaring off her palms and fingers to detonate in his face.

Ferris cried out in surprise and pain, belatedly throwing one arm up to shield his eyes against the blinding light. Lexa had gambled his control over electromagnetic energy meant he could disrupt her cloak, and he could probably even absorb or redirect her lasers, but he would have to be prepared for them; he would have to be actively diverting radiant light around himself to keep her flare from reaching his eyes, which would have meant blinding himself, something he obviously wasn't going to do.

Her gamble having paid off, Lexa planted one palm on the desktop's surface, away from where it was probably still hot to the touch, to make no mention of the burning papers, and vaulted over the desk. She landed on her stockinged foot, her still-shod foot scything up to kick Ferris in the jaw, the same side Jesse had broken with a massed punch the previous afternoon.

Ferris went down with an agonized cry of pain coming from between his clenched teeth. Lexa turned toward him, intending to dash forward and knock him out before he could bring any of his pseudo-Elemental abilities to bear, but she wasn't fast enough. Ferris cried out in pain and anger, waves of electromagnetic energy radiating from one hand as he scythed it blindly in her direction, his other hand clenched around his jaw.

Lexa hopped backwards, planting her butt on the desk and kicking both feet up as Ferris struck, the blazing white beam of his maser scything beneath her feet and liquifying a stripe the width of his palm across the desk. Lexa cried out in alarm as the upper portion of the desk collapsed down onto the lower portion, red hot molten steel splurting out to set the old carpeting around the desk on fire. Lexa hastily scrambled up onto the surface of the desk, getting her feet beneath her, prepared to spring off it if the severed top slid free of the bottom; she was considering tackling Ferris and knocking him out before he regained enough sense to coordinate his efforts and scythed his next beam through her.

Dropping back so that he was on his knees, fists clenched at his sides in pain and rage as he straightened up, Ferris threw his head back and screamed, the note all the more pained as his jaw attempted to open wide in a howl despite its being wired shut.

Lexa's eyes widened in burgeoning panic as Ferris began to glow a brighter white than she ever had...

Jesse dashed through the interior wall of the hallway on the side of the warehouse, almost back where Josh, Lexa and he had entered. He quickly stopped, releasing his phase as he drew breath and looked around to survey the situation, then held that breath and massed when he saw the only one of his teammates standing was Kevin, whose eyes were wide with terror yet blank, his shoulders and hands twitching in distress. One of the twins —Jeremy, since Jesse had knocked out Dominic— was standing near Kevin, smirking, with his eyes glowing Psionic magenta. A pseudo-Feral with longish hair and bare feet was farther down the hallway, using his super-enhanced strength to unbend the pipe that was suspending Spalding from the ceiling. The Crystalline pseudo-Molecular was crouched over an oddly-shaped arrangement of quartz crystals, apparently peering inside it with glee.

"Hey, another one!" the pseudo-Feral said, his head whipping around at the sound of Jesse's breaths, bizarre purple-ringed eyes spotting Jesse instantly. At the same time, the quartz chick Jesse had been fighting yesterday called out: "I can see it, she's turning blue!"

Realizing the odd lump of quartz was actually Shalimar, Jesse sprinted for her and the pseudo-Molecular.

At the same time, a shadow obstructed the skylight overhead, then Josh's snarling form crashed through it.

"GET THEM!" Spalding hollered, thrusting her arm forward to shoot Jesse with the same Psionic lightning bolt she had blasted Brennan with, but it didn't have any more effect on him than Ferris' maser bolt had the day before.

Crystal stood up and turned quickly at the sound of the crashing skylight to see what was going on, her eyes drawn by the impressive lightshow of Spalding's blast. Seeing Jesse charging at her, she bent low and charged at him, intending to tackle him at the knees to stop his advance, to hold him in place until he had to drop his mass and Spalding or Jeremy could get him, or if he phased through her, she would spin and send a wall of quartz after him, hopefully catching him as he solidified again.

What Crystal had not been expecting was for Jesse to dive for her at the same time she dove for him, an angry scowl on his face.

Jesse's massed form smashed into Crystal's quartz one, neither of them doing the other any harm. Jesse released his mass and exhaled into a phase with the same breath, phasing Crystal along with him. Both of them began to plunge into the floor they had dove towards while tackling each other, and Jesse released Crystal's phase, climbing right through her and up out of the floor as he kept going.

Crystal's quartz form was Molecularly bonded to the concrete warehouse floor on an atomic level, the same way Jesse had accidentally left Emma partially inside a wall for a moment when his New Mutant Growth Spurt had first happened. Crystal wailed, utterly stuck and helpless, as Jesse ran on.

Josh had seen Kevin alone against the pseudo-New Mutants and not moving, so he had moved back a few paces, then run and leapt at the skylight, pouncing through it feet-first at an angle. The mangled framework and glass panes of the skylight smashed into the concrete floor of the warehouse between the unconscious forms of Brennan and Vance and the first quartz barrier, which protected Owen and Chris from the flying shards of glass. The angle of Josh's descent delivered him closer to Spalding, Jeremy Pendergrast, and Kevin; he landed between Kevin and Jeremy in a snarling crouch, his eyes flashing pale jade green as they converted to Feline Feral slits.

" GO AHEAD, MAKE THE WORLD MELT AROUND ME, I DARE YOU! " Josh growled in a quiet voice that still carried sharply, his slit-pupiled eyes fixed on Jeremy and promising him pain. " YOU'RE ONLY FOUR YARDS AWAY FROM ME; I CAN POUNCE THAT FAR DEAF AND BLINDFOLDED, AND I'M GOING TO TEAR APART WHATEVER I LAND ON, NAMELY YOU, " Josh assured Jeremy, his upper lip snarling and fingers clenching in claw-like curls as he stared the pseudo-Psionic down. " LET. HIM. GO. "

Jeremy swallowed nervously. He knew he could paralyze Josh by pushing his mind into a flashback, but he couldn't do that without releasing Kevin, and he had no doubt the Feral could pounce on him and take him out if he attempted to make Josh hallucinate something, like Tackleman waking up disoriented while actually maintaining his fugue. There was also the fact Mutant X still had whatever Psionic protection they'd used to escape his mental influence in the GEMS building parking garage the day before; Jeremy could still detect it.

Jeremy's eyebrows rose over his magenta-glowing eyes when he felt that protection vanish and watched Josh collapse.

"Huh," Spalding said as she stepped up next to Jeremy, her eyes glowing bright pink as she frowned down at Josh's unconscious body and lowered her glowing hand. "I had to push really hard to connect with his aura, but once I did, it was fine, drained him unconscious easily. That was weird."

"They came up with some kind of protection against my influence yesterday," Jeremy explained, then tilted his head at Kevin. "But their Psionic didn't have it."

"Hah," Spalding said with a grin, her pink-glowing eyes looking down the hallway at Jesse. "Let's see how tough it is, shall we?" she asked with a smirk, casually walking toward Jesse.

Jesse released his phase just long enough to take another whooping breath and refresh his lungs, hearing the sounds of Adenric sprinting for him with gecko-pad enhanced speed. Reconsidering, Jesse left his mass normal as he sprinted for the lump of quartz imprisoning and suffocating Shalimar, listening to the sound of Adenric's sprinting approach. Just before he dove for Shalimar's quartz prison, Jesse heard a sharp exhalation of effort from Adenric, and the sound of his bare footsteps ceased. Jesse grinned as he dove for Shalimar and phased, knowing the pseudo-Feral had sprinted for him, as most Ferals did when they were chasing prey.

Adenric passed through Jesse's immaterial form to slam awkwardly into the quartz structure imprisoning Shalimar as Jesse phased through it. Jesse phased Shalimar as he tackled her, both of them tumbling through the quartz to roll out the other side as Jesse released their phase.

"Shal!? SHAL!" Jesse cried out as he saw Crystal had been right; Shalimar had gone without oxygen long enough for her skin to begin turning blue, her lips a horrible purple. Jesse instantly put one hand to her neck and grabbed one of her wrists with the other, to feel for her pulse. Relief swept over Jesse as Shalimar's unconscious body began heaving for breath now that it had access to air again, and his fingertips felt Shalimar's accelerated heartrate. Her body had been trying to filter as much oxygen out of her lungs and carbon dioxide out of her bloodstream into them as it could, even if she wasn't breathing—she just needed air.

Jesse's gaze snapped up as he kept his hands on Shalimar, feeling her system begin to regulate itself now that she was no longer entombed. He knew something was wrong; the pseudo-Feral was trying to use his phenomenal strength to pull the pseudo-Molecular out of the concrete —good luck with that, since a third of her body was literally part of it now— but where was Spalding?

Spalding was standing right in front of Jesse, using her pseudo-Psionic abilities to prevent him from perceiving her. She could easily suppress the Psionic impressions her body and thoughts made on the world around her; another Psionic would never know she had even been there, no matter how keen their extrasensory impressions. By connecting her aura to a target's brain and suppressing the sensory neurons that were informing their brain of her appearance, sounds, and scent, she could be invisible despite being literally right in front of them. She'd had to enhance her aura with the surrounding environment's psychic impressions to force her way through Mutant X's strange Psionic protection, but once she had done so she was able to mask her presence easily, just like it had been with Josh. The fact that Jesse was distracted by verifying Shalimar's condition had just made it easier for Spalding to get close enough to connect her aura to his.

Jesse discovered Spalding was there when her touch suppressed the neurons of his consciousness.

The Creator had reached the center of the complex, apparently the bedroom of someone who liked pretty rocks and pretty boys. The room was decorated in tacky black satin and pink chiffon drapery and assorted glass and chrome furniture, none of it matching even vaguely. There were posters of various sizes only somewhat evenly spaced around the walls, all of boybanders, athletes more famous for their popularity than their skill, or less-than-tasteful nudes that bordered on homoerotic pornography. There were geodes and other crystal formations displayed on every horizontal surface, from the glass shelves to the chromium pedestals spread inexpertly around the room to the top of the bed's headboard against one wall, and even atop the posts at the foot of the bed.

The room was a hideous eyesore, but the Creator felt that didn't matter, given what was about to befall its owner.

Knocking a rock quartz rhinestone monstrosity off a conveniently-heighted column near the middle of the room that resembled a short coat tree, the Creator set his briefcase atop the emptied pedestal and opened it. It contained a laptop computer that was hardwired to a number of other electronic components that were carefully arranged in the space around the laptop, various tiny LEDs shining to indicate the equipment's readiness.

The Creator's smile returned to Adam Kane's face as he opened a program and began typing, quickly setting the parameters he desired and stepping back as he executed the program. The indicator lights all blinked in unison, then shut themselves off as figures began racing across the laptop's screen. One LED indicator reactivated itself as a low hum began emanating from the briefcase; a higher-pitched tone also started up as a second light lit up again. The hum grew stronger and the tone's pitch continued to rise and grow in intensity as each LED turned itself back on in sequence, the overall power of the device obviously building. The Creator's smile spread with each reactivated LED, the economy and efficiency of the device appealing to him.

Such a wonderful protocol, The Creator thought to himself as the last light activated and all of the LEDs blinked in sync once more, the sounds of the device ceasing with an audible throb. A microwave burst transmission coded to the altered portion of the subjects' DNA, triggering the ribonuclease action of every cell simultaneously, without the corresponding RNA present. Brilliant. The subjects' cells would be split in half, attempting to bond with reproductory genetic code that was not present in ninety-some percent of the cells, all the ones that had not actively been coding their RNA for mitosis when the ribonuclease was triggered.

Dominique's pseudo-New Mutants would quite literally melt.

Still smiling, the Creator closed Dominique's briefcase and went to survey the results of his handiwork. It was such an ingenious idea, the ultimate countermeasure. The Creator very much wanted to gather samples of the remains, to study the reaction's effects. With access to Adam's memories and the proverbial second point of view his studies of the Creator's efforts had gained, the Creator had been able to overcome his problems understanding the human genome, succeeding in his life's work with the help of Adam's insight, as he'd known would be possible. With firsthand data from Dominique's experiments, he would be able to customize the human race, guiding evolution as he saw fit, now with the ability to instantly melt any rebel who might try to change the status quo he would establish.

It would be glorious.

Kevin was blinking frantically, trying to understand what had happened to him when his mind was frozen in panic. His gut was on fire, cramped up and frozen, his lungs clamoring that they needed to draw a breath, needed to replace the air that had been violently knocked out of them, but Kevin couldn't move, couldn't breathe...

The whole world sounded funny, and it wasn't just the blood rushing in his ears, the thundering beat of his panic-driven heart. Kevin kept blinking as he tried to make his body move, tried to get his lungs to unlock and take a breath; why couldn't he breathe?

Something moved at the very corner of his vision, and in his panic and confusion, Kevin's head automatically twitched to see what it was. Whatever it was grew slightly bigger as it moved into his field of vision, dark and moving with a flowing motion, but it twitched out of sight just as quickly, dashing behind him. Kevin's confusion and panic intensified; he couldn't see anything but blue, what was going on, something was behind him...

The nebulous brown reappeared as Kevin tried to flail and turn, still lurking at the edges of his vision, but now at the corners of both eyes, and higher, more above him than below. . .what had happened, where was he, he needed to breathe, Jason had hit him and he'd fallen...

..into the pool...

Kevin was in the pool, he'd fallen into the pool when Jason punched him, and he couldn't BREATHE...

He began thrashing frantically as the panic overwhelmed his mind, his lungs on fire and about to force an inhalation, whether Kevin was underwater or not. He could barely move, his body cramping from panic and adrenaline and lack of oxygen, his arms frozen around his paralyzed solar plexus. . .he was going to die down here.

Kevin was going to die! His eyes were opened far too wide, beginning to bulge from his body's efforts to restore breath control and the lack of oxygen. He couldn't see anything but the pale blue of the pool's wall, the narrow lines of the off-white grout between the little square tiles... His struggles were growing weaker; Kevin had no way of knowing that one of the football players was the son of the district attourney, that he was realizing Jason was about to be guilty of manslaughter and the whole team was about to be accomplices. A small bubble of air emerged from Kevin's mouth as he screamed in terror, wobbling upward past the panic-dilated pupils of his eyes and through the floating nimbus of his bangs as his lungs and survival instincts finally demanded he take a breath...

Kevin began drowning as his vision started to darken, unable to hear the splash of someone diving for him...

Kevin's world bled from darkening pale blue to brightening Psionic magenta...

Shalimar was already wheezing for air when her consciousness returned, warm hands behind her back and the back of her neck helping her sit up slightly and supporting her head. She forced her mouth to close and drew her next breath in through her nose, recognizing Jesse's scent, bitter with acrid worry and fading panic. She twitched violently when a strangled scream of mind-numbing terror rang off the concrete floor and cinderblock walls, Jesse also tensing behind her as the cry choked off, like someone waking from an absolutely horrible nightmare.

An instant later Josh's voice was urgently repeating Kevin's name, sounds Shalimar could recognize as her fellow Feline Feral flinging himself to his feet and dashing to his lover's side following as Kevin gasped for breath. Shalimar began to relax as she heard Kevin's breath catch, then the sound of his low voice whispering Josh's name desperately, then the sounds of Josh embracing Kevin and crooning reassurances to him.

"Shal?" Jesse asked softly, his hold shifting to help her sit up properly. "..You okay?"

"..Yeah..." she murmured softly, just glad to have the ability to breathe and consciously control it again. She smirked as she heard Brennan groan and blink himself awake, the sounds of his limbs moving from an ungainly sprawl back to his conscious control as he collected himself and looked around, a sound she was all too familiar with. It sounded like he'd been drenched and short-circuited himself, again, or endured some other electrical surge that had taken some time for his body's Elemental abilities to process and recover from.

"Shit, Owen!" Brennan's voice called out a moment later, then the sounds of Brennan scrambling to his feet and racing closer, his boots crushing broken glass until they began to echo strangely as he dashed behind the quartz barrier near the door. "Kevin!" Brennan's voice cried in alarm, and Shalimar's eyes snapped back open as her body tensed out of relaxation once more. "Josh, Jess! Chris and Owen are hurt, maybe bad!" Bennan called out from behind the first wall of quartz.

