(ooc: sorry for the late post. I've been away.)

Streak writhed in agony for a while. He heard a few brief noises in the hall, coming through the pain in his body. He started to feel hot, very hot, like he had been out sun bathing and fell a sleep all day. But it kept getting hotter. The pain had stopped in his body but he could hardly move from exhaustion. He rolled over to where the heat was coming from and saw the light kid floating and making the walls start to bubble from heat. Then he saw Sam run past him and tackle the kid. After only a few seconds it started to feel cooler and Streak was feeling more energized.

He rolled onto his stomach and onto his hands and knees. Slowly, and with much groaning from pain, he got to his feet. They were very wobbly and tender from the pain he'd just experienced. After a while he wasn't feeling anything but sore. Streak wasn't numb from cold, though he was to sore to really notice, that he wasn't feeling much of anything. He walked, or limped, over to the sun boy. The silver man looked around for the mutant that had started the whole thing. He didn't see him. "Where'd he go." Streak said to Sam and the other kid. He was still catching his breath. Between gasps he said, "The mutant you were fighting? Where'd he go?" He figured there was something wrong with Garret and this mutant was to blame. Streak needed to find out who he was, who he worked for, and what he was doing here in the first place.

The demon had made a serious mistake putting Garrett out. Garrett's part of his mind was made for meditation and peace. He was immediately restored physically and mentally, floating in an endless sky. He could see the room now, a little black cube farther down. He put himself in his Tai Chi uniform and moved with the speed of thought to the room. The chair was empty. The demon was still facing away from him, looking at the screen.

On the screen, Neena and Nika were in a thorn bush. The thorn bush. The demon was particularly cruel. That was what happened to a person, though,when they were forced to commit countless acts of cruelty. They snapped or they let more capable parts of their psyche take over. Garrett did not want to allow this thing to rule him again. He saw Neena pulling herself free, with a look of extreme anger on her face. Rightly so, in Garrett's opinion.

Maya was also between them. She was crying and screaming. No one could tell that it was him. The demon was too cruel to be Garrett. That gave him some sort of relief. he felt something like slashes on his chest and face. He assumed it was something Maya was doing. Had he still been in the chair, he could tell from their ferocity that they would be much worse. It was strange to him though that the demon was not moving or cracking wise with one of his little sayings.

Behind him, a voice replied, " I have my own little tricks too.[/i]" Black gloves reached around his neck from behind the fingers squeezing his windpipe. Garrett stepped back toward the demon and threw his head into the demon's face. They both fell out of the room into oblivion, grappling and punching all the way.

--------

The demon was impressed with his handiwork. It was too bad he couldn't stay in this body for all time. What masterpieces he would be able to commit. His thoughts were interrupted by Garrett's friendly spirit. This was probably her resting place and she had come out to protest. She seemed to want him back. The demon had no intention of doing that, though her teary demands made him smile at her. She seemed to carry the winds of revenge with her as they whipped at him mercilessly, hundreds of tiny but deep cuts lashing at his clothing and body.

He stepped back a few paces from the ethereal onslaught and was about to react when he noticed that his internal captive had flown the coop. He looked around in his mind, outwardly looking around as if he were looking for something invisible. He tried to remain fixed in the interrogation room while remaining in full control of things on the outside. The stuff moving through his veins kept his control solid, for the moment.

His eyes narrowed at the spirit. " Evil spirit, prepare to be laid to rest, perman....ERk!![/i]" Something had hit him hard. He reeled backward, arms flailing, falling to his backside.It was Garrett. Free from his bonds and fighting. The only way he would be able to put the boy back in his place would be to escape his friends. The only way he could slow them would be to release another shock wave. Feeling the liquid hate in his veins nearing its peak, there would be only one chance, so it had to be his strongest attack yet.

Sam pulled him self off of the human sun as he was shivering saying it was to cold, “Sorry guy, you were becoming dangerous, just give it a few minutes and you’ll be fine.” Sam brushed off his pants for a second to look around to take in the hallway that now had scorch marks, ice crystals and the broken window and door. Sam noticed that Streak was there and talking to him, but it took a second for Sam to respond he was still looking at the damage. “Dude Neena is gonna be pissed.” He then looked to Streak, “Got no clue man he just sort of vanished.”

