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 Forty-Four
Gabriel sighed as Monet locked the door. It seemed as though they had only been gone a couple of days. They had actually had been gone for ten days.
Gabriel could feel the tension rising in him... Gayle was missing. She had left the base not an hour after she had sent them to the cabin. She left without telling anyone. Not only was that against policy, but it was something that she had never done in all the time that she had been with them.
A door formed in front of them after Monet spoke with Jean and they stepped through it without delaying the bad news.
They were greeted by Jean, Rogue and Will. None of them seemed to be too worried, and that eased Gabriel's mind. "Sorry to call you back early, but we have a little situation here."
"We don't know where Gayle is... But I have gotten some impressions from her over the past few days. She is kind of worried but mostly angry. I have tried to contact her but she has figured out how to block me."
"Her parents were abusive to her when she was a kid... and we think that she is working up the nerve to confront them about it."
"... and it has taken her ten days to do it!"
"Well Gabe, she hasn't had any contact with her parents in two years, and I think that she wants to do this alone."
That was the point that the three of them didn't agree on. Monet was startled by the amount that she was reading from Jean and Rogue. Jean wanted to find her and protect her from her past, but Rogue wanted to let her face her troubles herself. Will however was unreadable... He listened to their arguments, but he didn't put anything in himself.
Monet watched Will as the two ladies expressed their points of view. She could see no reaction from him, which baffled her.
Gabriel had enough with the arguing. "Instead of arguing, why don't we try to find out what happened to her family. Once we find the information, we can then decide what we are going to do with it."
The two of them got quiet all of the sudden; a little embarrassed that Gabriel had to be the one to think about something constructive. Information on Gayle's family was easy to find. Evidently, her father wasn't able to change his ways after Gayle was taken away from them. He was serving a life sentence for the murder of Gayle's mother.
According to the records, Gayle's father had escalated his violent behaviour, after she had been taken away from him. The court records showed that Gayle's mother had charged him three times with spousal abuse between the times that Gayle had been taken from them and the time that she was murdered. The charges had been dropped all three times. Gabriel felt sorry for Gayle and was amazed that she had come as far as she had considering her past. "Does she know anything about this?"
"No," Jean said with a frown. "She hasn't asked and we don't make it a practice to snoop into other people's lives unless they give us a reason to. What are we gonna do now."
It was Rogue who came up with the idea; she put together all of the relevant information in a package and e-mailed it to her computer. She also wrote down her apologies and told Gayle that they were there to help her in any way that she wished.
It didn't take Gayle long to respond. In less then five minutes, Gabriel, Monet and Larry all found themselves teleported to her side. Larry seemed to be confused by the sudden change of venue, but he put that aside when he saw the look on Gayle's face.
Gayle didn't know how to feel. She wanted to cry, but the tears couldn't make it through her anger. "When did it happen," she asked calmly.
"It happened about six months ago," Gabriel said, choosing to ignore the fact that the information was included in the package that had been sent to her. "He got a life sentence for doing the deed. Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," she responded, but Monet knew that she wasn't fine. Her anger, which she normally kept so repressed that it was almost impossible to detect, threatened to overwhelm her. She controlled it though, somehow she stayed on top of the anger.
"I want to talk with him," she said, emotion finally entering her expression. "I want... I need to know why he did that. We loved him... And I need to know why he couldn't love us back."
Their plan was simple, but elegant. The prison received prisoners on a regular schedule. Within five minutes, Monet had created identities for Larry and Gabriel as criminals serving life sentences and records for Monet and Gayle as guards assigned to transfer the two of them. Another 10 minutes and records of the transfer were inserted into the prison's mainframe. All they had to do was get the clothing and vehicle to pull of their little incursion.
Logan groaned when his cell phone rang. The last few days had been boring. He needed some action.
"I have got some news, but I don't know if your going to like it Logan..."
"Why didn't you ask for his help," Gayle asked Gabriel a little testily. It was a little surprising to hear her get so impatient. "Relax," he said, comforting her with a smile. "Once I told him what we were planning, he insisted on helping us. He is waiting for you to bring him here."
Logan was impressed. The kids had come up with a very workable plan in a short time. "Not bad guys, but your plan has one weakness. The cops will get suspicious if you two girls bring in these two big guys all by yourselves... How are you on getting together the vehicles and the clothing?"
"Well, our plan hasn't progressed that far yet..." Gayle admitted. She was feeling a little lost. She wasn't used to thinking in such a way.
Logan removed a pack from his back and opened it, pulling out costumes for each of them. "I had Jean make these up as soon as you told me the details of your plan...
"Logan... I want to thank you for helping us with this. I know that it isn't the way that you all want to work... But I need this."
>Logan hugged her close; "believe me kid, I understand. There are times in a person's life where they have simply gotta do what they have to do in order to make sure that they stay sane.
"I have found a vehicle for us to use," Monet said, with just a little excitement in her voice. "A police warehouse lies not too far from here. It contains the vehicle that we need. Any objections to some creative paperwork," she asked those around her as her fingers flew over the keyboard.
