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#6
APR 14 |
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Just off the Coast of Genosha
“I know you’re not going to listen to me,” Forge said, “but I told you we shouldn’t try to refloat an asteroid. You ignored that, so I honestly doubt anything else I have to say will have any effect. I told you that you shouldn’t take this burden on your own, and you ignored that. I used to lead people, Cable. I understand what it’s like.”
“Mhm.”
The engineer didn’t even look up from what he was working on. Pieces of technology lay scattered on the floor in front of him, a light drizzle leaving a haze between his fevered work and the soldier behind him.
“Maybe if you had something relevant or useful to say?” Cable responded. He crossed his arms and watched Forge work.
“Clearly my cannibalizing my own hand for your use isn’t being useful enough to allow me an opinion. I’m not convinced you know how hard it was to refloat a chunk of rock. Not to mention I’ve had to exhaust every favor I had with Magnus Maximoff just to get him to let us have this asteroid off his country’s coast.”
Forge looked up at Cable. He narrowed his eyes in the sun. Weather could be so contrary.
“Look, I agreed to help you with this because I know about...the gray areas. More than most, but this isn’t healthy. I’ve not seen you eat in nearly three days, and now? Now you’re roping me into building...whatever this is...and setting up in...”
Forge opened his arms and waved them around the hollowed out central chamber of what used to be an observation deck. Half of it was still submerged in seawater, the other half still broken beyond repair. It was going to take months of concentrated effort just to make this small area useable, let alone working on the living quarters for more guests, if need be.
Cable moved in silence towards the makeshift weapons cache he’d constructed. He checked, as he did once an hour, his guns; seven in total consisting of two small handguns, a large machine gun and four semi-automatics. Forge found it to be slightly excessive, even as a Vietnam veteran.
“This is the perfect point, Forge,” he said. He turned to face the engineer. “Where is he now?”
Forge shook his head, looking at the monitor he’d managed to cobble together from a few pieces of technology, the contents of his hand and most of his foot. “Got about five places coming up. Stryfe’s peppering the way with false chronal readings. You already checked out Ankara. He might be in South America, or he might be in the Arctic, or...five hundred meters below sea level. Who knows?”
“I do,” Cable said. He pointed to a dot on the screen. “There.”
“Belfast?” Forge looked up at Cable.
“Yes,” Cable said. He nodded curtly to himself once. “Belfast.”
“Why Belfast?”
“Because it’s where I’d go.”
Forge looked up at him, scratching at his beard. Every day he wondered if his friend was going insane. It seems that today was the day. “Oh, well it all becomes clearer now.”
Cable nodded and headed over to his weapons cache once more. He began to fill the holsters underneath his shoulders and across his waist. “Belfast.” He said.
“Why Belfast?”
“I think you’d understand this, Forge. Soldiers don’t forget. A place of war, a place of atrocity. All battlefields are remembered. The English still talk of Crecy and Americans of the Alamo. Where I am from all Battlefields are sacred, something can be learned from each and every one.”
Forge nodded. “Fine, you have motivation for it, that’s great. My initial point still stands – this is inadvisable. You’re hitting him alone.”
Cable stared at Forge dead in the eyes.
“Listen to me,” He strapped a sub-machine gun to his back and checked the strap, “the only thing that’s made my life tolerable has been my family. Back home, I had a wife, a child and I had a purpose. In coming here, I gave all that up. I’m hitting him alone because that’s what he is – alone. He had none of that, and was raised by the world’s foremost sociopath. I’m going to do what any family member should do when confronted by an insane brother.”
“Have him committed?” Forge asked.
“Bullet to the head.”
Cable let it hang in the air for a moment and gave Forge a short nod.
“Bodyslide by one.”
The Brotherhoods Belfast Base
Blood coated the walls.
Cable snorted, he'd seen worse. Unfortunately.
For a moment she didn’t register his presence. Her yellow eyes were stationary, darting occasionally with frantic unfocus to the blood spattered walls. A smattering of limbs and some innards squelched beneath his feet.
“Mystique?” Cable asked. He’d seen this sort of behavior before. Individuals dealing with shock process it in different ways, but the physiological aspects of the process were obvious for all, regardless of skin tone. Her face appeared to be completely drained, almost grey in colour, with her lips and the bags under her eyes the lightest. Cable made his way towards her slowly, his arms stretched out in front of him.