Sam walked closer to the window and saw something that made him furious; Garret was attacking Neena and Nika. Sam felt a mixture of confusion and anger. They were fighting, his friends were fighting and Garret had a look in his eyes it was a look Sam was well familiar with; it was a look of blood lust. Sam iced up his body completely and charged to the window yelling at Streak, ”Something is wrong.” And with that Sam jumped out of the window and created a slide to his group of friends.

Sam slide down to the group and ran next to them noticing the location and faces of his friends. Garret was down on the ground with his eyes still full of hate and malice; he looked to ghost and noticed she looked both sad and angry at tears running down his face. Then he looked to Neena covered in thorns and she looked mad, out of everything that happened tonight the thing that scared him the most was Neena his favorite professor furious. Sam shifted his eyes looking for Nika to see if she was okay. Sam only met Nika once or twice but she seemed like a really nice girl and it would be ashamed if a teammate injured her. Sam couldn’t see her so he confronted Garret picking him up by the collar with both hands lifting him off the ground a bit. The air around them got colder as Sam looked in to Garrets eyes full of hatred. Sam ended up yelling at Garret asking, “Dude what the hell do you think your doing?” Sam sounded pissed and he was his friends being injured by each other, Sam couldn’t grasp why Garret would do that to anyone.

Before Nika could do anything further she felt like she had lost control of her body. She couldn't move anything not even her tail. It was like she had been stuck with a paralyzing dart that took affect instantaneously. She could see and hear Garrett but she was helpless to do anything.

Nika was drug to a thorn bush outside the mansion and dropped into it. Thankfully the cat girls fur provided some protection. Only parts of her were scratched by the sharp thorns. She could only image what Neena was going through.

Only a few short moments later Nika could feel her body again. Quickly she got herself out of the bush. She saw Neena and how badly she was cut up. Looking to woman over Nika checked on her teacher's status.

"Neena! Are you ok?!"

Nika heard someone else shouting. whens he lifted her head in the direction of the shouts she saw Sam holding Garrett up by the collar. This wasn't going to turn out very good.

This was priceless. Not only had the Haywire virus caused that pain inflicting mutant to go absolutely nutts, but it appeared the others now wanted to kill the person who had been shot. Shade didn't think it could get any better than this.

"Well well, look at that. I've started a full scale fight amongst themselves. Just wait until Syn hears of this." Shade said to himself as he looked on from his invisible hiding spot.

Ghost abruptly halted her vicious attack when she saw Sam approaching from behind. And then some very curious events happened all in a row. The bad man spoke, but seemed to be attacked by an invisible foe. Onlookers might think it was the invisible wind that had shoved him off balance, but Ghost had done no such thing. Sam took the opportunity to spin him around and grab him up by the collar.

That is when the second curious event triggered. Words were being spoken in the vicinity of some trees where she could not sense an entirely solid form of a person... if she had been incorporeal she was sure that it would be the same feeling as it had been in the hallway. She tilted her head in the direction of the disturbance only catching pieces and the tail end of his musings. "I've started... amongst themselves... Syn hears..." Incorporeal she probably would have heard it all, as it was the words were cut off by Sam's shouting.

"Dude, what the hell do you think you are doing?"
"Garrett isn't the enemy! The slip of a man is!" Ghost shouted frantically unsure of how to expose what she (again) wasn't sure was there. Well, one thing was for sure Garrett wasn't the enemy. Whatever was happening to him it was going to end... now. "Hold him, Sam!" Ghost closed the distance between herself and Garrett swiftly. She wrapped her arms around him from behind placing either hand on his chest. It was the best way to take him out and fast even if it left her exposed.

As soon as she made contact with him Garrett would start exhaling and be unable to draw in fresh air. It would take some time, but with Ghost so close she estimated that within the next thirty seconds or so she could force him to expel enough of his body's precious oxygen to render him unconscious. She steeled herself for cold or pain or physical blows or anything more that she could think would be thrown her way. She didn't care what happened to herself at this point. She would try to hang on beyond all of it to put him down safely with the least amount of damage to all involved.

