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xp_logsNathan stands on a rooftop in the snow and keeps an eye on things. He is possibly pouting just a little at the role he finds himself in, but doesn't let that stop him from doing his part of the job.
He didn’t like being this far out of range. It grated, quite honestly, but he and Moira had spent an hour pouring over every mission report that had involved Gideon, plus her report from the incident on Muir and his on what had happened in New York, and she had finally been willing to hypothesize on both his synching and passive sensing range.
Nathan had added several blocks to that, and was just hoping that would be enough. It meant, though, that he was perched atop a warehouse watching the rendezvous site through binoculars. I can always fly over if something goes wrong, he told himself for perhaps the thousandth time. Although, then again, if that reporter got here on time, he possibly did not want to be parading the giant flaming bird around where cameras could see it.
Still. If he had to, he would, and damn the consequences. The whole idea of just sitting here, doing absolutely nothing while everyone else was doing the rescuing and the ambushing, not to mention the fighting Gideon...
The snow was really, really getting excessive. It was the middle of March, for fuck’s sake, Nathan thought grumpily. Even in Vladivostok, there should not be blizzards. He reached out telepathically, reassuring himself that the telepathic switchboard was in place, even if he had it turned way down just in case Gideon happened to have a telepath with him.
If anything happened beyond his line of sight, he’d know it. He had to just sit tight, be patient. Not something he was particularly good at, and yet...
Cars. He raised the binoculars instantly. One car, rather, and he watched it pull up behind one of the warehouses surrounding the parking lot where the rendezvous was taking place. Two figures emerged, barely visible through the snow - the reporter, Mayes, and her cameraman, Nathan confirmed for himself with a light brush of their thoughts.
They'd picked a good spot. They'd get video on the meet, although probably nothing in the way of sound, between the distance they were at and the howl of the wind. Hopefully they would have the sense to stay well concealed; Scott had told her it was risky, he knew, Nathan knew, and Mayes was supposed to be particularly intelligent, as reporters went, and well-capable of looking after herself in touchy situations. The snow would help with concealment. He’d have to rely on the woman’s common sense for the rest - and shield them, of course. Although he wasn’t sensing another telepath anywhere in the vicinity, thankfully.
It was another ten minutes before he spotted the next car. It drove right into the parking lot, headlights on, and Nathan instinctively hunched downwards, closer to the roof as three figures got out and his extremely rapid and careful telepathic probe told him that yes, one was his uncle. No mirrors in his mind this time; he wasn’t synched to anyone. The tempation to go digging was almost irresistible, but if he derailed the plan, there’d be a long line-up of people waiting to kick his ass.
Perhaps five minutes later, the truck arrived, and the mental signature of the ‘cargo’ in the crate was as clear as day to Nathan, even though he withdrew again behind his shields almost instantly. Everything was fine. Everything was on-schedule, according to the reports he’d gotten over the telepathic switchboard.
He needed to be patient. Let everything fall into place.
---
As the meeting starts, Gideon's security detail, delayed by the snow and rushing to meet their boss, runs into a spot of trouble. Cain doesn't precisely meet his match, but he does meet someone who can hold their own.
The weather was terrible. It wasn't as if snow was unusual in Vladivostok, but this much snow, in mid-March? Tanya Callery scowled as Darien, in the driver's seat, took the next corner a bit recklessly.
"I realize we're late," the tiny dark-haired woman said to him sharply, "but if you wreck the car we won't just be late, we may miss the meeting entirely. And Mr. Faraday would not be pleased with us if that happened."
Darien twitched, which was gratifying. "Sorry, Ms. Callery," he muttered, and Tanya spared a moment to wish that she was the one behind the wheel. She supposed she was falling in love with some of the privileges of rank. Being the head of Gideon Faraday's security detail meant that you didn't have to do the driving. But there were times that...
Her train of thought was cut off mid-regret as a person... a very large person suddenly appeared out of the snow. Directly in their path. Darien swore and tried to swerve, only to have the car go out of control and right off the road, smashing into a light pole.
The snow whirling around masked the sound of trudging footsteps, but could not hide the crunch of glass and squeal of tearing metal as the roof of the car was peeled back roughly.
Through the snow, Cain Marko peered down at the car's two occupants, both seemingly stunned by the deployed airbags. "Faraday's security, party of two?" he quipped, casually ripping the passenger door from its hinges. "You really should know better than to drive that fast in this weather. Don't know what could be on the roads."
Tanya heard the screech of wheels and a crash, somewhere behind them in the snow. The other SUV? Oh, that just tore it. There was a reason they took two cars. As the airbag deflated, she snapped her seatbelt with a negligent flick of the wrist and stood up on the seat, glaring at the now-recognizable man looming over her. Even standing on the seat, she still had to crane her neck all the way back.
"Cain Marko," she said in a tone of withering contempt. Darien was only now stirring, sluggishly. "I've read your file."
"Don't surprise me," Cain replied, extending a hand. "Gideon may be a rat-bastard, but he's got enough money to hire folks who're at least mildly competent. Now, I got a blanket and a thermos of coffee over there," he nodded his head to the woodline, "Don't see no reason not to be civil about this, but you're not meeting up with Faraday today, he's got other business."
"Very neighborly of you," she said, ignoring the hand and jumping down from the seat of the car. "Unfortunately, I get paid a very respectable salary to do as I'm told and meet Mr. Faraday where he wants to be met. Whatever hair-brained scheme his nephew's friends may or may not have come up with." Damn it, but he was tall. She really hated having to aim low at times. Made her feel entirely too petty.
Cain shook his head. "Afraid I can't let you do that, miss. Now I hope you'll appreciate that I'm tryin' to be polite about all this." He looked over her head to the SUV that was currently wrapped around a thick tree, its occupants obviously in no shape to go anywhere. "You know who I am and what I do, and I'd really like to not have to be mean to a pretty lady like yourself. So how about that coffee, yeah?"
Was he flirting with her? Absurdly, Tanya caught herself smiling, just a little. All right, so occasionally it was not such a bad thing to be her size. Her eyes flickered to the other SUV, seeing movement after a moment. Hopefully Jelena had indeed had her shield on when they'd crashed... someone needed to get to Mr. Faraday, after all, and she suspected that she'd be busy.
"Darien, get out of the car," she said in not-entirely-feigned exasperation as she half-turned back towards the wreck. The damaged light post was right there; she lifted it and in one smooth motion swung at Marko's head.
The swiftness of the action stunned Cain more than the metal post wrapping around the side of his head. Shaking a few cobwebs loose, he took a step back. "Well, I'll be damned..." he breathed, looking at the ease with which the diminutive woman swung the fifteen-foot iron post. "Been a while since I've been surprised like that. I ain't read any file on you, so tell me - you take it as well as you dish it out?"
Without waiting for an answer, Cain reached out to grab the wrecked automobile by the front bumper, swinging it sideways into Tanya with a significant amount of force.
Tanya got both arms up to both block and grab the car. Darien appeared to be panicking, and she rolled her eyes at him. "Get that seatbelt off and get out of the car," she snapped at him, barely breathing hard, and yanked the car out of Marko's grasp, tossing it negligently out into the road - right-side up, of course. "Someone won't be getting his quarterly bonus if he doesn't show a little initiative," she said almost conversationally to Marko and lashed out with a foot, aiming for his knee.