“Raven,” he said. He touched her shoulder, snapping her from whatever tortured dream she was trapped within.
“You,” she hissed. She backed away, her eyes locked on his. Her shoulder melted away into a concave armored shape to fend off his touch. She backed herself against the wall, her hands touching it, her eyes searching his face. “Cable. He said you’d come.”
She sounded relieved. Her face cracked in mock appreciation, while she slid down the wall.
“Raven, where is he?” Cable asked. He dragged a chair across the room with him, laying it down on its front and gesturing for her to lay against it.
“Why?” she asked. She relented to his hands, as they forced her to lay against the chair.
“Shock,” he said. “Even you can’t have seen him in his worst moods.”
“I don’t know,” she said. He locked his eyes on her. The emotions were coming off her in waves, and despite most of the Brotherhood being scum bags that deserved the end of a rifle in their mouths, nobody deserved what Stryfe had done to them.
“Raven. Please. There’s death and then there’s torture.” Cable tapped the side of his head. “I’m losing my patience with all of this.”
“I don’t know,” she said through gritted teeth. She pushed herself to her feet. Cable casually and slowly removed one of his handguns. He let it weigh in his hands for her to see obviously.
“You can’t kill me with one of those,” she hissed.
“I know,” Cable said. He gripped the handle tightly and looped his finger through the trigger opening. “I don’t need to kill you. Just hurt you. A lot. Until you tell me what you need to know.”
“You can’t intimidate me, Cable.”
“This isn’t a game!” Cable yelled. A wave of telekinetic force threw Raven against the wall, smacking her head against the gore covered concrete. Cable took the safety off his gun and placed it against the palm of her hand.
“You doubt him. I can feel that…but how deep does your doubt run? Will a bullet to the hand bring it to the surface? What about one to the knee? Both knees? A shot to the guts. The shoulders. A through and through that deflates a lung. I’ve been doing this a long time, Raven. I know where to hit.”
She stared at him with bright yellow, wide eyes. Clearly the shock and fatigue was taking its toll on her shape shifting abilities. She could easily have outmaneuvered him by this point. She pulled her attention away from him. Cable smashed the butt of his hand gun against her forehead. She snaped back against the chair and looked up at him.
Then she starts laughing and all the shock that Cable had felt from her was now gone. She had become the ruthless Raven Darkholme once more. “Chicago. He’s gone to Chicago.”
She hung her head and looked up at him through her crimson hair.
“He’s gone mad, Cable. He’s gone totally mad. He’s going to do to Chicago what he did to Little Rock, and then he’s going to do it to the world. He’s going to show the world that even the X-Men can’t stop him. You won’t stop him.”
She stood up from the chair, fierce and beautiful. “And I am going to be at his side. Better to be at the Devil’s right hand than in his path.”
‘Hrn.’ Cable said. He holstered his weapon and just for good measure he let loose another, more powerful wave of telekinetic power. Mystique broke through the concrete wall, which crumbled in on her, leaving her buried in dust and rubble. “You were wrong, Raven. He was already mad – people will die today because of you…have died because of you, and not just humans. Mutants, your people. Those you're supposed to protect. And just like a pathetic worm, you’re still going to stand by him.”
“It comes to something doesn't it, Cable?” Raven groaned through the rubble. Whatever wounds he had created were being rapidly healed by her constantly changing cell structure. “The soldier goes to kill his own.”
“Soldiers always kill their own, Raven.” Cable replaced the safety and holstered his weapon. “Bodyslide by one.”
The Wilds of Turkey
“I don’t really like this,” Bedlam said quietly. “The Amazon thing was a decoy. How do we know this isn’t a decoy as well?”
“We don’t,” Warpath said.
He sniffed the air and looked back at Bedlam, who hung close to Askari and Sunspot.
“We just do what we do.”
“Y’wanna cut the chit-chat and get focused?” Wisdom asked. He took a final drag from his cigarette and dropped it under his heel. “We’re supposed to be mutant cops, not Loose Women.”
Sunspot snorted through his nose.
“Not sure anyone gets the reference, Petey, but little word of advice,” he said, a cupped hand over his lips as he faux whispered, “loose women doesn’t mean the same thing over here as it does in the land of Tea and Crumpets.”