Streak listened to Sam just before he took off outside. He looked at Sam and agreed, "Ya especially since we just remodeled the place." He moved away from the glowing kid and towards the window. Before he left Streak said to the kid who was now shaking from the cold. "Look for him. He can't have gone far. Check all the classrooms as quick as you can, then come outside." Streak said to the glowing kid. He then turned around and jumped through the wall. The wall easily rippled and let Streak through. Once on the other side he quickly fell to the ground.

He stood up and heard Sam yelling at someone. The silver man ran towards the sound of the voices. As he got nearer he saw that Neena and Nika were there as well as Sam. He quickly glanced over Nika to make sure she was alright and saw that she only had a few cuts. Neena on the other hand didn't look like she fared so well. Nika, it seemed, was moving to take care of Neena and another girl, whom Streak didn't recognize but thought he'd seen around, moved towards Garret.

Then the new girl said something, "Garrett isn't the enemy! The slip of a man is!"

Streak wasn't sure what she meant by 'the slip of a man' but he had a feeling he knew who she was talking about. "Where is he?" Streak asked looking around. He looked around the trees and bushes, he looked over the ground but didn't see anyone. He diverted all his attention to finding this man, who could apparently vanish or be invisible. He wasn't sure just yet but he was determined to find out which one it was and stop him so they could have a little chat.

Endless oblivion hurtled by as the pair rocketed onwards, grappling and flying apart. Garrett's body was burning with pain at first, but now things were cooling rapidly. It gave the falling the illusion of high winds but that couldn't be it. As he fought with the demon, he noticed it kept glancing away, looking in several directions. What was going on? He had had enough. The thought stopped them from falling and there they were, suspended in this nothingness, the endless sky had faded into a soup of gray nothingness. There was nothing to indicate where up or down was. They were just suspended.

" Are you done fighting then, 02387? It's about time. It's hopeless, since you cannot escape the inevitability that we are the same.[/i]"

Garrett couldn't understand what it meant. He knew this was all in his mind. He knew that the demon was part of him. Its image faded slightly.

' You don't see the true inevitability. Like it or not, I am the one pulling the strings. My name is not 02387. My name is Garrett. Theodore. Wills. And so is yours. I am a mutant. So are you. I know why you were created, but now you must go. You can't be separated from me, but you will not control me!"

The oblivion around him seemed to contract and expand. The demon was nowhere to be seen.He thought to himself, there is no demon. I am the demon. The demon is me. I am Garrett. The Garrett is demon. Demon.Garrett. Demon. Garrett.

A brilliant and blinding flash of light made him reel and spasm. Thousands of images flashed in his mind and before him. The horrors of the camp. The long days of hospitals. His parents. Maya. The school. Neena Jenkins. Friends. Madness. Love. Hate. The images cycled faster and faster becoming a fast moving current. The stream of Tao.

"Very well. I see there is no way to make you understand my plight. You can't be free of me. I cannot be free of you.[/i]"

The oblivion faded. Ground formed beneath his feet. The Mansion shimmered into place. His friends and their efforts to save him played out in front of him. He was no longer simply a casual observer. All was well. There was a problem still, though. He still had no control. He couldn't move. He noticed that his feet were now dangling, he looked up and could see Sam holding him up by the collar, anger burning in his cold eyes. Cold was creeping into his arms and shoulders. Maya was holding him also. Darkness sizzled in spots of black and white. His heart was slowing.

His vision was fading. Something was very wrong. The whole situation was wrong, but something important was wrong. Was he dying? Was the fluid in his body some kind of mind altering poison? Was this the end?

Darkness seeped in to the corners of his eyes. A waking sleep came. The liquid madness was pumping through his veins, seeping through every pore. His nerves lit up like an explosion, a rapid flash fire that spread to every fiber of him. His body went limp in Sam's hands. Though the outward horror and pain was over, the demon was not done with him. It was going to fight him every step of the way. Garrett was no longer conscious of the outside world. Sounds outside were fading rapidly. Cold, cold like he had never felt or imagined was seeping in, numbing his body.

A voice echoed in the darkness.