Cain braced himself, bending his knee to take the impact on his thigh. The force of the blow sent him skidding back about ten feet in the snow, much to his surprise. "Hell, I see why Gideon keeps you around. Must be a hell of a power to leech off of," he quipped, cracking his knuckles and sidestepping in a boxer's rhythm to circle the wrecked car. "Ain't been hit like that since the last time I tussled with the Russkie. Must be something they feed 'em here. But I'm a nice guy, I'm willing to chalk this up to that car crash affecting your delicate female sensibilities. So one more time," he asked without a smile, "you wanna knock this shit off and be all civil-like?"'
"Sorry. Civility in this sort of situation is not in the job description." She raised a hand to her ear for a moment, realizing that her earpiece was gone. Had she lost it in the crash? Ah, well. Everyone knew where their responsibilities were.
Rolling his eyes, Cain sighed. "This was so much easier before the whole Women's Lib bullshit..."
Reaching down into the wrecked car, he plucked the driver, seat and all, from the mess and tossed him offhandedly into a snowbank. "Now a guy tries to be a gentleman, and y'all figure you need to be rude in the name of empowerment or something. Whatever happened to being polite and acting like a lady?"
To punctuate his statement, he reared back with a foot, kicking forward to punt the car directly at Tanya.
She was so going to have Darien fired. How slow could one man possibly be? In a blur of speed, Tanya ran at the car flying at her and caught it in mid-air, using the force of its momentum to bring it around like a slingshot and use it to smash at Cain.
Knocked off his feet by the blow, Cain remembered back to the fight he'd had almost two years ago with Piotr in the snow outside the mansion. Slowly, he smiled and stood back up. "Well," he joked, "now your car's done gone all busted. You sure don't hit like any gal I ever met, but don't think I'm gonna go soft on you just because you're all womanly and stuff."
Lunging forward, Cain grabbed Tanya, tossing her up in the air before grabbing her ankles in one hand and smacking her into the snow-covered ground like a hammer. "I tell you," he remarked as he flung her towards a crumbling brick wall, "I don't mind a woman who likes it a little rough, but there's limits."
There were times, Tanya thought a bit groggily, some indeterminate number of moments after she landed, when the concept of 'more invulnerability' was a nice thing, and not nearly so nonsensical as it sounded. She pushed herself up on her elbows, blinking up through the snow as she saw a streak of blue heading towards the rendezvous site, followed by a streak of gold. Well, at least Jelena was on the move.
She raised her head enough to be able to look back over her shoulder, and saw Marko apparently turning his attention to Darien, who had finally managed to get his seatbelt off and get out of the snowbank. "Marko!" she called out hoarsely, and he turned back towards her as she pulled herself back to her feet. "Leave the poor intern alone. He's not in your weight class."
Cain narrowed his eyes, gathering up a double handful of snow. Compressing it tightly in his hands, he cocked his arm back to his ear, throwing the dense ball of ice sidearm like a baseball pitcher. The satisfying thump it made when it bowled Darien off his feet brought a smile to his face.
"Ain't many folks who are, darling," he said as he turned towards Tanya once more, cocking his head to dodge a thrown fire hydrant. "And for the record, you're about ten seconds from startin' to piss me off."
"If that means you'll drop this aggravating chivalric act -excellent," Tanya growled and ran at him, dodging the next grab he made at her. She needed to get up close and personal. They could probably stand around throwing things at each other all day.
Blinded by a momentary flurry of snow, Cain backed up until he felt the bumped of the wrecked SUV against his calves. This little witch was firing punches faster than he could block, and even if he wasn't getting hurt, she was hitting hard enough to be annoying.
"All right," he growled, reaching back and getting a grip on a broken chunk of concrete. "You done pushed my last button, lady. I..."
Raising the slab of concrete over his head, Cain paused, breath catching in his throat. Something inside felt like fire, yanking his guts around. Coughing, he dropped the makeshift boulder and fell to a knee. The fist that came hammering into his jaw took him totally by surprise, and he went down face-first into the snow-covered street.
What came as more of a surprise was looking down to see blood staining the snow. Wiping his mouth, Cain was shocked to see his hand come back red. "The hell...?" he muttered, taking a deep breath. The girl hadn't hit him THAT hard...
He'd gone down! Startlement was replaced instantly by vindictive satisfaction - and a certain calculating interest in precisely what had just happened and how pleased Mr. Faraday would be to hear it -but it took her all of two seconds to react, launching a kick right at Marko's face. Seize the opening, however it had come about...
Just as soon as the pain had hit, it vanished, replaced by cold clarity. Cain saw the kick coming and stuck out a palm to intercept it. Standing up, he held the smaller woman out at arm's length. "Just remember I tried to be nice. I keep tellin' folks that ain't going to work."
As Tanya Callery found herself airborne again, foremost among her thoughts was that this was really turning into a shit of a day.
---
Haroun tackles the flyer in the group, focusing on keeping her from getting to her boss.
Blue light gathered around her fist, and Jelena smashed the door of the SUV outwards, right off its hinges. She climbed out of the backseat, turning to give Steven a hand out - until she saw the black leather-clad figures advancing through the snow.
"It's the X-Men," she growled, and took to the air, leaving Steven to get out by himself. No one was more than a little bruised; the crash hadn't been that bad. "Lalovic here," she said over the coms. "We've got X-Men, people. I'm getting to the rendezvous to help Mr. Faraday."
"Jetstream to Raiding Party. I've got the skies covered, but we've got at least one more coming out of the car. A little suppressive fire, please?" he asked, then picked up the pace to intercept the other flier. Aerial combat was always just so much fun, if often highly annoying. He didn't get to practice it much, with Cannonball being completely invulnerable and Kamikaze preferring to act like aerial artillery. He was looking forward to beating the crap out of the bad guys with his own two hands.
Jelena dodged a few shots from below - lasers, had to be Blaire - and saw a streak of light through the snow. One of the X-Men's powered fliers, then. She weighed options in a heartbeat and turned to fight. Leading him right to the rendezvous was not going to win her much praise from the boss, she suspected.
"Jetstream, moving to engage. All points, be advised. No air support for now." he said, then moved in to engage the flier. He willed himself faster, feeling his jacket reconfigure to allow him better passage through the thick air of the lower atmosphere, feeling the airscoops sphincter open a little to allow better airflow into his lungs. Let's see how this tango liked a two-hundred-MPH Boot to the Head.
Jelena smiled mirthlessly and dove towards him, matching his speed, as blue light sheathed her entire body in a protective shield. One of the X-Men from Chad, this one. What was the name... al-Rashid, right.
Haroun saw the blue glow, but committed to his attack anyway. Why was it that every powered flier but him had some sort of defensive bodyfield? It was really very unfair.
Persistent, wasn't he? She made a sudden dead stop when he was only a few feet away, the force of her halted momentum transferring itself to the shield, strengthening it immeasurably.
Haroun lashed out his kick at the other flyer's head, then swore explosively as it merely bounced off. Either he didn't quite hit the field clean or he was in a great deal of trouble. He did take some comfort in her wince as he made contact, though. That had possibilities.
Well, quite a kick. That was okay. She didn't precisely hit like a girl, either. Still wrapped in her shield, Jelena launched herself at him in a flying tackle, getting a good grip on the X-Man. Now, to bounce him off a rooftop and get to the rendezvous to help Mr. Faraday...
