Team Alpha - Dogs of War

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Team Alpha finds Agent Zero, a lost teammate, the bomb, and a Horseman. It's been a hell of a day.



Kyle had gotten very little sleep, and could only hope that his teammates had managed to get more, but taking overnight refuge in an abandoned building didn't seem like it would be somewhere anyone could sleep. The sun was just barely up, and the city was still dim, shadowed and grey, with the sky still full of ash and dust from the previous days. The chill from the night before hadn't lessened at all, and under Kyle's bare feet, the concrete sidewalk was downright cold.

Mouth half-full of high-protein organic energy bar, with the other half still in it's wrapper inside his jacket pocket, Kyle jogged back to the building's nearly blocked entrance. Just inside was the rest of his team, waiting. "Looks clear. I don't hear anything, and nothing's changed in the air. Smoke, ash, blood." He reported. "I'm kinda .. there shouldn't be that much blood. I shouldn't be smelling it like this. It's kinda worrying me."

Scott looked up from the tracker, his expression grim. "Okay. Well... we have to keep going. I think I've gotten a better read on just where the bomb is. We'll just... have to deal with whatever we run into." Oh, fantastic tactical plan, Summers. "Lead the way," he told Kyle. "The instant you smell anything or anything unusual, let me know."

Kyle nodded, swallowing the slight urge to say that he was already smelling things that were weird. He knew better, and now was not the time. Instead he turned and leaned against the overturned taxi, using the time it would take Cyclops and the others to get outside to try to center himself. He'd been on edge the day before, and the stress and lack of sleep made it so much worse and jumping at every little noise would not do them any good.

Zanne shivered a bit as she stepped outside. The brisk wind that had swept up during the night washed over her skin, stripping away the last vestiges of sleep. "Do we have a direction?" she asked, hiding from the cold behind Kyle.

"How about 'head straight towards the nearest Starbucks' for a direction?" Adrienne yawned, stretching out her arms over her head. She pulled the X-Men jacket more tightly around herself and followed Zanne's example of using Kyle as a windbreak.

"Let's stay focused," Scott said tiredly, peering at the tracker. After a moment, he pointed. "Thataway."

Only a few blocks further, signs of a prolonged struggle were evident. Bulletholes pockmarked brick walls, and anyone with a familiarity with violent conflict could deduce that someone had been injured and dragged to safety by the telltale lines of dried blood on the sidewalk leading to an abandoned Spanish-language video store.

The smell from inside, however, did very little to convince anyone that there were any survivors.

At a little less than a block away, Kyle had to struggle to keep from growling out the warning to Scott about the increased smell of blood in the air. Getting it out in a somewhat normal tone of voice that could be understood was not particularly easy. He stopped speaking after he could smell more than just blood, and began pointing - and once they came across the blood, went very quiet and barely moved except to keep walking.

As they approached the video store, he slowed and turned towards Cyclops. "Something's... wrong, I mean, not just the smells.." He shook his head, trying to explain more. "It's.. they're all dead, whoever's in there, and.. I've been smelling dead people the whole time, but not this many, not like this." He pointed towards some of the bulletholes in the walls. "Unless somebody opened up with a machine gun or something, no way that there should be this much blood for just guns."

He had no intention of it being more of a warning until the passed the storefront, and even from the other side of the street, Kyle could see the outline of a heavy military-style boot just inside the open entrance. "Cyclops? I think that might be our SHIELD guys..." He said. "Boot, just inside the door, not sure if it's too dark for anyone but me to see.."

He slowed even more to try to get a better look, and to try to sort out the mix of smells, and under the blood and death and smoke, almost washed out by it, Kyle caught scent of something different, and familiar and the growls he hadn't been making all morning came out all at once.

"Aw, HELL NO." He snarled, and forced himself to pull his claws back in - they'd slid out automatically the second he recognized just who he was smelling.

"Almost anyone, whelp."

The guttural voice came from inside the storefront, and from what looked like a pile of trash, a large man unfolded himself from concealment. As he moved, he kicked at what were obviously bodies of SHIELD agents, clad in dark blue fatigues - most of them looking like they'd been torn to shreds by a wild animal.