" Die, Garrett. Die. That is the only way to escape me. Stop your impulses. No pain, no sensation. No breathing. No living. DIE![/i]"

"Neena! Are you ok?!"

"No."

She didn't mean to snap at Nika. But her entire body felt like she'd slept on a bed of iron spikes underneath a moving bulldozer. 'Ok' didn't exactly qualify.

"Dude, what the hell do you think you are doing?"

"Garrett isn't the enemy! The slip of a man is! Hold him, Sam!"

Neena blinked furiously, trying to clear her scrambled vision and assess the situation, a task made even more difficult because of the pain and anger coursing through her veins. Not to mention the curses going through her thoughts.

All right. Sam iced up and outside, holding Garrett firmly by the collar. Ghost with her arms wrapped around Garrett's chest. No extra pain seemingly being tossed around, so the main problem was well in hand.

Her thermal vision shorted out and kicked in, and Sam all but disappeared from her sight.

<"Lovely. Just lovely."> She hit the side of her head, like a cartoon character trying to get water out of their ear. Her left eye unscrambled, but the right refused to unstick, leaving her vision a colorful mix of dark shadows and flashes of orange, red, purple and yellow.

She bit her tongue, literally, to keep from saying anything aloud that Nika, kneeling besides her, still concerned by not injured quite as badly, could hear. She shook her head.

"Is Garrett okay now?" She called out as she struggled to her feet, and limped over.

As she approached, her scowl turned to a frown. Garrett had gone limp. Risking a sneak attack, she reached out to check his eyes. They were still milky white, and his skin almost as pale. And clammy. And she could see from her stuck thermal vision that his body temperature was much higher than it should be.

"We've got to get him to the Infirmary. I don't know what's wrong but he needs the DocProf's help, like yesterday. Sam, can you cool him down a bit? Just enough to drop the fever? And Ghost, can you keep him unconscious until we can get him upstairs?"
She turned around to find Nika.

And froze. She blinked, to be sure her eyes were only playing the usual tricks on her. She trusted her instincts more than she trusted her sight, but had learned to listen carefully when the two both told her something wasn't right. Something like the presence of another person, a person she couldn't see normally, but her thermal sight insisted was standing nearby, watching.

"Get him to the Doc. Now," she growled. She motioned to the catgirl.

"Nika, I see someone invisible who shouldn't be here. Several yards behind me on the left. Can you sense him at all?" she asked quietly.

If she was right, they'd found their intruder.

Neena's response had a definite tone of frustration. For a brief second Nika though she was being snapped at, but then she realized her teacher was just upset. It was understandable though. No one likes being dumped in a thorn bush.

Nika took another quick survey of the others. Garrett wasn't doing anything now and Sam was holding him. Neena gave out orders in hopes of getting Garrett some care. Then she directed herself to Nika.

"There is a scent that I don't recognise. It's no one from the mansion that's for sure. What do you have in mind?"

Oh, could this job get any better? Shade had to cover his mouth to silence his evil chuckles from being heard. They had complete incapicitated the poor guy. A pain was developing in his side from Shade's silence laughter. He finally managed to get a hold of himself when they had dragged off the unconsious test subject. However, Shade wanted to see what else could be found out. Two members would seemed to be the most in charge were still discussing something quietly. It never crossed Shade's mind that they might still be searching for him.

Ghost held on for dear life, her eyes scrunched closed waiting for the pain that never came. She was paranoid now - there was no way the demon was beat this simply. It was Neena's voice that eventually roused her from her waiting state.

"We've got to get him to the Infirmary. I don't know what's wrong but he needs the DocProf's help, like yesterday. Sam, can you cool him down a bit? Just enough to drop the fever? And Ghost, can you keep him unconscious until we can get him upstairs?"

"I can't... it doesn't work like..." Ghost suddenly realized that she was still pumping her power into Garrett's body, he was nearly drained of all life giving oxygen and she under no circumstances wanted to damage his brain. She rather liked it how it was. Ghost let go suddenly and waited for the tell tale gasp of air that signaled Garrett was okay. When it didn't immediately come she slipped into the space between Sam and Garrett's body with a mumble of 'excuse me.' She took Garrett's face in her hands and focused on pushing the air along the body's natural pathways. She inflated his lungs and forced his body to start the process again. She was as good as any ventilator.