Haroun grinned as the other flyer made contact with him. Three dimensions made grappling fun, and he'd pit his power against hers any day. Time to see how well she could breathe. Rather than fight the grapple, he moved into it, tying her to himself with as much strength as he could muster. He pushed them both straight up, cranking his power up as high as he dared - and maybe a little higher. Sweat broke out on his brow instantly, and he could feel the warmth spreading through him, but if he could feel it, so could she.
Jelena smiled tightly as the heat rose. Ordinarily, she'd have been rather enjoying herself - nothing like fighting it out with a half-decent opponent - but she really didn't have time tonight. Making sure he was on the bottom, she dove, forcing them both downwards, towards the roof of one of the warehouses.
Haroun grinned as she flipped the two of them around. She wanted to head for the deck, he could do that too. The idea was to bring the heat up. He rotated them so she was on the bottom just before they were scheduled to hit the warehouse ceiling. He also added a good bit of thrust down, to make sure she'd hit it even if she fought up against him. At least, that was the plan.
Jelena made an aggravated noise and reversed her shield, defensive energy back to propulsive force, just for a heartbeat. They soared back upwards, and she gritted her teeth, throwing him away from her with as much force as she could. Screw this, she had no time.
Haroun had all the time in the world. All he had to do was keep this flyer busy. She wanted him gone, but he didn't want to go. He wrapped his legs around hers and hung on for the ride. Thanks to her field, he couldn't choke her out, but he could use his own power to keep her high up in the sky and away from the action.
Jelena was getting substantially irritated. She started to hammer at him, forcing them both down closer to the ground. If she had to beat him into unconsciousness, so be it.
Haroun shifted his grip to get the enemy flier into a half-nelson. Good luck trying to punch him now with one arm locked out of the way and her body between him and the other hand. They were both rocketing into the big blue sky, going higher and higher as his power heated them both us. He was guessing her shield wasn't thermally resistant to heat, and her uniform wasn't set up to deal with it either.
Jelena sighed and let all the energy of her shield go in a sudden concussive explosion, flinging him away. This was getting tedious, she thought, gathering the shield back around her. She really, really needed to shake him. The fact that they'd been ambushed made her think that they were being kept away from the rendezvous, and that couldn't mean anything good.
She'd just have to lose him in the snow.
Haroun wiped blood off his mouth - he'd apparently bit his lip or something - and rocketed back in to keep the other flyer occupied and out of the way. She was really starting to piss him off.
---
Kurt finds someone who likes to play with knives.
Jelena had taken off to engage whatever flyer was up there by the time Steven hauled himself out of the car. He winced, limping a little - and then gritted his teeth as he saw the other members of the security detail engaging the X-Men. To hell with this... He drew two knives, peering through the snow. Hopefully they had left someone for him.
They had. Kurt was ready and waiting to engage him, kicking out at the hand holding one of the knives before Steven could see him.
Steven rolled under the next kick, coming back to his feet with another knife in his hand, this one poised to throw. He did, trusting to his mutant ability, rather than his vision, which wasn't at all trustworthy in the near white-out conditions.
It might have worked, if he wasn't dealing with a professional gymnast and teleporter. Kurt ducked and rolled out of the knife's path, coming up much closer to the other man.
Steven didn't throw the next knife; he moved in closer to stab with it, not aiming for anything critical. They had orders; they weren't supposed to be killing X-Men. Kurt grabbed at his wrist with a strong grip, trying to wrench his hand away from stabbing range. Steven gritted his teeth - and then lashed out with a kick while Kurt was focused on keeping the knife away from him. That connected, and Kurt staggered back a few paces, though he didn't quite let go of Steven's wrist.
As his foot came back down, Steven snatched the knife out of his boot and tried to reach Kurt with that one. Kurt danced back out of range, his tail coming forward to wrap around the knife hilt and hopefully snatch it out of Steven's hand.
He had a tail. Of course he had a tail. Steven had read the file on this man, once upon a time... He let the knife go, let both knives go - he had more where that came from - and took off into the snow. They didn't have time for a pitched fight with the X-Men. Not when Mr. Faraday was at the rendezvous with no one to cover him.
Kurt followed, limping a little from the kick but not really seriously incapacitated. His job was to keep Faraday's potential helpers from getting to him, after all.
---
Alison takes on an energy-projector who is somewhat lacking in her follow-through - surprising, given her employer, but Alison takes full advantage of it.
She should have been driving. Really, she was the only one who was native to the country, although admittedly, not this particular part of it... Elena Nabakova hauled herself out of the SUV, blinking for a moment at the sight of Tanya facing off with someone who could only be Cain Marko, if these were the X-Men...
Shake it off, she told herself as she saw more black leather-clad figures advancing through the heavy snow. She brought her hands together and fired off a plasma shockwave - not right at them, since standing orders were that you didn't kill X-Men, but at the snow-covered road in front of them.
Snow and dirt flew in the air in reaction to the shockwave, the heat turnin the snow to water. Before it could even finish hitting the ground in a splatter of dirty water, a bolt of light answered Elena's salvo, slamming directly against her, both blinding and solid at the same time.
It knocked her to the ground and very nearly out. By the time she had struggled back to her hands and knees, there was only the one black-clad figure there. The others had fanned out, from the sounds of it, because there was definitely fighting going on out there in the storm.
Elena weighed her options seriously for a moment. Keep fighting, or try and get to the rendezvous site? Others could get there faster. Maybe she'd be better served...
The figure advancing on her was glowing. Elena's eyes narrowed and she got a hand up, letting out a less-powerful blast, directly at the X-Man.
The X-Man didn't even bother trying to deflect it, simply dodging out of the blast's way and then calmly resuming her advance towards Elena. Something glittered in her eyes and she spoke, staring through the storm at her opponent despite the snow whipping around them.
"Next time, don't play around."
And before Elena could respond, the very snow itself seemd to flicker around her, every single snowflake briefly coming to life - and then light blazed up around her, an incandescent storm stealing sight and sound from her in a heartbeat.
---
The X-Men's diversionary tactic works exceptionally well, leaving Gideon with precisely one mutant to synch to at the meeting site. He opens the box and gets a nasty surprise. Pete enjoys himself just a little, but sadly, doesn't get to have quite as much fun as he'd hoped.
Pete flexed his fingers a little as the truck stopped, and did his best to tense and relax his arms and legs a few times trying to get the blood flowing again. He hadn't suffered too much from the cold since he was a teenager, but the false beard and the slight prosthetics on his nose and face itched like bastards and lying still so so long had given him slight pins and needles, and however much he reminded himself that the plan should mean it wouldn't be the worst fight he'd been in, he still didn't want to be caught off guard.
He felt the crate lifted from its place on the back of the truck, moved a short distance, and stood on its end. He took a moment to thank his lucky stars that they hadn't set him down on his head, and waited as someone outside applied a crowbar to the outside of the crate. Just as they we starting to lever it out, he set his shoulder against it and shoved, sending them staggering back as he stepped out of the crate.
"Next time, I'm fucking travelling business class, alright? I mean, I know money's tight and everything, but surely you can afford to get your new employees around without sticking them in the back with the luggage..."
Gideon's eyes widened in shock and chagrin as he recognised the voice, if not the appearance...
"Who--? Wisdom! Where --? Nevermind. Kill this idiot for me, would you?" he gestured to his guards. Chagrin turned to outright disgust as he looked to them, only to find them all running in the opposite direction.
