Bhagavad Gita: Near Dusk And Dying

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Following up on Emma, Leo, and Farouk's information, they travel to meet the contact who may hold all the information about what has truly happened in Pakistan.



It was starting to get late, the blistering sun less fierce, and everyone in the strange little convoy were getting an inkling of what getting dark really meant out here. There were few structures on the rough road they'd been following, and according to a military guide they'd spoken to, it was an area considered both bleak and occasionally dangerous. The emptiness drew a certain element, and in the wake of the turmoil, it's closeness to the border was anything but ideal.

The town they'd been told to meet the mysterious officer at wasn't even on the map, and they'd gotten word that most of the inhabitants had left days ago, ahead of what they feared might be an invasion. Fortunately, it meant that they'd be free of any unexpected eavesdroppers when they met him. Garrison shoved his glasses up on his forehead, looking into the growing gloom with a certain amount of concern. If something happened out here, they'd also be far away from any help as well.

"It has a certain rustic charm to it, doesn't it?" Jubilee noted, her own sunglasses pushed back already. While she didn't particularly need them right now with it getting darker by the second, if she had to do any fighting they'd come in handy. "I can see the tourist brochures now. Sunny India, beautiful one day, radioactive the next."

Wanda glanced over from where she was slouched in the front seat of one of the other jeeps - though certainly not behind the driver's wheel. "Well, I know where you're being sent next, Lee," she said, slouching further down into the seat. Despite her relaxed look, she was keeping a sharp eye out on the distance. She was cultivating a nasty headache and simply wanted this entire endeavor to be done with. In their favor, of course.

Farouk tuned out most of the chatter, going deeper inside himself, reinforcing the walls containing the Shadow King and going through his usual pre-combat mental feedback loop. This would be the first time in a long time where he would have to use his powers offensively, to test himself. Optical illusions were unlikely to prove enough in this case, and he felt trepidation such he had not felt since his first foray into telepathy. What were his limits now, how much of an anchor the parasite would prove...

His smile held little humor in it as he stretched his mind, in a baring of fangs, dark and hungry.

Predictable that this expedition would end in the here and now, and exactly the reason he had left Trotsky behind. Time to see if he could stand, and kill, on his own again.

Adrienne grinned at the young woman sitting in front of her, appreciating Jubilee's ability to joke in this shithole of a place. "If you ever want a new job I don't send my employees out to places like this," she muttered with a smirk. "At least there aren't any pirates this time." Not the same sort of pirates, anyway. She turned to Morgan. "So, the guide says this place is 'occasionally dangerous.' How many cupcakes would it take to make sure you protect me?"

Paige smiled at what she could hear of the idle banter, the wind in her ears hitting such a pitch that she was almost positive that were Samson, seated next to her and so far staring at the scenery passing by, to say something to her, it would be entirely lost. It was the end of the day and all she really wanted to do was hole up in their research facilities, poking at what was left of the sample she'd acquired earlier. Sadly, bad guys didn't turn themselves in.

Morgan glanced over her shoulder at Adrienne. The arched eyebrow didn't look half as amused on this face as it would have on her own. She'd found during her time here in this body that the FBI agent Kane had given her to copy wasn't precisely the most visually expressive person in the world. His voice, however, she could manipulate as she liked and the thick Scottish accent held all the amusement his face failed to express. "You, love? Only six. Aye, maybe even four if you make it worth my while." She gave Adrienne a grin. The look was all male.

Tommy ignored them though he couldn't resist a small roll of his eyes. He too was staring out the window at the scenery as it flashed by, his chin leaning on one hand while the other was in his lap, ungloved, and rolling a pebble in between his fingers as he changed it to and from different metals on each roll. The elements running through his head were keeping him from thinking about anything else at the moment.

Emma ignored the banter in the vehicles, sending her mind sweeping out before her, carefully not extending it anywhere near Farouk and his homicidal parasite. She could feel the minds of a number of men, but the language they were thinking was unfamiliar to her and the mental images they were projecting could have belonged to guards or ambushers. Her mind touched on Garrison's, mapping views, numbers, drawing the fractured thoughts together as best she could to draw a map of the near-deserted town they were racing towards and the men who occupied it. All men, she noted. No sign of the General's wife, the Calysee woman who Farouk seemed to think might just be making a play to make India and Pakistan a Neramani family fiefdom.