The speaker stepped out into the sunlight, dressed in similar fatigues with a white number "0" stenciled on the breast pocket and his face mostly concealed by a metallic half-mask that attached to a complicated-looking metal collar.

"X-Men," he said in a sarcastic tone. "Fucking great."

This, obviously, was their contact - Agent Zero. But no stranger.

Despite the once-shaggy mane of hair having been clipped down to a military-standard crew cut, and the tattered leather trenchcoat replaced with fatigues, the stance and aura of menace was a dead giveaway to Agent Zero's real identity.

His dark black eyes looked out at the four mutants, and squinted in what had to be a smile behind the mask/muzzle.

Before them stood Victor Creed.

Sabretooth.

"Fury," Scott said, in a voice that could only be described as preternaturally calm, "has a real sense of humor when it comes to need-to-know." He walked right over to the storefront - technically within Creed's reach, if the larger mutant should take it into his head to lunge - and eyed the carnage inside.

He turned back towards Creed, a tiny, dark part of him wishing the other man would make a move. At this range, a properly aimed optic blast could do a lot of damage, even to Sabretooth. "Why you?" he asked brusquely. He didn't need to ask what had gone wrong; it didn't really matter, in the end.

"Ever hear the term 'expendable'?" Creed snarled back. "After you and yours put a fucking harpoon through my chest, ol' Papa Fury and SHIELD got their turn. They knew I wasn't going to hand them Magneto, so they locked this fucking collar on me," he pointed to the device on his neck, "and gave Fury the switch. Should've killed that bastard in Cairo when I had the chance. Pound and a half of C-4 - pretty fucking effective motivator."

He turned his head to Kyle. "And you, whelp. Ain't you made something big outta yourself? Bet you're feeling ready for another round now, ain't you?"

"Oh -can- we, daddy?" Kyle snarled. "Oh, wait. I got the DNA tests, I don't gotta worry about that shit anymore." The claws stayed in, but only by absolute sheer willpower, and he was obviously struggling with it. "I want to fight you about as much as I want to have to regrow another two feet of my guts."

As fascinating as Zanne was finding this - Creed being more impressive in real life as opposed to description in the files, and yet still somehow disappointing - her patience was starting to wear thin. She was tired, cold, and as much as she hated to admit it, scared by both the city and the man in front of her. The baiting between Kyle and Sabretooth was only prolonging the experience. "As much as I hate to interrupt, we really should focus. The bomb?" She asked, retreating into a more formal posture.

Creed grunted and nodded towards an overturned truck. "In there. Fury told us to get it to the impact site. That was two days ago. Then this big bald fucker in red shows up, and the boys in blue with me start going crazy. Bad call on their part."

Scott turned away from the storefront and made eye contact with Zanne for a moment as he headed towards the truck. "If anyone makes an aggressive move," he said, not quite casually, "freeze them." He did mean either Creed or Kyle, and trusted Zanne to know that; it wasn't that he didn't trust Kyle, but Creed was a champion at goading him. "Time to see if the crash course Cable gave me in how to defuse a bomb actually stuck."

Creed reached a hand out to stop Scott - a startling move, given that the giant psychotic wasn't acting hostile, merely surly and barely cooperative. He sniffed at the air, then turned his head to the north. "We got company. Real weird-smelling company."

***




Laurie positioned her arm carefully around Zach's waist, being sure to take his weight without putting any pressure on his injured side. They should be sitting away in a quiet place till an ambulance arrived but it wasn't going to be like that, and she had to get him out of the city any way she could. Which meant moving him, even when it was something you were never meant to do without help.

"It's going to be okay, Dad. We'll find a way out, just stay with me, okay?" Laurie said, looking up at her father.

"We'll be fine," Zach repeated, looking up as father and daughter rounded a corner. They both stopped as they saw the five mutants standing out in front of the damaged video store.

"...holy shit," Zach coughed with a weak grin, wiping a bit of blood from his lips. "X-Men. I never thought I'd be glad to see you guys."

Laurie took in the sight, and her shoulders almost sagged with relief, would have if she hadn't been keeping her father up. "Don't talk Dad, it'll make things worse." she said before she turned to the X-men. "I'm really glad to see you guys, you have no idea. Now, could someone please give me some help here?"

