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Oops
It was a quiet morning and even the Strand seemed to be taking some time off, so Shalimar and Emma dismissed themselves after breakfast for a little “shopping therapy”.
Adam retreated into his lab to work on his latest invention, which the team had jokingly dubbed a ‘phaser’. It was actually a device for injecting medications from a distance. There had been far too many times that he had needed to sedate a new mutant who was dangerously out of control. This new tool would allow him to hide behind something, or someone – he smiled at the number of times Jesse’s massing had saved his skin – and fire a tranquilizer into the intended target.
Jesse looked up at Brennan, who smiled back and the two men raced each other down the stairs and up into the dojo. Jesse called out, “no powers, okay?”
“Hah,” replied Brennan, “only because Adam still wants you to confine your practicing to the safe houses!” Brennan barely finished the sentence when he shifted his focus to blocking the kick that was approaching his face. He smiled at how easy it was to goad Jesse on at times.
After trading blows evenly for about fifteen minutes, Brennan suddenly misjudged his distance and tripped over the central platform. Spotting the rare opportunity, Jesse pounced on Brennan as he started to fall. Seeing Jesse’s attack, Brennan instinctively used his new propulsion power to escape. As Jesse hit the floor where Brennan had been, he suddenly noticed that he was about to be hit with one of Brennan’s ‘jets’, so he naturally phased.
Jesse was alarmed to realize that he had accidentally phased the entire dojo structure, which sent Brennan tumbling out of control, as his jets no longer had anything to push against. As Jesse moved to rematerialize the structure before Brennan fell, one of the jet streams struck the holographic mechanism as it was re-materializing.
What happened next was an explosion followed by a crashing of steel and cement that had both men scrambling for their lives. Jesse massed just in time to block one of the curved orange ribs of the dojo from landing on Brennan, sending it crashing into the fountain instead. “Careful, Bren, we’ve got water everywhere!” Jesse warned his elemental friend.
“Yep, I see it!” Brennan responded. “You okay?” Brennan could see Jesse nodding his head as Sanctuary’s ventilation system started to clear the smoke and dust from the air.
“Are you both okay? What happened?” Shouted Adam as he ran from the lab.
Jesse cringed as he realized that this was exactly the type of problem that Adam was trying to avoid when he asked him to practice in a safe location. Before he had a chance to apologize, Brennan spoke up, “We, uh, had a little accident.”
Seeing that the two young men where uninjured with the exception of a few cuts and bruises, Adam forced himself to take a big breath before responding, “If this is a ‘little’ accident, I hope that you don’t plan on having any ‘big’ accidents!” He sat down on the bottom step leading up to the loft, looking at the pile of water soaked debris that used to be the dojo, the reflecting pond and the fountain.
Adam saw the deep remorse on Jesse’s face as he approached saying, “It just…happened. God, Adam, I’m so sorry. I’m sure that I can rebuild it.”
Jesse’s sincere apology melted any shadow of anger that might have taken root in Adam’s mind. The older man sighed, then leaned back on the stairs, crossed his arms and said, “Well, I was wondering where to set up the extra equipment that we ‘procured’ from Harrison’s lab, and it looks like you’ve just cleared the space for it!” Jesse sighed in relief, leave it to Adam to find something positive in the fact that he had just destroyed half of Sanctuary.
Several hours later, Shalimar and Emma returned, happily chatting about their respective purchases when they both stopped dead in their tracks, mouths open. In front of them was a pile of rubble and Brennan was using the snow shovel to load it into the wheelbarrow that Jesse was holding. Emma managed to find her voice first, “Oh, my God, what happened?!”
Adam turned around and smiled at them as he answered, “Oh, nothing, we just decided to do some remodeling, would you like to help?”
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The Sun Never Sets on PureMX.net
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