Then a number of views in her mind changed, focused in one direction. #Trucks,# she said crisply in Garrison's head. #Some of them, at least. Heading towards trucks. Or a truck. Can't quite tell. It all looks the same in the dark.# She shook her head in frustration at the untranslatable thoughts that swirled past her, carrying information she couldn't decode.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Garrison grimaced and spun the wheel. #Get to your contact! We'll stop the trucks!# he broadcast back to Emma as his jeep veered off with surprised yelps from both Paige and Leo as they left the road. Kane could just make out the edges of the vehicles in the dusk as they sped away, but two full military transports were no match for the speed of the lightly loaded jeep, and they quickly pulled parallel to the small convoy. The sounds of weapons being loaded and readied carried over the sound of the engines.

Kane looked back over his shoulder. "Paige, can you husk into something metal? Heavy, strong, bulletproof?" He said suddenly, and at her nod, looked to Leo. "Grab the wheel, Doc! I've got an idea!"

"Got it!" Leo responded, moving over quickly as Kane's concentration went elsewhere. He focused his eyes on the suddenly wild terrain in front of them, and tightly gripped the steering wheel, noting clinically his increased heart rate and a slight metallic taste in his mouth. With little ambient light, the ground was an obstacle course. Note to self, Leo thought wryly, remind Charles that my contract does not include hazard pay. That may need to change. Gripping the wheel tightly, Leo waited for further instructions from Kane.

They'd decided long ago that the sound skin made when tearing down what the human body considered a natural seam was 'shrip' but really, there was no word that could do the sickening noise justice. What remained glittered silver in the last of the hot, golden sun, sending small octagons of light onto the sandy hills. "You know, in this type of situation, something lighter would be-"

Paige's words were cut off as Kane grabbed her by the wrists, and braced his foot against the dash of the jeep. He pivoted, yanking Paige right out of her seat, and swinging her in a wide arc before releasing, sending the protesting X-Man through the engine block of the lead vehicle with a loud crash. The impact sheered off the front of the truck, and ignited the fuel tank, flames engulfing the body. It slewed sideways and flipped, grinding along the dirt on its side and burning. The second truck slammed on the brakes, skidding to try and avoid the wreckage. Kane leapt from the Jeep and hit the ground running towards it.

"Paige!" Leo shouted, staring in horror at the scene in the rearview mirror. He yanked the steering wheel sideways and skidded the jeep back to the the first truck, now engulfed in flames. "Thanks for the warning, Garrison!" Leo muttered under his breath as he drove the truck towards Paige. He glanced backwards to see Garrison dispatching the second truck with ease, and shook his head, "Oy vez iz mir, Kane, I didn't think you were that pissed about Twoyoungman."

Leaning over, Leo yanked open the passenger side door just as he pulled up next to Paige, who was in the midst of changing into a different skin. "Paige! Are you alright?"

Blinking a little unsteadily, Paige stood, raising her head above the wreckage; her husk was lighter this time, though just as resistant to the flames licking her ankles and the bullets flying overhead. Her head seemed to clear all at once and she scowled, spinning on the figure of Kane in the distance. "Well, that's just bad manners!" she shouted, hopping into the Jeep and closing the door in one arcing movement. "I'll be better when we get back and I toss him into something very hard and unimportant. He can get better, right?"

Kane would have had a response if he had been near the jeep, and not using a chunk of flame blackened metal to ward off automatic fire. He had hit the side of the truck with a shoulder block, crumpling it inward and killing the motive power, but he now had a truck load of soldiers shooting at him. Kane's metal was starting to show serious fatigue, and he winced as a bullet ricocheted off and grazed his temple.

Garrison threw himself sideways, tossing the metal like a discus and using his speed to drive around the front of the truck, and rolling as he hit. "A little help!"

"You already used me as a javelin, I am not going to be hauled around as a shield," Paige answered, already out and running past where he had stood only a moment before. Her arm came up in an oddly Wonder Woman type gesture, a bullet denting just bellow her wrist, but she kept moving, eventually having to do little more than put her arms out in a cross. Two soldiers flew back, making wet choking noises, as she pivoted around to face a third.