Brad was bored; he hated it when he had gate duty. It was one of the most boring jobs in the whole complex. He didn't know why most of the guards hated working among the prisoners. There were some that you couldn't trust even if their lives depended on it, but most of them weren't really all that bad.
A city van pulled up, surprising him, transfer of prisoners usually only happened on Tuesdays. The driver was a short man, but the hard look on his face spoke of more experience then he could imagine. "I thought that transfers only took place on Tuesdays?"
The man gave him a cold look; "I've got two punks in here who need to get a taste of hard time. They started a brawl at the minimum-security prison where they were being held for burglary. They each killed four people before they were taken down. One of them is a cop-killer..."
The guard gave the reaction that Logan expected. He paled noticeably and waved Logan through without checking on the passengers.
Logan opened the van and dragged the two of them out. Just as Gabriel's feet hit the floor, he turned and kicked out at Logan. Logan grabbed the foot and tossed him to the ground. The other guards moved to help him, but they stopped in shock as his "partners" stepped out of the van and moved to assist him.
They were beautiful; none of them had ever seen two girls as beautiful as them outside of a fashion magazine, let alone working as guards. They were extremely competent though. With their help, the two prisoners were subdued in under two minutes.
"Are you alright," Gayle asked Larry with concern when she saw him limping. "Of course I am, I just had to make it convincing, didn't I?" "Keep quiet, you two, Logan growled were almost there."
Riker's Island was a very secure prison, but it had one weakness. The control centre for the prison was right by the entrance. It was an effective set-up against breakouts, but when it came to people breaking in...
It was almost too easy; Monet had the three people in the control room under their power without any of them even being able to react. She quickly got one of them to open the door and the five of them crowded into the control room and ducked down below the panels. Monet closed her eyes for a moment and the three guards went about their business, but they moved around kind of awkwardly, so as to avoid stepping on them. "Give me a minute," she said with a grimace. "This guys mind, its like wading through garbage."
One of the guards sat down at a computer console and began typing. "Your father is in cell 143 in B-block. Do you remember where that is from the blue-prints?"
Gayle nodded and gave her a hug, "This won't take long, if it goes as I expect. Will you be alright here?"
"Just don't forget about me when it's time to go."
Gabriel was surprised at the size of the jail cell; he had always thought that it would be cramped. Gayle's father was a small man, almost as short as Logan was, but he was skinny, he couldn't have weighed more then 140lbs.
The man had beady little eyes and a mouth that didn't seem capable of a smile. Gabriel didn't know how the man could be Gayle's father.
The man squeaked and tried to back away, but his eyes turned mean when he saw Gayle standing in front of him. "Why, dad," she asked, not bothering to keep the venom from her voice. "Why did you turn on mom?"
The man didn't bother to respond. He got up and rushed at Gayle quicker then any of them had expected him to be able to. Gabriel had seen enough. He grabbed the little man just as he was about to reach Gayle and had him subdued in his arms quickly. He didn't hurt him though. The weasely little man's fate was up to Gayle.
"I don't understand why you hated me father, I don't understand it, but I can accept it. You seemed to love mom... Why did you kill her?" Her voice stayed calm, but tears were flowing freely down her face. Her father looked at her and took a deep breath.
The threat of a scream was stopped though as Logan popped a claw on him, nicking the side of his throat. "I wouldn't do that bub," he said softly, his voice betraying little emotion. "These things pop themselves sometimes when I get nervous."
"Mutant scum," he gasped softly, as he checked his throat. "I see that you have fallen in with your own kind. So you have finally come... I always knew that you would kill me. Well go on do it, what are you waiting for."
Gayle was confused. She had never thought about killing anyone in her life. And her father seemed to honestly think that she was going to kill him. "I just want answers, Dad. Why did you kill mom?"
"I killed her because she was a filthy mutant, just like her daughter," he said, his voice becoming full of venom. "I killed her because she lied to me all the time we were together. She was a mutant a filthy stinking mutant. All of my life I have been..."
Gayle placed a hand over his mouth. It was enough, she had her answers.
Jean looked up in surprise as Gayle and the others that had disappeared reappeared in front of her. Gayle was back with them.
"Jean, I'm sorry that I left without telling anyone, there were just some things that I had to know."
Jean was happy to get the apology. She hugged Gayle before the girl could say anything else. She was even happier that the girl had finally done something to truly take control of her life.
Gabriel lay back in bed, satisfied with himself. Their incursion had been successful in every way. He was impressed with the restraint that Gayle had shown. It made him wonder how the two of them could be related, and not for the first time.
He could feel a little mental hug from Monet as she boarded her plane to head to a meeting of her board of directors. She had wanted him to join her, but he thought that a little time apart would do the two of them good. She didn't argue, he knew that she was thinking the same thing.
It honestly was a little scary. Their connection grew deeper every day. The more he thought of her, the deeper it seemed to dig into his soul. And it made him happy! No more hiding, no more secrets.
Author's Note: I'm sorry about the delay people... Work made it hard to get back in the groove, and a lack of feedback sorta discouraged me... But here it is -- chapter forty four -- and remember authors crave feedback!