It was perhaps a measure of just how well (or not) Scott's brain was functioning on stress and inadequate sleep that the first thing that came to mind was Great, something to keep Kyle away from Creed! Really, it was a pretty compelling idea. "Kyle, help Laurie," he said, and started for the truck again. "Zach, excuse my rudeness, but there's a nuclear bomb that needs defusing..."

The only sign that Kyle was unhappy about the situation was the glare he gave Laurie as he put his shoulder under Zach's other arm and started moving him over to the sidewalk. Otherwise he remained silent until they had him to the other side of the street, and were leaning against a wall to give Zach a moment to rest. Without giving any sort of warning to Laurie, and only a barely there apology to Zach, he moved away from them and went back to Scott. "Uh, we got company on the way..." he said quietly, just as Creed began to say something similar. "Lots of people, moving fast."

***




Hiding behind Scott, Adrienne crossed her arms over her chest defensively and swallowed nervously. What the hell was going on? Why was there an enormous, incredibly scary-looking man with a bomb on his neck having a conversation with her companions? And why were they stupid enough not to be running as fast as possible in the opposite direction? Why was shenot running, other than the obvious answer that she was frozen in terror behind Scott? And now Kyle informed them that there were morepeople coming?! "Let's hope they're on our side and they have very, very big guns?" she squeaked, making it more of a plea than anything else.

"CRY HAVOC!" a voice bellowed, and the red-armored form of War came bounding around the corner at the head of a ragged mob whose faces were all contorted in blind rage. Seeing the group of X-Men, the mob surged forward, raising baseball bats and other scavenged weapons and howling.

"Son of a-" The profanity was only half-voiced by the time Scott spun to face the onrushing threat. The situation had just gotten exponentially more complicated, he realized, and his gaze went briefly to his team, assessing. He locked eyes with Zanne, first of all. "Get to the bomb," he called, over the increasing noise of the crowd. "Take Adrienne. If she can't figure out how to defuse it, you should at least be able to stop it from going off."

***




"Son of a-" The profanity was only half-voiced by the time Scott spun to face the onrushing threat. The situation had just gotten exponentially more complicated, he realized, and his gaze went briefly to his team, assessing. He locked eyes with Zanne, first of all. "Get to the bomb," he called, over the increasing noise of the crowd. "Take Adrienne. If she can't figure out how to defuse it, you should at least be able to stop it from going off."

Zanne grabbed Adrienne by her arm and ran towards the van. "Can you see how they put the bomb together?" she asked, stumbling sideways as the first thunderclap rolled through the air.

"Can- can I wha?!" Adrienne sputtered, snapped out of the paralysing fear that had hit her when Scott had moved away from being her human shield. Zanne was touching her. Snapping back into focus, she yanked her arm away from the other woman's grip. "Yes, I can see how they put the bomb together," she muttered, following Zanne blindly. She hadn't even listened to where they were supposed to be going."But you can just freeze it, right? Your power is freezing things?"

"Time. I freeze and replay time." Putting the vehicle between them and the fight, Zanne sprinted towards the battered convenience store that Creed had pointed out, and kicked open the door with her foot. Time was the one thing they didn't seem to have much of. Glancing behind her to make sure Adrienne was following, she could see Kyle being flung into the air. "Hurry!"

"Freeze the damn time if you're so damned worried about hurrying," the psychometrist grumbled, though she increased her pace slightly to catch up with Zanne at the door. "Alright, where is the fucking thing now?" She screeched when a clap of thunder surprised her, causing her to jump.

"If I did that, I'd have to pick you up and carry you in. Which probably would be faster," Zanne sniped back, "except for the fact that running would be an improvement over that option. Creed said they put it in the freezer..." For a small shop, it had a number of doors, and a flight of stairs behind the register leading to the basement. Unsure which to choose, Zanne paused, trying to figure out the most likely location of the freezer.

Adrienne ripped off a glove and placed her hand on one of the tills. Since bringing in the bomb was rather recent history, she didn't have to endure much in the way of useless information. It wasn't even all that hard to rip her hand off the till and end the reading after she saw where the bomb had been taken. "Professor sure knows his circuit breakers," she muttered under her breath. She hadn't used her powers very much at all since the psychic breaker had been put in her head.