"Roadblock works just as well!" Kane yelled. The shining form drew plenty of fire, giving Kane time to set his feet firmly and grab the front of the truck. With a grunt, he hefted it up, and then flipped it, sending the last soldiers flying as it spun in the air and crashed down. It only took moments to disable any of the survivors, either with a neural blast to the body, or a more traditional blow to the back of the head. They quickly rifled through the remains of both trucks, collecting a steel briefcase from the wreckage. Kane popped it open without effort but the pages of text were meaningless to him. Instead, he stowed it back in the jeep.

"Come on. Let's go make sure everyone else survived."

***

Jubilee had only moments to brace herself as the Jeep suddenly swerved, she gripped the wheel tightly and tried to keep it on the road but it was a close thing and her relief didn't last long, as with a loud bang, the other wheel went out as well. The Jeep skidded, and then flipped on its side, flinging her out of the drivers seat. It was only long hours of training that allowed her to take the impact on her shoulder and roll with it till she was back on her feet, turning to dive back behind the now overturned Jeep.

Morgan had braced to be flung from the Jeep the moment she'd felt the first hit. She liked male bodies, they always seemed to take impact so much better than female ones. As she went rolling on the ground her hand was already reaching for the most convenient pistol on her. "Fucking hell, it can never be easy," she muttered as she scrambled back toward the Jeep. She ducked in next to Jubilee before hazarding a glance over the vehicle to what was on the other side. She groaned, a sound that came out much more disgruntled from her borrowed vocal cords. "They're coming for us. Anyone who wants to live, find something to kill with." She smiled sweetly. The expression likely didn't translate well on the FBI Agent's face.

Tommy had had the unfortunate experience of rolling with the Jeep and had had to take a moment to shake his head before scrambling out, careful of where he placed his un-gloved hand. Once he was out and behind it with the others, he flexed his hand for a moment considering before saying in a flat voice as he removed his other glove, "First, get everything you need and yourselves away so you're not touching the Jeep. I'm going to give us some better cover." He made only a quick check to be sure they followed his orders, before grabbing onto the door of the Jeep with both hands. Less then a minute later, the jeep was made entirely of titanium.

Shocked, it took Adrienne several seconds to realize she was on her side- and the Jeep was on its side- and in her panic she thrashed about trying to unclip her seatbelt. One of her arms hurt like hell. When she freed herself from her seatbelt she fell out onto the side of the vehicle, crying out as she further wrenched her arm. Upon hearing Tommy's orders she scrambled out of the Jeep to stand with the others, still stunned to the degree that she had nothing to say about what had just happened. Holding her injured arm against her chest- dislocated shoulder or broken collarbone, maybe, she thought distractedly- she reached around to the gun holster she'd clipped to her hip before they'd left and pulled out the Glock she'd managed to barter for with one of the locals when she'd arrived in the country. Seeing Morgan with her gun already drawn restored a little of her composure. "Next time I travel with you guys I'm reading the Jeep before I get in so I'll know if something like this is gonna happen," she muttered with a shake of her head.

"Less talking, more getting behind the damn Jeep." Jubilee snapped, hands already covered in plasma sparks as she got back behind cover. "Adrienne, read the Jeep now, is it good or does someone blow the damn thing up?"

The snap startled the psychometrist, but rather than refusing Jubilee just to be contrary Adrienne lurched forward, handing her weapon to Morgan and peeling the glove off her good hand. "Hard to say for certain," she reported after several seconds; "it was pretty clear that it makes it, thanks to Tommy," she added with a nod towards the young man, "but nothing's set in stone." She gestured generally towards the end of the Jeep that was now on her left. "That side'll probably take a lot of heavy fire. I saw a grenade land a couple feet away from that side and fling a lot of shrapnel. But I dunno for sure," she said with a shake of her head, note of worry and helplessness in her tone.

"Good enough, everyone stay on this side. Tommy, keep low or grab a gun if you can use one. Morgan, kill them as quickly as you can. Adrienne, keep an eye on the probabilities, if you see anything, let us know." Jubilee replied, peering over the top of the Jeep and then ducking back down as gun fire sounded. This was going to get interesting, real fast.

Sitting with his head in his hands and back tucked against the Jeep, Tommy could only nod his reply. Turning the Jeep into a less known compound so quickly had taken a lot of out of him and the stress had given him an awful headache. In a few minutes he'd be able to concentrate again, but at the moment he could barely move, much less put his gloves back on. He hated it, but he'd done the best he could.

