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#9
NOV 09 |
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“The Pirate Crew” Part Two
Previously: Based on information from Mikhail Rasputin, the team travels to Somalia to track down someone calling himself the Genegineer. Once in Mogadishu, the team splits into two groups trying to tackle different locations in the hopes of discerning some information about this new Genegineer’s location. Meanwhile Ahab and his Hounds, who intend to remove Havok from the map, are also stalking them.
Havok knew that M’s worldview had a way of rubbing people the wrong way, but he wouldn’t want anyone else at his side. In terms of sheer power, she was the most powerful member of X-Force. In every physical aspect, she was superhuman perfection, whether it was strength or a genius level brilliance, to say nothing of her telepathy and flight abilities. She was his team’s powerhouse and made for good backup.
While he had directed Blind Faith and his team to a local bar, Alex was taking his team to a fortified hideout of a minor warlord within the city. Yugi Wvarista had turned a blown out school into his new base of operations. Havok knew he wouldn’t see any clearer symbol of the opportunities lost in Africa.
Havok’s team was crouched in a dugout across the street from the pot marked and missile burned school. Alex turned to M who was next to him and asked, “How many are in there?”
“Twenty-five little worms. Their weapons are as ancient as their hair is nappy.”
Abyss groaned. “Could you at least attempt to be anything but offensive?”
M cut her eyes at the Genoshan like he had suggested she shave her head bald. “Mind your business, mutate! We have enough problems without some field worker trying to lead us.”
Nils had stopped listening after the word mutate. “I’ll show you mutate, you punk--”
Shatterstar held up a hand for silence. “This is not helping and puts us at risk. Save your argument until we get back to Muir Island.”
“What he said,” Havok grimaced. “Do either one of you have a problem with that?”
M smiled like a child who had just got away with stealing cookies. “Works for me.”
Abyss begrudgingly said, “Yeah, me too.”
“So how many men do we have running the perimeter? And how many entrance guards?” Havok asked M.
Monet closed her eyes and sought out the information he’d requested. She rapidly dug through each mind in the building like a sharp knife through someone’s back. Opening her eyes after a few moments, she said, “Four guards are on perimeter patrol. Three guarding the entrance.”
“Telepathically neutralize the perimeter guards. I’ll announce our arrival properly,” Havok said as cosmic energy began to wave around his fingertips. “Then we’ll find Wvarista and see what answers he can give us.”
Havok had full confidence in M’s telepathic abilities. She had been a pupil of Emma Frost, who was in the upper echelon of telepaths in the world. There were only a few who were above her in power and not many above her in skill. It was a boon to now have her with the X-Men despite Havok’s problems with her leadership ability.
M closed her eyes again and four distinct thumps were heard by her enhanced hearing. She smiled and said, “They’re taken care of.”
Havok jumped up from the dugout and extended his hand. “Then get ready to move!”
A stream of golden cosmic energy flowed out from his wrist, across his hand and ripped violently into the doors of the former school. The explosion resounded throughout the entire block and Havok knew that it would attract a lot of attention…precisely what he was hoping for.
“Move people!” Havok said as he ran across the street. Shatterstar, M and Abyss all sped by him despite his giving the order.
Before he entered into the building he already heard gunfire and screams. Powering up both arms, he walked into the midst of the chaos. Shatterstar had already removed the limbs of two men and broken the neck of a third. M had flung two gunmen through three walls and into the other side of the building. Abyss was having the most success with the gunmen, having unwrapped himself into hundreds of tendrils that were wrapped around ten of the men.
Powering down, Havok said, “Good work. You guys sure made that quick.”
Shatterstar stuck a sword into the shoulder of one of his felled foes and bent down to face the man. He probably wasn’t a day over twenty. “Where is Wvarista?”
“Down stairs to the right,” M said as she tapped her forehead. “Surface thoughts are too easy to pick up.”
“Then that’s where we’re headed,” Havok said. “M, I need you to do something else.”
“Of course you do. Perfection is always hard at work,” M said with a wink.
“Make all of these men think a rival faction attacked them. No need to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.”
M shrugged. “It’ll take a bit of time, but I’ll get it done.”
Havok nodded. “Good. Meet up with us as soon as you do and, if anyone else arrives before then, make them think SHIELD is barreling down on this location.”
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of making a ruckus in the first place?” Abyss said as he pulled himself back together.
