"That's another one off the list." Alex said to himself with a groan as he looked down at the map that was in his hands and used a pen to scratch off an 'x' over a possible location for a pottery shop. Alex was standing in front of an old building that was near a smaller set of privately owned docks that were just off of one of New York City's many harbors. Alex had been hoping to find a building near a location where he would get fresh clay everyday at a low cost while being in a location where he would get several customers a day. The building he was looking at was in good condition, was just one block away from a company that he could buy clay from so Alex could carry the clay to his shop by hand or shopping cart, and there were always plenty of new people arriving in New York City by boat, so having a store that could sell hand made souvenirs at that location would be very profitable.

Except, there was one small problem... someone else bought the building and was planning on turning it into a fast food restaurant. There was no way Alex was going to be getting the building away from the man, mainly because there wasn't a restaurant for 15 blocks and the constant inflow of new arrivals would most likely be hungry after their long trip. People would want a nice hot meal more then they would a clay pot or hand made clay sculpture. With a defeated sigh, Alex turned his back on the building and started to walk away from it, heading back the way he came... which was a small pedestrian bridge that went over part of the dock.

Alex stopped just in front of the bridge and glanced down at the water that was below, and gulped as he lifted his right hand to his face and covered his right ear. This was a very uncomfortable position he was in at the moment. He had to cross a bridge that crossed a large body of water in order to head back to his motel, and he had a fear of water. Thanks to the fact that his right eardrum wasn't whole, water could get inside his inner ear, and it always hurt like anything as a result. It was impossible for Alex to swim because of this, so he was always afraid of large bodies of water. Sure, the bridge was perfectly safe and there were high handrails to keep people from falling, but he was still scared none the less.

Knowing that the other way around was at least ten miles long, Alex took a deep breath, tried to calm himself, and slowly started to cross the bridge.

Skydancer was officially lost. Again. It was becoming a depressingly regular occurance for her. There was just something about the massive city of New York that disoriented her to the point of not knowing left from right, up from down. Even scaling to a nearby rooftop didn't seem to help matters much as one busy New York street looked much like another. Then there was the problem of not many people wanted to help out the purple girl, so there she was wandering and confused.

Skydancer had been looking for a little costume store one of her circus trainers had told her about so she'd have something flashy to wear for her first performance, although that was still a ways away. Somehow, however, she had found herself near the docks which was in the complete opposite direction from where she wanted to go. How that had happened, she had no idea. How she planned to get back to The Mansion or to the store that had been her initial goal, she also had no idea.

Sighing despondently, Skydancer made her way towards a bride spanning a large body of water. She wasn't the greatest swimmer in the world, but she had always liked bridges. It was the height, more than anything. On this particular bridge, in an area that was strangely much quieter than the surrounding areas, she saw a strange sight. Ahead of her she saw two men crossing the bridge, one of them about 20 feet ahead of the other. At first nothing seemed unusual about that. As the Skydancer got closer, however, the closer man began to glow and pulsate. That's when the strange glowing marbles (or at least that's what they looked like to her) of all different colours began shooting from his body in every random direction and even from that distance, Skydancer could see the look of panic on his face.

"Look out!" Skydancer yelled, as she began running in the direction of the bridge. Some mutant had clearly lost control of their powers and it was going to be up to her to stop him from doing any real damage. How she planned to do that and even whether or not the glowing marbles were actually dangerous, she didn't know.

As Alex walked across the bridge, he was desperately trying to stay in the middle of the bridge to make sure that he stayed away from the either edge of the bridge in an attempt to lessen his chances of falling off. As he slowly crossed the bridge, he kept on asking himself how the heck did he manage to cross over it in the first place, then remembered it was because there was a small boat under the bridge at that time, so if he went over there was someone there to help get him out of the water. Now there wasn't a boat, and there was only one man a few years older then him and a purple woman that could save him if he went over, and they would have to jump over the edge to go after him.

Wait a tic... purple woman? Alex did a double take, and sure enough there was a woman whom had purple skin, or that's what it seemed like at first. There was something off about her skin though, but she was clearly purple. Her mutation was much harder to hide then Alex's mutation, but then again his power was only useful in combat while her might be useable else where, so Alex stopped coming to conclusions about the mutant that was on the other side of the bridge.

It was at that moment that the man in front of him started to glow and pulsate, and the man's breathing turned panicky. Seeing this, Alex concluded that the man was also a mutant and lost hold on his powers, and the purple woman let out a warning shout. He was proven right when marbles of what looked like energy started to come flying out of the man's torso in all directions. Instinct and reflexes took over as Alex reached into his leather jacket as his eyes started to glow green and he pulled out his malachite dagger, Defiance. The Defiance quickly widened and grew into a one inch thick shield that was just big enough to protect Alex's torso, but not enough to protect his legs, arms, or head. Raising the shield to deflect an incoming ball that was heading towards his forehead, Alex was relieved to hear the ball bounce off. That meant what ever those balls were made of, Malachite could block it. However, the force that was imparted onto the shield was enormous, and Alex had to almost strain to keep the shield in place.