"Sorry, squire. That's the problem with local talent - you never know when they're going to get a better offer." Pete stepped forward, rolling his shoulders slightly to loosen them. "Now, we've got some unfinished business. Well, I say we - Domino was really put out that she couldn't express her displeasure with you in person, but for some reason she thinks I might be willing to explain things to you in--"
Pete broke off, his hand flying to his forehead with a strangled cry of surprise, as he staggered backward, reeling from the hotknife Gideon had just sent at him.
"Enough of you, Wisdom." Gideon snarled as he turned to leave. "Maybe if you stopped talking for once..."
He was stopped by a tap on his shoulder. As he turned, he caught Wisdom's fist coming in the other direction, and staggered back.
"Maybe if you started thinking, you stupid cunt. Can't hurt me with my own power. Of course, I can't hurt you with it, either, but the only reason you're still alive right now is that no one wanted to chance you scanning the box with something, and picking up a gun."
Gideon blocked Pete's second blow easily, and launched a shot of his own, which Pete ducked as it sailed past.
"So I don't have a gun. But you know, the boys that taught me how to beat the shit out of someone were pretty thorough." He jabbed hard into Gideon's gut, missing the kidney shot he'd been aiming for, but winding the other man all the same.
"Want to bet I can't kill you with my bare hands?"
Gideon crashed into him, tackling him to the ground, but Pete rolled clear and came up into a ready crouch, aiming a quick kick at the other man, forcing him back a little.
Then, suddenly, Pete closed the gap, and snapped off a lighting fast punch to Gideon's face.
"That's from Dom." And a shot to the ribs. "Nate says hi, too." Another one, harder and more savage to the face, as he shouted "And all those fucking kids, you twisted fuck."
Gideon looked around wildly, head ringing, as he backed up, and then, desperately, dropped his shoulder, and ran at Pete. This time, he knocked the other man down, as Pete's foot caught on something on the floor, and twisted. He didn't turn around, though,. just kept running, as Pete came back to his feet, and then nearly fell down again.
"Bastard!" Pete winced in pain, feeling his ankle flare as he tried to set his weight on it. He tried several limping steps after the retreating Gideon, but soon stopped with a disgusted look on his face. "Of all the fucking luck..."
---
The two teams regroup at the Blackbird, and Scott and Alison take stock.
"Everyone all right?" Scott asked as Alison made a beeline over for where he was standing by a car pulled up just short of the reach of the Blackbird's engines, just in case they had to make a sudden take-off. Nathan's friend Alexey was in the driver's seat of the car, but his soon-to-be passenger was still standing beside Scott, as if unwilling to go just yet. Scott gave Galina a reassuring smile and then turned back to his fellow field leader. "This is the original cargo, by the way - Galina Chernevsky."
"Hey there," Alison stopped once she was next to Scott, extending a hand out to shake the woman's hand, firmly if briefly in greeting. "Everyone's fine and we're ready," she confirmed for Scott's sake, keeping the details untold - it wasn't necessary to say more and it was certainly in Miss Chernevsky's interest to know less than more. "We've made arrangements for you, miss - I hope you'll find them a bit more to your taste this time around," she inquired, giving Galina the choice to opt out, as it were - more choice than she'd been given since she'd been stuffed in that crate, at any rate.
"It could hardly be worse," the cyberpath said somewhat wryly, her English good, if accented. She had really made a remarkable recovery, Scott thought, although he suspected she hadn't even started processing her ordeal just yet. He'd mentioned that to Alexey, who'd mentioned casually that he had a psychiatrist friend who could be called. "I will be happy to leave. Thank you, for whatever role you played."
"We're still waiting on our last two stragglers," Scott said to Alison, "but Nathan's been in touch. The two of them will be here shortly. And MacInnis is here," he said with a perfectly straight face, gesturing in the direction of the small group on the other side of the Blackbird, "if you wanted to say hello."
"We were just glad to be able to do something," Alison reassured the woman. Galina smiled a little, then abruptly hugged Scott before she got into the car, sitting down in the passenger's seat. Alison threw Alexey a quick smile of thanks through the window, buying herself a bit more time before having to answer Scott's offer. She then looked up contemplatively towards the Blackbird, and the people standing there, eyes narrowing slightly. "You know what, I think I'll do that."
---
Nathan and Pete hook back up and stop for a bit of a breather before heading back to the plane. Pete laments how minimal the violence was. Nathan gets a precognitive flicker and a nasty little idea as to how to rub Gideon's nose in things. It doesn't take much to talk Pete into it.
"Can't believe the bastard got away like that." Pete scowled up from where he was sitting on the ground. "I got fucking over-confident. Stupid."
Nathan tilted his head. "We weren't trying to catch him," he said patiently. "Remember? Or kill him, however wholly pleasurable the thought might be." Today had definitely not been the time for definitive action. Everything he'd seen had made that very clear. "The reporter got away safely, with all kinds of wonderfully suggestive tape, and Mac's going to dump sufficient background in her inbox tonight to make for a very embarassing story."
"Yeah, but I'd have liked to beat him within a fucking inch of his life, y'know? He's earned more than a few taps that he'll heal just as soon as he finds the right kind of fucking mutant..." Pete got to his feet a little gingerly, favouring his left foot. "Still, job done, and as soon as we get back somewhere with a decent shower, I can get rid of all this fucking get up."
"I think he has a secretary with a healing factor," Nathan said with a deadpan look. He glanced out the open door of the warehouse that had been their prearranged meeting point. It was still snowing heavily, and Nathan reached out with his mind, sending a brief reassurance down the telepathic switchboard that they'd be along shortly. "Just make sure you can describe the hits you did get in to Dom in loving detail. She'll appreciate it." He gave Pete an amused look. "And don't mock the stage makeup. Alison did a great job."
"Bah. She has destroyed my handsome features, and worse, it itches like a bastard." Pete shrugged. "Still, at least I won't get me collar felt for assault once the tape airs. How's the kid we got out of that crate, anyway?"
Nathan sent a query down the switchboard to Scott, then listened for a moment, his expression distant. "Fine," he said. "I set it up with Alexey that he's going to smuggle her out - or offer her a job, depending on what the two of them decide. I almost hope it's the latter. If she stays in Vladivostok under his protection she's got a better chance of staying safe." He looked back at Pete with a faint grin. "His guys did an awfully good job of acting like complete and utter cowards, didn't they?"
"It was pretty impressive, yeah." Pete frowned just a little. "Although what Alexey might do with someone with her gifts doesn't bear thinking about too much."
"True. But if she stays with him, he'll protect her like she was one of the family. Remember, he was willing to fight the FSB with his bare hands to keep them from recruiting his brother before GW talked him into sending Vasily to us rather than getting into a dust-up with his former employers."
Nathan stared back out at the snow, an odd little flicker of an image bouncing back and forth behind his eyes: Gideon, standing at a window watching the snow over the city, bruises and a thunderous expression on his face. Watching something in the snow. A familiar-shaped flicker of light. "Hey, do you want to fly back rather than walk?" he said suddenly, and an evil little smile tugged at his lips. "Give your ankle a rest..."
Pete grinned. "And you want to show off, don't you? Send him one last message? Yeah, OK." He paused, and shook his head. "I must be fucking mad."
"Well, hell, the rest of you got to have all the fun..." Nathan grinned back and his exoskeleton flashed outwards. "Besides, I've never used it over a major metropolitan area before. And although I've done many, many strange things, I have to say I've never yet been listed as a UFO."