Jumping at another thunderclap, the psychometrist made a start through a door to her right and found the freezer. Hauling the lid up, a nervous sound bubbled up in her throat as she saw the cylindrical bomb firsthand. "Alright," she said, gritting her teeth. "Let's see what this fucker's made of." Her ungloved hand went tentatively onto the the surface of the bomb and she immediately saw the SHIELD team placing it into the freezer. Then a flash, and an extremely bright visual assault of the bomb exploding seared into her head.

"SHIT!" Recoiling, Adrienne found herself on her ass in front of the freezer. "Not good. Not good!" Lying back on the hard floor, she stared at the ceiling until the spots faded from her vision. "Okay..." she wasn't sure if she was speaking to Zanne or reassuring herself. "We weren't there when I saw it blow up. So either it blowing was just a possible precognition we've already invalidated by being here, or else we fail and get the hell out before it blows. But maybe we don't die?" That would be nice.

With a grimace she stood and touched the bomb again, this time attempting to force herself to read the timeline backwards instead of forwards. Back before it had been brought in, to where it was being manufactured. A removable panel. Inside, a mess of wiring, each wire being connected with utmost care. She watched for what felt like ages, struggling to take it all in, to remember every detail. Eventually, however, she pulled her hand away and took a deep breath. "Okay, so what are we doing here? You freezing time and snipping the wires I think will turn the thing off?" she asked Zanne nervously.

"I think so." It made the most sense to Zanne. If nothing else, she'd be able to use her powers to give Adrienne some time to try to get clear if something went wrong. Unrolling a small toolkit she'd been carrying, she selected a sharp looking pair of wire cutters and a screwdriver. "Ready?" she asked. "Stand back by the wall, so you don't get stuck in the freeze. I need you to be able to tell me what to do."

Giving Adrienne a moment to back away, Zanne set down a tight freeze around her and the bomb, barely big enough to contain them both. "Okay, what do I do first?"

The idea of being able to speak to someone while they were frozen in time confused Adrienne slightly, but she wasn't about to admit it. She closed her eyes to try and visualize the innards of the bomb as she'd seen it being constructed. "Colour-coded wires," she mumbled, "umm... it's hard to do this backwards," she admitted, cracking one eye open to look at Zanne and the bomb; "having to reverse it all in my head... try... the blue one... that's intertwined with the green one, but don't hit the green one that goes to the middle thing because I'm pretty sure that's radioactive," she added as an afterthought. "Please tell me you're not colourblind or something."

Zanne knelt beside the bomb on the concrete floor and pried off the access panel. Inside a digital timer surrounded by a tangle of colored wires read 2:49:11. "I really hope that's hours," Zanne muttered under her breath, reaching in to separate out the two entwined colors that Adrienne had described. The freeze made the wires move slowly, as if through a thick liquid, and it took her several moments to tease them apart enough to slip the wire snips between them and sever the wire. "Next?"

Feeling queasy, Adrienne stepped forward and placed her hand on the dull grey covering, forcing herself to push forward on the timeline once again. Another explosion, but this time she didn't shy away. Maybe it meant cutting the one wire wasn't enough? The psychometrist focused her efforts on moving backwards, back to the bomb's manufacturing. So many wires had been connected before it was functioning, the blue Zanne had just cut being only the last one that had gone in.

Tearing herself away, she stepped back once again. "Okay. So, do the yellow one next," she instructed, balling up her fists to keep her hands from shaking, "and then the red one, and the white one after that. I-I think that should do it, but there might be a circuit board to rip out after. I'm not sure." Why couldn't a real bomb be like the ones in the movies with one stupid fucking wire to cut?

Raising the freeze once again, Zanne cut the yellow, red, and white wires, and carefully began exploring the casing further, trying not to disturb the radioactive container. "I'm not seeing the circuit board. Are you sure we need to pull it?"