"Glad to see someone thinks she's in charge," Morgan muttered to herself. Pipsqueak was kind of annoying. She hadn't made a bad call yet so she was letting the little girl get away with it. Morgan was really not all about taking orders from someone younger than her, who likely had less field experience and who she'd known for all of a week. If it wasn't for the fact her focus was on killing those coming at them as quickly as possible she likely would have told her to get stuffed. She peered over the top of the Jeep and fire was immediately unloaded in her direction. "What I wouldn't give for a fucking assault rifle right now." You couldn't go walking around with one of those when you didn't technically have the qualifications to do so, though. At least not when you'd shown up with the fucking FBI of all things. Popping over the top again, Morgan fired off five shots. Three were killing shots, the other two would just hurt a hell of a lot.

"I second the lamentation for assault rifles," Adrienne replied, hunkering down close to Morgan and putting her glove back on. "I got to use one when we fought pirates 'last trip I went on. This trip blows." She took her pistol back from the man-Morgan and flicked the safety off, her injured arm still close to her chest. She wasn't used to shooting with one arm but was not about to sit around doing nothing while bullets were flying towards her. Waiting until the next break in fire, Adrienne jumped to her feet and fired off four shots before the returning fire had her ducking back down again. "Only hit two for four," she wrinkled her nose. "Not as good as usual. Fucking arm."

Jubilee had quietly been growing a charge in her hands, and now that it was large enough she launched it upwards, moving it to halfway between the jeep and the mercenaries coming at them.

"Everyone close your eyes." she instructed, tapping her sunglasses down to cover her own.

With a loud thump of displaced air, she detonated the plasmoid, a bright flash of multi-coloured plasma covering the area surrounding the blast. But it drained her, and she curled in on herself, trying to stop the shakes. It hadn't been so long ago that she's been used as a battery and she still wasn't a hundred percent by any margin.

Seeing her curl up, Tommy moved to Jubilee's side, fumbling to replace his gloves as he did. He pulled her back to more secure cover, so she could recover safely. He too needed a bit more time to clear his head, but that didn't stop him from starting to look around for a means to defend them.

Adrienne dug some grenades out of a bag someone had recovered from the Jeep and ripped her glove off, crying out in pain as she wrenched her injured arm. She took several valuable seconds away from firing on their attackers to read the grenades, separating them into two neat lines each time she read one. She rolled one grenade towards Tommy and Jubilee. "If your powers make you guys sleepy, try throwing those instead. Tommy, if you throw that one at eleven o'clock, you should hit a couple of them." She tossed another one in their direction. "Lee, when you can, toss that one at about two o'clock, direction wise." She gestured first to one line of grenades, than the other. "Those ones are Tommy's, those ones for Lee." She emptied the bag to read a few more, putting one at Morgan's feet, a few more in the two piles she was making, and then four back in the bag." No one touch the ones in the bag until the rest are gone. Those ones are probably gonna miss. And I think one might blow one of us up, but I can't tell which one."

Tommy gestured to the bag. "Give it to me. Once I catch my breath, I'll render them useless so we don't have to worry about them." Then he turned back to Jubilee, moving her pile of grenades closer. "You gonna be alright to use these?" He asked before throwing the first grenade Adrienne had pointed out for him.

Jubilee had already pulled out a chocolate bar from somewhere on her person and was eating it quickly. "M'fine, just needed some fuel." She drew the grenades toward her and picked up the first in the pile, they weren't as useful as her powers, lacking the fine control she could exert over those, but they'd do. "How much ammo have we got?" she asked after she'd pulled the pin on the first and thrown it. She didn't let herself think about what it was going to do to their attackers, that was for later when there was time for regrets.

Morgan had been busy covering them, firing off rounds while Adrienne sorted the grenades out. More mercenaries were showing up. "Not a fucking war zone yet, what're you tossers even doing here," she grumbled and dropped the clip out of the gun. Another one was pulled out of a pocket and slammed into place. She was aiming for chests, wanting them dead, not just injured. She didn't tend to be this up close and personal to her targets usually. It was nice target practice. She made sure to not go and say that aloud. "There's at least two dozen out there now. All the poorly trained ones are dead," she reported as her head ducked back down and bullets went flying over the over-turned Jeep.