He didn’t like being this far out of range. It grated, quite honestly, but he and Moira had spent an hour pouring over every mission report that had involved Gideon, plus her report from the incident on Muir and his on what had happened in New York, and she had finally been willing to hypothesize on both his synching and passive sensing range.
Nathan had added several blocks to that, and was just hoping that would be enough. It meant, though, that he was perched atop a warehouse watching the rendezvous site through binoculars. I can always fly over if something goes wrong, he told himself for perhaps the thousandth time. Although, then again, if that reporter got here on time, he possibly did not want to be parading the giant flaming bird around where cameras could see it.
Still. If he had to, he would, and damn the consequences. The whole idea of just sitting here, doing absolutely nothing while everyone else was doing the rescuing and the ambushing, not to mention the fighting Gideon...
The snow was really, really getting excessive. It was the middle of March, for fuck’s sake, Nathan thought grumpily. Even in Vladivostok, there should not be blizzards. He reached out telepathically, reassuring himself that the telepathic switchboard was in place, even if he had it turned way down just in case Gideon happened to have a telepath with him.
If anything happened beyond his line of sight, he’d know it. He had to just sit tight, be patient. Not something he was particularly good at, and yet...
Cars. He raised the binoculars instantly. One car, rather, and he watched it pull up behind one of the warehouses surrounding the parking lot where the rendezvous was taking place. Two figures emerged, barely visible through the snow - the reporter, Mayes, and her cameraman, Nathan confirmed for himself with a light brush of their thoughts.
They'd picked a good spot. They'd get video on the meet, although probably nothing in the way of sound, between the distance they were at and the howl of the wind. Hopefully they would have the sense to stay well concealed; Scott had told her it was risky, he knew, Nathan knew, and Mayes was supposed to be particularly intelligent, as reporters went, and well-capable of looking after herself in touchy situations. The snow would help with concealment. He’d have to rely on the woman’s common sense for the rest - and shield them, of course. Although he wasn’t sensing another telepath anywhere in the vicinity, thankfully.
It was another ten minutes before he spotted the next car. It drove right into the parking lot, headlights on, and Nathan instinctively hunched downwards, closer to the roof as three figures got out and his extremely rapid and careful telepathic probe told him that yes, one was his uncle. No mirrors in his mind this time; he wasn’t synched to anyone. The tempation to go digging was almost irresistible, but if he derailed the plan, there’d be a long line-up of people waiting to kick his ass.
Perhaps five minutes later, the truck arrived, and the mental signature of the ‘cargo’ in the crate was as clear as day to Nathan, even though he withdrew again behind his shields almost instantly. Everything was fine. Everything was on-schedule, according to the reports he’d gotten over the telepathic switchboard.
He needed to be patient. Let everything fall into place.
---
As the meeting starts, Gideon's security detail, delayed by the snow and rushing to meet their boss, runs into a spot of trouble. Cain doesn't precisely meet his match, but he does meet someone who can hold their own.
The weather was terrible. It wasn't as if snow was unusual in Vladivostok, but this much snow, in mid-March? Tanya Callery scowled as Darien, in the driver's seat, took the next corner a bit recklessly.
"I realize we're late," the tiny dark-haired woman said to him sharply, "but if you wreck the car we won't just be late, we may miss the meeting entirely. And Mr. Faraday would not be pleased with us if that happened."
Darien twitched, which was gratifying. "Sorry, Ms. Callery," he muttered, and Tanya spared a moment to wish that she was the one behind the wheel. She supposed she was falling in love with some of the privileges of rank. Being the head of Gideon Faraday's security detail meant that you didn't have to do the driving. But there were times that...
Her train of thought was cut off mid-regret as a person... a very large person suddenly appeared out of the snow. Directly in their path. Darien swore and tried to swerve, only to have the car go out of control and right off the road, smashing into a light pole.
The snow whirling around masked the sound of trudging footsteps, but could not hide the crunch of glass and squeal of tearing metal as the roof of the car was peeled back roughly.
Through the snow, Cain Marko peered down at the car's two occupants, both seemingly stunned by the deployed airbags. "Faraday's security, party of two?" he quipped, casually ripping the passenger door from its hinges. "You really should know better than to drive that fast in this weather. Don't know what could be on the roads."
Tanya heard the screech of wheels and a crash, somewhere behind them in the snow. The other SUV? Oh, that just tore it. There was a reason they took two cars. As the airbag deflated, she snapped her seatbelt with a negligent flick of the wrist and stood up on the seat, glaring at the now-recognizable man looming over her. Even standing on the seat, she still had to crane her neck all the way back.
"Cain Marko," she said in a tone of withering contempt. Darien was only now stirring, sluggishly. "I've read your file."
"Don't surprise me," Cain replied, extending a hand. "Gideon may be a rat-bastard, but he's got enough money to hire folks who're at least mildly competent. Now, I got a blanket and a thermos of coffee over there," he nodded his head to the woodline, "Don't see no reason not to be civil about this, but you're not meeting up with Faraday today, he's got other business."
"Very neighborly of you," she said, ignoring the hand and jumping down from the seat of the car. "Unfortunately, I get paid a very respectable salary to do as I'm told and meet Mr. Faraday where he wants to be met. Whatever hair-brained scheme his nephew's friends may or may not have come up with." Damn it, but he was tall. She really hated having to aim low at times. Made her feel entirely too petty.
Cain shook his head. "Afraid I can't let you do that, miss. Now I hope you'll appreciate that I'm tryin' to be polite about all this." He looked over her head to the SUV that was currently wrapped around a thick tree, its occupants obviously in no shape to go anywhere. "You know who I am and what I do, and I'd really like to not have to be mean to a pretty lady like yourself. So how about that coffee, yeah?"
Was he flirting with her? Absurdly, Tanya caught herself smiling, just a little. All right, so occasionally it was not such a bad thing to be her size. Her eyes flickered to the other SUV, seeing movement after a moment. Hopefully Jelena had indeed had her shield on when they'd crashed... someone needed to get to Mr. Faraday, after all, and she suspected that she'd be busy.
"Darien, get out of the car," she said in not-entirely-feigned exasperation as she half-turned back towards the wreck. The damaged light post was right there; she lifted it and in one smooth motion swung at Marko's head.
The swiftness of the action stunned Cain more than the metal post wrapping around the side of his head. Shaking a few cobwebs loose, he took a step back. "Well, I'll be damned..." he breathed, looking at the ease with which the diminutive woman swung the fifteen-foot iron post. "Been a while since I've been surprised like that. I ain't read any file on you, so tell me - you take it as well as you dish it out?"
Without waiting for an answer, Cain reached out to grab the wrecked automobile by the front bumper, swinging it sideways into Tanya with a significant amount of force.
Tanya got both arms up to both block and grab the car. Darien appeared to be panicking, and she rolled her eyes at him. "Get that seatbelt off and get out of the car," she snapped at him, barely breathing hard, and yanked the car out of Marko's grasp, tossing it negligently out into the road - right-side up, of course. "Someone won't be getting his quarterly bonus if he doesn't show a little initiative," she said almost conversationally to Marko and lashed out with a foot, aiming for his knee.
