After David is caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, his entire life changes in ways he never could have expected. This is a fan fiction taking place in the Whateley Universe.

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I’ve always hated having to get up early in the morning and that was one of the things that hadn’t changed. Of course, what had changed was that when I woke up, I was almost immediately wide awake and full of energy. I wasn’t sure if that was due to my being an exemplar, a regenerator, or some combination of the two, but what I did know was that Jackie was the same way.

Jackie was a bit of a morning person, so I hated her for about ten minutes or so just out of general principal. How could anyone wake up at 5 AM and still be that cheerful?

“I wanted to get an early start,” Jackie told me as she got dressed in her costume, then began putting normal clothes on over the top of it.

“Bite me,” I grumbled as I got dressed as well. It felt wrong to be up this early and having this much energy without the assistance of caffeine. “I was having great dream too…”

Jackie just laughed at that, then asked, “From the way you were nipping out a minute ago, I’m assuming it was a good one.”

I blushed bright red at that which only seemed to amuse her more. I actually had been having a pretty nice dream, one that involved me and my old crush Amanda. Having that dream interrupted might have had something to do with my bad mood.

“We’ll stop for coffee and donuts on the way out of town,” Jackie promised me. “Once we get a few miles behind us, we’ll grab some real breakfast.”

“You say the sweetest things,” I told her

Just then, a car alarm began going off in the parking lot. Jackie pushed over the curtains and peaked out, then suddenly blurted out, “Oh shit…”

“What?” I gasped, definitely not liking that reaction.

“Take a peak,” she told me grimly. “A quick one. And do NOT open the curtain or be seen…”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” I told her.

“And I don’t like the look of it,” she said, stepping back from the window and taking her civilian clothes back off.

I peeked out the window, doing as Jackie said and only barely moving the curtain aside. A moment later, I repeated her, ‘Oh shit.”

The MCO had found us. The parking lot was full of MCO agents, about a dozen of them in total. Most of them were wearing SWAT type gear while four of them were wearing powder blue power armor. They were still spreading out and getting into position, and obviously one of them had accidentally set off the car alarm.

“Thank God for obnoxious car alarms,” Jackie said, slipping on her gloves and mask so that she was now in full costume. “Without that warning, they would have caught us by surprise.”

“There’s like a whole army out there,” I blurted out, more than a little worried.

“This is going to be dangerous,” Jackie warned me, her expression grim and focused. “As soon as we get out there, keep your force field up and move as fast as you can. We can’t reach the car through them so we’re going to have to make a run for it. Grab your bug out bag and leave everything else.”

I nodded at that and grabbed the backpack I’d brought with me into the motel room and slung it over my shoulder. Jackie had insisted that I keep some essentials in a ‘bug out bag’, and keep it close to me in case of an emergency. Suddenly, I was thankful that I’d stuffed a few extra pairs of underwear in there.

“We need to move before they’re all in position,” she told me as strapped her own ‘bug out bag’ onto her back. “On the count of three.”

Seconds later, Jackie threw open the door and ran out, forming her force field bubble immediately. She gave me enough cover to come out and form my force field as well, then she was in motion.

Jackie rolled forward, right through where two of the MCO agents were standing, causing them to leap aside to avoid being run over. Then she slammed straight into one of the power suits, slamming him right into the side of a car and smashing the car in the process.

“I knew it was them,” a familiar voice yelled out. ”

I immediately spotted Agent Owens, standing back in SWAT gear and glaring at me furiously. Since his attention was on me, rather than on Jackie who was actually doing some damage, I guessed that he took that bath I gave him rather personally. He opened fire on me with the obvious intention to kill, but the gunfire bounced right off my force field. I had yet to learn that trick of absorbing incoming kinetic energy in order to strengthen my force field, but my field was still more than strong enough to protect against that.

Owens continued yelling to one of the other MCO agents, his voice filled with a tone that screamed ‘I told you so’. “When our informant called with news of two exemplar redheads that fit the description of our targets…with one of them being confirmed as a mutant, I knew we had them.”

