This is a very ambitious first attempt at a bit of fan-fiction. Any sort of input would be welcome. I have played a little fast and loose with the x-men time-line, so please bear with me. This story is directly inspired by the Archetype Association, written by James R. Mcbriarty. I have borrowed William Riley from his story; I hope that I do him justice. I have borrowed a batch of mutants from the Marvel Universe (any X-men fan will recognize them). I am not making any money off this so good luck suing. Melanie, Erick, Larry, Gayle, Anna, and Gabriel are all my own creations. Emeralda's personality is my own creation, but the character concept comes from a Squaresoft game. If you like the way they are written, feel free to borrow them for your own inspiration.
 

A Note to the Reader:

Unchained Hearts has been approved as an alternate reality 'sequel' to The Archetype Association, breaking off from the 'main' timeline of my work just after the end of Movement Two, and taking place approximately five years later. The stories should be considered independent of one another; although I am sure that Mr. Rosnawski and I may play off one another as our respective works progress.

I was very pleased and entertained by Unchained Hearts. I hope you will be, too.

Jim R. McBriarty

Chapter Four

He checked the instruments again, but it was still no go. The young man put out as much interference as he himself did.

What worried him though was the interplay between the young man's aura and Monet. What exactly was going on between the two of them? He could see a connection forming between the two of them. It wasn't one way either. He could see their auras meeting and retreating, leaving behind threads of energy that connected the two of them. The threads seemed fragile, but he could see them joining together to form a solid link which connected the two of them more thoroughly then anything he had ever seen.

The alert sounded just as he was finishing running a diagnostics check on the equipment. Sighing, he pressed a button.

"This is Tessa Lockland bringing you a live news report. We are standing outside a mutant shelter where a crowd has gathered. Earlier today, an incident has occurred in the Bronx. A meta-human has disabled a large section of the city and caused the death of almost 100 people. This crowd has gathered and is threatening the shelter where they think the mutant is hiding..."

Will did not waste a moment. Even though he probably did not mean to hurt anyone, the young man was responsible for this problem. He put in a call to Jean. With Monet out of action, she was the only active psi on the team.

"Jean, a crowd's surrounded a mutant shelter in New York."

"Oh crap!" she exclaimed as she watched the news update. "This isn't good. Can you 'port me near there Will? I'll see if I cannot calm that crowd."

"Great minds think alike Jean. Hang on."

In thirty seconds, they were at the sight of the disturbance. Almost a hundred people had surrounded the mutant shelter. Thanks to his infravision, Will could see a couple of faces at the windows. The crowd wasn't quite violent, yet. "Can you handle a crowd this size?" he asked Jean. A hundred people was a lot, even for her.

"Not directly, but I think that I have a plan. Can you drop me close to the crowd Will?" Jean was concentrating, gathering her power. Will was curious, but he decided to let her work undisturbed. He looked around, and saw a large tree near the building that had no one around it.

Jean worked her way into the crowd that surrounded the shelter. They ignored her for the most part. Their attention was entirely focussed on the shelter. She reached out, touching the minds of the people in the crowd. She couldn't reach them though. Someone was controlling the anger of the people.

It would have been hard enough to influence so many people without any outside influence. She was going to have to try the subtle approach in order to deal with all of the crowd.

A curious thing happened over the next half-hour. At first, Will thought that the crowd would get violent at the drop of a hat. However, he noticed that the tension level started dropping. Slowly at first, but more quickly by the second, the mood of the crowd changed from violent rage, to what seemed like regret. Once the crowd dispersed, Will could see Jean moving toward the same tree. She seemed all right, if a little unsteady on her feet.

Will got her back to the top of the building in the blink of an eye. There was a smile on her face, but he could tell how tired she was from one look into her eyes.

"Did you have any problems down there, Jean?"

"Will, all I could say is that I don't want to do that again."

"What exactly did you do Jean? The situation looked to be pretty ugly."

"I increased the regret that they were feeling over their actions. I tried to be more direct, but I found out that their anger had been stoked by another psi. I spent the entire time fighting to bring out their regret while not attracting the attention of whoever was manipulating them."

"Really? That isn't good. Did you get a bead on who it was?"

Jean looked at him oddly. "I think that you give me too much credit Will. I might be able to tell who had influenced them if they were in the area, or if I wasn't already dead tired. As it is, I don't think that I will be much good for a while."

Will just smiled. "Come on then, I'll take you home."

"You're back!" Emeralda was smiling as she welcomed them both.

Emeralda never ceased to fascinate Jean. She was an artificial construct, and yet Jean could sense a mind and a presence to her.