Now came the hard part... trying to figure out how to get in close to the man and help him get his powers back under control. Inch by inch, Alex started to walk towards the man as he freaked out, but the closer he got, the harder the balls hit the shield, and they were getting harder and harder to deflect. This was not going to be easy at all...

Skydancer didn't exactly have a lot of experience in dealing with panicked and out of control mutants; or any experience at all, for that matter. Did one talk at them in soft and soothing tones to calm them down, as if they were a wild animal or a hysterical child? Or was it better to batter them unconscious and hope not to get killed in the process? She didn't exactly have a lot of time to consider her options, nor was her mind thinking entirely rationally at that moment. Rather, she continued to run in his direction, operating primarily on instinct.

The man being pelted by energy balls from the out of control mutant on the bridge proved himself a mutant as well as, seemingly out of nowhere, a large green shield grew in his hands. Well, that was a relief anyway as it brought both of them some well needed time. As for the out of control mutant himself, his eyes were wide, with terror, barely more than the whites showing. He noticed neither the man with the malachite shield nor the purple woman running towards the two of them, so focused was he on the energy marbles bursting from his flesh. The hurt, each one that he let out causing a flash of agony and the pain of the out of control power only served to worsen his all ready shattered grip on what was happening to him.

"Hang in there," Skydancer yelled as she continued to run, although she wasn't certain which of the two mutants she was directing her words at. What she did know for certain was that the man with the malachite shield was having a worse and worse time of things the longer he was pelted with the energy marbles. Several tubes burst from Skydancer's chest as she continued to run, though she still didn't have any idea what she was going to do or even if she was going to be of any use at all. Unlike the malachite man, her power didn't provide her much protection.

Alex found himself pinned down by the constant bombardment of energy balls and was having a hard time deflecting the energy balls. On the other side of the bridge, the purple woman was trying to get closer, and seemed to have some sort of tubes coming out of her, and seemed to be shouting something, though Alex had to listen hard to hear what she was staying. Was she telling him to hang in there, or the mutant that had lost control? Didn't really matter which one she was talking to, since it would fit both of them.

Alex took another step forwards, and began to shout at the man whom had lost control of his powers. "Hey pal! We need to get your powers under control! This is your gift for you to control, not for it to control you! I'll try to give you a hand in getting your powers under control, but you have to listen to me! Now, some powers are controlled simply by body movement! Try flexing some of your muscles or bending your limbs first!" Alex yelled as he crouched onto the ground so he had less surface area that needed to be protected by the shield. He then looked over at the woman with the tubes. "Ma'am! Try wrapping those tubes or tentacles of yours around yourself like a cocoon! That should allow you to get closer to help out!" Alex called out, hoping to give the woman some suggestions so she could get closer. He wasn't sure what he was doing, he was just trying to help.

As he was crouched there, Alex knew his shield was still too small to properly protect him. It had to be larger, but to make it larger he needed either a larger piece of malachite or he needed to make the shield thinner... and since there wasn't any other piece of malachite within 25 feet of him that he could sense, thinning the shield was the only choice. Alex slowly thinned the shield to half an inch and expanded the shield. Now it was large enough to protect him, however when the next energy ball hit Alex felt a crack form in the malachite shield. It was too thin! He quickly shank the shield back down to the first size and thickened it back up to an inch, then focused on sealing the crack in the shield. He was going to have to try 3/4th of an inch next...

If only it were that simple to simply wrap her tubes around her body in cacoon-like fashion, Skydancer would have gladly done it. Unfortunately it just didn't work that way. She couldn't control enough tubes at once to make it effective and it simply wasn't the sort of thing her tubes were naturally inclined to do. As useful as they were for travel and, when it called for it, offense, defense just wasn't something they could help much with.

An energy marble hit Skydancer in the side and then another one. A burning pain shot through her skin and she suspected that whatever those marbles were made out of, if she looked down she would see burns in her skin. Fortunately the force in which they struck her wasn't sufficieint to shatter the tubes still under her skin and, just as fortunately, she knew any burns would heal from her skin in minutes unless they were far more severe than she expected they were. Unfortunately she was fairly certain the other mutant wouldn't be nearly so lucky.

"Listen to him," Skydancer yelled, trying to be both loud and soothing at the same time and not entirely certain that she succeeded in doing either one of those things. A marble collided with her head and she had to fight back the urge to yell out with the pain of the impact. It was a very good thing she was comfortable in the water and that the water below was slow moving, just in case she should fall off the bridge. "It's ok, everything is going to be OK. Just calm down and your power will stop on its own." Or so she hoped.

The man yealled, thrashing his head from side to side, first looking at the malachite mutant then at Skydancer and back again. "I'm no mutie!" The words were barely comprehensible, fear pain and rage all working together to garble their meaning. Immediately Skydancer's mind shot back to the time when she had been kidnapped by the cult of M addicts and the man who couldn't control his fire power. Knowing that the man was a human on M, however, wasn't any help in actually figuring out what to do about it. Only a few more feet and she would be close enough to the pair to actually intervene. Somehow.