Pete slapped Sunspot on the shoulders and laughed sarcastically. “You don’t have crumpets with your tea, you burk. You have biscuits – and they’re not the hard rolls you lot have over here. Now, you wanna go another few rounds of 'spot the pop culture reference' or are we going to have to devolve into racial stereotypes, my taco loving friend?”
“I’m clearly took dark to be Mexican.” Sunspot raised his finger.
“Casual racism, works every time...” Pete trailed off as something rustled in the trees.
“Stay sharp.”
The group swarmed together, Warpath unsheathing his blades. They sang in silence, save for the sound of Husk tearing layers of her own skin away. Her body shone in the dwindling light, metallic surface reflecting the light of the sun and the glinting edge of the Axe that found itself hurtling towards her.
“GWWOOARRR!” a scream rang through the valley where the team searched.
“It’s War – hit him!” Wisdom thrust both of his hands up towards the enormous creatures, all ten of his hot knives penetrating the beasts hide and embedding themselves into his face. Its roar grew louder. Warpath immediately leapt into the air, his knives facing front. The creature still leant his body weight into his axe, driving Paige into the soft dirt, scuffing a mark down her arm and side. She gritted her teeth in pain.
“Hit him again!” Wisdom yelled, pulling his hands down, fingers splayed to generate more knives.
“I think we will,” a voice spoke from the undergrowth. An Arabian man stepped forward, his fingers glowing with crimson energy. Warpaths next curve towards War was immediately curtailed, the mutant listing to one side before falling to the Earth. His arms began to swell with tumors growing underneath his skin and bursting through it.
“Jimmy!” Paige yelled from her position, waist deep in the dirt. War grinned and thrust forward a mighty cloven foot. It smashed Paige in the face. Were it not for her metallic form, her head would have been ripped clean off.
“Someone else!” Wisdom yelled, peppering the area with hot knives.
“I’ve got no brains to work with, Wisdom!” Bedlam yelled.
Pete stifled a grin. “I could’ve told you that earlier, Jesse.”
“I’m not sure what good I can do here, Wisdom...”
“You and me both, Bedlam.” Wisdom said. Sunspot and Askari charged past the pair. Askari’s hand shot up, an energy spear forming in it. He flung the spear forward with perfect precision and War’s axe shot backwards, catching the Horseman off guard. Death immediately stepped forward, casting his own energies towards the pair. Nearly taxing himself, Askari created an energy shield that prevented it from hitting its mark.
“Keep that up!” Sunspot yelled. He leapt through the air, both of his fists hitting Death squarely in the face. The Horseman shot backwards into a tree, which shook violently on impact. Sunspot grinned. “Damn right. Nobody beats the XSE with Sunspot on the case!” He slammed his hands on his hips, as War’s fist collided with his back. Sunspot shot forward with the additional momentum, his body going immediately limp from the force of the hit.
Askari twisted, throwing his hands to the side. He stabbed War’s legs with smaller energy spikes and intended to dig the weapons in deeper, but a thumping in the background took his concentration away. He knitted his brow, trying to regain his focus, but the drumming became louder and louder.
Askari turned to see where the source of his discomfort was coming from. An emaciated man slowly walked from the undergrowth, along with a Geisha wielding a parasol. The man slowly banged his sticks against a large drum which hung from his shoulders.
Askari narrowed his eyes before he dropped to one knee, sweat dribbling from every pore. His lips quivered and he felt foam begin to build up on the inside of his mouth. He looked to Wisdom. Pete said nothing, as the final member of his team fell face first into the dirt.
“Oh, Bollocks.” Pete fumbled in his pocket, grasping for his communicator. “This is Peter Wisdom,” Pete shouted into the communications device. “I need some bloody help down here, and I’m not messing around.”
Pete stared at the communicator. Nothing. Hot knifes impaled the technology, melting the plastic and components into slag over his fingers.
“Pissing thing.”
He spread his legs apart and let the knives slide through the bones of his fingers, glowing heat blades that were the manifestation of his mutant power.
“Come on then, you gobshites. I’ll show you a little bit of English hospitality.”
As if in answer to Wisdom’s final threat, a wet pop followed by the faint sound of a wave crashing informed the arrival of his backup.
Slipstream skidded through the aperture in space time and onto the ground in front of him, the metal board he used to ‘surf’ through reality scouring a tiny track through the dirt.
“Need some help, Wisdom?”
X-Factor had arrived.
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To Be Continued...
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