"Any update on the two of them Emmie?" Will asked. Will liked Emeralda. He didn't know why, but there was something about her that endeared itself to him. Maybe it was the innocence she used to view everything in the world.

"Nothing yet about Monet. The young man is still baffling our sensors somehow. Doctor McCoy gave him a physical just fifteen minutes ago and found that he was healthy. He seemed to be annoyed that the young man cannot be read by the sensors."

"Are you able to get anything from them yourself?" Jean asked.

Emeralda hesitated. The other members of the team were made uncomfortable whenever she mentioned the Sentinel protocols. "I am not quite sure. There is something about his power which seems familiar to me, but I can't quite say exactly what it is.

"Well then, if you two don't mind, I think that I am going to catch a nap. Will, tell Scott what happened if he asks."

"No problem Jean, see you later."

"Well, I think that I want to get in some target practice while I have some free time Emmie. Let me know if there are any changes for either of their conditions."

Gayle slowly came awake. She checked her alarm clock and cursed softly. It was only 2:30 in the morning. Gayle suffered regularly from insomnia. Jean told her that the insomnia was rooted in the abuse that she had suffered as a child. Jean could not reach that part of her mind though.

"Maybe a snack will put me back to sleep," she thought as she stretched.

She walked quietly toward the kitchen, wondering about the young man that they had brought in. His attack wasn't malicious. She felt that things would have been a lot worse for her if the young man hadn't pushed her back so hard. He must be very afraid of the strength of his power.

Gayle was afraid of her own power. The first time she had happened to use it, she had teleported into somebody's body, creating quite a mess. She wondered what they would tell the young man. He was going to need a lot of training in order to be able to control his power.

Someone with that kind of power was going to be useful to have around though, especially if he was omnipathic. On a whim, she went to the monitoring station to check on Monet and the young man.

Larry was surprised to see Gayle enter the monitoring room. He knew that she suffered from insomnia, but normally she kept almost totally to herself. Seeing her where her presence wasn't specifically requested was a rare occurrence.

"Hi Gayle!" He said warmly. "What are you doing here at a time like this?"

"I... I couldn't sleep so I came to see how the two of them are doing."

This really surprised Larry. She had never shown concern for the others before. Maybe she was coming out of the depression that she had been in for as long as he had known her.

Larry hoped that this was the case. He had learned a bit of her history over the past few years. She had been through quite a bit.

"Well, both of them are unchanged from yesterday. I suppose that is good news. But there is something interesting that I wondered if the others noticed."

"Oh really? What is it?"

"Well, the sensors still can't cut through the interference that the guy puts out. But the most interesting thing is that there are periods of time where the sensor readings on Monet get cut off. It is usually for less than five minutes every time."

"But... wouldn't the senior members... didn't they want to know if there were any changes in either of them?"

"Well, I went in to check, and both of them had steady pulses, and once the sensor readings came back, they remained unchanged. Don't worry Gayle. I'm gonna make a report in the morning. I just didn't want to disturb everybody in the middle of the night for a false alarm."

Gayle sighed. It was against procedure, but it was typical of Larry. Larry was big and intimidating, but there was a streak of kindness to him that sometimes got him into trouble. She liked him though. He always respected her need to be alone, and he never pressured her into doing anything that made her uncomfortable.

"I'm gonna get myself a snack Larry, do you want anything?"

"A couple of sandwiches would be fine, thanks. Pleasant dreams Gayle."

Erick woke up and cursed himself. He was supposed to relieve Larry at 6:00 am, and it was now nearly 7:30. Why hadn't Larry come to get him? Larry was occasionally loud and obnoxious, but he had a streak of kindness in him that could surprise you.

He got dressed quickly, and went down into the monitoring station. He found Larry there, his legs up on a table and he was snoozing. This was just great. Not only had he forgotten to come and get him, but he had also fallen asleep while on watch.

Erick sighed and then tapped Larry on the shoulder. Larry stretched slowly, and then on seeing who had woken him up, he straightened up fast.

"You're lucky that Logan hasn't thought to check on you yet Larry. He'd have you on the rack if he found you asleep while on watch again." He then smiled. "But since we both were sleeping while we shouldn't have, why don't we just keep this little faux-pas to ourselves."

Larry smiled as he did a final check on the system. "Thanks, contrary to what you might believe, I don't like getting chewed out once a day."

He stopped suddenly though. "What, we have got readings on the young man now. Quick Erick, call Jean. She wanted to know the minute that anything changed."

Jean was there the within five minutes. She examined the sensor readings herself, then she took a deep breath.

"Well my young friends. It looks like the two of them are going to come out of it soon. Larry, can you tell Will and Gayle that I want ten people here and five people at base two until the two of them are..."

"Gabriel!!!"