She stopped for a moment, hearing the girl's question. Morgan did a quick visual inspection before answering. "I've got another three pistols on me, Adrienne's got one, then there are grenades, and you whenever you're of use again," she reported without the slightest inflection in her voice. "I've got extra clips for all of my guns on me. This one is almost useless. Each clip has thirteen or fifteen rounds, depends on which gun we're talking about." She glanced down at the grenade at her feet, then up to Adrienne. "My good to use this, cupcake? I could use some of them blokes in bits right about now."

With a grin, Adrienne quickly replaced her glove, pulled the pin from a grenade she was holding, and lobbed it over the Jeep towards the mercenaries, thankful it hadn't been her throwing arm that had been injured when the vehicle had rolled. "Now throw yours," she instructed the man-Morgan. "Then Tommy." Drawing her pistol she poked her head up and felt a small degree of satisfaction when she saw her grenade had caused three soldiers to duck and cover. She fired shots at them quickly, hitting one. "I've got two extra clips," she said in response to Jubilee's earlier question, "but I'll be down to one soon. Any way we can make our remaining bullets be sure to hit their marks, or do extra damage or something?"

Morgan popped her head over while Adrienne fired at the men. She pulled the pin while they opened fired on them again, missing them again. She popped up and flung the grenade before ducking down again. "If any of them survive they're going to have a shit time of getting contracts after getting their men shot down by what they'd consider civilians." She shook her head and made a tsking sound. With a grin, Morgan looked at Adrienne, "Aye, my darling cupcake, it's called shooting to kill. Or not shooting at all. Easy, innit?" She suddenly looked all too pleased to be there and popped up over the top of the Jeep again, emptying her clip and killing another three men, what was left of them after the grenades went off anyway.

"That remark was meant for Tommy," Adrienne retorted, glaring down at man-Morgan as she fired her weapon, "I wasn't asking you." Emptying the clip, she ducked back down. "There aren't that many left," she said with satisfaction as she reloaded. Which was just as well, since her arm was hurting to a degree where it was getting distracting. The next time she jumped up from her crouch to shoot, she ended up emptying the entire 17 rounds out of frustration because her shots were getting more erratic. A bullet whizzed dangerously close to her head and she stumbled back and onto her knees to reload again.

"Aye, but it's a damn simple question to answer, innit? 'How do we make sure we hit our marks?' 'Don't bloody miss.' Oi!" She thwapped Adrienne one when she noticed why the woman was stumbling to take cover again. "And you don't get yourself shot in the process! Morgan fired off her last two rounds, dropped the now useless gun, and pulled a second pistol out from her hip holster.

"I can't anyway." Tommy interrupted after he threw another grenade while working off one of his gloves and grabbing the bags of 'maybe' grenade from Adrienne. In an instant later, they were lead. "Better to be safe then sorry. And anyway, it would take too long for me to change anything in your guns to anything useful..." He paused and looked down at the grenades he'd just made unusable. He picked one up in his bare hand and concentrated. A moment later he was throwing a grenade made of pure magnesium at the enemy. "One of you with guns! Shot and ignite that grenade!"

"I can't aim for shit with just one arm," Adrienne grumbled and pointed with her gun to man-Morgan. "Let Rambo over here do it."

The flare of light exploded over the darkened town.

***

Wanda clenched her jaw as the jeep took off and she did her best to ignore the rattling around of the car, the noise from around them, and just tried to concentrate on her powers. She was going to 'remove' any and all obstacles from their path but it was much harder to utilize her powers while on the move. Running? Not a problem. Going God knows only how fast on unpaved roads? Headache inducing at the very best. The lines were changing every second so she just slumped down into her seat and ignored Emma and Farouk for the time being.

Emma swore harshly under her breath, holding tight to whatever she could grab as the jeep bounced around wildly. It wasn't the movement that irritated her however, but the impossibility of picking out their informant from the minds that were moving rapidly within the village and definitely panicking. Jumbled mental pictures ran through her head and a morass of thoughts she couldn't read. "Couldn't one of you have been fucking bilingual?" she cursed and then held tight as the jeep bounced again. "Farouk," she hissed "Which one is yours?" She scattered mental pictures and random thoughts at him, still refusing to touch his mind, hoping he could pick his informant out of them.