"Damn, just rest, I'll be back," Jesse told Shalimar as he carefully laid her back down, then sprinted away. Shalimar frowned; she could have remained sitting up, but on the other hand, her head was still woozy. Maybe Jess had been right to lay her down again. She considered the fact that she should probably make sure she stayed awake as she heard Josh and Kevin hurry to follow Brennan. She tried to listen to the boys' discussion, wanting to make sure Owen and Chris would be okay, even if they weren't at the moment, but Kevin was speaking too quickly, burying whatever trauma had prompted his cry of terror by keeping himself busy caring for Owen and Chris. Did he just say Owen was severely dehydrated?

Wait, what about Lexa? Where was Lexa, and what happened to the bad guys? And what was that smell?

Shalimar propped herself up on her left elbow, raising the back of her right hand up to her mouth.

"Lexa?" she asked her commring. "Where are you?" Shalimar kept her eyes on the far end of the corridor, hoping Lexa might come around the corner any moment.

'I'm in an office, found a computer and dosed it with Eve's nanites, but their Electromagnetic guy fried it, almost fried me,' Lexa replied, sounding not just frustrated, but shaken as well. Given that he had thrown four cars through the air with a casual gesture the day before, Shalimar imagined any fight with that guy could be a grueling one.

"What happened? You're okay, right?" Shalimar asked with a frown, wondering what had happened as she continued to watch the end of the hall, just to give her woozy head a point of focus.

'Umm. . .he was about to go meltdown on me, and then... ..well, then he just melted,' Lexa answered.

"Melted!?" Shalimar asked in shocked disbelief, then paused as her hindbrain categorized the rank smell she was detecting throughout the hallway as both 'organic' and 'bloody.' "Ogod," Shalimar muttered as she twisted to peer back over the crystal shell she had been trapped in. A few yards past it was a several-gallon splash of pinkish-red gloop, mixed up with some workout fabric, some of it light blue and some of it navy blue, like the clothes Spalding had been wearing. There was also Spalding's long, straight blonde hair on top of the mess. Shalimar turned back around and resumed staring at the far end of the corridor when she thought she spotted whole fingernails.

"Ogod," she repeated, her restored breath coming a bit faster as she tried not to think about it. "Ogod, Lexa. . .Lexa, did his hair not melt?" Shalimar asked with a wince, glad her voice didn't shake audibly.

'Yeah, it didn't, ew,' Lexa answered, not sounding nearly grossed-out enough, in Shalimar's opinion. 'Ugh, weird,' Lexa went on, in a tone Shalimar could tell meant that she was looking over her attacker's remains. 'His fingernails didn't melt, either. I bet it's because they're keratin, non-living tissue, just like hair.'

"Ick, I'm not looking," Shalimar replied, feeling her face turn green. "It smells awful, and there were a bunch of them in here!"

'I've told you before I'm glad I'm not a Feral for precisely that reason,' Lexa replied with a teasingly superior note in her voice. 'I'll see if the computer in the next office is intact, give it some nanites if it is, then meet back up with you guys,' she told Shalimar. 'I'm not sure if we want these guys' stability cure if it's gonna make us melt, but I guess it wouldn't hurt for Kevin to bring those samples back for Eve the two of them were talking about; she gave him the kit.'

Shalimar made a gagging, retching noise at her commring, then stopped and put her hand down when her stomach almost took the sounds as an invitation to hurl for real. She blinked and twisted around when she detected motion from the corner of her eye, her jaw dropping when she saw a backboard stretcher and the entire medical kit from the Double Helix flying down the hallway, including an IV stand.

Kevin's using his telekinesis, astral projected to the Helix, Shalimar thought to herself, shaking her woozy head slightly as she realized what she was seeing. Someone is hurt, Chris or Owen...

Shalimar sprang to her feet and dashed for the quartz wall over by the hole she had jumped into the hallway through, seeing Brennan's head and shoulders above it on the other side. She hadn't counted on her low oxygen level meaning her sudden movement would cause a head rush, and Shalimar staggered badly as she neared the other side of the hallway.

"Shal!?" Brennan asked in alarm as he turned and saw her falter. He began to hurry around the quartz barrier as Shalimar reached its end, grabbing onto its top and hanging from it to keep herself from falling over. Unfortunately for Shalimar, collapsing into the end of the line of crystals left her head hanging around its edge, her face only a few feet from the pile of Howlett's remains as she tried to stabilize her head, gasping for breath right above the wolverine-musk mess.

Shalimar tried to squawk in protest as she let go of the quartz wall and fell away from it, the sound emerging as a gag, instead. She fought against her whirling head and roiling stomach for a moment, wobbling on her hands and knees, then gave in and vomited profusely when she felt Brennan's hands scoop her hair back away from her face.

" Ogod, what happened to them?! " she moaned weakly as Brennan scooped her up and carried her to the barrier's front, kicking the remains of the skylight out of the way and setting her down so she could lean back against the crystals.

"No idea, but we'll worry about it later," Brennan told her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Chris has multiple broken ribs and possibly internal organ damage, and Owen's suffering from extreme dehydration, maybe as high as ten percent or even more." Shalimar opened her eyes and gave Brennan a lopsided quirk of her lips as he bumped her shoulder with his hand, holding a stick of gum for her to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth with.

"Thanks," she said as she took the gum, not really listening as Brennan explained that Kevin had telekinetically straightened Chris out without letting any of his insides move, then laid him down to await Kevin telekinetically delivering him to the Helix. Josh and Jesse had gotten Owen onto the backboard stretcher; Kevin was now setting up a saline IV just to get fluid back into Owen, which would hopefully be enough to stabilize him, then Brennan and Josh would carry the stretcher back to the Helix while Jesse ran ahead to prep it for take off.

"Lexa's on her way, said Kevin should. . .take the genetic samples Eve needs, he's got the kit," Shalimar told Brennan, trying not to think about the smell of the pseudo-New Mutants' remains. "Adam!" she suddenly blurted out, her eyes wide and staring at the far end of the hallway she had been watching for Lexa.

"What about him?" Brennan asked with a confused frown. "I'm sure he can figure out what's up with the melting when we find him, when he catches up with us..."

"No, right THERE, ADAM!" Shalimar insisted, pointing at the far end of the hallway, where their long-lost mentor was standing holding a briefcase, an utterly confused look on his face. Brennan's head snapped up to look where Shalimar was pointing, his own jaw dropping when he saw Adam standing there.

Adam's frozen form finally blinked, his head snapping to the side at the sound of dashing footsteps.

"Adam!" Lexa cried out as she tackled him in a hug, her shoulders quaking and her voice shaking as she choked out: "You're here! We found you, finally, you're really here, it's really you..." Lexa's fears and worries finally caught up with her, once the man she believed to be her salvation was literally in her arms. She could finally allow herself to hope that everything would turn out alright in the end, allow the panic that things wouldn't be okay wash through her now that the man who could fix her, fix all of them the way he had Jesse, had finally been recovered.

The Creator stood there for a moment, stunned with surprise.

Well, I suppose that explains the violence keeping them all occupied when I arrived, if Mutant X was also on the scene, an idle portion of his mind reasoned while the rest assessed the situation, accessing Adam's memories to determine what act he would need to put on to avoid detection. Adam's been missing since the destruction of Dominion Headquarters, as far as Mutant X is concerned. Lexa is uncharacteristically distressed, but Adam's projections show her expiration date to be in only a few days, surely she is feeling the effects and is thus concerned by them. The ridiculous Council informed Lexa her expiry date was approaching; why would Mutant X be engaging Dominique's experiments when they know Lexa is at risk...? Ah, of course.

"I'm here, Lexa. I've got you," the Creator told her with Adam's voice, projecting not only calm confidence but reassuring warmth, easily able to pull the correct vocal inflections and body language from Adam's memories, even if he didn't actually feel anything even remotely close to the emotions he was portraying. Accessing Adam's last interactions with both Lexa and the rest of Mutant X, the Creator carefully kept the triumphant smile off his face as he realized what "Adam's" reappearance meant and deduced what Mutant X must have been doing, confronting Dominique's experiments.

"What are you all doing here? Trying to track down Dominique?" he asked with just a hint of incredulousness in his voice, the same as Adam would have done. One advantage to examining Adam's memories with his own comparatively objective point of view was that the Creator could identify the quirks of Adam's personality and add them to his act where appropriate, even if Adam himself might not have been consciously aware of his mannerisms. The fact that he knew Mutant X must have been on Dominique's trail simply made it all the easier to manipulate them, his answer to their forthcoming confirmation having been prepared even before Shalimar, Brennan, and Jesse hurried up to him.

"Yeah," Lexa confessed with a nod and a sniffle. "The Council Head was trying to take over the Creator's power structure, run the world governments through puppets, and had Dominique's altered New Mutants as his task force," she explained. "We figured they must have contact with her and the Council Head, to receive orders if nothing else, so we were hoping to crack these guys' communications."

"Ah. Well, I've been tracking them down myself. I didn't know about the Council Head's plan, but it was actually his and Dominique's corruptive influence within the Dominion that put me on my guard almost two years ago," the Creator explained with Adam's voice. It was actually the truth, why Adam had disappeared just before the Creator was going to reveal his existence to his clone in the first place. "Apparently, the Creator had plans in place for that sort of thing, and it took me some time to figure out what was going on," he continued, now lying outright but using Adam's 'explanation mode' mannerisms and speech cadence to lull Mutant X into accepting his word. "Dominique and the Council Head are dead, but I've got all of her research," he explained, hefting the briefcase slightly in demonstration. "Her modifications drove her test subjects insane; they all had personality flaws and would have become violent threats in fairly short order," he continued, only hypothesizing at that point, but fairly certain he was correct and more than capable of mimicking Adam's usual confidence to sell his statements convincingly.

Jesse and Brennan were already nodding in agreement with his assessment of Dominique's agents, and Kevin most certainly would have if he had overheard it.

"She had protocols in place for such an eventuality, however," he went on, gesturing with the briefcase again. "Part of her customization of her New Mutant agents was rigging their DNA to self-destruct, in response to a transmitted code from this device. I knew they had to be eliminated, but I had no idea I would run into all of you here," the Creator said with perfect honesty, letting his astonishment show on Adam's face, knowing that it would support the shock he had expressed when Shalimar had spotted him.

"So you. . .melted them?" Brennan asked, somewhat aghast.

"I did," the Creator made Adam's body admit, bowing his head and managing to look and sound downcast about it. "They were too powerful and too insane to let live. If I had some way to contain them, try to adjust their genetics, or at least her alterations, maybe stasis pods. . .but I just didn't," he finished sadly, his eyes narrowing slightly in a frown of confusion (that hid his actual calculating analysis of all of them) when Jesse twitched involuntarily at the mention of stasis pods. "What is it? And where's everyone else?" he asked, knowing Adam would express his concern for his Children of Genomex. "Jamie, Owen? Josh?"

"Actually, Dominique's people had us on the ropes," Jesse admitted. "You probably saved us all, really. Chris and Owen were hurt in the fight, Kevin and Josh are prepping them for transit back to the Helix. Jamie could really use your help, as well as Lexa," he explained sadly. "Maybe even more than Lexa. Eve had to put him in a stasis pod last night; he overstrained his new Growth Spurt ability and collapsed into formless elasticity again. Eve's not even sure how to begin helping him, put him in stasis so she might even have a chance to begin figuring it out."

"Oh, dear," the Creator said, raising Adam's eyebrows in surprise and concern. "Well, let's get back to LA and see what we can do about that. I should. . .get some samples of Dominique's. . .specimens. Even if they're flawed, the fact that they were stable in the evolutionary sense might help me figure out which procedure stabilized Jesse properly," he explained, trying to look apologetic for the necessity.

"Kevin already has a kit for that," Lexa replied, looking over at the wall of quartz she could see Josh standing behind, alternating between watching them and watching his boyfriend try to help Owen and Chris.

"Ah. Well, that's good then," the Creator said in surprise, turning to cross the hall towards the remaining members of the team.

Well, perhaps I'll just take care of Mutant X and Dr. Aybel next, he thought to himself as he went.

The Creator had pronounced Kevin's field treatments of Chris and Owen to be "adequate" and inquired about Kevin's ability to astrally perceive and telekinetically manipulate Chris' internal organs with interest. After asking about the Double Helix's medical capabilities, "Adam" decided there was no more they could do for Chris and Owen other than get them home to Haven. The Creator knew perfectly well that the Dominion's copy of the Double Helix did not have any of Adam or Jesse's further modifications applied to it, but Adam of course did not, so he feigned ignorance by inquiring. He had settled down in a seat and closed his eyes; he was intellectually capable of separating his own knowledge from Adam's and feigning the appropriate expressions and body language to appear as Adam, but the effort it took to simultaneously maintain all aspects of his false identity were taxing.

"Adam?" Shalimar asked a moment later, having silently crouched at his side and causing the Creator to startle, his whole body spasming in reaction as his eyes snapped open, turning his head toward Shalimar in surprise. "Whoa! Sorry, didn't mean to spook you..." she apologized, her own eyes widening in surprise. "..Are you. . .all right, Adam?" Shalimar asked, frowning slightly in concern. "It's just. . .well, you smell, um, stressed," she finished sheepishly, one corner of her mouth quirking up as she flashed her Feral eyes at him.

The Creator eased back in his seat, closing his eyes once more as he reached out and clapped one hand on Shalimar's shoulder, as Adam would do.

"I'm okay, Shal," he told her, wobbling her shoulder back and forth slightly in reassurance before withdrawing his hand. "Maybe for the first time in quite a while, actually," he went on, heaving a supposed sigh of relief as he consciously forced Adam's body to relax, at least mostly. "I'm afraid I've been a bit tense for the better part of two years now, and quite a bit more so for the past three weeks," he declared with a slightly amused, slightly self-deprecating smile. "I can't quite believe it's over, that. . .that I can relax again. —But I'll get there."

"Of course you will," Shalimar declared firmly, reaching up to squeeze "Adam's" shoulder reassuringly before returning to stand behind Brennan and Jesse's chairs in the cockpit.

"I guess I'd be tired too, if I'd spent two weeks as a prisoner and another on the run after that," Josh muttered under his breath as he turned back toward where Kevin was monitoring Owen and Chris. Their inert forms were laid across the bench seats in the rear of the Helix, so there wasn't enough seating for everyone. Shalimar and Josh's Feline Feral balance and agility meant they could remain standing throughout the flight without worrying about falling over, and Kevin's altruistic medical side wouldn't let him sit when he wasn't positive his patients were acceptably stable, so he was going back and forth between them. Josh simply followed Kevin with a hand on the small of his back, both to maintain Kevin's balance if they hit a pocket of turbulance and to reassure them both after Kevin's dual psychological traumas from the fight. Josh knew they would be talking about it later, probably instead of sleeping in the wee hours of the morning, but in the meanwhile, physical contact kept them both grounded while Kevin did his best to help their teammates and kept himself busy in the process.

"Let him be," Kevin admonished Josh quietly, turning his head to smirk at Josh slightly. "Don't forget, he was on the run for a year before the Dominion caught him, too," Kevin said as he reached forward and gently pinched the side of Owen's neck and tugged slightly, testing the elasticity of his skin. Josh felt some of the tension ease from Kevin's back as he breathed a sigh of relief.

"He's getting better?" Josh asked hopefully, stepping up directly behind Kevin to peer over his broad shoulder, looking at the unmarked skin of Owen's neck where Kevin had pinched him.

"Yeah, I think so," Kevin said with a nod, smiling slightly with relief. "At least, his skin is getting closer to back to normal, so his body is at least partially rehydrating from the IV. We'll have to check his metabolics when we get back to Haven, but this is an indication that he hasn't had organ failure, at least."

"Eugh, that'd be kidneys first, right?" Josh asked with a grimace, looking slightly ill at the concept. "If something's that wrong, he'll super-sleep it off, right?"

"Well, we don't know, of course, but it's a reasonable assumption," Kevin replied, giving Josh a tiny shrug. "Hopefully he's not that bad off in the first place."

"Yeah," Josh agreed sadly, looking down at his fellow Feral Boy in concern.