"For fuck's sakes, I don't know!" Adrienne replied, aggravated and terrified. "I'm not a fucking bomb engineer! Obviously you do, if the fucking thing's still ticking!" When the freeze dropped she shoved her hand on the bomb and replayed a bit of the manufacturing again. There was definitely a circuit board that had gone in. A small black wire connected the circuit board to the power source, and the power source had been installed above it. "Okay, yes," she answered Zanne more calmly. "I think the board's an important thing. It's underneath the power source. There's a black wire. Very short. Very close to the damn radioactive thingy. So don't blow us up. And if that's not it, there are still a gazillion more wires to try!" she cried out with faux enthusiasm, ending on a near-whimper.

Biting back the sharp retort that sprang to her lips, Zanne simply nodded and turned back to the bomb. Someone had to keep it together, even if she was just as terrified as Adrienne. Outside another series of thunderclaps rumbled alarmingly. "I wish I knew what was going out there. The longer we take in here, the longer they're...oh, FUCK."

The timer on the bomb read 00:00:47 and was dropping fast. Zanne threw up another freeze and halted the downward spiral with twenty two seconds left. "Let's hope this one's right," she said, reaching into the bomb. If they were wrong, they weren't going to have another shot at getting it right.

"Black, black, black..." the chanted words provided an outlet for the panic that was flowing through her body. Her finger snagged on a short, taut wire. "I think found it." Tracing along it's length and they scraped up against a oddly textured surface. She pulled her arm back and shone a flashlight where it had been. Sure enough, nestled in the back was a small, shining green and gold circuit board with a slender black wire trailing from it. "Come one out you little bastard," she whispered, slicing the wire connecting it to the power source and ripping the board from its moorings.

Zanne sat back on her heels and looked at the small piece of plastic dangling from her fingers. Please God, let her be right, she thought, sending up a small prayer for herself and everyone else around them. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she glanced back over her shoulder at Adrienne. "Ready?"

Adrienne gave Zanne her best 'you have got to be kidding me, right?' look. "I was recruited to sneak into a city being taken over by a madman, dumped in the river, had to sleep in some sort of abandoned hovel, met a steroid-induced wild animal-man-thing with a bomb around his neck, I have no idea if my students or the employees at my office are even alive, there's some sort of battle royale going on right outside us- complete with thunderclaps, and I've had to talk you through defusing a bomb. And now you're asking me if I'm ready?!" She crossed her arms over her chest. "Bring it the fuck on."

A wave of laughter swept over Zanne. Really, what could she say to that? Standing slowly, she stepped back from the bomb and out of the freeze. As she exited the perimeter, the freeze broke and on the bomb the clock blinked off. One...two...three... "Hooray?"

Her eyes had been squeezed shut, but upon hearing Zanne Adrienne opened them wide. "Hooray?" The clock was no longer ticking. "Hooray!" Before she could stop herself the psychometrist had let out a squeal and leapt forward to hug Zanne tightly. "No explosion! We're not dead! I did it! I did it! Uh... and you helped!" Realization that she was actually hugging someone suddenly dawned and she jumped back quickly. "Sorry," she muttered, clearing her throat. "Can we get out of here now?"

"Oh, hell yes." Zanne replied quickly, and headed back out to the fight.

***




Laurie had seen the onrush of people as she stood beside her father, keeping a hand on his shoulder in a reassuring gesture. Now, she moved away from him and toward the mob, stripping off her shirt as she went. Her skin had been violet coloured for days but it deepened now, taking on an oily sheen as she forced greater amounts of pheromone to her skin's surface. She'd have taken off her pants as well to give the air around her more but it would take too much time.

"Cyclops, protect yourself." Laurie called out, and then stood, arms outstretched and closed her eyes.

Scott heard her, but didn't respond; if she could do anything, it would be useful, but he wasn't about to rely on it, not given recent events. He kept as much of a distance as he dared, but he couldn't get too far away without losing his angles and he needed to do what he could to help hold them back while Adrienne and Zanne worked.

There were far too many of them, he realized after he'd knocked the first few down with individual optic blasts. Too many, and moving too fast. Picking them off one at a time wasn't going to work.

The mob kept coming, incited by whatever hold War had on them. These weren't mutants, these were just normal, scared humans that had been taken over by something insane.

Cowering behind a wall, Zach coughed up another mouthful of blood, carefully twisting the valve his daughter had stabbed into his ribs in a stunningly efficient display of field medicine. You've got a deflated lung, Dad, she'd said coolly after coming back to him in the street. You need a hospital, but we need to get you moving.

