Thirty

                                    

                                          
"I can't kill her!" Jay screamed, slamming his fists down on the table. It rocked unsteadily on it's carbon-fiber legs. So what if it broke? The thing was useless anyway.

                          
A perfect incarnation of how he felt right now.
                          
"Calm down, Jay." Daniel said, crossing one leg over the other with perfect...calmness.
                          
"No! You don't get it, do you, Daniel?" Jay spat out, jamming a finger into his chest. "This is on me. Cunningham gave me instructions to, an I quote, 'dispatch of the girl while she is here' and you know what? I can't. So don't you dare tell me too 'calm down' because right now, that is the last thing I want to-"
                          
"Jay." Yang's voice wasn't in Jay's plan. He wasn't either, standing stoically by the door, his brother behind him and a small, thin boy beside him.

                          
Yang's brother was, in a word, odd. He didn't look like his brother much, save for the slant of their eyes and the gold-tinge of their skin. He had dark hair that curled around his face and eyes the colour of stone, cold and menacing. Another thing he and Yang had in common- being cold and menacing. Yang's brother was taller, too, his body thinner and more angular than Yang's stocky build.
                          
But Yang still scared Jay into submission. 

                          
He sat down a little too quickly for his liking, immediately alerting him to the presence of two mutants in the room- Yang and his brother. Both mind readers, obviously.
                          
Inwardly growling, Jay tore his eyes from Yang's brother to the young boy. His hair was pale red, hanging limp in waves around his face and neck. His eyes were a colorless green, like all the life had been bleached out of them. Jay's mind flew back to his eyes before he'd been changed into Splinter- the amber irises turned pale from years of training, leeching the colour from them.
                          
That's Yang's new recruit?
                          
He looked like Glint's younger brother from back when he was still Jay.
                          
He was Glint's younger brother.
                          
Ah, great.
                          
"Jay, the girl is immune to death." Yang said, stalking inside and sitting at the head of the table. Jay scowled at him. "You can't kill her."
                          
"I know that already!" Jay growled. What is it with people stating the obvious?
                          
"Then calm down." Yang's brother said, standing beside him, arms crossed gently over his chest.
                          
Now they were standing closer, Jay noticed some little similarities between them. The shine of their hair. The small ears. The crooked nose.
                          
The hatred he had for both of them.
                          
Jay pointed at the boy. "That your new apprentice to do your dirty work? Who is he? Glint's brother?"
Yang regarded him carefully, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Glint? The red-head? No, not her brother by blood. Adoptive, yes. A boy with," Yang settled his hands on the boy's shoulders. He didn't even blink. "A lot of potential."
                          
Potential. The word Yang used to describe every child he had taken under his wing, every child he had molded into a killing machine. Jay felt his glare darken.
                          
"But, of course, no one is perfect. Especially you two." Yang's gaze was fiery and his smirk victorious and immediately, his mind flew from the boy to his safety. He was in the same room as two powerful mutants and the one person he despised more than himself. If a fight were to break out, Jay wasn't sure he'd survive.
                          
A knock came on the door. A soldier stood their, her helmet held under one arm. "I'm sorry to interrupt, Minister, but there seems to be a disturbance in Holding Bay's One and Two."
                          
"What sort of 'disturbance'?"
                          
"A mutant, who we have identified as Mutant Number 2159, has-"
                          
"Trace?!" Jay shouted, standing up, his fists slamming down onto the table.
                          
"Jay, sit down." Yang growled.
                          
Jay didn't sit.
                          
"-escaped her holding cell with the aid of two younger mutants who have yet too be identified." The soldier continued.  "We do not believe they are Rebels at the moment. They managed to evade all personnel and have aided all other mutants held their in the escaping of their cells. We are currently tracking them as they move through the compound." Clapping a hand to her chest, she stood to attention.
                          
Jay felt Yang's anger seething inside him, transferred through the man's telepathy but he ground out, "Thank you."
                          
Yang turned and the soldier left, the door sliding closed behind her. His brother frowned before pointing at Daniel and Jay.
                          
"What about them? Couldn't they capture the inferior girl?"
                          
"No. I have something better for them too do with their time." Yang grinned a pained, evil grin and the fear in Jay's chest clenched painfully. 

                          
The terror on Daniel's face was perfect, a snapshot Jay wanted to keep forever. But when the boy with red hair raised his hand and the oxygen in his lungs and around him was sucked away, he knew why his enemy- my friend- was so scared.
                          
The next thing he knew, the world was dark and his heart was no longer beating.
                          
"Dying works nicely." Yang's brother nodded.