The team descended from the parking garage down to Haven in two shifts when they got back, because they couldn't all fit in the elevator with Chris and Owen needing to be horizontal. Kevin, Josh, and Brennan made the second trip, carrying Chris and Owen as they had to the Helix from the pseudo-New Mutants' warehouse. Jesse, Shalimar, Lexa and "Adam" had gone first, simply because it would take a few moments for Brennan to secure the Helix with its cloak active and for Kevin to ensure his patients were ready to be carried once more.

Shalimar was keying in the access code to Haven's entrance on its control pad when the speaker adjacent to it sounded a tone before Eve's voice came from it.

'Shal, the others are bringing Chris and Owen, Jesse said they were hurt?' Eve asked, with a bit more than a hint of stress in her voice.

"Yeah, they're coming," Shalimar confirmed. "We wouldn't all fit in the elevator; Kevin said he's worried Chris might have internal injuries and wanted to keep him stretched prone," she explained. Shalimar then blinked in surprise when she finished entering the security code and the door buzzed a negatory tone at her.

'And who's that with you?' Eve asked cautiously, Shalimar blinking again, in surprised realization that Eve wasn't aware they had found Adam; Eve might be worried the team had been compromised by one of Dominique's super-powerful Psionics or something. Shal grinned, casting her eyes downward as she shook her head; surprising Eve with their recovery of Adam would have been fantastic, but it wasn't worth the stress it would cause Eve, not when they still didn't know who had infiltrated Haven two days before.

"Oh, just a doctor we found on-site," Shalimar answered with a teasing smile audible in her voice. She would take the limited amount of pleasant surprise that she could get out of the situation. "Why don't you introduce yourself, sir?" Shal said with a grin as she stepped aside, away from the control panel so "Adam" could approach it and move his face into the camera's frame.

The Creator stepped forward with his own face lowered and eyes downcast, making sure to smile with just the corners of Adam's lips upturned, shaking his head in supposed bemusement at Shalimar's antics. He glanced up to look into the camera as he moved up to the control panel, making sure to appear both weary and relieved.

"Hello, Eve," he said quietly, allowing the smile on Adam's face to grow just the tiniest bit.

'OmiGOD, Ada—' Eve's voice blurted from the control panel's speaker, the transmission cutting off and the door cycling open only an instant later. Even as the door opened and the team filed through, they could hear Eve's heels echoing off Haven's tiled floor as she sprinted from the medical lab.

"ADAM!" she cried out as she dashed across Haven's main expanse, crashing into Adam's body and wrapping her arms around it, burying her face in her mentor's shoulder. "Oh, Adam, Thank God you're here, you're safe, you're free, it's finally over..." Eve choked off a sob as she drew back, her eyes reddened and wet as she looked up to meet "Adam's" somewhat surprised gaze. "Ogod, I'm sorry..." she sniffled, making no effort to wipe her eyes or nose as she stared into his, her relief palpable. "..It's just. . .it's been so long, really, at this point—things just kept getting worse. . .I can scarcely believe you're finally here, but it's true. It's finally over."

The stress of having kept the secret of his survival for the past year and her worry over his being missing since having revealed his survival to the team finally washed through Eve, her joy at having him returned helping Eve bear up under the further stresses of the team being in varying states of medical emergency. She straightened up fully and stepped back, still holding onto "Adam" with one hand. "Come on," she said, tugging him back the way she had come from as the door cycled to let the rest of the team in, Kevin telekinetically carrying Chris, and Josh and Brennan carrying Owen's mini-stretcher. "Let's see about Chris and Owen, and then Jamie, then Lexa. . .and everyone aside from Jesse," she finished, shaking her head at how much work they had ahead of them. But at least it was work shared now; Eve could split that burden. . .or so she thought.

The team began following their two scientist leaders towards the medical lab; Shalimar took one look at the ten of them approaching the only modestly-sized lab and snorted to herself, turning off to go man the central monitors instead of trying to fit one more body in medical, even if she was the smallest. They might need Jesse's DNA scans to help Jamie, and would certainly need them to stabilize Lexa and eventually the rest of the team, but until it was her turn, Shalimar figured she would only be in the way.

Josh knew he was needlessly tense as he carried Owen's stretcher into the medical lab, but he couldn't help it. He was trying to tell himself he had done well, staying focused enough to complete his mission objectives despite his concern over whatever the Spalding bitch had done to Kevin, but he was having trouble believing it. He couldn't help that because something even worse had happened to Kevin while Josh was sneaking around applying nanites instead of watching Kevin's back. . .and apparently the whole damned mission had been completely unnecessary, if Dominique and the Dominion Council Head were already dead. Adam had come to the pseudo-New Mutants' warehouse to destroy them, so Mutant X had merely gotten their asses handed to them, traumatically in several cases, for no good reason whatsoever. Josh felt guilty that nothing untoward had happened to him, when something had to most of the rest of the team; he was angry that Kevin had been deeply psychologically injured, not once but TWICE, frustrated that he hadn't been able to do anything to prevent it and still couldn't do anything to make Kevin stop hurting, and both angry and frustrated that he couldn't make the people responsible for traumatizing Kevin pay for doing so. He supposed he should feel glad that they were dead and would never hurt anyone again, and Josh knew he should probably feel guilty that he wanted them to have suffered before they died, or maybe instead of dying, but he didn't. He felt guilty for not feeling guilty, which was ludicrous.

He helped Brennan place Owen's mini-stretcher on one of the med-beds, then turned and pulled Kevin into a firm embrace, mindful of Kevin's still-healing lower back. Kevin startled, unsure if Josh was being supportive because he knew Kevin was going to be having nightmares the next time he slept, or possibly taking support from him, because Kevin could tell Josh was stressed; he relaxed into Josh's embrace, deciding they could support one another. It seemed to be the right response, Josh relaxing slightly before giving Kevin a final squeeze, then released him and strode directly out of the medical lab, heading for the rear of Haven and the gym.

"Well..." the Creator said with Adam's best sardonic declaration. "..This is going to be challenging, isn't it?" he finished with just the barest hint of a smirk, considering the number of New Mutants in the lab. He was actually talking about dealing with all of them simultaneously, as well as Dr. Aybel and the two Feline Ferals, but doing so would only be slightly more challenging than trying to treat eight New Mutants simultaneously with a ninth as the control subject. He considered Adam's knowledge of Haven, realizing he would need to discover what changes had occurred since the Californian team had begun operations. It would be important to make sure he didn't overlook something that would allow them to turn the tables on him. He would actually prefer to deal with all of them at once; trying to conceal what had happened to some of them from the rest of them in order to complete the process would be inordinately difficult. Unless...

"Eve, have you considered recreating the medical equipment in the Dojo, holographically?" he asked, turning to Adam's former assistant. "We could treat the whole team simultaneously, and being able to compare everyone at once will probably help me figure out which procedure did the trick for Jesse faster," the Creator explained, smiling slightly with Adam's pride and confidence in an idea he was sure would work. The expression was fairly natural to both the Creator and his clone; he was simply lying about the particular idea he was currently being confident in.

Eve couldn't help but chuckle.

"Yes, actually," she said with a sad smile, pleased with the fortuitousness of the situation, if not its causes. "I just configured that yesterday, trying to help Jamie when he collapsed in the Dojo."

"Ah, well," the Creator blinked, unsure how Adam would react in that situation because Adam himself would not have known what to say, so Adam's hesitant stall was an accurate enough response. "Let's get Chris and Owen settled then, and see about helping Jamie and the rest after that," he proposed, returning Eve's nod of confirmation.

Seeing that there were just too many people in the medical lab, Brennan left to go see what Shalimar was doing. He was considering calling Eloy's Diner and sharing the news that Adam had been found, that New Mutant Expiry Dates were soon going to be a worry of the past. He was also considering asking if Anne were there, because he had a feeling the whole team was going to need to decompress and come to terms with everything once it was all over, and he hadn't missed the way Josh was even more worried about Kevin than usual. Brennan had seen the way Kevin had just been standing there in front of the enemy Psionics, twitching in distress; they had been terrifyingly powerful, so if they had been Psionically tormenting Kevin in some way, he would be needing Anne's help, too.

Brennan decided to check with Shalimar, to see what she thought. Getting a hold of Anne was certainly important, for Kevin's sake if nothing else, but it might be best to wait on revealing Adam's return. Brennan wanted to believe everything was going to be fine, but he knew life had a way of throwing curve balls, and he didn't want to make promises Adam couldn't keep. Brennan trusted Adam, more or less, or at least trusted him to do his best to help the Children of Genomex, since that's what Adam had spent half his life doing. But Brennan couldn't help but wonder about the fact that they had surprised Adam by being at the pseudo-New Mutants' warehouse. . .he hadn't expected to run into them there. Washington DC and Maryland were on the other side of the country—when had Adam intended to return to the team? Were Dominique's creations the last loose end Adam had needed to clean up before he could feel confident in returning to Mutant X. or were there more, things the team didn't even know about?

Knowing he would second-guess himself into oblivion without answers, Brennan decided to get a second opinion, instead.

As Josh and Brennan left the medical lab, and Eve and "Adam" moved to begin treating Chris and Owen, Kevin began retrieving the supplies he knew they would need, rehydration solutions for Owen and tape for Chris' ribs. Jesse and Lexa moved up against the far wall of the lab, staying out of the way but waiting to see if they would be needed to help the others sometime soon. Eve swung a scanner into position over Chris' medical bed to verify the extent of his internal injuries; she knew she and Adam would be able to direct Kevin to telekinetically manipulate Chris' innards with his astral perceptions if needed, but they needed to see what damage was present before they could talk him through treating it. "Adam" reached up to activate the scanner with his left hand, his right hand already scrolling through the readouts of the medical bed's built-in displays.

Standing in the corner with Jesse and watching their medical experts work, Lexa's eyes automatically followed "Adam's" hand when he reached up to the scanner. A mark on the back of it, near his thumb, caught Lexa's gaze, and she frowned in puzzlement. It was nestled in the corner between the bones of his thumb and forefinger; it looked like a scab. An injection scab, like from a medical IV.

Like from the injection the Creator had just given himself when Mutant X had confronted him.

Lexa gasped, the edges of her vision going hazy as her heart rate skyrocketed, her pulse throbbing in her ears as the blood rushed through them and her gaze remained fixed on the wound on the back of Adam's hand. The same wound that had been on the back of the Creator's hand, a result of the treatment that extended his lifespan. The lifespan that he had known was drawing to a close when they confronted him three weeks ago, when he had revealed himself to Adam and informed him that he was a clone. A clone of the Creator, a clone the Creator had created to help him finish his work. Work that consisted of genetically dominating and modifying the entire human race, something that Adam himself would never agree to. . .and the Creator had to have been aware of that.

As the smartest man on the planet, without Adam's morals, why would the Creator expect Adam to help him finish his work?

He wouldn't.

He would have some other plan.

Like taking Adam's place, stealing his body, something...

"JESSE!" Lexa choked out as she began to collapse, the sudden shock to her system causing her knees to give, her whole body to shudder involuntarily. . .and the tremors of her impendent New Mutant Expiration to flare up in her arms, in the nerves that controlled the generation and release of her lasers. The shock of it seized the breath in her lungs, stressed sweat of reaction springing out from her brow atop the nervous beads of perspiration that were already forming in the shock of her realization. She choked out a sound, trying to tell Jesse what she'd realized, warn him, warn the team that it wasn't Adam...

"Lexa!" Jesse cried out as he whirled and caught her by the upper arms before she could collapse. "It's okay, Lexa," he urged her, feeling the tremors in her frame and realizing what was happening, completely missing why it had happened. Lexa shook her head, violently, trying to control her rebelling body enough to communicate. "I've got you, Lex, just cut loose, we'll stabilize you!" Jesse insisted, then held his breath and massed, trying to shift her hands to point at his chest without letting go of her arms and dropping her to the floor.

Lexa gasped out a pained sound of protest and denial, tears forming in her eyes and leaking from their corners to roll down her face in her anguish over not being able to WARN everyone...

Jesse nearly released his mass by gasping in surprise when Lexa suddenly straightened up, but then rose half a foot into the air. Glancing at Kevin and seeing his raising hand, Jesse realized the altruistic young Psionic had seen Jesse struggling to do something without dropping Lexa, and not knowing what that was, he had chosen to hold Lexa up for Jesse, instead. Jesse gently grabbed Lexa's wrists and placed her hands against his chest, just as he had their first time at Benedetti's restaurant when she lost control of her powers.

I can't hold on... Lexa thought desperately, meeting Jesse's gaze and then glaring at "Adam", trying to communicate that something was wrong, with him, but all Jesse was seeing was her desperation. He doesn't know that I know, though, the mad scientist bastard. . .I just have to hope Eve stabilizes me and I come out of it before it's too late... Lexa thought to herself, screaming her denial and outrage as she blasted Jesse's massed torso with both hands. Lexa's anger had always been hot but controlled, and she held onto that control now, blasting Jesse just enough to make the nerves in her arms calm down, as opposed to venting everything she could, the way she had done in the past at Benedetti's or when she had been on DXL. She began to trigger her light cloak, causing her whole body to radiate with shifting light, then changed it into a strobe instead, making her whole body appear to flash in overload as she collapsed, but she clung to consciousness as tightly as she could. Lexa knew she was going under, but she did her best to make sure it wasn't by much, that she would wake up as soon as possible.

Her team needed her.

"Kevin, put her in the Hot Seat, please," Eve said as she hurried over to the medical lab's main computer, Kevin sent Lexa's unconscious form gliding across the lab to settle into the EDD scanner.

"Her expiry date is. . .imminent," the Creator said, realizing at the last moment that Adam wouldn't recite it precisely, in a gesture of sensitivity. Instead, he made sure to nearly phrase his change of words as a question, attempting to verify what had just happened, the same as Adam would have done.

"Yes, but I've got this; we've gone through it before," Eve replied calmly as she called up Lexa's scans from a week and a half ago, when she had nearly collapsed at Benedetti's, her fingers racing to bring up the information she needed and activate a scan of Lexa's current state. "Kevin, just help Adam with Chris and Owen; I'll let you know if I need you," she said as she initiated the EDD's yellow scanning beam, quirking her lower lip and huffing a puff of breath up across her face to blow a stray lock of hair out of her eyes as she watched the readouts of Lexa's scan.

"What happened; I heard Lexa scream?!" Shalimar asked urgently as she and Brennan rushed into the medical lab, then lurched to a halt in the doorway, not wanting to get in the way.

"Lexa destabilized," Jesse said sadly, sidling past Kevin and placing a hand on his back, not to urge Kevin to move, just to let him know not to back up until Jesse squeezed by. "I think the fight and finding Adam may have overwhelmed her; her system gave out once the adrenaline faded," he said miserably, folding into the three-way hug Shalimar and Brennan pulled him into, both of their arms across his back as he wrapped his around their ribs.

"But it's not critical, right?" Brennan asked with concern, looking up from Jesse's bowed head to search out Eve's face, hoping for reassurance. "You can still shore her systems up until Adam can find the answer, right?"

"I can," Eve said, nodding and not taking her eyes from the screen. "I think Jesse's right about today's strain overwhelming her, but that's a good thing," she explained. "Her genetic sequences aren't much worse than they were nine days ago; no one particular system is failing. She's showing emotion-based physical stress, but I bet that's true of all of us, at the moment. Her condition is just enough more precarious for that stress to have pushed her past the brink, but she'll be back to her current normal once she recovers," Eve informed them as she adjusted the EDD, then intiated its beam once more. "I'm prepping her sequences to respond to my modified Feral Fever virus; it'll strengthen the neurons of her power-controlling nerves, help her keep control." Eve looked up to smile at "Adam", a hint of superiority in her expression. "The damned Creator manufactured a modified rabies virus that would have devastated LA's Feral population if we hadn't caught it, but it provided the perfect means to stabilize Lexa's nervous system," she told him. "I find that quite satisfyingly ironic."