This is going to hurt, she'd told him. But she'd saved his life. His little girl was saving her deadbeat father's life.

He felt a pair of hands on his shoulders, and looked up into a stranger's face, twisted with rage. "KILL!" the madman shouted. Zach reacted the only way he knew how, by slamming his palm against his attacker's cheek and letting his power flow. The whites of his eyes went completely violet as he stared up at his would-be killer.

"Love me," he said. "Protect me."

They didn't get as close to Laurie, but the calmness that stole over those closest to her wouldn't last long if others kept piling up behind them. Those that were still violent and angry would attack those that weren't, breaking her hold on them. She opened her eyes, hoping that she'd practiced enough to still do this while moving.

She took one step forward, and then another, moving onward through the rush of the mob, dodging out of the way of touches or grabs as she tried to spread her power as widely as possible.

Under other circumstances, Scott would have approved of what Laurie and her father were trying to do. The members of the mob clearly weren't acting under their power, and if they were innocent, caught up in this... but there were just too many of them.

And innocent or not, they were all going to die if they stopped his team from disarming that bomb. Scott's jaw clenched and he bolted from his ad hoc sniper's post, eye locked on the overturned truck. Two of the 'zombies' tried to intercept him; Scott let them get in close enough to take them down hand-to-hand, and then was running again.

He hit the spot where he needed to be and spun, cutting loose with a wide-beam optic blast. It slammed into the overturned truck, the force of it sending the truck spinning through the air. The Horseman's followers didn't duck, didn't hesitate, and Scott blasted the truck again in mid-air, with the same sort of wide-beam blast. It smashed against the ground in the center of the mob, sliding lengthwise across the street for a good twenty feet and sending bodies flying.

Laurie could see what Scott was doing from her position amongst the mob, and she realised that she was going to have to do more then simply calming these people. Changing her focus, she began to concentrate on what she knew of fear, the physical responses and where they hit the endocrine system. All her hours of study had come down to this, and when she needed it most, her power rose , sending a rush of pheromones to her skin, and people scattered screaming in her wake.

Zach winced at the sounds, realizing full well what his daughter was doing. With the aid of a portion of the mob that his power had affected, he rose to his feet, bracing himself against an overturned car. Explosions from the fight down the street echoed around them, drowning out his words as he tried to call to her, to talk her down.

Perhaps she was too far gone in the madness. This entire place had gone mad, Zach decided.

Scott closed his ears to the screaming, wished he could do it literally. It was Laurie, doing whatever this was - had to be, he could see Zach trying to call out to her. What would it do to these people, being torn between the effects of her pheremones and what War had done to them?

Too many variables, suddenly. What if it kills them and what if they kill all of us and what happens after this, how does she live with this?, of all the stupid things to be thinking about right now...

Scott shook it off with sudden, brutal finality. He was who he was, and this wasn't the time or place to do anything but make a decision. Now. And pray that it was enough to cover all the angles.

If someone was going to take responsibility for what they had to do here, it wasn't going to be an eighteen year-old girl.

"Zach, stop her!" Scott roared in his best battlefield bellow, and cut loose, massive optic blast after optic blast smashing into the mob, each taking out half a dozen or more of War's followers at once. It wasn't meant to be lethal force, but he knew that it could be. Would be, for some of them.

It didn't matter. If he had to build a barricade of their bodies, he would.

A loud scream sounded from behind them, the terrified roar of a defeated enemy in pain -- and was just as soon silenced. And as if strings had been cut, the mob of mind-controlled civilians went limp and slumped to the ground.

Devoid of his support, Zach dropped to his knees, both arms clutching his chest.

"...laurie..." he gasped out weakly. "...sweetie, help me..."

Laurie heard her father, twisting around violently and jumping over the bodies of the fallen civilians. At another time, she would have moved among them, the rules of triage writ large in her minds eye. Not this time, not when her father needed her. Everything and everyone else could wait.

***





Creed flexed his massive hands, talons extending from his fingertips as a growl came from behind the muzzle. "Listen to me, whelp," he snarled at Kyle. "That giant motherfucker's got some way to drive people crazy. Turned my whole team on each other. We don't stop him, everyone here's dead. Time for fuckin' around's done - you with me?"