Cain braced himself, bending his knee to take the impact on his thigh. The force of the blow sent him skidding back about ten feet in the snow, much to his surprise. "Hell, I see why Gideon keeps you around. Must be a hell of a power to leech off of," he quipped, cracking his knuckles and sidestepping in a boxer's rhythm to circle the wrecked car. "Ain't been hit like that since the last time I tussled with the Russkie. Must be something they feed 'em here. But I'm a nice guy, I'm willing to chalk this up to that car crash affecting your delicate female sensibilities. So one more time," he asked without a smile, "you wanna knock this shit off and be all civil-like?"'
"Sorry. Civility in this sort of situation is not in the job description." She raised a hand to her ear for a moment, realizing that her earpiece was gone. Had she lost it in the crash? Ah, well. Everyone knew where their responsibilities were.
Rolling his eyes, Cain sighed. "This was so much easier before the whole Women's Lib bullshit..."
Reaching down into the wrecked car, he plucked the driver, seat and all, from the mess and tossed him offhandedly into a snowbank. "Now a guy tries to be a gentleman, and y'all figure you need to be rude in the name of empowerment or something. Whatever happened to being polite and acting like a lady?"
To punctuate his statement, he reared back with a foot, kicking forward to punt the car directly at Tanya.
She was so going to have Darien fired. How slow could one man possibly be? In a blur of speed, Tanya ran at the car flying at her and caught it in mid-air, using the force of its momentum to bring it around like a slingshot and use it to smash at Cain.
Knocked off his feet by the blow, Cain remembered back to the fight he'd had almost two years ago with Piotr in the snow outside the mansion. Slowly, he smiled and stood back up. "Well," he joked, "now your car's done gone all busted. You sure don't hit like any gal I ever met, but don't think I'm gonna go soft on you just because you're all womanly and stuff."
Lunging forward, Cain grabbed Tanya, tossing her up in the air before grabbing her ankles in one hand and smacking her into the snow-covered ground like a hammer. "I tell you," he remarked as he flung her towards a crumbling brick wall, "I don't mind a woman who likes it a little rough, but there's limits."
There were times, Tanya thought a bit groggily, some indeterminate number of moments after she landed, when the concept of 'more invulnerability' was a nice thing, and not nearly so nonsensical as it sounded. She pushed herself up on her elbows, blinking up through the snow as she saw a streak of blue heading towards the rendezvous site, followed by a streak of gold. Well, at least Jelena was on the move.
She raised her head enough to be able to look back over her shoulder, and saw Marko apparently turning his attention to Darien, who had finally managed to get his seatbelt off and get out of the snowbank. "Marko!" she called out hoarsely, and he turned back towards her as she pulled herself back to her feet. "Leave the poor intern alone. He's not in your weight class."
Cain narrowed his eyes, gathering up a double handful of snow. Compressing it tightly in his hands, he cocked his arm back to his ear, throwing the dense ball of ice sidearm like a baseball pitcher. The satisfying thump it made when it bowled Darien off his feet brought a smile to his face.
"Ain't many folks who are, darling," he said as he turned towards Tanya once more, cocking his head to dodge a thrown fire hydrant. "And for the record, you're about ten seconds from startin' to piss me off."
"If that means you'll drop this aggravating chivalric act -excellent," Tanya growled and ran at him, dodging the next grab he made at her. She needed to get up close and personal. They could probably stand around throwing things at each other all day.
Blinded by a momentary flurry of snow, Cain backed up until he felt the bumped of the wrecked SUV against his calves. This little witch was firing punches faster than he could block, and even if he wasn't getting hurt, she was hitting hard enough to be annoying.
"All right," he growled, reaching back and getting a grip on a broken chunk of concrete. "You done pushed my last button, lady. I..."
Raising the slab of concrete over his head, Cain paused, breath catching in his throat. Something inside felt like fire, yanking his guts around. Coughing, he dropped the makeshift boulder and fell to a knee. The fist that came hammering into his jaw took him totally by surprise, and he went down face-first into the snow-covered street.
What came as more of a surprise was looking down to see blood staining the snow. Wiping his mouth, Cain was shocked to see his hand come back red. "The hell...?" he muttered, taking a deep breath. The girl hadn't hit him THAT hard...
He'd gone down! Startlement was replaced instantly by vindictive satisfaction - and a certain calculating interest in precisely what had just happened and how pleased Mr. Faraday would be to hear it -but it took her all of two seconds to react, launching a kick right at Marko's face. Seize the opening, however it had come about...
Just as soon as the pain had hit, it vanished, replaced by cold clarity. Cain saw the kick coming and stuck out a palm to intercept it. Standing up, he held the smaller woman out at arm's length. "Just remember I tried to be nice. I keep tellin' folks that ain't going to work."
As Tanya Callery found herself airborne again, foremost among her thoughts was that this was really turning into a shit of a day.
---
Haroun tackles the flyer in the group, focusing on keeping her from getting to her boss.
Blue light gathered around her fist, and Jelena smashed the door of the SUV outwards, right off its hinges. She climbed out of the backseat, turning to give Steven a hand out - until she saw the black leather-clad figures advancing through the snow.
"It's the X-Men," she growled, and took to the air, leaving Steven to get out by himself. No one was more than a little bruised; the crash hadn't been that bad. "Lalovic here," she said over the coms. "We've got X-Men, people. I'm getting to the rendezvous to help Mr. Faraday."
"Jetstream to Raiding Party. I've got the skies covered, but we've got at least one more coming out of the car. A little suppressive fire, please?" he asked, then picked up the pace to intercept the other flier. Aerial combat was always just so much fun, if often highly annoying. He didn't get to practice it much, with Cannonball being completely invulnerable and Kamikaze preferring to act like aerial artillery. He was looking forward to beating the crap out of the bad guys with his own two hands.
Jelena dodged a few shots from below - lasers, had to be Blaire - and saw a streak of light through the snow. One of the X-Men's powered fliers, then. She weighed options in a heartbeat and turned to fight. Leading him right to the rendezvous was not going to win her much praise from the boss, she suspected.
"Jetstream, moving to engage. All points, be advised. No air support for now." he said, then moved in to engage the flier. He willed himself faster, feeling his jacket reconfigure to allow him better passage through the thick air of the lower atmosphere, feeling the airscoops sphincter open a little to allow better airflow into his lungs. Let's see how this tango liked a two-hundred-MPH Boot to the Head.
Jelena smiled mirthlessly and dove towards him, matching his speed, as blue light sheathed her entire body in a protective shield. One of the X-Men from Chad, this one. What was the name... al-Rashid, right.
Haroun saw the blue glow, but committed to his attack anyway. Why was it that every powered flier but him had some sort of defensive bodyfield? It was really very unfair.
Persistent, wasn't he? She made a sudden dead stop when he was only a few feet away, the force of her halted momentum transferring itself to the shield, strengthening it immeasurably.
Haroun lashed out his kick at the other flyer's head, then swore explosively as it merely bounced off. Either he didn't quite hit the field clean or he was in a great deal of trouble. He did take some comfort in her wince as he made contact, though. That had possibilities.
Well, quite a kick. That was okay. She didn't precisely hit like a girl, either. Still wrapped in her shield, Jelena launched herself at him in a flying tackle, getting a good grip on the X-Man. Now, to bounce him off a rooftop and get to the rendezvous to help Mr. Faraday...