"Indeed," the Creator replied, apparently absently, keeping his eyes and supposedly his attention on the readouts of Chris' internal scan. He had been wondering what had happened, since all three of Mutant X's Ferals had been at the warehouse, despite Josh's having clearly been under the virus' effects when he had spoken to the long-haired Feral over a week ago. "Actually, that might well help stabilize everyone faster, once I figure out how Jesse was stabilized originally," he said as the idea occurred to him, though stability was not what he would use the virus for. He also knew how to stabilize the New Mutants anyway, since Adam had nearly figured out the solution just before the Creator stole his body and condemned Adam to die in his own failing one, but he certainly wasn't going to be sharing that knowledge with Mutant X. Reluctantly, but taking care not to show it, he began talking Kevin through adjusting Chris' internal organs and damaged ribs telekinetically. Adam and thus the Creator had no real idea of the extent of Kevin's medical knowledge, so attempting to sabotage Chris' or Owen's recovery by misleading Kevin would be foolish. Even if he accomplished it and threw the team into emotional disarray, suspicions would likely arise.

He would be far better served by learning the extent of Kevin's Psionic abilities.

A short time later, Eve sat back in her seat and sighed, relieved that the situation was proceeding smoothly, all things considered. Lexa's nervous system had responded well to the modified Feral Fever virus; she barely seemed to have destabilized at all, as far as Eve could tell. It was almost like she had been straddling the brink of emotional exhaustion pushing her over the edge of her limited control over her destabilizing system, and then something had nudged her past it. Eve couldn't imagine what that might have been, since fighting for her life and discovering Adam hadn't done so, but perhaps Jesse had been right, that it had just been her adrenaline wearing off. Regardless, she was better for the moment, and would be all the more so once Adam discovered how he had stabilized Jesse's DNA.

Chris and Owen had also responded well to their treatments, so Eve hoped Adam would be able to address Lexa and Jamie's situations soon. Chris' injuries hadn't been as severe as the team had been concerned they might be; he had four broken ribs and a hairline fracture partially through the fifth one, severe bruising on his torso and considerable internal bruising and strained cartilage between his ribs, but that was all. Chris would be sore for a number of weeks and close to bedridden for the next day or so, but his New Mutant physiology would heal quickly, just as Kevin's was doing from the burns on his lower back.

"Adam" had been fascinated by Owen entering his healing dormancy state once his system had been rehydrated. The Creator had watched the passive readouts on Owen's med-bed with awe, contemplating how such an ability would benefit his custom-designed master race of humans. Well, this certainly determines my course of action, the Creator had thought to himself as he watched Owen's body heal itself even as its metabolic rate slowed to a crawl. I'll have to eliminate Mutant X eventually, but first. . .first, I have some experimenting to do...

Once that decision had been made, he had set about planning how to move his objectives forward while keeping the merest fraction of his attention on the medical readouts and playing the part of Adam. Adam's behavior in a lab when distracted by discovery wasn't particularly different from the Creator's own, so he wasn't concerned with the possibility of giving himself away. When Eve settled back in her chair and sighed with relief, indicating Lexa was out of the woods, the Creator set his plan in motion.

"Well, only three medical emergencies to handle before we could proceed with our work," the Creator said with Adam's gentle smirk of fond reminiscence in place as he glanced to Eve. "We're doing better than the day I finally figured out the stasis pods, by at least two," he finished, broadening Adam's smirk into a smile as Eve's eyes went wide but distant, recalling a day decades earlier at Genomex.

"Oh my god, yes, I remember that!" Eve said with a breathless laugh of her own. "Ashlocke overloaded not one, but two subdermal governors before security could stop him," she explained to Kevin and the original team. "He could only use his powers at a minimal level past the governors, so he didn't do TOO much damage, but he kept phasing, security personnel tasering each other through him; a doctor sedated the orderly who grabbed Ashlocke with enough drugs to put an ordinary human in a coma if we hadn't immediately detoxed him..." Eve lowered her eyes and shook her head, able to look back at the memory with a degree of amusement, knowing that everything had turned out alright in the end. The Creator smiled alongside her with just the corners of Adam's lips, giving the impression of being pleased to remind her that things could always be worse. The fact that all of Adam's memories were now his own made the ploy easy to accomplish.

"Well, I think I have an idea of how to proceed now, so hopefully we can get everyone treated and not need any more pods," the Creator said with Adam's usual expository tones. "It will take some time to prepare, though. Eve, I'm going to set up some equipment in the Dojo, just as a precaution. Replicating the EDD in the Dojo is one thing, but replicating it seven times and running all of them simultaneously could prove more than the system can handle. If you and Jesse could work on setting up Haven's processors and data buffers to handle that kind of strain, we can rest easy when the time comes, but I certainly don't want to take any chances. Not with this," he finished. The Creator was proud of his impersonation of Adam, and also of the fact he was talking Mutant X into helping him set them up for their own doom. He took care to only allow Adam's face to smile slightly with a hint of pride and reassurance, rather than with the anticipatory glee he was actually feeling.

"We can do that," Eve said with a nod, glancing to Jesse, who nodded back in confirmation. Maximizing their resources to ensure they solved the problem and cured Lexa and the rest of the team aside from Jesse as quickly as possible was only reasonable. "Jesse, you're better with the hardware than I am; if you could set up the servers and processors in the computer room while I prep the runtime software, we can trade off and double check everything after," she suggested as she rose and headed for Haven's central workstation.

"Sure thing, Eve," Jesse agreed, turning around and following Shalimar as she led the way out of the medical lab. Jesse was thrilled to finally be making progress, hopeful that the rest of his team would be saved from their expiry dates soon, not to mention New Mutants everywhere.

"Anything I can do to help?" Kevin asked as "Adam" began opening cabinets and examining the contents of shelves in the medical lab, seeing what resources he had available.

"Actually, a cart might be useful..." the Creator said, then paused. "..Or. . .Kevin, how much of this equipment can you telekinetically hover to the Dojo?" he asked. "I'm not entirely sure what I may end up needing, but I'd rather have it at hand and ready to use when inspiration strikes, rather than waste time ferrying it back and forth or asking someone to fetch it for me," he explained. His explanation was even the truth; he simply wasn't informing anyone that he intended to build restraints, rather than medical apparatus. "And if you could keep an eye on our patients here while Eve and I prepare for the next step, that would be one less thing we have to do, of course."

"Of course," Kevin agreed, smiling. They had no idea when Lexa or Owen might come out of their unconscious states, and Chris would be waking up eventually, as well. Having someone at hand when waking up in medical was always preferable. "And I can lift practically everything in here that's not wired down, so you should have pretty much anything you need in the Dojo. We can set it to keep the actual electrical and computer ports visible no matter how you reconfigure the holograms, too, so you can hook up anything you like and not have to rely on the holograms," Kevin finished.

"Excellent," the Creator declared with a grin he only had to restrain slightly. "Please, lead the way," he said, gesturing with one hand and a pleasant upturning of the corners of Adam's mouth that spread into a smile when most of the loose items in the medical lab began hovering and formed into a line that preceded Kevin out of the medical lab.

Josh was putting himself through his paces in the gym, trying to exhaust the tension out of his body. He tumbled across the mats in a combination cartwheel-roundoff-backhandspring, backflipping out of the reverse handspring and twisting in mid-air to land in a crouch under the rings. He leaped up, sweeping his straightened arms upward in semi-circles to snap onto the rings with a firm grip. Flexing his shoulders and abs, Josh lifted himself into a handstand on the rings, then folded himself in half at the waist and dipped into his body's drop to hang from the rings once more, swinging his feet and tightening his abs again to shift the move into a full-body revolution between the rings. He repeated the process twice without pause, building up his momentum, then released the rings as his feet were moving upward, flinging himself across the gym to land in a crouch a short distance from the boxing equipment. Josh sprang into a flying jump kick, smashing his foot into the heavy bag, then rained a combination of punches, elbows, and backhands into it before stepping back and shifting to kicks, alternating his right and left legs and switching between sidekicks, snapkicks, and crescent kicks. After executing each kick with both legs from right to left and left to right, Josh turned his back on the bag and bent over, firing one foot out behind him in a tremendous heel-kick to the heavy bag. He used the impact to propel himself forward into a diving somersault onto the mats, rising to twist into a cartwheel and start the whole routine all over again.

Shalimar watched Josh repeat the routine as she toed her boots off, just to be sure he wasn't varying it, then leaped into the gym herself. She flipped across the mats at the opposite angle Josh had just done, also finishing her tumble with a backflip but landing with the balls of her feet on the balance beam, perfectly poised. She rose and reverse-walkovered down its length as Josh vaulted from the rings, turning and springing from the balance beam to the parallel bars. She used her arms, thighs, and core body to flip and roll down the bars' length, rising into a handstand and lowering her legs to the sides in an elongated 'T' formation, then snapped her heels together directly above her rear, jackknifing them up into the air even as she lowered her head between the bars. A heave of her arms and swing of her legs flung Shalimar to the ends of the parallel bars, where she landed in a wide-legged crouch as Josh shifted from punching the heavy bag to kicking it. Shalimar sprang from the end of the parallel bars to the upper of the uneven bars, folding at the waist and shifting her weight to curl and flip from one bar to the other, back and forth, handstands and aerial flips as Josh went through his kicks. She finished with a rotating crouch on the lower bar, facing back the way she had come as her body revolved upright on the balls of her feet once more. Shalimar allowed her momentum to pitch her forward thirty-some degrees, releasing her grip of the bar and springing all the way back past the balance beam to land in a diving somersault onto the mats. She had timed her routine perfectly, hitting the mats an instant before Josh did, her shorter form completing her roll and coming up to her feet to face Josh with her hands on her hips and a grin on her face as he aborted the twist into his initial cartwheel.

"You're good," she grinned at him, her smiling brown eyes flashing golden as their pupils extended into vertical slits.

"So're you," Josh replied, his grey eyes flaring pale jade as their own pupils shifted to Feline Feral mode in response. "You watched me all of once before you moved, and timed it perfectly," he said with impressed respect as their eyes reverted to normal. "You're damned good," he admitted.

"Well, I've been training as a member of Mutant X for almost fifteen years," she said with a shrug of one shoulder, dismissing her timing as a matter of long practice. "You've been with the team for what, a year and a half? Less? You're almost as good as me, with way less field experience, or even years of training, so I'd say you're not bad yourself. Not to mention noticing my arrival and the moment I moved, despite being focused on your routine," she finished.

"Oh, I'm 'not bad,' am I?" Josh asked, smirking as he folded his arms across his chest. "Well, besides the fact I've been in martial arts since I was a kid, and seriously for over a decade now, I also worked as a stuntman for a few years. For some pretty cheap studios that OSHA probably should have shut down, so the 'field experience' there was fairly legit," he laughed. "I think your sensory acuity is higher than mine, but I bet I'm faster," he proclaimed, then smirked. "For no reason other than my legs are ten inches longer, if nothing else!"

"Did you seriously just play the Short Card on me, Mister!?" Shalimar asked with a disbelieving laugh, shaking her head when Josh simply grinned at her, then confused him by dropping into a crouch and jackknifing her feet out behind her, laying down on the mats. She kept her head and shoulders up, one elbow and forearm folded beneath her as she planted the other elbow in front of her on the mats and raised its hand, clearly challenging Josh to arm wrestle. "I was going to say that my senses are only sharper than yours thanks to my New Mutant Growth Spurt, but then you had to go and call me short. Now we'll just see if your longer arms improve your leverage enough to make you stronger." she declared with a wicked grin.

"Huh," Josh said with a contemplative expression on his face, his eyes a million miles away even though he was looking down at Shalimar's challenging hand. "..I'm the only one whose Growth Spurt hasn't kicked in yet," he said as he hopped down to the mats himself, to match Shalimar's arm-wrestling position. "It'd be cool if I got stronger," he said. "I'd probably still not even come close to Owen, but it'd be nice to be a better back-up Feral," he finished as he locked grasps with Shalimar.

"Hey," she said with a sharp frown, her voice surprised as well as disapproving. "You are not a 'back-up' anything, Feral or otherwise!" she insisted, glaring into Josh's eyes with concern, hoping he didn't really feel that way. "What are you even thinking, putting yourself down like that?" Shalimar asked, thinking back to the night she had arrived in LA, watching Jamie and Kevin keep Josh calm after the rest of the team had been captured, while Shalimar herself had been ranting at Eve. Josh had called himself stupid then and Kevin had immediately admonished him for it, but that had been after he'd said he prided himself on being "thinky," for a Feral. "I know you know it's not true; Kevin and the others support you too much for that," she finished, thinking of Owen trying to reassure Josh when he was worried about Kevin pushing himself too far in their ambush for GSAgent Feldspar. Continuing to frown, Shalimar stared into Josh's storm-grey eyes, trying to judge what he was thinking and how he was responding to her statements.

Shalimar's nostrils flared as she was considering Josh's mood; they were both sweating after their athletic routines, Josh especially, since he had been in the gym for a while before Shalimar arrived. She caught the scent of his pheromones and contemplated it, since his expression wasn't giving her anything and his body language was minimal since they were both lying supine with their right hands clasped. Josh's scent smelled. . .devious? He barely smelled like turmoil at all; he smelled confident, like a predator lying in wait, watching its prey to see when it made the wrong move and stepped into position for the predator's pounce.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a frowning glare, knowing something was up.

"Damn, you got me!" Josh laughed, dropping his gaze and letting his head fall forward as he chuckled, his bangs shifting to conceal most of his lowered face behind their curtain. "I SAW your nose twitch; you wouldn't've caught on if it weren't for that sensory acuity!" he declared, grinning as he looked up and met her eyes again. "I was psyching you out, making you hesitate to put your all into our competition," he explained, still grinning. "I'm pretty sure you are stronger than me, and I'm mad at myself for being sexist enough to let that bother me," he admitted. "So I figured I could save my pride if I tricked you into letting me win!"

"Hah. Well, that's sure not happening now!" Shalimar declared, hunkering down in preparation to start their arm-wrestling match. "Josh, you're one of the most self-aware people I have ever met in my entire life; that's why I couldn't believe you thought that little of yourself!"

"Eh, I'm so good at lying I can even deceive myself, sometimes," he said with as much of a shrug as he could accomplish in a supine arm-wrestling position. "But then again, I think most people have that problem. I'm just weird in that I deceive myself with self-deprecation, instead of over-confidence."

Shalimar smirked.

"..And if I asked the rest of the team if you're the weirdest person they've ever met?" she asked, her smirk spreading into a grin as Josh's expression went completely affronted.

"Hey!" he pouted. "Okay, that was totally your payback for the Short Card," he declared with a scowl.

"If you say so," Shalimar replied, non-commitally. "Put your muscles where your mouth is, Thinky," she told him, applying pressure with her own arm and starting their arm-wrestling match.

Josh and Shalimar were both lean and wiry, their biceps popping out in stark relief against the rest of their upper arms as they wrestled, the divots between the muscles of their forearms shadowed as they struggled against one another. Their right forearms remained upright despite the straining muscles attempting to move them, trembling with the opposed forces of their stalemate.

"Hell, if our strengths are even, this turns into an endurance contest!" Josh growled between his clenching teeth, his pale jade Feral Mode eyes staring into Shalimar's golden ones.

"Yeah? So?" she asked through her own tightly-clamped teeth, one eyebrow quirking in amusement.

"..I'm a sprinter..." Josh growled, even more annoyed, then grunted as he bore down and threw everything he had into breaking the stalled position of their forearms. Shalimar increased her own efforts, the trembling of their arms intensifying and causing their upraised forearms to wobble back and forth, but they slowly began leaning one way, across Josh's front and against Shalimar's. Josh's stressed expression shifted to include being pleased on top of his clenching teeth and scowling brow, but then his eyebrows shot upward as Shalimar applied everything she had to the contest, as well.

Josh's arm moved back across his chest, their clenched hands passing by his perplexed face, both their forearms continuing to tremble with the force they were each applying. Josh snarled deep in his throat, then clenched with everything he had. He held his breath and tightened his core, attempting to wrest their arms back and force Shalimar to give, but nothing he tried even budged her grip, nor her arm's progressing position. His resistance was almost enough; Shalimar's progress was slow, and both their forearms were trembling violently from the exersion, but after another minute she had forced Josh's arm to a less than forty degree angle from the mats' surface and slammed it the rest of the way into them.