"Get him to the Doc. Now," Neena growled. The tenseness in her voice only added to Ghost's anxiety. This was getting to be too serious.

"Sam, you're either gonna have to carry us both or cool him and let me take him to the doc 'cause I can't let him go... he's not breathing on his own yet." Her voice was high and shaky from stress. She approximated that she could lift Garrett's weight with her winds provided that he did not wake and squirm. She couldn't promise that she wouldn't knock off all the pictures from the walls on the way to the infirmary, but she knew she could at least get him there if Sam needed to stay.

(OOC: Hope this is okay, if it's not let me know)

"Sam, you're either gonna have to carry us both or cool him and let me take him to the doc 'cause I can't let him go... he's not breathing on his own yet."

Sam thought about what he should do, his first thought was to help Ghost with Garret, the only problem with that plan, the intruder is still here and he could end up hurting someone else. Sam looked to Ghost, “I’ll cool him down but I don’t want to leave here something else might get bad.”

Sam set down Garret and then grabbed Garret’s wrists and created a ring of ice around the wrist to half way up the fore arms. Then after those were in place Sam moved to Garrets feet, and did the same thing with those. Then just for good measure Sam created a ring around Garret’s fore head. The he looked to Ghost, “Alright he should be good to go also…” Sam shot some ice at Garret’s feet and created something that resembled roller skates. “That should make him easier to carry, Good luck.” Sam finished this with a smile and pattered Ghost on the back, “He’ll be fine.” Hoping that his unsure comment would give her comfort of any kind.

With that Sam waited for further orders from Neena, she whispered something to Nika and Sam wondered if it had anything to do about the intruder.

(Hope you don't mind Sam.)

Streak looked on at the group. He saw Sam and a girl dealing with Garret. It seemed to be working well. He then saw Neena and Nika talking together quietly. He couldn't make out what it was but he was pretty sure he had an idea. He walked over to Sam as he put ice cuffs on Garret's hands, feet, and a ring around his head. He walked up to Sam to hear his last comment.

“I’ll cool him down but I don’t want to leave here something else might get bad.”
“Alright he should be good to go also…” Sam shot some ice at Garret’s feet and created something that resembled roller skates. “That should make him easier to carry, Good luck.”

"Sam. Go with Garret. I'll stay with Neena and Nika. Y'all are the only ones that can control Garret right now and he needs both of you. Get him to the infirmary and if he's fine there come back. If not stay there and help." He hoped Sam would do what he said but he wasn't sure. Streak wasn't exactly in charge of anything but he had helped with these sort of things before.

Streak walked up to Neena and Nika. He didn't have their abilities so he didn't know that they were looking in a direction of where the intruder was. He waited for Neena to let him in on what they knew.

"There is a scent that I don't recognise. It's no one from the mansion that's for sure. What do you have in mind?"

"Nothing just yet. But give me a second."

Neena nodded, a gesture that had no meaning or bearing on what Nika had just confirmed. She spotted Streak approaching, pausing to speak with Sam, who seemed to be hesitating. She waved him on urgently. They needed to get Garrett inside quickly, especially with their intruder still lurking. Neena didn't understand what had happened, but she did know she didn't want it to happen again.

She started patting her pockets, looking for her cell phone. Thanks to her obsession with pockets, it hadn't been lost. She turned her back toward where she though she'd seen the extra heat signature, and began dialing. A groggy, and confused, young voice answered on the other end.

"Jonnie, I need a favor," she told Tricity's helper. "Try and clear those cobwebs, and hit the grounds lights." She paused, then replied, "All of them. Thanks kiddo." Clicking off, she turned back to Nika and Streak.

"Follow my gaze and keep you're eyes peeled. Hopefully the sun's about to rise on our uninvited guest." It may have seemed an odd request, considering Neena's eyes were now closed.

Seconds later the lights situated along the privacy wall, next to the cameras, all turned on at once. They weren't floodlights, but pretty close. She was hoping that the sudden flash might confuse the invisible intruder, and maybe get them to drop their camouflage.