Haroun grinned as the other flyer made contact with him. Three dimensions made grappling fun, and he'd pit his power against hers any day. Time to see how well she could breathe. Rather than fight the grapple, he moved into it, tying her to himself with as much strength as he could muster. He pushed them both straight up, cranking his power up as high as he dared - and maybe a little higher. Sweat broke out on his brow instantly, and he could feel the warmth spreading through him, but if he could feel it, so could she.
Jelena smiled tightly as the heat rose. Ordinarily, she'd have been rather enjoying herself - nothing like fighting it out with a half-decent opponent - but she really didn't have time tonight. Making sure he was on the bottom, she dove, forcing them both downwards, towards the roof of one of the warehouses.
Haroun grinned as she flipped the two of them around. She wanted to head for the deck, he could do that too. The idea was to bring the heat up. He rotated them so she was on the bottom just before they were scheduled to hit the warehouse ceiling. He also added a good bit of thrust down, to make sure she'd hit it even if she fought up against him. At least, that was the plan.
Jelena made an aggravated noise and reversed her shield, defensive energy back to propulsive force, just for a heartbeat. They soared back upwards, and she gritted her teeth, throwing him away from her with as much force as she could. Screw this, she had no time.
Haroun had all the time in the world. All he had to do was keep this flyer busy. She wanted him gone, but he didn't want to go. He wrapped his legs around hers and hung on for the ride. Thanks to her field, he couldn't choke her out, but he could use his own power to keep her high up in the sky and away from the action.
Jelena was getting substantially irritated. She started to hammer at him, forcing them both down closer to the ground. If she had to beat him into unconsciousness, so be it.
Haroun shifted his grip to get the enemy flier into a half-nelson. Good luck trying to punch him now with one arm locked out of the way and her body between him and the other hand. They were both rocketing into the big blue sky, going higher and higher as his power heated them both us. He was guessing her shield wasn't thermally resistant to heat, and her uniform wasn't set up to deal with it either.
Jelena sighed and let all the energy of her shield go in a sudden concussive explosion, flinging him away. This was getting tedious, she thought, gathering the shield back around her. She really, really needed to shake him. The fact that they'd been ambushed made her think that they were being kept away from the rendezvous, and that couldn't mean anything good.
She'd just have to lose him in the snow.
Haroun wiped blood off his mouth - he'd apparently bit his lip or something - and rocketed back in to keep the other flyer occupied and out of the way. She was really starting to piss him off.
---
Kurt finds someone who likes to play with knives.
Jelena had taken off to engage whatever flyer was up there by the time Steven hauled himself out of the car. He winced, limping a little - and then gritted his teeth as he saw the other members of the security detail engaging the X-Men. To hell with this... He drew two knives, peering through the snow. Hopefully they had left someone for him.
They had. Kurt was ready and waiting to engage him, kicking out at the hand holding one of the knives before Steven could see him.
Steven rolled under the next kick, coming back to his feet with another knife in his hand, this one poised to throw. He did, trusting to his mutant ability, rather than his vision, which wasn't at all trustworthy in the near white-out conditions.
It might have worked, if he wasn't dealing with a professional gymnast and teleporter. Kurt ducked and rolled out of the knife's path, coming up much closer to the other man.
Steven didn't throw the next knife; he moved in closer to stab with it, not aiming for anything critical. They had orders; they weren't supposed to be killing X-Men. Kurt grabbed at his wrist with a strong grip, trying to wrench his hand away from stabbing range. Steven gritted his teeth - and then lashed out with a kick while Kurt was focused on keeping the knife away from him. That connected, and Kurt staggered back a few paces, though he didn't quite let go of Steven's wrist.
As his foot came back down, Steven snatched the knife out of his boot and tried to reach Kurt with that one. Kurt danced back out of range, his tail coming forward to wrap around the knife hilt and hopefully snatch it out of Steven's hand.
He had a tail. Of course he had a tail. Steven had read the file on this man, once upon a time... He let the knife go, let both knives go - he had more where that came from - and took off into the snow. They didn't have time for a pitched fight with the X-Men. Not when Mr. Faraday was at the rendezvous with no one to cover him.
Kurt followed, limping a little from the kick but not really seriously incapacitated. His job was to keep Faraday's potential helpers from getting to him, after all.
---
Alison takes on an energy-projector who is somewhat lacking in her follow-through - surprising, given her employer, but Alison takes full advantage of it.
She should have been driving. Really, she was the only one who was native to the country, although admittedly, not this particular part of it... Elena Nabakova hauled herself out of the SUV, blinking for a moment at the sight of Tanya facing off with someone who could only be Cain Marko, if these were the X-Men...
Shake it off, she told herself as she saw more black leather-clad figures advancing through the heavy snow. She brought her hands together and fired off a plasma shockwave - not right at them, since standing orders were that you didn't kill X-Men, but at the snow-covered road in front of them.
Snow and dirt flew in the air in reaction to the shockwave, the heat turnin the snow to water. Before it could even finish hitting the ground in a splatter of dirty water, a bolt of light answered Elena's salvo, slamming directly against her, both blinding and solid at the same time.
It knocked her to the ground and very nearly out. By the time she had struggled back to her hands and knees, there was only the one black-clad figure there. The others had fanned out, from the sounds of it, because there was definitely fighting going on out there in the storm.
Elena weighed her options seriously for a moment. Keep fighting, or try and get to the rendezvous site? Others could get there faster. Maybe she'd be better served...
The figure advancing on her was glowing. Elena's eyes narrowed and she got a hand up, letting out a less-powerful blast, directly at the X-Man.
The X-Man didn't even bother trying to deflect it, simply dodging out of the blast's way and then calmly resuming her advance towards Elena. Something glittered in her eyes and she spoke, staring through the storm at her opponent despite the snow whipping around them.
"Next time, don't play around."
And before Elena could respond, the very snow itself seemd to flicker around her, every single snowflake briefly coming to life - and then light blazed up around her, an incandescent storm stealing sight and sound from her in a heartbeat.
---
The X-Men's diversionary tactic works exceptionally well, leaving Gideon with precisely one mutant to synch to at the meeting site. He opens the box and gets a nasty surprise. Pete enjoys himself just a little, but sadly, doesn't get to have quite as much fun as he'd hoped.
Pete flexed his fingers a little as the truck stopped, and did his best to tense and relax his arms and legs a few times trying to get the blood flowing again. He hadn't suffered too much from the cold since he was a teenager, but the false beard and the slight prosthetics on his nose and face itched like bastards and lying still so so long had given him slight pins and needles, and however much he reminded himself that the plan should mean it wouldn't be the worst fight he'd been in, he still didn't want to be caught off guard.
He felt the crate lifted from its place on the back of the truck, moved a short distance, and stood on its end. He took a moment to thank his lucky stars that they hadn't set him down on his head, and waited as someone outside applied a crowbar to the outside of the crate. Just as they we starting to lever it out, he set his shoulder against it and shoved, sending them staggering back as he stepped out of the crate.
"Next time, I'm fucking travelling business class, alright? I mean, I know money's tight and everything, but surely you can afford to get your new employees around without sticking them in the back with the luggage..."
Gideon's eyes widened in shock and chagrin as he recognised the voice, if not the appearance...
"Who--? Wisdom! Where --? Nevermind. Kill this idiot for me, would you?" he gestured to his guards. Chagrin turned to outright disgust as he looked to them, only to find them all running in the opposite direction.