"Well, Crap!" Josh gasped, allowing himself to flop facedown into the mats as he heaved for breath. "But hey, I made you work for it!" he declared, his voice muffled ridiculously.

"You did," Shalimar admitted with a laugh as she rose and padded back over to the gym's doorway. She bent and picked up the can and bottle she had left there, grinning at the look of surprise on Josh's face when he lifted his head at her returning approach and saw the chilled can of Diet Coke she was offering him.

"You are a fabulous saint and I take back every bad thing I've said or thought about you, especially the short and soft-girly-parts comments," Josh declared, flinging himself up so that only his left forearm and hand were still touching the ground, folding his legs beneath himself as his torso flipped back down again to land in a cross-legged seated position as he straightened up, reaching up for the can with his right hand as his weight settled.

Shalimar laughed.

"I may have only known you for less than a month, but I think I knew your blood type was Diet Coke after less than a week..." she said, laughing as she uncapped her bottle of water and took a long drink while Josh popped the top of his soda can and drank most of it in only a few swallows.

"Okay, that was a good warm up, and we've rehydrated, now let's spar!" Shalimar declared as Josh finished his can of soda and rose, crushing the empty can and throwing it into the garbage can in the corner of the gym that served as a recycling bin, an odd sound echoing from within it when the squashed can collided with Owen's numerous empty plastic Gatorade bottles already inside the garbage can. Josh gave an exaggeratedly put-upon groan as he let his head tip back in supposed disbelief while Shalimar set her half-empty water bottle aside.

"You heard me when I said I was a sprinter, right?" Josh asked in exasperation. "I burn my energy in short, quick bursts, not this ongoing crap. Not to mention I was working out in here for a while before somebody interrupted me and turned everything into a contest..."

"Uh-huh," Shalimar declared in a teasing deadpan, a smirk lurking around her eyes. "Put your combat skills where your mouth is, Thinky," she said with a laugh as she rephrased her previous comment. "You're the one who's supposedly been in martial arts most of his life..." she drawled, deliberately trailing the comment off like she didn't believe him, even though he knew she had no reason to doubt his word.

"Ohhh-ho-hoo, it is on, Sister!" Josh declared with a snarl of delight. "And my nickname is 'CatBoy', not 'Thinky'," he told her as he stepped back and raised his hands, shifting into a combat stance. "Full contact, just try not to break any bones," he declared, setting the terms of their sparring match as Shalimar spread her feet wider and moved into her own combat stance. "No groin or eye strikes, pull punches above the neckline."

"Agreed," Shalimar said, both their eyes flashing and shifting to Feral mode as they moved forward, intercepting one another.

Shalimar was tempted to lash out with all the speed she had, just to put Josh's theory that he was faster to the test, but she decided not to play her whole hand at once, holding back to see both what Josh would do and what he was capable of. Josh seemed to be taking a similar approach, however, both of them beginning to lunge at one another but never committing to the action, never following through. Josh threw a few experimental punches and kicks, just to see how Shalimar would react, but she simply evaded or blocked them with minimal effort, since they were telegraphed and nothing like full speed.

Josh had thrown those punches and kicks without much discipline or form, simply testing Shalimar and not wanting to give away any hints to his own style and efficiency in the process. He threw another punch, a quick jab from his shoulder as he changed his stance, then fluidly shifted into a proper tae-do stance when she reacted, flashing out with a low side-snap kick at her knee that was actually a feint, bending his knee to pull his foot back as she moved to block it, raising his leg higher and snapping his foot out again in a fast kick aimed at the side of Shalimar's head. She only narrowly ducked away from the kick in time, her eyes widening in surprise.

Shalimar went on the offensive, stepping forward toward Josh instead of backing out of his reach, lashing and kicking at him with her hands and feet. Josh used his feline reflexes to avoid most of the blows, but Shalimar was of a comparable speed, and he had to block some of her strikes, using his elbows, forearms, and hands in traditional Tae Kwon Do techniques. Josh let Shalimar herd him back with her onslaught for a moment, keeping his eyes on the middle distance and his expression neutral, keeping watch with his peripheral vision. He suddenly snarled in rage and threw himself forward, diving into a shoulder roll immediately in front of Shalimar and scything his legs together as they flipped up and forward, attempting to clamp them around Shalimar's body in a surprise move.

Startled into giving a cry of surprise at the sudden change in Josh's attitude and technique, as well as the unexpected and unorthodox move, Shalimar was forced to fling herself sideways to avoid both of Josh's legs. She planted one hand on the mats and flipped off the base it provided to propel herself sideways and land on her feet once more, her head snapping back up to keep watch on her opponent.

Josh did not let up, dashing forward even as he got his feet under himself and Shalimar was still landing from her half-flip. He leaped forward to kick at Shalimar as she recovered her balance, spinning when she knocked his leg away with the back of her forearm and swinging the back of his own forearm at her in a backfist. She leaned out of the way, and Josh followed up with a punch from his other fist, then hopped forward and thrust his second leg directly at Shalimar in a pistoning kick after raising his knee to his chest. She twisted to one side, letting his foot pass within an inch of her turned back, and rammed her elbow behind herself, smashing its point into the meat of Josh's thigh.

Shalimar flung herself away from Josh sideways, dropping down onto her other hand and kicking her feet up into the air in a cartwheel as Josh twisted and leaned backwards away from Shalimar, flinging his hands up above his head to reverse-walkover away from her.

"First Contact: Mine!" she said with a grin as they both straightened up and she turned to face Josh once more.

"First contact isn't the last laugh," Josh replied, not letting her jibe get to him.

They continued sparring for several more minutes, both of them gradually committing more and more of their personal resources to the match. Shalimar tried applying maximum force and minimal movement, twisting and blocking just barely enough to keep Josh from striking her and attacking with all of her strength when she attempted to land a blow. Josh countered by continually circling behind Shalimar, lashing out with his longer limbs to land glancing blows following Shalimar's all-out strikes, faster than she could retract her limbs to block them.

When Shalimar decided full-strength attacks weren't working and leaped to attack Josh acrobatically instead, Josh ceased using martial arts and switched to pursuing Shalimar with wild Feral fury, snarling and swiping at her with each of his limbs in turn, forcing her to use her acrobatics to evade him instead of attacking. She quickly deduced his fury was an act and suddenly turned to face Josh head-on instead of retreating, smoothly blocking his lashing strikes. Josh switched back to proper martial arts blows once more, systematically blocking Shalimar's attacks and countering them with quick, straight-line punches and kicks that she also blocked or dodged. As Josh twisted away from one of Shalimar's kicks, he switched from his usual tae-do styles to circular kung fu and savate styles, spinning low on one foot and scything the other out in a wide arc to knock Shalimar's standing foot out from under her.

Shalimar fell with a cry of surprise but instantly kip-upped back to her feet, narrowly dodging the follow-up kick Josh performed as he completed his rotation and rose again. Shalimar turned on him and went on the offensive, attacking with every bit of her speed, as she had considered doing at the start of their match. Josh was hard pressed to block all of her attacks, but he managed to do so, using a different technique or style every time, so that she couldn't guess what his next defensive action would be.

Josh suddenly threw himself to the ground as he twisted to evade one of Shalimar's punches while blocking her simultaneous kick. He planted his free hand on the mats with his arm straight, hitching his pelvis up into the air and drawing the knee of his lower leg up while sweeping his higher leg in a kick at Shalimar's head. She straightened up slightly and leaned back to avoid the kick, automatically raising her hands to protect her face with one hand and brush the kick aside with the other. Josh fired his bent leg out in a kick to Shalimar's midriff at the same time, easily reaching her torso thanks to his horizontal positioning in mid-air and the way she had straightened her torso to evade his first foot.

Shalimar doubled over with a "WHOOF!" of breath knocked out of her; Josh dropped back down onto his feet in a crouch, lunging forward with his free hand to bop Shalimar in the nose with a pulled punch, then flashed his hand lower to sink his fingertips into her throat, fingers and thumbs gripping the sides of her larynx. Josh shot his forward foot out along the mats, snapping his knee closed to catch his heel behind Shalimar's while she was still reacting to the fact he suddenly had her at his mercy; lifting with the hand around her neck and shoving against the underside of her jaw with the heel of his hand knocked Shalimar over.

"I think I gotcha," Josh said with a grin as he straightened up, turning to face Shalimar's sprawled form as he proudly planted his fists on his hips.

"Yeah, you did, damn!" Shalimar said from where she lay on the mats, staring up at the ceiling with her eyes wide in shock. "You're sneaky, using one style just long enough for me to get used to it, then switching to throw me off!" she declared as she raised her head to give him an affronted glare that was also impressed.

"Yeah, well, what's the point of studying differnt fighting styles if you don't use them?" Josh asked as he stepped forward and offered Shalimar a hand to raise her to her feet. "..And now you know, so next time we spar, you won't fall for my tricks and probably kick my butt," he said with a smirk.

"Well, I can guarantee I'll give it my best shot!" she agreed with a laugh. They both turned in surprise when a throat was cleared at the gym's door.

"Shalimar, Josh, could I get your assistance in the Dojo, please?" the Creator asked, making Adam's voice sound both hopeful and urgent. "I think I have a theory on how I stabilized Jesse, but it's going to be difficult to test. The two of you would make ideal subjects, because if I'm wrong, your Feral bodies will recover more quickly, meaning we'll be able to try again that much sooner. Also, I may have performed some of the techniques that helped Jesse on Shalimar already, but I obviously haven't on Josh, and you're both Feline Ferals, so comparing your scans in that fashion will also be informative," he explained. "I would ask Owen, but..."

"..He's not exactly an ideal subject when his health's already been impacted today," Shalimar agreed with a nod. "And like you said, we're both Felines, so comparing us makes more sense than anyone else," she said, turning to raise one eyebrow in query as she gave Josh a look. He could tell that her look was also a speaking look, saying: See? Not a back-up Feral; we needed a second Feline for this! Josh smirked just slightly with one corner of his mouth, giving Shalimar a nod of acknowledgement as he answered "Adam":

"Sure, let's get this done; sooner the better."

"Excellent!" the Creator said with a smile he was careful to keep restrained, then turned and led the way to the Dojo, where he had made his preparations.

Halfway across the city, Emma "Anne Smith" deLauro was saying goodbye to her boutique workers. She was confident leaving "Newly Aged Fashions" in their hands for the day, since it was mid-October and past the back-to-school debut of fall fashions but still well before the holiday shopping season insanity. Her employees were used to running the shop in her absence, since she spent a fair amount of time working with the Mutant Underground, so it wasn't anything unusual for the small shop. "Anne's" employees knew that she was a crisis counselor of some sort and that she sometimes responded to emergency situations; Emma simply claimed practitioner-patient confidentiality and refused to answer any specific questions about her counseling work. She was the boss at the boutique and could make her own schedule, meaning she could leave when she needed to with no questions asked.

Like when her old teammates called, asking for help.

Emma thought back to the call she had received, knowing that things certainly had to be bad if the team was actively reaching out for therapy, as a whole, not for just one of them like for Jesse or Chris in the past two days. This did make the third day in a row that Mutant X had needed her services, but they were still her family, even if they didn't know it, and she would help them to the best of her abilities.

'Anne? It's Shalimar, from Haven,' Emma's old friend had said when she answered, and Emma nearly had to laugh. How many "Shalimars" did she think "Anne" knew? 'I know you just came and helped Chris with his Growth Spurt yesterday, but could we ask you to come do a house call for a counseling session? Or ten?' she asked hesitantly. 'We've. . .had some fairly serious developments over here; I told you that you wouldn't want to bother us when you came back for your car yesterday because we were wrapped up in more craziness. . .well, it's been pretty bad. And good, too, but...' Shalimar's voice had trailed off, like she wasn't even sure how to describe the team's emotional state. 'Well, we're all a mess. Some of us more so than others.'

'Kevin and Owen most definitely need your help, Anne,' Brennan had broken in to say, and Emma's eyebrows had risen in surprise. She had gotten a telempathic hit off Brennan when he spoke, and that hit had read strongly of concern, with a background hint of hope and relief Emma had found interesting; it had sounded like things were pretty bad indeed. '..But the rest of us could probably use a group therapy session as well,' he had admitted. 'We've. . .well, I guess you could say the team has hit a milestone, a big one. Some professional help decompressing would probably be good, if you're willing.'

"Of course I'm willing, Brennan," Emma had replied, not even realizing she had possibly slipped up by recognizing his voice without him identifying himself, the way Shalimar had done. "I'll head over as soon as I can; I should be there in less than an hour, okay?" she had asked, glad it was a request for counseling that could wait a short while and not an emergency like Chris' the day before.

Emma was glad that she could take a little time to prepare herself and be ready to maintain her "Anne Smith" disguise.

"Are those. . .spare safehouse cots?" Shalimar asked in surprise when they entered Haven's Dojo. Eve's holographic simulation of the medical lab was running, but with only the medical equipment that could not be moved and the countertop surfaces recreated. The equipment Kevin had transported from the real medical lab was all in its proper places, and the rest of the Dojo remained itself with no hologrpahic scenery added, increasing the medical lab's space by almost half again. The additional space had been filled with four tubular steel-framed cots, two on each side of the medical lab simulation, in alignment with the two examination table medical beds. Six additional EDD scanners had been holographically manifested, one positioned over each of the cots and the two examination tables.

"They are," the Creator admitted with a slightly sheepish smile on Adam's face. "I'm less than sure about straining Haven's holographic systems this way, and I don't want to take any chances, certainly not with anyone's health," he explained in all honesty, except for the last part of his sentence. "The fewer holograms the system has to maintain, the better," he went on, gesturing to the naked Dojo showing between the medical lab's apparatus. "I'd hate to have the system crash and drop everyone to the floor when the holograms dispersed, so I asked Kevin if there was anything we could move into the Dojo to use, and he kindly showed me the rear storeroom, with its spare safehouse supplies. Setting up was considerably easier after that, and now we're ready to proceed," he finished, gesturing again to indicate Shalimar and Josh should lie down under the EDD scanners.

"Doesn't matter where?" Shalimar asked as she wandered through the sparse medical lab simulation, leaning over to poke one of the cots and see if it was as nice as the ones in New York, which it wasn't. "Or should I take one of the 'real' medical beds, so my results are entered into the system?"

"That would probably be for the best, yes," the Creator acknowledged, nodding Adam's head in agreement despite the fact he had no intention of actually comparing Shalimar's and Josh's DNA, but her question reminded him to maintain the façade of his role as her mentor. "Josh, if you could take the other bed, I'll be able to have the med lab's computers compare your scans," he said, accessing a system as Josh nodded and he and Shalimar climbed up onto the med-beds and laid down.

"We don't need everybody to change into the scanning shorts for this?" Josh asked with a smirk as he laid still while "Adam" prepped the machines. "..I'm not even sure if we have enough pairs of 'em for everybody, actually..."

"Well, maybe when the time comes to adjust everyone, but I suppose turns can be taken at that point if necessary," the Creator said with an amused smile applied to Adam's face and voice. "They won't be necessary for these initial scans, however, so that's that much less time wasted," he went on. "All right, you two, eyes closed and lie still for a moment..." he cautioned, then activated the replicated EDD scanners over the medical examination table holograms. The yellow beams slowly scanned down and up Shalimar's and Josh's forms, relaying data to the actual medical lab computers to process, which was then displayed on their holographic recreations in the Dojo. The Creator smiled broadly, barely containing his grin when he saw that the holograms did indeed function as he had hoped, meaning he could proceed with his plan immediately.

Shalimar waited for the scan beam to shut off, knowing that speaking while it was finishing its upward scan would cause her head to vibrate and disrupt the readings. Once she felt the tingling interaction of the yellow beam with her scalp cease, she sat up and twisted to support herself on one elbow, turning to look at "Adam" and grin.

"So, it worked?" she asked excitedly as Josh also turned to give the scientist an expectant look. "We can smell how excited you just became; it must have worked, right?!" Shalimar beamed, hopeful joy clear on her face.