Kyle almost couldn't have told him no, even if he had wanted to. The hair on the back of his neck was on end, and his claws were out, fingers flexing almost exactly like Creed's were. "Yeah, I'm with you." He said unnecessarily - he and Creed were already on the move towards the mob, Wildchild only a half-pace behind Sabretooth.

The 'dogs of War' scattered at the ferals' charge, leaving the path open to their master. War brought his hands together and unleashed a concussive blast that furrowed the pavement in front of Kyle and Sabretooth. "Lapdogs! All of you!" he roared.

Sabretooth vaulted over the ripped pavement, ducking to the left to slash at War's thigh. His claws raked the armor and drew blood, but failed to take the Horseman down. He withstood a number of quick blows to the head from Apocalypse's general, continuing to press his attack before dropping to a knee.

Where Sabretooth had made himself a target for War, Wildchild had been slowed by one of the Dogs grabbing at his shoulder - by the time he had shoved the man away, he saw Sabretooth take an backhanded blow to the face and go down to one knee and knew exactly what he was being given the chance to do.

His weight only lightly touched on Sabretooth's leg as he used it as a step up to deliver a kick to War's face, and then a strike with both elbows as he came down out of the jump. The kick hit, the elbows were blocked with a wide arm sweep that threw Wildchild to the ground.

War stepped back out of arm's length as Sabretooth and Kyle got back to their feet. He brought his hands together in a series of slow, measured, ironic claps, each one punctuated by a small explosion, showering pavement and pieces of masonry around the street. "You have spirit, I can admire that," he told the pair. "But our cause is righteous, and you will NOT interfere!"

Creed bounced away, buffeted by the explosions and rolling across the pavement before coming up in a crouch. With a muffled roar, he charged, claws outstretched. War took up a defensive stance, one arm gesturing in invitation, the other pulled back to strike.

With pantherlike agility that belied his size, Sabretooth lunged - but instead of clawing for War's unprotected face, angled himself in a tackle for the big man's shoulder, turning War's back towards Kyle.

Kyle was back on his feet faster than Sabretooth had been, but he had been thrown further away, and it took him a moment longer to return to the fight. With War's back being left open right in front of him, it was an easy target. The armor protected all the man's vital organs, a kidney shot wasn't an option. But Kyle knew he didn't have the sheer mass or strength to take this opponent down by hitting him.

He came at War on all fours, and sprung up onto his back, digging both knees into the man's spine, and hooking one arm around his neck, and dug his claws into War's face with the other.

War grunted and reached back behind his head to get a grip on Kyle's uniform. With Sabretooth hanging off one arm, he was only able to get one hand on Kyle, and so rather than flinging him the length of the block, Kyle was only thrown up against a miraculously intact parked car. As the young feral was ripped free, his claws tore away a piece of War's cheek, and blood dribbled down onto his armor. He pivoted and planted a boot in Creed's midsection, pulling his arm free. He reached up and touched the scratch on his cheek. "First blood to you," he declared. "But the last will be to me."

Creed rolled back and onto his feet, then paused as the beeping of the collar around his neck began to increase in pitch. "Ah, shit..." he could be heard mumbling behind the muzzle. His dark eyes turned to focus on Kyle, an oddly frightening lucidity in them, a direct contrast to his former manic gaze.

"We gotta take him down, and we gotta take him down now. Get rid of any bullshit they told you about holding back," he growled at the younger feral. "On three... Kyle."

Kyle was still shaking off the effects of being thrown into the car, and literally shook himself, tiny cubes of safety glass scattering in all directions. "You blow me up, I am gonna be SO pissed.." He muttered. Like he didn't hear the beeping and couldn't figure out what it meant. He remained crouched on all fours on the dented hood of the car, waiting. Whatever Sabretooth was up to, it wasn't like he had a better plan. Or a plan at all.

"THREE!"

Simultaneously, the two ferals charged, attacking in an eerily instinctive coordinated movement that War couldn't possibly defend against in time--

--unless the Horseman stood his ground and slammed his fists together with earth-shaking force. The blast was less of an explosion and more of a focused wave. The world blurred as pavement was vaporized in its wake.