"Sorry, squire. That's the problem with local talent - you never know when they're going to get a better offer." Pete stepped forward, rolling his shoulders slightly to loosen them. "Now, we've got some unfinished business. Well, I say we - Domino was really put out that she couldn't express her displeasure with you in person, but for some reason she thinks I might be willing to explain things to you in--"
Pete broke off, his hand flying to his forehead with a strangled cry of surprise, as he staggered backward, reeling from the hotknife Gideon had just sent at him.
"Enough of you, Wisdom." Gideon snarled as he turned to leave. "Maybe if you stopped talking for once..."
He was stopped by a tap on his shoulder. As he turned, he caught Wisdom's fist coming in the other direction, and staggered back.
"Maybe if you started thinking, you stupid cunt. Can't hurt me with my own power. Of course, I can't hurt you with it, either, but the only reason you're still alive right now is that no one wanted to chance you scanning the box with something, and picking up a gun."
Gideon blocked Pete's second blow easily, and launched a shot of his own, which Pete ducked as it sailed past.
"So I don't have a gun. But you know, the boys that taught me how to beat the shit out of someone were pretty thorough." He jabbed hard into Gideon's gut, missing the kidney shot he'd been aiming for, but winding the other man all the same.
"Want to bet I can't kill you with my bare hands?"
Gideon crashed into him, tackling him to the ground, but Pete rolled clear and came up into a ready crouch, aiming a quick kick at the other man, forcing him back a little.
Then, suddenly, Pete closed the gap, and snapped off a lighting fast punch to Gideon's face.
"That's from Dom." And a shot to the ribs. "Nate says hi, too." Another one, harder and more savage to the face, as he shouted "And all those fucking kids, you twisted fuck."
Gideon looked around wildly, head ringing, as he backed up, and then, desperately, dropped his shoulder, and ran at Pete. This time, he knocked the other man down, as Pete's foot caught on something on the floor, and twisted. He didn't turn around, though,. just kept running, as Pete came back to his feet, and then nearly fell down again.
"Bastard!" Pete winced in pain, feeling his ankle flare as he tried to set his weight on it. He tried several limping steps after the retreating Gideon, but soon stopped with a disgusted look on his face. "Of all the fucking luck..."
---
The two teams regroup at the Blackbird, and Scott and Alison take stock.
"Everyone all right?" Scott asked as Alison made a beeline over for where he was standing by a car pulled up just short of the reach of the Blackbird's engines, just in case they had to make a sudden take-off. Nathan's friend Alexey was in the driver's seat of the car, but his soon-to-be passenger was still standing beside Scott, as if unwilling to go just yet. Scott gave Galina a reassuring smile and then turned back to his fellow field leader. "This is the original cargo, by the way - Galina Chernevsky."
"Hey there," Alison stopped once she was next to Scott, extending a hand out to shake the woman's hand, firmly if briefly in greeting. "Everyone's fine and we're ready," she confirmed for Scott's sake, keeping the details untold - it wasn't necessary to say more and it was certainly in Miss Chernevsky's interest to know less than more. "We've made arrangements for you, miss - I hope you'll find them a bit more to your taste this time around," she inquired, giving Galina the choice to opt out, as it were - more choice than she'd been given since she'd been stuffed in that crate, at any rate.
"It could hardly be worse," the cyberpath said somewhat wryly, her English good, if accented. She had really made a remarkable recovery, Scott thought, although he suspected she hadn't even started processing her ordeal just yet. He'd mentioned that to Alexey, who'd mentioned casually that he had a psychiatrist friend who could be called. "I will be happy to leave. Thank you, for whatever role you played."
"We're still waiting on our last two stragglers," Scott said to Alison, "but Nathan's been in touch. The two of them will be here shortly. And MacInnis is here," he said with a perfectly straight face, gesturing in the direction of the small group on the other side of the Blackbird, "if you wanted to say hello."
"We were just glad to be able to do something," Alison reassured the woman. Galina smiled a little, then abruptly hugged Scott before she got into the car, sitting down in the passenger's seat. Alison threw Alexey a quick smile of thanks through the window, buying herself a bit more time before having to answer Scott's offer. She then looked up contemplatively towards the Blackbird, and the people standing there, eyes narrowing slightly. "You know what, I think I'll do that."
---
Nathan and Pete hook back up and stop for a bit of a breather before heading back to the plane. Pete laments how minimal the violence was. Nathan gets a precognitive flicker and a nasty little idea as to how to rub Gideon's nose in things. It doesn't take much to talk Pete into it.
"Can't believe the bastard got away like that." Pete scowled up from where he was sitting on the ground. "I got fucking over-confident. Stupid."
Nathan tilted his head. "We weren't trying to catch him," he said patiently. "Remember? Or kill him, however wholly pleasurable the thought might be." Today had definitely not been the time for definitive action. Everything he'd seen had made that very clear. "The reporter got away safely, with all kinds of wonderfully suggestive tape, and Mac's going to dump sufficient background in her inbox tonight to make for a very embarassing story."
"Yeah, but I'd have liked to beat him within a fucking inch of his life, y'know? He's earned more than a few taps that he'll heal just as soon as he finds the right kind of fucking mutant..." Pete got to his feet a little gingerly, favouring his left foot. "Still, job done, and as soon as we get back somewhere with a decent shower, I can get rid of all this fucking get up."
"I think he has a secretary with a healing factor," Nathan said with a deadpan look. He glanced out the open door of the warehouse that had been their prearranged meeting point. It was still snowing heavily, and Nathan reached out with his mind, sending a brief reassurance down the telepathic switchboard that they'd be along shortly. "Just make sure you can describe the hits you did get in to Dom in loving detail. She'll appreciate it." He gave Pete an amused look. "And don't mock the stage makeup. Alison did a great job."
"Bah. She has destroyed my handsome features, and worse, it itches like a bastard." Pete shrugged. "Still, at least I won't get me collar felt for assault once the tape airs. How's the kid we got out of that crate, anyway?"
Nathan sent a query down the switchboard to Scott, then listened for a moment, his expression distant. "Fine," he said. "I set it up with Alexey that he's going to smuggle her out - or offer her a job, depending on what the two of them decide. I almost hope it's the latter. If she stays in Vladivostok under his protection she's got a better chance of staying safe." He looked back at Pete with a faint grin. "His guys did an awfully good job of acting like complete and utter cowards, didn't they?"
"It was pretty impressive, yeah." Pete frowned just a little. "Although what Alexey might do with someone with her gifts doesn't bear thinking about too much."
"True. But if she stays with him, he'll protect her like she was one of the family. Remember, he was willing to fight the FSB with his bare hands to keep them from recruiting his brother before GW talked him into sending Vasily to us rather than getting into a dust-up with his former employers."
Nathan stared back out at the snow, an odd little flicker of an image bouncing back and forth behind his eyes: Gideon, standing at a window watching the snow over the city, bruises and a thunderous expression on his face. Watching something in the snow. A familiar-shaped flicker of light. "Hey, do you want to fly back rather than walk?" he said suddenly, and an evil little smile tugged at his lips. "Give your ankle a rest..."
Pete grinned. "And you want to show off, don't you? Send him one last message? Yeah, OK." He paused, and shook his head. "I must be fucking mad."
"Well, hell, the rest of you got to have all the fun..." Nathan grinned back and his exoskeleton flashed outwards. "Besides, I've never used it over a major metropolitan area before. And although I've done many, many strange things, I have to say I've never yet been listed as a UFO."
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