“Attracting everyone over here was to make sure that we create a very nasty rumor. I don’t want it going around that a bunch of mutants were hitting warlords. I much rather it be thought to be a legit organization.”
Shatterstar sheathed his swords and said, “Perhaps it would be prudent if we walked and talked.”
Havok nodded. “Agreed. M, meet up with us when you can.”
Marrow slung her bone daggers into the two front wheels of the approaching humvee. They exploded air violently from the ripping of rubber and sent the car rolling over. The Morlock was not the least bit shaken by the rapid release of air pressure and found it actually pumped her up. There had been a mutant she once faced on the Hill whose mutant power allowed him to throw purple globs of pus that erupted with devastating impact. She spent an hour digging through his body to find the source of it.
The men that had been driving the vehicle her bone daggers struck were now out of the fight, but there were five more humvees coming and they were raining down bullets from mounted guns. Marrow moved through the hail like it was snowflakes that could do her no harm. Colossus had once told her that she was like the winter, beautiful and deadly all at once. He had meant it as a compliment at the time and Marrow accepted it because few had ever called her beautiful. Now though she intended to show the second side of that assessment. Running towards her attackers, she pulled a dagger from her rib cage and flung it into the chest of one of the drivers.
As the car began to skirt back and forth, Marrow leaped forward and ran over the hood of the car. She pulled the dagger from the man’s chest and flung it to her side, striking another driver in the temple. Swiftly, she snatched the dead man in front of her by the shirt and threw him into another humvee. She watched with sick delight as the body crunched into the vehicle and flew over the lap of the driver.
She flipped off the out of control vehicle and watched it crash into a burnt out pawn shop. Fire erupted from the collision and the Morlock watched the vehicle’s other passengers struggle to get out of the humvee. They were struggling to crawl out of the rubble as their flesh was blistered and cracked from the fire. Marrow intended to take no prisoners today. The Hill had never allowed such mercy to her and she had no intention of extending it to upworlders.
Running forward, Marrow pulled out a bone dagger from each side of her ribs and leaped into the mix of rubble and vehicle that the men were trying to escape from. With her first leap, she thrust her two bone daggers into the back of two men’s heads. The bones ripped through the flesh and out through their neck. She yanked back on her weapons and pulled them from the men covered with blood and entrails. There was one man left and he looked up pleadingly at Marrow even as he was burning.
She lifted both of her bone daggers into the air and prepared herself to deliver the killing blow when she heard, “That’s enough!”
Turning around, Marrow saw Blind Faith looking not in the least bit happy. Marrow stared the priest down and licked one of her blood covered bone daggers. She stepped down from the pile of rubble and said, “You are what you eat.”
Blind Faith tried to hide his disgust. “That was beyond excessive, Marrow. We’re here on a mission, not to massacre.”
“They attacked me. I simply responded.”
Seven bloodied and shot up Madrox dupes merged with a healthy main Madrox that had remained behind in the bar. The recombined Madrox walked up behind Blind Faith and said, “I doubt Havok wanted us to make this look like a scene from a horror movie.”
Pipeline saw no point in the bashing of Marrow. “What information were you able to find, Blind Faith?”
“Apparently, our target’s base is slightly outside of the city. He doesn’t have anything resembling security so we won’t have to worry about a repeat of the last ten minutes,” Blind Faith said.
Licking her other bone dagger, Marrow wiped her lips with the back of her hand after she was done. “A repeat might be fun.”
Madrox cringed. “Man, that can’t be healthy!”
“We need to rendezvous back with Havok ASAP,” Pipeline said not wanting the conversation to veer back to Marrow.
Alexi saw what Cormick was up to, but he had to go along with it. As much as he himself wanted to address it, Marrow’s bloodlust was really a smaller issue in the larger scheme of things. They needed to find the Genegineer, especially before someone could potentially alert him to their presence in the country. “Reaching Havok and his team is priority one, but be prepared for taking the fight to Genegineer on our own if circumstances force us to.”
“I’m always ready,” Marrow said.
Blind Faith was less than receptive. “I’m sure.”
Monet felt the minds of the various soldiers surrounding the school turned fortress. Their technology did not yet include telepath blockers so their minds were easily manipulated by M. She had all of them believing that the building was held up with fully armed SHIELD agents. It would buy Havok the time he needed to interrogate Wvarista and keep their involvement from being known.
Keeping the minds of the men in check was not a difficult task at all, but she was beginning to find their surface thoughts annoying. There was so much fear in all of them that it was nauseating. She hated cowardly men with a passion. Her brother, Marius, was a coward, unable to accept her truthful criticism and locked her away in the form of Penance. She was like a long stalk of sugar cane he took his time drinking from.