Suddenly, at the last possible moment, Sabretooth threw himself to the side, shielding Kyle from the worst of the blast as the two ferals were catapulted through the air, landing in a heap on the smoking, partially-melted asphalt.

Creed coughed, his dark eyes blinking and seeming to fade to a lighter yellow. One shaking hand moved to his chest, now a mass of charred and shredded muscle, subcutaneous fat and bone showing through the edges of the cauterized wound.

One hand reached out and weakly grabbed Kyle's wrist. "Bought you time... whelp. 'fore he recovers... end this fucker."

Kyle pulled his arm away from Sabretooth, and without a word, turned and ran back towards War, leaving bloody footprints as the still hot asphalt burned the soles of his feet. Apocalypse's general was still upright, but dazed, and stumbling, and it was all too easy for Kyle to tackle him at the knees and bring him down to the ground. The fall rattled Kyle's jaw, and he bit his tongue, and got to his hands and knees spitting blood.

Before he could get to his feet, a massive hand wrapped around his ankle, and pulled him back down. War got to one knee, dragging Kyle across the pavement as he did, and then lifted him off the ground and threw him back down, over and over until Kyle lay limply on the ground. He stood and pulled the feral until he was hanging upside down at arm's length from where he still held Kyle's ankle. "You are not Strong, boy," he intoned.

"Fuck -that-" Kyle's eyes snapped open and he glared up at War. He arched his back and hips and kicked with his free leg, raking the claws on his foot across War's eyes, and then twisted his trapped leg at the same time as he hooked the free one around War's neck. The twist and pull broke the grip on his ankle, allowing Kyle to pull himself up onto War's shoulders, legs still wrapped around his neck in a crude chokehold. "Whatda think goes first, my healing factor, or your air?", he growled.

War raised his hands over his head and brought them towards each other, intending to detonate his power directly on top of himself and knock Kyle off of him. Before his hands met, Kyle trapped one forearm with both of his, and pulled back hard, using his own weight to pull the arm past it's normal rotation. War struggled to pull his arm away, or to bring his hands together, but Kyle had leverage and kept pulling, until his opponent dropped to his knees and bellowed in pain - and in rage.

"End this fucker." It would be easy, Kyle realized to just tear open War's throat, and let him bleed out right there. There was nothing stopping him.

"End this fucker." He had War helpless, unable to use his power and in pain and unmoving and he could end it, and ...

"Get rid of any bullshit they told you about holding back," and he would not. There was no reason to. He had War helpless, and unable to use his power and in pain and unmoving, and he needed to end this. Kyle let his entire weight fall back on the trapped arm until he had to pull against the tendons and muscles and the joint itself and it cracked with a sick wet pop, and War howled as his arm flopped weakly, pulled out of the socket and useless.

War dropped to his knees, screaming in pain. His arm wouldn't work. His arm wouldn't fucking WORK.

Major Abraham Kieros huddled down inside one of the few buildings still standing relatively intact in downtown Mogadishu as bullets wheeted past outside. The firefight had gone to hell fast. Somewhere the band of thugs they were trying to flush out and take down had gotten their hands on some decent hardware. He looked over to where his radio operator crouched unmoving against a wall. He whistled, trying to get the kid's attention. When that didn't work, he brought his hands together sharply, hoping the clap would snap the kid out of his shell shock.

And the entire ceiling fell in on him with a roar. He screamed in pain and tried to reach for his sidearm. But his arm wouldn't obey his commands. His head flopped weakly as he tried to move his body. Any part of his body. But nothing would respond.

War, the general of Apocalypse, one of the Strong, merely screamed, caught up in the panic of his flashback.

Kyle slid off War's back, and landed lightly on the ground, wincing at the pain he finally was feeling in his feet and in the dozens of cuts and bruises. War still screamed, and Kyle lashed out with one perfectly placed kick to the temple, knocking the man out cold. He took a moment to see that War was stlll breathing and then looked over his shoulder at where Sabretooth had collapsed to see... nothing except the black marks on the ground from the explosion, a lot of blood, and a discarded muzzle and collar.

"FUCK."