“Yeah, you were right,” the other MCO agent snapped back at Owens in obvious annoyance. “I’ll pay you that fifty when we get back, so shut your yammering and get those freaks before they hurt anymore innocent humans.”

At this point, Jackie was bouncing around the parking lot like a pinball, smashing into cars and making MCO agents jump out of her way. She’d taken out of one of the power armor suits, but the other three were now flying in the air and out of her reach. Still, that didn’t stop her from keeping all the ground based MCO agents occupied and on the run.

“And to think,” Jackie said when she came back towards me. “I was worried about them using magic to find us but completely overlooked the obvious.”

“I bet it was that woman who saw me glowing,” I told her grimly. Mister Greasy had probably realized that I was a mutant after the way I’d caught him spying on us, but I seriously doubted that he was their informant, not with him being a mutant too. “Not that it matters.”

Until then, I’d been so caught up in watching everything that I almost forgot that I was actually a part of this. When Owens opened fire on me again, I finally snapped out of it and followed Jackie’s example. I rolled right at him, making him jump out of the way. However, one of the flying power suits began firing at me as well, using some sort of energy blast that hit me and sent me flying back with a lot of force. I smashed into the side of the motel, creating a hole and causing a nearby window to shatter. My force field had protected me from the blow, then immediately vanished and dropped me to the ground.

“Oh shit,” I gasped, feeling a little dazed.

The power suit opened fire on me again and I just barely got my force field back up in time, though the blast slammed me right back into the wall. This time, I was braced enough that my force field didn’t automatically drop, but I knew I couldn’t take that kind of hit many more times.

After a moment of consideration, I willed a force field bubble to appear around my attacker, even though it meant my own protection vanished at the same time. Then I forced my sphere to fly towards the nearest other power suit as fast as I could make it, and at the last second I let the bubble vanish. The power suit I’d been moving slammed hard into his own teammate, causing both of them to fall from the sky. And as soon as they hit the ground, Jackie slammed into both of them.

“Good job, Sphere,” Jackie called out to me, looking rather proud. “Now let’s get out of here.”

I nodded at that, deciding that before we ran away, I wanted to try something new, or at least something that Jackie had suggested to me during our last practice session. I formed a golden sphere about the size of a grapefruit in the air in front of me, then with a little concentration, it suddenly went flying straight at Agent Owens, who was aiming his weapon at me again. My sphere hit him in the chest like a cannonball, sending him flying back and into the side of a car. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t sent the sphere hard enough to do any serious damage, especially when he was wearing that protective gear. The fact that he was still moving and struggling to get back up a few seconds later confirmed that.

“Too bad the name Hardball was taken,” I commented with a grin, reforming the force field around myself just as several of the MCO agents opened fire on me again.

I rolled along the ground to join Jackie, but one of the power suits was still up in the air and firing energy blasts at her. She was handling them better than I had, but I didn’t see any reason for her to deal with them alone. A moment later, I sent my own bubble up into the air and right at him, slamming into the power armor which promptly fell out of the air.

“It looks like you’re starting to get the hang of this,” Jackie called out to me with a laugh, right before she took off rolling down the street. I followed floating just a short distance behind her. After a few minutes, Jackie came to a stop and said, “I think we lost them for now, but I wouldn’t count on it remaining that way for too long. I want to get a little further away, then look for some less conspicuous transportation.”

I stopped beside her and dropped my force field, feeling a bit shaky from all the excitement and the realization of just how close I’d come to being hurt…or worse. Those MCO guys weren’t kidding around. They were actually trying to kill me. I’d already seen first-hand that they weren’t the good guys I’d always believed them to be, but this just reinforced that.

“You did good back there,” Jackie assured me, putting a hand on my shoulder. She gave me a concerned look, obviously seeing that I was still a bit shaken from the experience. Then she grinned and added, “Keep this up and we’ll have to get you a costume of your own.”

“I think I can do without the spandex,” I responded with a faint grin.

Since I had Jackie as an example, I could imagine exactly how I’d look with that kind of outfit, and it was actually pretty good. However, the idea of wearing something that showed off every curve of my body like that… That was a bit more than I was comfortable with at the moment.

Then I joked, “Or the mask.”