The men surrounding the school reminded her of Marius, but their fear was useful at least. It made their minds that much easier to manipulate and plant suggestions in. She had placed in all of them a deep fear of even entering the building. They were frightened at the idea of even firing on the building. In some mock show of manhood, they were going to surround the building until the SHIELD agents made their presence known.
Confident that her work was done, Monet threw her hair to the wind and walked to the staircase that Havok had taken to Wvarista. Before she reached the stairway, the roof above her gave out in a deafening crash. M leaped back from the destruction and covered her eyes to keep debris from getting in it. Wood splinters, insulation and a bit of asbestos were all in the plume that swept over Monet as she was knocked to her back.
She felt the three minds that fell from the roof and didn’t at all like the fact that she hadn’t sensed them before. Standing to her feet, M dusted her shoulders off and lamented how awful her hair probably looked. If she was going to have to get dirty then she had every intention of having her fists being involved in the action.
“She’s kinda cute,” a man said as he stepped through the dust. He had red bionic eyes that zipped back and forth. His skin was a soft brown and he had two black braids that descended down to his back. White circuitry crawled up and down his arms and bare chest, and in both of his hands he was twirling machetes.
M knew that she had no time to waste and the numbers were against her. She flew forward with super speed and sent her knee into her admirer’s stomach with all the force she could muster. Bones crunched and wires sparked as the full force of the blow was felt. The man was sent tumbling back throwing his shoulder out of place and sending him through the door that led to the stairwell.
Immediately, she spun a hard fist to her right and knocked a mustard-skinned man right in his jaw. She pulled back her wrist and saw there were cuts on her hand, but she didn’t have time to worry about that. M was enhanced in every human physical characteristic and healing fell under that. The wounds would be gone shortly.
Hoping to end this fight before it even started, M threw another punch to the left, but she wouldn’t have similar luck as before. Her hand was caught in a massive palm and he squeezed. Monet wasn’t able to pull away from the grip, but she smiled anyway. “Oh, you’re such a big strong man. I should just let you take me now!”
The African man squeezed harder. “That might be an acceptable option.”
M swung her other fist and struck the man in the golden orb that was at the center of his blue and black armor. He didn’t even budge. She jumped up and kicked the man directly in his face. His head snapped back and he flung M into the nearest wall. She hit hard enough to be sent flying right through the concrete and plaster to where her mentally manipulated Somali soldiers were.
“She doesn’t look SHIELD.”
“Not even close.”
M stood to her feet and reached out with her telepathy. It was hard to concentrate fully with her head spinning, but she was able to make them see her garbed in a SHIELD uniform. Taking an assertive posture, she said, “SHIELD is here to apprehend Yugi Wvarista and his associates only. Leave now and you won’t be included in the arrest.”
A hover cycle that looked like a horse pushed its way through the armed men and the man seated on it pointed a harpoon at M. “She’s a mutant, fellas, playing tricks with your mind. SHIELD isn’t here and she’s all alone.”
The man that M had initially attacked was now at the gashing hole her body had created. “Doesn’t mean she can’t give a good lick.”
All eyes were now on M and she clenched her fists together. Bullets had never really given her invulnerability a problem before, but she wasn’t ready to see how many she could handle.
Havok, I strongly suggest you hurry up with your interrogation. We have bigger problems waiting for us out here! she mentally cast toward Havok’s location.
His office had been mostly without any sort of activity all day and he had cleared his schedule to make sure he would be able to sit by the phone. This was going to be his opening gambit and he couldn’t afford to be vagabonding through Hong Kong when the call came in. It was too important to make sure things got off to the start he was looking for.
Finally, after hours of sitting alone in darkness the phone rang. Immediately it was picked up and the man asked, “Have they encountered X-Force?”
The voice on the other end was raspy and muddled by a breathing apparatus. “They have. Ironically, it would seem they have picked Monet to stalk first.”
“As well they should. She is perhaps the most dangerous of their number, but good. I hope Ahab lives up to his name.”
“I will report more as soon I hear anything.”
He let the conversation end at that and he hung up the phone. Leaning back in his chair, he smiled. Events were beginning to converge precisely as he needed them to.
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To Be Continued...
Next: In X-Force #10: X-Force is reunited, but how long will they last in the face of Ahab and his crew?
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