"They. Are. Not. Speaking. Urdu." The 'leave me alone and do your own job, you silly bitch' went unsaid as Farouk worked the wheel, his muscles straining as the vehicle went off road. Considering the general level of the local infrastructure the concept between the road and the countryside was strictly notional, yet the increased speed and the sporadic gunfire were not helping. "Some Hebrew. And something else. " Farouk swerved the Jeep to avoid predictable trajectories for what was increasingly becoming a coordinated defense of the village. "A couple of else's, actually...

An RPG screamed past the car, exploding with a mind numbing noise and Amahl swore vilely as it was followed by an unpleasantly accurate burst of machine gun fire. "All right, that's quite enough of that." His thought stabbed with vicious exactitide and Farouk smiled unpleasantly as the machine gunner screamed in horrified revulsion and turned his aim on his colleagues across the street. Now with a little luck...

Everything changed in half a heart beat of time but Wanda was not far behind, chasing after strings and reevaluating strategy at a moment's notice. She had no idea what Farouk had done - suggestion or otherwise - but she capitalized on it. Unable to force the mental hand of those that blocked their way, she forced their hands, bodies and even the environment around them.

The lights went out, plunging some into darkness and stirring up more confusion as twilight descended on their location. The machine gunner was still screaming as he fired on his own comrades and in the confusion, others followed suit. Some hesitated but their weapons went off in their hands, forcing others to fire back in self-defense. Still others sought to remove themselves from the situation but found themselves confused and trapped between crumbling buildings and friendly fire.

"Drive. Faster." Wanda's teeth were clenched as her headache built with each passing second.

Alas, Farouk thought grimly, for the day when he could have reached out and turned off the heart valves of a good part of this crew with a single thought. It's indirect methods from now on, for him...

He split his focus, still zig-zagging toward the village even as his psionic tendrils reached for the mercenaries' mind, looking for Rafiq or his location. Frustration mounted as he found himself blocked - the gunmen among the defenders who lacked the rudimentary but effective shielding, also seemed to have little idea of the situation.

This could get unpleasant. Farouk thought with mordant sacrasm as the shadow of the first house grew closer and closer.

And the his head snapped back, the shock of recognition shattering his focus like a hammerblow to the face.

*About time, patron. Getting slow in the old age?*

Wanda found herself sliding heavily into the side of the car as it jerked to the side and for a moment her concentration wavered - though luckily she had started enough general chaos that it was feeding into itself. She righted herself with some effort, the red lights flickering back on, giving everything around them a wicked cast until she toned down the light show.

Avi reached for the case with sure, economic movement, assembling the Barett with speed but without hurry - just like the sergeant had taught him. The grizzled face of the old Russian expatriate swam back to the forefront of his mind for a brief second and the Israeli grinned. Attaching the tripod he wondered briefly what would the old man make of his current predicament.

It had seemed like a fun idea at the time. The six of them just finished with their hitch and none having any real desire to either get anchored down to a cubicle or to re-up for another go under the army discipline. And then Yonni came up with the brilliant idea of going private. See the world, meet exciting people - burn it down and blow them up.

Brilliant!

Africa was bad enough. But this contract and these other outfits they hooked up with here...

Avi shook his head as he attached the bipod to the big-bore rifle and breathed out, letting the crazily jinking car swim into the focus. "What the fuck is a nice Jewish boy like me doing in a place like this?" He asked rhetorically and tightened his finger on the trigger.

"Dying." Someone said softly behind him and then a shocking burst of cold was spreading from his neck throughout his entire body. His thought were clear, surprisingly so as Avi tried to turn, reaching for his Glock at the same time. But his hands moved so slowly, and his head felt so very heavy...

The head of the mercenary was bent at the odd angle. The knife vent in from behind the windpipe, with an outward thrust, collapsing the neckbones with the heel of the blade. Fastidiously, Esteban made sure that no blood has spluttered on himself and bent down to collect the rifle.

The boss really didn't deserve him, he thought somewhat petulantly as he changed position. To think that he was going to be put off by that lame story, or that he couldn't track him... Fucking insulting.

Farouk laughed softly as he slid the car into the alley, parking it. "It's the second house from the right. Be careful, ladies. There are apparently mutants among the mercenaries." He stepped out of the car offering his hand to Wanda but ignoring her curious look as he still chuckled under the breath.