“They’re terribly comfortable,” Jackie responded with a smirk. “I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.”

I rolled my eyes at that and added, “At least you’re ready for trick-or-treating at a moment’s notice.”

“True,” she agreed with another chuckle. “But as well as being highly fashionable, a costume does serve several practical purposes. It makes a statement, has built in athletic support, is very easy to move around in, and since mine is made of devisor fabric, it’s also got built in shock absorbtion and bullet resistance qualities that make it into lightweight and flexible body armor.”

“Body armor?” I asked skeptically as I looked her over.

“You have got to take costume shop when you get to Whateley,” Jackie told me. Then she looked around and pointed out, “We need to get going again…”

I nodded at that, then said, “I was thinking that maybe I should do the transportation for awhile.” She gave me a curious look, obviously waiting for me to explain what I meant. I gave her a nervous smile, then said, “I mean, if I fly us out of here, we can avoid the roads and not leave as much of a trail.”

Jackie stared at me for a moment before nodding agreement. “That makes sense. I can avoid leaving a trail of witnesses and broken cars, and they’ll have a harder time following.”

I couldn’t help but grinning at the fact that Jackie liked my idea. She stood close to me and I willed my bubble to appear around us, then I lifted us up into the air. This was actually the first time I’d ever done this with a passenger, but it wasn’t any different than traveling by myself, except that I had to share my limited space.

“This is the first time I’ve ever done this without being in control,” Jackie commented as we began flying away, keeping fairly low so we wouldn’t be tracked as easily from a distance. “Being a passenger is actually kind of nice.” Then she paused for a few seconds before joking, “Once around the block, Jeeves,”

A short time later, I landed in the alleyway behind a large building and let my force field fade. Without a word, Jackie opened her ‘bug out bag’ and pulled out a set of clothes that she quickly put on over her costume. Once the clothes were on and her mask and gloves were off, she was able to walk through a crowd without drawing any more attention than a beautiful woman normally would.

“I thought you had some kind of ace up your sleeve,” I finally said, thinking about how badly the MCO had outnumbered us at the motel. “Why didn’t you use it?”

“I didn’t want to waste it just yet,” Jackie pointed out with a faint smile. “Besides, we got out of there all right...”

“Yeah, but you lost your car,” I pointed out. I didn’t bother mentioning the fact that I’d been forced to leave behind all of my new clothes, some of which I hadn’t even worn yet. Then I realized that I was actually upset about losing clothes and shook my head in annoyance. “I really am turning into a girl.”

“And quite a lovely one you are,” Jackie agreed with an amused look. “Now come on kid, we’ve got a car to steal.”

“Steal?” I blurted out in surprise.

“How else am I going to get a new car?” she asked with a roll of her eyes.

“But,” I started to protest that stealing someone’s car would be wrong.

“Fine, I’ll go and buy a new car,” Jackie responded with an even more obvious roll of her eyes. Then she gave me an evil grin and said, “But first, I need to stop off at a bank to make a withdrawal…”

I groaned, realizing that I was beaten. As much as I disliked the idea of stealing, we needed to get away from the MCO and we didn’t exactly have a lot of cash on us. And as I’d seen first-hand, Jackie’s method of getting more cash would draw a bit too much attention, not to mention making grand theft auto look like nothing more than shoplifting.

Fifteen minutes later, Jackie and I were walking through a parking lot, looking over our options for a new ride. “How about this one?” I asked, pointing to a red convertible. I figured, if we were going to steal a car, we might as well go for a good one.

“I like your style,” Jackie told me with a grin. “But the idea is to avoid attention.”

“And you’re so good at that,” I pointed out sarcastically.

“Smartass,” Jackie responded as she turned to a ten year old gray sedan. “I think this is what we’re looking for.”

Jackie pulled a few tools out of her own ‘bug out bag’ and quickly changed the license plate with that of another car, then she popped open the door and hotwired the car. Less than five minutes after stepping into the parking lot, we were driving away with a new car. I couldn’t help but feeling a strange mixture of guilt and excitement.

“Now that we’ve had our morning exercise,” Jackie said cheerfully, “what do you say about stopping somewhere for coffee and breakfast? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”