"Indeed it did," the Creator said with a nod, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him so as not to give away how much the Ferals smelling his anticipatory glee had startled him. He knew he would only need to maintain his act for a short while longer, so he merely needed to keep his emotional and resulting pheromonal responses under control until then. He turned to Shalimar and Josh, allowing his enthusiasm to show as a delighted smile on Adam's face. "So far, my theory is correct, and neither of you are showing any negative reaction to this initial test; you both feel fine, right?" he asked, smiling again and nodding in response when both Feline Ferals nodded that they felt perfectly normal.

"Alright, then we're ready to proceed. If the two of you could get everyone else—well, not Lexa, I suppose, since she'll need to stabilize from the viral treatment before we alter her genetic sequences further..." the Creator reasoned to himself, knowing Eve would never allow Lexa's DNA to be put at risk by genetic modification while it was still recovering from her earlier treatment. "..But everyone else, except Jamie, obviously. I'll have Jesse on the actual EDD to confirm my comparison scans of the rest of you, but I believe I'll be able to determine what genetic modifications will be needed to stabilize each of you if I scan everyone together."

"Outstanding!" Shalimar exclaimed, hopping down off the medical bed. "C'mon, CatBoy!" she called over her shoulder to Josh, hurrying out of the Dojo to go fetch the rest of the team.

The Creator smiled to himself, in anticipation.

The team filed into the Dojo, all filled with hopeful anticipation. Jesse was dramatically nervous, fidgeting and restless, trying to keep himself from getting his hopes up and nervous about having them dashed. Brennan was hovering at his side, the corners of his mouth smiling just slightly with his own hope and his eyes smiling much brighter, silently trying to reassure Jesse. Shalimar was full of energy, grinning to see the end of their quest in sight, shooting hopeful looks to Adam, Jesse, Brennan, and Eve where she brought up the rear of the procession. Owen's unconscious form floated into the Dojo behind Shalimar, Chris hovering alongside him and squinting in befuddlement through the haze of his painkillers. Kevin was immediately behind them with his hands raised to telekinetically guide them into place on the med-beds; Eve had insisted they be on the examination tables so that she could monitor their statuses during the procedure, since they were already injured. Josh followed immediately behind Kevin, pushing Owen's IV stand that was filled with both rehydration fluids and nutrients to fuel his healing dormancy, since the last thing they would need was Owen waking up in the middle of the procedure with hypoglycemia. Josh was bright-eyed and anticipating the relief of finally having it all over, expecting success since his and Shalimar's scans had apparently gone so well. Eve was the last to enter the Dojo, her face torn between smiling with joyful hope and frowning with worry that something would go wrong.

"Alright, Everyone, let's get started, shall we?" the Creator said with a smile, gesturing for the assembled members of the team to lie down. Kevin gave Chris a reassuring nod and Owen's unconscious shoulder a squeeze as he passed between the med-beds and settled into one of the two cots on Owen's side of the Dojo; Josh paused slightly longer, gently cupping the side of Owen's face, reaching across him so that Josh's wrist passed in front of Owen's nose. He wanted Owen to catch his scent and hopefully be subconsciously aware that Pack was present and calm when he woke up; Josh then took the cot past Kevin's, exchanging a happy grin of anticipation with his lover as they both laid down. Kevin was excited to be participating in what would be a historic occasion for New Mutant culture, watching medical history unfold as their evolving genetic sequences were finally stabilized.

Jesse pointed at the Hot Seat as he glanced at "Adam", a questioning look on his face that the Creator nodded in the affirmative to; Jesse exchanged a forlorn glance with Brennan as he moved to the EDD scanner's chair. Shalimar glanced at Josh and Kevin settling into one corner of the Dojo, then glanced back at her boys with a smirk. She moved over to the Hot Seat just as Jesse sat down, making him pause with a confused frown on his face. Shalimar wrapped her arms around her "little brother" in a hug before allowing him to settle back in the scanning chair, meeting Jesse's watering eyes as she drew back, giving him a nod of affirmation. She turned and gave Brennan a hug as well, who put one arm across Shalimar's back and reached past her with the other to grip Jesse's shoulder, giving it a fierce squeeze of reassurance and anticipation, hope and support shining in his warm brown eyes as he stared into Jesse's watering blue ones. Jesse gave Brennan a lopsided and shaky smile of hope in return, then settled back in the Hot Seat as Brennan and Shalimar turned to take the last two cots. Eve settled into the chair at the records computer simulation, ready to monitor the team's status during the procedure and Lexa's in the real medical lab.

"Are we ready to proceed, Eve?" the Creator asked as he stepped up to the Dojo's controls, running the program to relay the simulation scanners' data to the actual EDD scanner and engage the computer buffers Eve and Jesse had prepared to handle the strain. He also activated a few other programs he had created in the Dojo while preparing to "treat" the team.

"We are," Eve called back in reply as she watched her screen divide itself into eight sectors, one for each of the simulation scanners in the Dojo and one for the med-bed monitoring Lexa in the real medical lab. "As Owen would say if he were awake: 'Let's Do This.' " The Creator smiled to himself as Eve's voice triggered the program he had just activated; neither Eve nor the rest of her team noticed the holograms around her reconfiguring themselves.

"Very well, then," the Creator said in supposed reply to Eve as he activated the next step of his plan. "Eyes closed, Everyone, and hold still," he called out, the team closing their eyes as the holographic EDD scanners began scything yellow beams of light up and down their reclining forms. The beams were actually determining the exact positions of the members of Mutant X, particularly their spinal cords. New holograms were generated, boxlike devices behind each of the New Mutants' necks which all simultaneously went ka-chung! and delivered subdermal governors into contact with their spinal cords.

"Hey?" Chris blurted, muzzily aware of what had happened, but the governor's injection hadn't hurt, due to the amount of painkillers already in his system for his ribs.

"Don't worry, these are the painless, power-nullifying kind," the Creator called out to the team with Adam's apologetically reassuring tone. "I just need your abilities dormant to compare the basal ganglia while they're inactive; if my theory's correct, that should tell me what did the job for Jesse."

"A little warning would've been nice," Brennan commented grumpily, since he could tell from long experience that the beam had stopped scanning him for the moment.

"Sorry, Brennan," the Creator replied, making sure he put sincerity in Adam's voice as he said it; he only needed to maintain his act for another few moments. "I was saving the warning for this next part. I'm afriad this won't be as pleasant as the Hot Seat normally is; Everyone, I need you to put your wrists and ankles on the frames of your cots; Jesse, the arms and footrest of the EDD scanner are fine, and Chris, just lie still on the bed. The basal ganglia are also responsible for voluntary muscle movement, and I don't want anyone flailing their way off their cot and falling to the floor."

"I don' wanna flail; my whole torso hurts. I Think," Chris murmured with a frown.

"Broken bones won't help complete the procedure, huh?" Josh asked with a sarcastic laugh in his voice as he stretched his limbs out on the cot, since he hadn't stretched out after his sparring match with Shalimar, leaving himself spread-eagled over the cot's edges. Kevin turned his head to smirk at his boyfriend as he moved his hands and feet out to his sides until they were past the edges of his cot, Brennan and Shalimar also following "Adam's" instuction on their own cots.

"I don't think they would, no," the Creator answered Josh with Adam's soft chuckle. "And movement during the comparison scan would make the results less reliable, so we're trying to minimize that. I think we'd all like to get this right the first time, right?" he asked with amusement, the team chuckling in response to his coaching. The Creator smiled as he activated the next holographic program, glad he had talked Mutant X into completing the process of putting themselves at his mercy. Holographic restraints shimmered into existence around the New Mutants' wrists and ankles, but they were unaware of the rope from the rear storeroom being manipulated inside those holograms, securely restraining each of them. Even Chris and Owen were tied to cots the Creator had carefully positioned to have the holograms of the medical examination tables manifest over.

"Alright, let's get started," the Creator declared, his smile spreading into a wicked grin of delight.

Eve had frowned in concern when the records computer simulation had failed to respond to her input after bringing up the displays of the team's scans. Adam hadn't repsonded either when she called out to him in concern, and it had taken Eve several confusing moments to realize that she was actually trapped in a holographic construct, the medical records computer displaying ongoing data for her to see what was happening but not allowing her to influence the procedure in any way. She had called out in alarm, trying to use the Dojo's voice-activated commands to cancel the program or get anyone's attention, but her holographic prison seemed to be soundproof. . .which meant it was air-tight.

Eve's eyes snapped back to her screen as the scanning beams began examining her team, and she saw the display targeting the back of their necks, right where a subdermal governor would be implanted...

Eve screamed at the top of her lungs, as piercingly as she could, embracing her Shriek Queen nickname and hoping and praying Josh or Shalimar would hear her, or Chris detect the sound of her shriek and realize something was wrong. . .but the holograms had already manifested, blocking their powers. Eve threw herself down into her chair, ignoring the wisps of hair in the corners of her vision as she pulled her cell phone and her tablet out of her lab coat's pockets, desperately hoping she could come up with some way of stopping Adam. He was possessed by the Creator's ghost, or brainwashed while he was a prisoner of the Dominion, something, but that didn't matter at the moment. She had to stop him from destroying the team first, then they could worry about returning Adam to his senses.

There was no point in trying to hack her way into the medical or hologram systems; the computer simulation in her holographic cell was only a monitor; Eve couldn't access it. It was only a holographic projection, displaying the information it was being fed from the real medical computers, but there weren't any actual circuits present for Eve to attempt to access, with her adaptive cellphone frequencies, her nanites, or otherwise. . ."Adam" had clearly reserved the actual circuitry re-creation for the duplicate EDD scanners. On the other hand, because her prison was just a holographic construct, Eve might be able to disrupt it, if she could get her phone to adapt itself to the right frequency. She wasn't sure if her nanites would be able to escape the hologram, since it was air-tight—nano-machines were microscopic, but they were still hundreds or thousands of times bigger than individual gas molecules. Even if they could crawl through the holograms, it would take them days if not weeks to reach the hologram projectors' circuits, and Eve didn't have the resources available to reprogram them to control or shut down those circuits, anyway. But all she needed was to get the nanites to recognize the frequency that the holographic walls of her cell were being projected on. They automatically adapted to any frequencies they could detect, in order to transmit their findings concerning any circuits they discovered, the same as her cellphones.

She just needed to cancel her phone's frequencies, have it detect the nanites' data on the holograms...

In the medical lab, Lexa began to stir.

She slowly blinked awake, taking stock of how she was feeling. She felt. . .pretty good, actually. The constant tension just under her skin that she had been living with for the past week or so had settled, feeling less like it was going to turn into actual tremors at any moment than it had in several days. Had Adam...

Lexa gasped, his eyes flying open wide as conscious memory returned and she recalled that "Adam" was not Adam at all. Thinking quickly, she squeezed them shut again and began twitching her limbs against the examination table she was lying on, as if the tremors of her iminent expiration actually were setting in. She breathed harshly but quietly, as if she had passed out again, faking subconscious panting as she listened for someone to take note of her situation and act. The last she had known, the examination tables had been occupied by Owen and Chris, who had certainly been in need of them, so clearly some time had passed, if a patient had been moved and Lexa had taken their place. She kept twitching and listening for a few moments, waiting to see if someone would notice her.

No one did, which did not at all put Lexa at ease.

Deciding it was better to play it safe than sorry, Lexa maintained her act for a few moments more. If no one was monitoring the medical lab despite there being a patient in it, then the Creator most likely had the team at his mercy. He could come back to take care of Lexa at any time once he got the rest of the team out of the way, but if he was performing one of his crazy mad scientist experiments on one or more of them, it might take him some time to get around to her. That didn't mean he couldn't keep an eye on her, however; the man was something like two-hundred years old, or possibly more—if he was paranoid enough to survive that long, Lexa wasn't going to take the risk of underestimating him.

Continuing to twitch on the med-bed just in case the Creator was monitoring her, Lexa managed to toss her head back and forth and writhe in such a way that she could squint her eyes in "distress" and look around the medical lab. It was strangely barren, most of the supplies absent and the other medical bed empty. The Hot Seat and computers were still there; the cabinets and countertops were of course still present but were all empty, and Jamie's pod in the corner was the only other object in the lab. Where would the Creator have taken all the medical supplies..?

Of course

The Dojo.

He would want to incapacitate everyone at once, and there wasn't sufficient treatment space in the medical lab. He would have no way to conceal anyone he had taken care of from everyone else if he took them in turns in the medical lab, so he moved everything to the Dojo, where he had room to abuse the whole team simultaneously. He had even asked Eve about recreating the medical lab in the Dojo just before they had started treating Owen and Chris, when Lexa had noticed his injection scab.

As the final gesture of her act, Lexa gave a full-body shudder and went limp, triggering her light cloak as she collapsed. With a flare of light shimmering over her motionless form, Lexa disappeared, then slowly climbed off the medical examination bed and moved to check the records computer.

Lexa gasped in alarm as her pulse began echoing in her ears and her vision began greying out at the edges before she had crossed even half the distance between her med-bed and the records computer.

No! she thought desperately to herself. Not now! The team needs me!

Lexa's cloaked form staggered to the records computer, her clear silhouette's edges glimmering.

"But where to begin?" the Creator asked no one in particular as he stepped up to the main medical computer simulation, one finger pressed to his chin as he peered at his captives. "So much potential, all of my successor's best work laid out before me, the possibilities..." he mused, various members of the team lifting their heads to peer at him curiously.

"Adam?" Shalimar asked, exchanging a worried glance with Brennan. "Weren't you going to scan all of us at once, for the comparison?" Jesse raised his own perplexed eyebrow, wondering what "Adam" was talking about.

"Successor's work? You mean Eve?" Jesse asked, confused.

"No, no..." the Creator replied, chuckling to himself. "I suppose 'successor' isn't quite accurate, is it? He followed in the footsteps I laid out for him, but now I'm simply continuing our path. We left him behind, instead of me, you see," he finished, smiling a truly disturbing smile as he met Jesse's befuddled gaze, an expression that was slowly shifting to unease.

"Adam, what. . .what's going on; what's gotten into you?" Jesse asked, his unease turning into alarm as he realized that not only was something not right, the entire team was helpless, as well. "Eve!" he cried out, twisting from where he was strapped into the Hot Seat and leaning to one side, to see Eve sitting at the record computer's simulation. "Eve, turn off the Dojo! Something's wrong!"

To Jesse and the rest of Mutant X's eyes, Eve continued to sit at the records computer simulation, staring at its screen. The Creator glanced at the hologram, one side of his mouth quirking up in a smirk.

"Eve! EVE!!" Chris yelled to her, for her, beginning to stuggle against the med-bed hologram's restraints, then cried out at the pain in his torso, lying still and gasping with his eyes squinched tightly shut.

Trapped behind the holographic image of herself sitting peacefully at the records computer, a tear slipped down Eve's cheek as she saw Chris hurt himself. She turned her attention back to her phone, waiting for the nanites she had released to tell it the frequency of the holograms surrounding her. She was also considering the collapsible rapier in her lab coat's pocket, hoping she wouldn't have to use it.

But she was going to save her team, regardless.

The entire team tried to break free from their restraints, each in their own desperate fashion. Josh and Shalimar began writhing on their cots, flexing their shoulders and hips, bending their knees and elbows as much as their restraints would allow, tensing their core muscles and trying to wrench their limbs free. Shalimar's cot began sliding across the Dojo's floor inch by inch, shifting just a little every time she furiously bucked her hips. Their efforts were in vain, because the Creator had programmed the Dojo to manifest form-fitting cylinders around the New Mutants' wrists and elbows, clamping them to the surfaces they were lying on. Even if those holograms hadn't been present, the mad scientist's program had also tied ropes around the team's limbs inside those holograms, tying them to the cots they were lying on, whether those cots were hidden inside the holograms they were lying on or not.