There was never any doubt in her mind that Farouk was an odd one, she thought sourly as she accepted his hand. After that hellish car ride, she needed help to get out of the godforsaken jeep. She kept her eyes on the buildings around them, hissing under her breath as her mind followed this line, than that one and then another before rebounding back to the place it had started. "Movement?" she asked quietly, keeping communication as simple as possible.

For one of the first times, she regretted her inability to communicate telepathically while using her powers.

And then she's proved correct as something shot out of the darkness. It's all teeth and fangs and suddenly her brain is on Youra even as her hand leaves Farouk's. She shoves him one way as she goes the other, hitting the dirt on a shoulder and rolling with it. The feral - no, she realized as it changed shape, changed direction - the shapeshifter's legs twisted under it as it randomly chose a target and Wanda called a short, sharp warning out to the telepath.

The shapeshifter's head disintigrated in a welter of gore under the impact of a .50 caliber bullet, but the impetus of his lunge carried him far enough to still slam into Farouk and knock him off his feet.

Trotsky snorted and stood up. The Barrett was fun while it lasted, but, like life, ammo ended much too soon. He assessed the situation briefly and nodded in quiet satisfaction - the boss and his harem were disappearing into the house which housed the target, the mercenaries were disorganized and generally feeling increasingly surly about the whole business.

All in all, a good night's work...

He felt more than heard the presence behind himself and in a moment of inestimable eternity knew he would not turn in time. The universe narrowed to the soft sound behind him and he closed his eyes.

Unfair.

Trotsky felt the hotness of childishly disappointed tears pressing down behind his eyes. He was winning!

Unfair.

And he didn't want to die so very much...

Inside the house Farouk's head whipped around, the corpse of Rafiq forgotten as Esteban's mind flared through the bond, bitterness and fear, rage and resolution blending into one.

Amahl screamed suddenly, a keening, throat-rending sound as he felt his own hand moved to mirror Trotsky's desperate lunge toward the knife.

And then fire. All-encompassing, ever-burning, agony of the flame that blanketed the entire universe.

"Mijo..."

He didn't remember leaving the building, and the alarmed questions of his teams seemed distant and unimportant as did the bullets ricocheting of the walls around him as he strode into the street.

Even the perpetual wail of the Shadow King paled into insignificance as Farouk smiled into the night, his hair whipping in the wind like a dark halo. He smiled and the the lips of the pyrokinetic standing over Trotsky's body stretched, baring his teeth.

His eyes blazed with the faint glimmers of Hell, and the mercenary turned, twitching like a broken marionette, her mind scrabbling desperately to protect itself, her shields buckling like paper under Farouk's attack.

A bullet grazed his side, the sharp pain registering dully and Farouk raised his hand, the fingers bent into a hunting clawing talons, his eyes glinting with pure madness that made his genial tone all the more terrifying.

"Burn."

Rebekkah screeched, her body betraying her in the most intimate of ways, her gift turning in her hand like a snake.

She screamed, trying to drown out the terrible whisper in her mind and her teammates' screams echoed hers.

"Burn."

Wanda had moved to follow Farouk until a bullet had nearly taken her damned head off. Cursing, she spun back around on her heel even as she heard something explode loudly behind her. Farouk was an adult and she had to assume he could take care of himself - as it was, they were being closed in on and their precious time was running out. Shaking her head, Wanda took the stairs at a dead run, aware of Emma's presence but only barely.

Unlike the outside world, the chaos strings in the rooms she was aiming for were still and as content as something like that could be. They weren't frantically moving this way or that which meant, probably, that no one was in the room above them. Still, she kept an ear out for any warning from Emma and entered the nearest room expecting trouble.

She wasn't, however, expecting to have one of her feet slide right out from under her, forcing her into a sudden and untidy heap on the dirty floor. Startled, she reached out to push herself up and froze when she realized her fingers were pressing down into some thick, warmish liquid. It curled up and over her fingertips and coated the palms of her hands and it made a disturbing noise when she pulled her hands up. It didn't take her eyes much time to track up to see a body sprawled on the floor, sharp implements sticking out of the back of the neck.

"Oh, fuck," Wanda breathed, holding her hands away from her body as Rafiq's blood dripped down her fingers and back onto the floor.