Kevin had closed his eyes, figuring he could simply hit the safety override and deactivate the Dojo's program. . .if he could only astral project. Kevin had been lucky enough to have never had a GSA subdermal governor implanted in his neck, but he knew it was possible for a New Mutant to force themselves to use their powers past the pain a governor inflicted, at least slightly, at least for a moment, before the pain grew too intense to bear. But Kevin only needed an instant; once he was astral projecting, he would no longer feel his body's pain and be free to act, deactivate the Dojo and telekinetically retrain Adam or the imposter, whoever he was. . .but the Dominion's governors blocked his powers entirely. Jesse was sucking in breaths and then steadily exhaling them again, trying to force his hands and feet to phase through the holograms around them, with just as much success.

Brennan was staring up at the ceiling, not even seeing it, focusing internally and trying to prepare himself. When "Adam" had asked, he had hooked his heels over the frame of his cot with the toes of his boots pointed inwards, catching the inner ball of each foot against the cot's struts easily because of the raked tread of his motorcycle boots. The result was that he didn't simply have his legs spread wide like Shalimar, Josh, and Kevin; his calves were actually crossing the outer edges of the cot, meaning he could clamp his legs against the cot for greater leverage. Brennan had been lying with his hands folded over his waist before he'd been asked to move, with his arms slightly akimbo, so he had simply flipped his lower arms over to put his wrists in position. This had left him in a position to flex with his entire body against the cot, even with the restraints because they would just transfer his force to the cot itself. Brennan was trying to decide which portion of the cot would serve him best by being bent and using his martial arts discipline to prepare one limb to exert the focus of all his strength.

Deciding his right arm was the best bet since he constantly focused on it both because he was right-handed and to use his powers, Brennan drew in one last long, slow, deep inhalation, He held it for a moment as he centered himself, then exhaled smoothly as he tensed his entire body, the sinews of his right arm popping out in vivid stark relief as he exerted himself. His teeth clenched as every tendon and blood vessel in his neck strained, sweat quickly beading on his forehead and then running down his face in droplets. The biceps of Brennan's right arm began to quiver with the force he was applying, the cot beneath him slowly beginning to creak. He maintained the effort for as long as he could, almost an entire minute, then dropped back onto the cot, panting. Brennan slowed his breathing once his heart stopped racing, then exhaled sharply, contracting half his body's muscles as he violently bent his right arm, the sudden force wrenching a bend into the metal of the cot where it had just been strained by his previous effort. A victorious grin spread across Brennan's face; now that he had damaged the tubular steel of the cot, he had a weak point to work with.

Brennan's face and body relaxed back onto the cot as he began focusing once more.

Lexa crawled across the floor of the medical lab.

She had managed to switch the records computer over to the security system, once she had staggered her way over to it. Lexa had seen that the team's situation in the Dojo was as she had feared, the Creator having all of them at his mercy. She knew that she didn't know Haven's systems well enough to shut the Dojo down, certainly not from inside the medical lab, and she knew she wouldn't be able to cross Haven to the hardware room or all the way to the Dojo at its rear. She wasn't even sure how much longer she would be able to keep herself conscious.

But she had someone who knew Haven and its systems with perfect clarity.

Lexa crawled to Jamie's pod in the corner of the medical lab, and hauled herself up its side, up onto her knees, and began accessing its controls. She knew she was taking a horrible risk, that Owen would never forgive her if she got Jamie killed, but she would never forgive herself if she failed to save her team, including Owen. She was relieved that the pod wasn't requiring her to enter a security code; it had been configured to be opened quickly when the time came. Lexa finished entering the commands to end the suspended animation and restore normal metabolic operation and consciousness in the occupant.

She just hoped that was enough to get Jamie functional long enough to save the team.

"Owen," Chris called across the space between the two examination tables, turning his head to watch his friend's motionless form. "Owen, c'mon, Big Guy, wakey-wakey!" he said, letting the urgency of the situation show in his voice and hoping the alarm would make Owen's Feral instincts respond, even if his powers were dormant. "Owen. OWEN," Chris tried raising his voice, then had to stop and breathe very slowly for a few minutes. He had a feeling that screaming because his ribs hurt would only make them hurt worse, disturbingly similar to the manifestation of his Growth Spurt early in the morning the day before.

Chris thought about singing Owen's empowerment mantra at him, Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son", as he had done to calm Owen when the GSA had captured them, the night the original team had arrived. The problem was, he didn't want Owen to be calm; he was already so calm he was dormant. Chris needed him to wake up, to use his enormous frame and bodybuilder muscles to break free and help Eve, stop Adam, help the team, even if he couldn't use his Feral strength. Owen had an IV connected to his arm, but Chris could see it was over halfway empty, so Owen had to have been connected to it for a while. . .Chris recognized the paleness of Owen's skin and how shallow his breathing was; Chris knew he was in his healing dormancy hibernation thing. If he'd been in that for a while, then he should wake up soon, right?

How could Chris get him to wake up faster?

Chris winced as an idea occurred to him.

He had spent more than a few minutes consoling Eve after she'd had to pod Jamie the night before, after Josh and Kevin had taken Owen away to help him through his breakdown and the original team had left the medical lab. Chris had held Eve through her own sobbing breakdown, shushing her and reassuring her that it wasn't her fault. That they all knew she was doing her best, that she would never give up. That no one would blame her or consider it her fault if she didn't save Jamie; even Owen would not hold it against her. . .in time.

Chris had then admitted that the amount of time that would take might actually be pretty long, maybe even just as long as Chris was stupid. He had distracted Eve with self-deprecation, mocking himself for not realizing there was more to Jamie's emotional dependency on Owen and Owen's affection for Jamie than just Jamie's past issues and Owen's Feral nature. His distraction had worked, Eve had told him no one else had truly realized it either, but Chris had a feeling Josh and Kevin had known. They had certainly reacted quickly enough when Owen had lost his emotional anchor, and no one could deny that they were the resident experts on being in love with another man.

But there was no denying Jamie and Owen's professions of love the night before, and Chris might be able to use that.

Chris had grown up as something of a trouble maker and something of a clown, always careful that his antics didn't cause even more problems for his destitute family. He had cheered them up as much as possible by being funny, and with his sonic sensitivity, impressions had come naturally, even before his powers had matured to the point where he could modulate the sound of his voice to make it identical to someone else's. Chris had learned to imitate other people, usually mockingly, but accurately enough to make the joke speak for itself. He had cracked the other members of the team up on more than one Movie Night by carrying on with the movie's dialogue when someone paused it to fetch more snacks or use the bathroom, often spinning the movie's plot into some completely ridiculous other direction by impersonating the characters whose faces were frozen on the screen and making them say outrageous things. There had been more than a few occasions where he imitated his teammates as well, especially when one of them would try to admonish him for making a parody of the film, mimicking Kevin's deep voice and rounded vowels, Owen's clipped New York accent, Josh's high-speed slur of Chicagoland non-enunciation, and even occasionally Eve's droll tones or what Jamie called her Exposition Queen scientific ones, usually followed by a mocking rendition of her shriek, which made even Eve herself laugh.

He had also mimicked Jamie's bright-eyed enthusiasm on occasion, and was going to do so now, hoping he wasn't about to make Owen's emotional condition even worse.

"Hey, Bear Ears!" Chris called out after a moment of quiet, in an excellent imitation of Jamie's voice.

Chris' hopes soared when Owen gave a full-body twitch, and he watched as color began suffusing Owen's skin once more, his heartrate obviously picking up. His healing dormancy had ended.

"Owe—AAAH!" Chris yelled, crying out in pain when his yell contracted his torso painfully, but that was fine, he had done it on purpose, wanted Owen to hear a Packmate in pain and alarm, realize he was needed...

The Creator was was amusing himself by walking slowly among his captives, peering at each one in turn and watching until his presence made them nervous enough to cease their efforts to escape and watch him warily, instead. He would then move on to the next cot, since there was nothing they could do to escape, regardless.

He waited for some time by the male Feline Feral's cot, Josh, waiting for the long-haired young man to cease thrashing and notice his presence, but the young man simply started snarling and hissing at him in outrage the moment he became aware of the Creator's standing over him. The Creator rolled Adam's eyes at the Feral's vain and unthinking attempts to reach him, his hands stretched and reaching from the holographic restraints around his wrists, his fingers curled into viscious hooks. The Creator cast a knowing look accompanied by an amused smirk at Kevin, lying on the cot next to his violent boyfriend. The broad-shouldered young man had stopped trying to use his powers once he realized he couldn't, and had quickly become disturbed by the Creator's lingering stare. He was now shooting nervous looks between the Creator and Josh, still looking scared of what the Creator might decide to do to him but mostly scared for his boyfriend.

The Creator smirked and turned around to the other two cots' occupants.

Shalimar's writhing and bucking form merely made the Creator roll Adam's eyes but chuckle; in about five minutes she would manage to hitch her cot all the way into the corner of the Dojo if she didn't stop struggling. At which point it would simply start making more noise when it bumped into the corner walls with every protesting buck of the hips she made.

He frowned to see that Brennan had managed to bend one edge of his cot, and had clearly determined how to increase the force against that weak point of the cot, bending it more. He would soon have a sharp angle formed out of the cot's steel frame, possibly enough to cut his ropes on, if he managed to get them free of the hologram. And if he warped the shape the hologram was clamped to much more, he just might accomplish it.

The Creator wrapped Adam's right hand around Brennan's throat and began to squeeze.

Brennan gasped in surprise; he hadn't noticed the Creator's approach because he had still been staring at the Dojo's ceiling in focus. The mad scientist calmly pounded the bottom of his other fist into Brennan's groin, causing him to bark out a hoarse cry of pain past Adam's right hand clenched around his throat. The Creator immediately punched Brennan in the solar plexus with Adam's left hand, as hard as he could, driving all the breath from Brennan's lungs.

The Creator moved on to the medical examination tables, knowing it would be some time before Mr. Mulwray recovered enough to begin struggling again.

Owen startled awake, realizing he had heard Chris cry out in pain and that the rest of the team was making sounds of distress, as well. He looked around, spotting Chris wincing in pain next to him, then lifting his head to see Jesse in the Hot Seat and Eve apparently frozen at the records computer, and the rest of the team besides Lexa and Jamie on cots. . .they were in the Dojo, not the medical lab. What was going on, why was everyone strapped down, what... The Creator approached Owen's confused form, a malevolently knowing expression creasing Adam's features as he stared into Owen's bewildered green eyes with his own superiorily smug brown ones.

"Hello, Owen," Adam's voice and throat said, but he still didn't sound like Adam at all. Owen was also certain that Adam would never stare at him like a prize to be coveted, to be gloated over possessing. . .frankly, he was looking at Owen like he was something good to eat, and not even in a creepy sexual way, which made it even creepier.

"Your. . .'Growth Spurt' is quite impressive." he told Owen, still staring at him covetously. "I went through the records of the past few weeks while preparing all this, and the fact that you can heal extensive damage in a matter of hours is just. . .fantastic. Imagine!" the Creator declared, tossing his hands up in an emphatic gesture. "..A world where even the gravest of injuries could be recovered from. . .with nothing more than rest and proper nutrition! —Now, wouldn't that be something worth fighting for?" the Creator asked, looking at Owen both expectantly and with hope.

Owen's eyes had tracked Adam's hands when the mad scientist gestured with them, spotting the same wound Lexa had when a tiny bit of fresh blood caught the light in the Dojo. Mutant X's captor had opened the wound abusing Brennan, and Owen's mind flashed back to the fact that he had been certain he had smelled Adam at the Dominion's North Dakota installation. That he had smelled Adam, and a medical procedure, and Jamie had pointed out that Adam being the Creator's clone had meant they were genetically identical and would thus smell very similar.

They would also be perfect genetic donors for one another, for something like, say, a brain transplant, if the Dominion had any surgeons who were insane enough to attempt such a thing. And this was the Dominion Owen was pondering, so they most likely did.

"And all we'd have to do is sign you up as God for our new little world, right?" Owen asked with a skeptic scoff and a huff of disbelief. "I'll pass, thanks. You may be the Creator, but you can't make people accept your creations, even if you force 'em on them."

The Creator blinked in shock at the newly-awoken Ursine Feral having deduced his identity, then scowled.

"The Creator!?" Jesse yelped, then gasped when it all clicked into place for him. "Omigod, of !" he exclaimed. "The Creator shaped every aspect of Adam's life!" Jesse groaned, closing his eyes and flopping back in the Hot Seat. "He would know what Adam's character was like, how he surrounded himself with people like Dr. Marcus to be his conscience, how he relied on us to keep him from going too far with his work... The Creator knew Adam would never support his goals, aid his research. . .he told us he created Adam because he was running out of time. He didn't create Adam as a successor to his work; he created Adam as a successor to his BODY, taking Adam's place!"

Standing outside of Haven's entrance, Emma deLauro received a telempathic hit of Jesse's distress, and gasped.

She'd known something was wrong when she arrived at the Majestic, parking in the parking garage above Haven and pressing the SUB-BASEMENT: MAINTENANCE ONLY button and nothing had happened. That meant that no one was monitoring security or the central workstation in Haven, which certainly wasn't right if they were expecting "Anne" to arrive at any moment.

Closing her eyes, Emma had cast her Psionic senses downward, reaching for her friends' and former teammates' minds. She had gasped when she felt Jesse's mind, easily reaching it first because her mental connection was strongest with Jesse, after having reprogrammed his memories not just once, but twice. Jesse had felt confused and trapped, alarmed that something was wrong, but unsure what it was. Reaching further, she had felt Brennan and Shalimar's minds, and most of the California team's and Lexa's, but not Owen's or Jamie's. They had all been in a similar emotional state, some more angry than others and some more worried, but all agitated, all worried and afraid. Lexa hadn't felt trapped the way the rest of the team did, but she had felt far more desperate and worried, her alarm bordering on panic.

Emma had hesitated for a moment, then the parking garage elevator's doors had opened, and a startled young man had stepped back from the doors to let her exit.

"Oh, no," Emma had told him, already making mental contact. "I'm going down, too. The car just came from the upper level."

"Oh," the young man had said, smiling in embarrassment at his own supposed mistake and entering the elevator car, politely not meeting Emma's eyes and not noticing that her irises were entirely dark.

"Do me a favor?" Emma had asked just before the elevator car reached the ground floor, reaching out and pressing the EMERGENCY STOP button, then the DOORS OPEN buttons. "Press the 'Doors Close' button and release the Emergency Stop in a minute, okay?" Emma had told the young man.

"Okay," he had replied, staring ahead at the interior of the parking garage's ground floor ceiling as Emma lowered herself out of the elevator car and dropped down to the ground. She had then squeezed into the space beneath the elevator car and awkwardly swung one leg around blindly until the toe of her shoe found the service ladder, then dragged herself over to it and had hurriedly climbed down and hurried down the access hallway to Haven's entrance.

Feeling Jesse's alarm and a flare of heart-wrenching anguish from Shalimar, Emma concentrated on Jesse and got the hit she needed from him, the access code to Haven's door. Typing it in rapidly, Emma hurried inside as soon as the doors cycled open wide enough for her to squeeze through.

"Oh, God, No!" Shalimar wailed in sudden distress from the far corner of the Dojo, after Jesse had confirmed Owen's proposal that their captor was the Creator and not Adam. "We saw the Creator's body, in North Dakota!" she cried, tears and grief audible in her voice. "The look on his face; he died in shock and surprise, in pain. . .Adam fired the gun, that killed that unarmed girl, the guard– —it wasn't Adam, it was the Creator, that's how he knew the gun was there!" Brennan was still trying to regain his breath, frowning in confused concern at Shalimar, wondering what some unarmed guard who had witnessed the Creator's theft of Adam's body had to do with anything; they'd already known he was a mad scientist monster...

"..She was young, healthy, unarmed. . .that girl wasn't a guard; she was a New Mutant! " Shalimar insisted, sure that she was correct. "She put the Creator in Adam's body, but the Creator's body died surprised, don't you see!?" she gasped. Brennan closed his eyes and groaned in dismay, realizing what Shalimar was getting at. "This is the Creator, in Adam's body. . .Adam died in the Creator's body!"

"Josh!" Kevin hissed quietly while Shalimar was venting her anguish, keeping their captor's attention on the other side of the room. "Josh, you're bleeding!" he whispered urgently, staring at his lover's hands with his eyes wide. "Your fingers!"

Josh blinked at Kevin in confusion, then craned his head backward and looked up at his hands above it. He blinked again in further surprise at the blood all over his fingertips, still sluggishly dripping.

"What the Hell?" Josh whispered harshly, in shock as he stared at his fingers. "How the Hell did THAT happen!?" he hissed, moving his head to meet Kevin's eyes, his face still surprised.

"Shhh!" Kevin cautioned, glancing to make sure the Creator still wasn't paying attention to the two of them. "Are they hurting?"

"No..." Jesse gasped, horrified by Shalimar's suggestion, that they had been looking at their leader's corpse without realizing it. He was unable to help looking at their captor, hoping the Creator would taunt them that Adam was actually a prisoner inside his own mind and body, so that they might have a chance of banishing the Creator, restoring their mentor, their leader, the only real father figure any of the original team had ever had...

"Yes?" Josh answered Kevin quietly, confused. "A little? A little like they have been, but not the same. . .and not the way this much blood should hurt, either!" Josh said, his face squinched up in perplexion.

"Dude, Josh, this is your Growth Spurt!" Kevin whispered excitedly. "It has been the whole time, why your fingers've been hurting. . .bet you anything you've got claws under your fingernails!" Kevin said with a grin, which only grew wider when Josh's face contorted into a new expression of shock. "No, it totally makes sense, the pains you've been having in your fingertips, that was your claws growing in and emerging, like a baby teething! You forced them out for the first time, maybe before they were ready, when you struggled to reach the Creator! Your body couldn't hold them back anymore because your powers are turned off! But claws are passive, they're part of you; the governor can't stop the tendons from extending your claws any more than it can stop you from moving any other part of your body!"

Frowning in confused wonder, Josh tipped his head back to stare at his fingertips once more, then splayed his hands wide. His eyes widened in surprise and his lips spread in a fierce grin when he flexed the last joints of his fingers forward, claws sliding forward from beneath his fingernails.

Lexa dropped her lightcloak as the stasis pod's canopy slid open, reappearing in a flickering shimmer of light as the chilled fog spilled out of the pod's interior and washed against the floor. She reached into the pod and slapped gently at Jamie's face, then grabbed one of his earlobes between the tips of her fingernails and pinched, hard.

"Jamie! Jamie!" she hissed, hoping the pain would rouse him fully, but not wanting to abuse him so much she activated his elastic ability, not wanting to trigger another Molecular breakdown.

"Ow, wha– —Lexa?" Jamie asked in confusion, blinking up at her and squinting in the lights of the medical lab shining down into his face.

"Yeah, up an' at 'em, Nerd Wonder Junior," Lexa said, grabbing Jamie by the ankles and lifting his feet to swing his legs out of the pod, then stepping between them to lean forward and wrap her arms beneath his and around his torso. "The team's in big trouble; the Creator has them immobilized in the Dojo. You have to cut the power to the Dojo, or reset it or something, so that the holograms shut off and the team can save themselves," Lexa told him as she leaned back and hauled Jamie up and out of the stasis pod. "I'm about to pass out and I'm afraid you won't be far behind me," she warned Jamie as his body slipped down between hers and the side of the stasis pod, his arms wrapping around Lexa's shoulders and holding them both up as she began to topple one way, and he started sliding the other. It wasn't the first time she'd had a naked man sliding down her clothed front while her consciousness and balance were muddled; she could handle it.

"Hey, you okay?!" Jamie asked as he woke up more and realized how pale and shaky Lexa was, his face creasing in alarmed worry as he watched her eyelids droop and felt.her knees buckle.

"Nope..." Lexa panted, trying to shift from holding onto Jamie to keep herself upright into trying to support herself on the side of the stasis pod so that Jamie only had to worry about keeping himself vertical, not her. "..And neither are you, neither's the team. Cut the power, Jamie," Lexa told him, then let her knees buckle fully, let them collapse and spill her to the floor, too weak to fight hard enough to both maintain her consciousness and remain standing any longer. "Save Owen. . . ."

Jamie glanced from Lexa's nearly unconscious form over to the records computer, which he could tell was currently displaying the security system and the Dojo. Jamie began to trot over to it, to investigate, then nearly fell to the floor face-first when the world swam around him.

"Okay, I'm not okay..." Jamie muttered in surprise as he banged an elbow into the bare countertop, laying his forearm across its surface and splaying his hand out, focusing on his fingers as he wobbled. "Alright, I can do this..." he told himself as he closed his eyes and carefully slid his feet forward, shifting his hands along the countertop's edge like it was a handrail. "..I've helped in here often enough, know the layout. . .it's fifteen feet from the back corner of the medical lab to the main workstation..." Jamie knew his feet were not quite a foot long, and he was naked, so no empty toe-space at the front of a shoe to throw off his calculations, he just needed to slide one foot in front of the other fifteen times, then feel his way for the chair and sit down. Then he could open his eyes and focus on the screen, on accessing the environmental controls....

"Well done," the Creator commented as he glanced over at Shalimar, smiling with Adam's face, but it was not at all Adam's smile. "You put that together quite well, once you had all the pieces, anyway," he said, smugly. "On the other hand, I'm impressed you got far enough into the installation to have gained those pieces in the first place," he said with a hint of admiration in Adam's voice. "You must have only barely escaped the explosion..."

Suddenly, the power was cut to the Dojo.

The lights went out and holograms snapped off with the CLUNK! of an industrial circuit breaker being tripped. The emergency lights immediately came on, twin floodlights mounted to both ends of the room, filling it with a weak light, but enough to see clearly by.

The Creator shoved his hand in his pocket as he whirled to face where the records computer hologram had been, the cell that had been imprisoning Eve. She was already charging him, the comfortable shoes she had been prepared to spend the day on Haven's concrete floors in while researching how to help Jamie and Lexa's conditions silent on the rubberized mats of the Dojo. She had her rapier in her right hand, still collapsed, ready to whip its blade out if she needed it, or to put its point to "Adam's" throat and persuade him to cooperate. Eve leaped into a jumpkick at "Adam" even as he turned toward her; she had considered shrieking to make him pause in hesitant shock or confusion, but the imposter had demonstrated knowledge that only Adam would have, meaning he might know of Eve's unique fighting distraction. She chose to use silence to her advantage, instead.

Unfortunately for Eve, the Creator had anticipated these possibilities and planned for them, Just In Case.

He twisted just enough to dodge her kicking foot, basically catching Eve in his arms as she jumped into him. He dropped and shoved her at the same time, causing Eve to stumble and flail to maintain her balance and keep her feet as she hit the ground. She managed to do so, using the abrupt motion of her right arm to whip her rapier's blade out into extension, but it was too late.

The Creator pressed a taser into Eve's side and held it there as the team screamed their protests and Chris' yell shifted into pain, sparks crackling from Eve's hair, teeth, and the edges of her rapier's blade.

"Well, well, well," he murmured, turning to face the Dojo's door. "It seems Lexa managed to both wake up and somehow cut power to the Dojo," he declared, looking impressed that she had managed the feat. "I think I'll have to go do something about that."

As soon as the holograms around his wrists had vanished, Josh flexed his hands forward, pointing his fingertips down at his own wrists from where they were extended up above his head. He had been flexing his fingers once Kevin had suggested it a moment ago, shocked to see and feel the pointed hooks of feline claws emerging from beneath his human fingernails. Feral flexibility was another passive mutation the subdermal governors couldn't block; it wasn't something that was activated by its use, like their enhanced strength or agility, or processed like their sensory acuity. . .it was just part of how cats were built. Amphibious Ferals would be able to breathe underwater even if they were wearing a governor; their gills were just as passive as their lungs. Josh used the inherent flexibility of his hands and wrists to reach his middle fingertips forward, hooking the tips of his new and thus not even the slightest bit worn-down claws into the ropes around his wrists. Flexing his fingers in something like a beckoning motion, except with his palms curled up and back instead of held flat out and forward, Josh sliced the tips of his claws through the ropes around his wrists while the Creator and Eve were fighting, snapping the last few strands by wrenching his arms through them.

As the Creator turned and began threatening Lexa, Josh sat up and leaned forward, quickly shredding the ropes around his ankles while the rest of the team protested and Jesse screamed for Lexa to run. Josh used the cover of the noise they provided to ease up and off his cot, then charged the Creator from behind, even more silent than Eve had been, thanks to his many years of practice at moving silently, even if he couldn't do it with the same speed and agility as usual at the moment.

Unfortunately for Josh, his wildly flickering shadow thrown by the emergency lights warned the Creator that something was moving behind him. The aged scientist spun around in Adam's body, taser at the ready, but Josh was more ready. He flicked one hand at Adam's face, flinging his own blood in Adam's eyes and blinding the Creator. Josh used that instant of surprise to kick the taser out of the man's hand, not particularly caring if he accidentally snapped a bone in the process.

"JOSH, HOLD HIM!!!" a female voice yelled from Haven's main expanse.

Josh easily blocked the punch the Creator tried to literally blindly throw at him; the man had Adam's memories of fighting, but there was a significant difference between memory and physical skill. Josh kicked him in the solar plexus with the same foot he had kicked the taser away with, that he had not even set back down on the floor yet. The Creator began to double over with the wind knocked out of him; Josh thrust his arms under Adam's armpits from behind, folding his elbows and wrapping his hands over the back of Adam's neck. The prickling of Josh's claw-tips against the nape of Adam's neck informed the Creator he would regret trying anything.

That didn't prevent the man from smarting off.

"And what will you do?!" he snarled, laughing at the same time. "Incarcerate me? Under what charges, with no proof? Kill me? —Helpless, in cold blood, at your mercy? Even if you could, could you watch your beloved mentor's body die?"

"We could just imprison you ourselves," the woman's voice said as it approached the rear of Haven. "And make use of your knowledge. I'm sure the Dominion has more than a few gadgets for pulling ideas out of people's heads," Emma deLauro said as she stepped into the Dojo, not even bothering to project her Anne Smith illusion.

"Emma?" Jesse asked, thunderstruck all over again at seeing her face.

"Emma!?" Brennan repeated, trying to twist so that he could see the Dojo's doorway.

"Emma?" Shalimar also said, tears rolling down her face as she used her Feline Feral flexibility to twist and see the face that went with the voice she recognized even after so long, even if her hair was now blonde. "Omigod, Emma, is it really you?"

"It's me, Shal," Emma replied without looking, her head slightly lowered and jet-black irises fixed on the body of the man who had saved and mentored all of them, a body whose brain did not hold the mind that belonged there...

..But it held all the memories of that man.

"Lexa and Jamie need Adam's help, now," Emma told Mutant X, still staring into Adam's eyes and glaring at the Creator as a psi-bolt manifested on her forehead, bright and slowly growing brighter. "Shal, Bren, Jess. . .I want you to know that I'm sorry, but I did what I had to do. —I didn't know Adam was going to do the same thing. I would have turned into the next Ashlocke if I had stayed with the team, and you wouldn't have been able to prevent it. I quit and came to LA to help our people as part of the Mutant Underground, and I don't regret that in the slightest, only the pain I caused you in the process.

"But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is Adam. We need him back, and I need your help to do that. I need all of you to concentrate on Adam, on everything he means to you. Everything he ever taught you, on purpose or by example. On the legacy he left you, when you thought he was gone. Jesse, you once said Adam was someone you could believe in.

"I need you to do that, Now."

The psi-bolt lanced off of Emma's head, but not like any she had ever fired before.
It shattered into dozens of pieces as it flew away from Emma, each of the brightly-glowing slivers of Psionic energy flying off in a different direction. One zapped into the mind of each member of the team, the largest, central bolt surging right through Adam's forehead and into his brain and the Creator's mind. Bolts flew across town to Eloy's Diner, connecting with Eloy, and Stacey and Ketch, another finding Bryan at his day job. Bolts flew to New York, connecting with Ruby, Allison, Vince, Dr. Marcus, the Benedicts; others flashed across the country, seeking out Senator Morrison, her daughter Megan, Danielle and Catherine Hartman, Diana Moller, Christina, Neal Cuddahy, Keith Burstyn...

..Everyone who cared for Adam, who had been touched by him, who had touched him in return.

Telempathic hits from all of those people flooded Emma's mind, giving her an image of just who Adam Kane was. The original team's respect for Adam as the father figure they had all otherwise lacked. The love and care he had shown them, in big ways and small. The motivation and inspiriation he had provided the California team, directly to Jamie and Owen, and through them to the rest. The decades-old bond he had with Eve, as both her mentor and partner, unified in their struggle to save the Children of Genomex they had inadvertently helped create. All the members of the New Mutant Underground who had met Adam face to face on some occasion, or even some who had merely been inspired by him.

Shalimar's love for him, as the man who had taught her practically everything.

Jesse's love for him, as the man who had taught him the ideals he lived by.

Brennan's respect for him, as the man who had given him a second chance to give his life meaning.

Lexa's respect for him, as the man who had saved her from the GSA and taught her how to focus.

Eve's love and respect for Adam, and devotion to him and his cause, to saving New Mutants everywhere.

Jamie's devotion to Adam and his cause, as the man who taught Jamie the meaning of responsibility.

Owen's devotion to Adam and his cause, as the man who had given his life purpose.

Chris' devotion to Adam's cause, as the man who improved Chris' world and kept trying to make it better

Kevin's devotion to Adam's cause, as the man who just wanted to improve people's lives, like he did.

Josh's devotion to Adam's cause, as the man who wanted people to accept one another in peace.

The sum totality of the man who was Adam Kane filled Emma deLauro's mind, and she blasted it into the Creator's.

The Creator screamed as Emma's mindwipe blasted through his consciousness, first destroying every single thought and memory in his head that was more than fifty years old. He bellowed in denial of having so much of his self ripped away in a single moment, but Emma didn't care. She cared for Adam, the man who was more of a father to her than her own had ever been, or any of her foster fathers, for that matter. She cared for the man who had taught her to accept herself for who she was, to accept being a New Mutant and to use her gifts to help other people, to make the world a better place.

That was what she was doing now, making the world better. Even if it killed her, she was removing a monster from the world, and restoring a wonderful man to it, a man who should not have been lost from it so soon, not in the way that he had been. Emma focused on the Creator's mind, burning out every thought that wasn't Adam's. She felt her powers burning out, felt the blood dripping from her nose, and she did not care.

The Creator ceased to exist in the white-out flare of Emma's communal psi-bolt, and all that was left was Adam Kane.

Adam returned to his senses to see Emma deLauro, whom he'd thought to be dead for the past year, passing out and slowly falling to the floor of Haven's Dojo in front of him.

He was also seized by the sudden, strong urge to go investigate Haven's medical lab. He recognized the urge as a Psionic compulsion implanted in his mind by Emma, but he was okay with that. The last he'd known, he had been having a heart attack or a stroke in the Creator's failing body in North Dakota, and now he was in his own body in California, so clearly, at least a few things had happened between the two.

Adam was certain the team would tell him all about it, but first, he needed to see what was so urgent in the medical lab. Josh had an equally urgent need to use his new claws to free the rest of the team, so Josh released the full nelson hold he had on Adam and turned around to go back into the Dojo and cut his friends free from their cots as Adam strode out of the Dojo and towards the medical lab.

Jamie and Lexa were saved, because Adam had already figured out how the stabilization process worked. A few simple tests with Jesse and the rest of the team's genetic matrices determined which adjustments did the trick, and soon, all of Mutant X was safe from their own evolving genetic codes, as were Emma, Eloy, and the rest of the New Mutant Underground.

Owen was reunited with a tearful Jamie, at which point Owen broke down and could not stop crying, though his tears swiftly became tears of joy, instead of hysterical relief. Emma took Adam, Shalimar, Jesse, and Brennan on a weekend retreat, taking the time to rebuild their bridges and get to know one another once more. She and Adam explained why they had done what they'd done, and they all promised to remain family, even if they were no longer teammates. No one wanted to force Emma to go too far, to make her become one of the things that Mutant X had to fight.

And somewhere else, John Bishop and Ashlocke's Links downloaded Adam's treatment data, and were stabilized...

THE END Of THIS Season....