Operation Godhand - Team Krakow
Mar. 14th, 2009 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsThe assault on Rumlow's compound begins.
The compound was everything you'd expect a paramilitary unit to have. It crouched at the end of the access road from the highway, uphill, perched against a steep cliff that ran straight down to the small lake. While the surrounding area was dense with thickets of pine, much of the area surrounding the complex had been cleared, to provide clear views of anyone approaching.
The compound itself was surrounded with a high fence, and beyond it, dominated by a large three-story structure, big enough to have once been a manor home of some type, but now remodeled into a more professional looking structure. Clustered around it where some smaller buildings, likely housing for some of the men, and storage buildings for weapons and equipment. A helipad was set off to one side, with a new looking black Bell style light transport sitting idle on it.
It was easy to tell this was operated by people who knew what they were doing. There weren't the clusters of guards ostensively showing off their weapons at the access points. Instead, camera based security dotted the parameter, and roving squads of lightly armed men made circuits of the area. Obviously, Rumlow's skills extended into intelligent planning, and the security shell company that owned the place on paper looked entirely legitimate to the outsider's view.
"I've been watching too many movies, I was kind of hoping for the Bavarian-type castle," Amanda murmured as the small group paused, taking in the lie of the land. "Too bad 'Yana went to Istanbul - we could have done with a quick 'port in and out with this one."
"The day we have to storm a castle is the day I double check to see how well my 401k is doing," Wanda responded as she peered through a small set of binoculars. "I wish we had more time to study this layout; I hate the idea of going in half-blind."
"Best case scenario is we can still blind them," Mark suggested, and took the binoculars from Wanda for himself. "If we can find just one power line or generator or something, then I'm sure I can shut off the power. And Wanda can make sure it stays off for a while, yeah? It's the only cover we can get."
Wanda drummed her fingers on her knees. "Get Sarah in to distract them, get us close enough to some central nerve so we can keep hitting the power. But we need to start moving soon - goddamn it, I hate working on a time line."
Doug reached to the shoulder holster under his jacket and swallowed heavily. He really wished Emma would have gone in and locked some things back away, but he was beginning to understand why she didn't. Your average person didn't get a 'get out of jail free' card from their fears, and had to overcome them the normal way. Still, adrenaline already left a bitter taste in his mouth. "Let's get moving," he said shortly.
Sarah balled her hands up into fists, letting the skin stretch and split around the bone growth below. "Right then. I'm going in." With a nod, she separated from the group, moving along the tree-line, in the hopes that the cameras would miss her until it was too late. Yeah. That would be the day.
Providing distraction for Sarah, the bulk of the team runs into opposition, but manage quite nicely.
"'I wanna hold them like they do in Texas plays,'" Mark sang softly, his right hand briefly lighting up with a zap of lightning that short-circuited the gate-mounted camera closest to them. "'Fold em' let em' hit me raise it baby stay with me.'" Another camera a few yards away was snuffed out, too. "'Luck and intuition play the cards with spades to start.'" Then a third went out, sparking and smoking for a few seconds before going dead. Mark smirked. "'And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart.'"
By his side, keeping an eye out for guards, Amanda grinned. "You always give me powers-envy," she murmured. "Now, if I was a central electricity thingie, where would I be...?"
"Hm." Doug looked around at the row of cameras, trying to extrapolate from their placement where they might draw power from. He superimposed the surveillance photos they'd used in planning, and pointed off to the right. "I think I remember a building over there that's a likely suspect."
The loss of cameras set off the alert in the compound, and already, units were on the move to defensive points in the parameter. The advanced units that had run into Sarah had failed to get the alarm off, but their silence coupled with the loss of the cameras had switched things to high alert.
Brock Rumlow stood at the security central controls in the main building, watching the action begin to unfold on the active screens. He'd already dismissed the idea that it was government or law enforcement troops on the way. He hadn't done anything illegal that they could pin on him, and thanks to his former patron, Strucker, he had inherited some powerful political protection across Europe. No, this was a private attack, and a small one. No air or armored support, which would be suicide unless they had other less obvious support; mutants.
Across the communications network, the order went out. "Engage the enemy."
Wanda would have missed the movements had she not been studying the chaos lines that streaked out from the compound. When a number of new ones suddenly flared out on her senses, her head snapped up. Movement could be seen coming from the compound but also from…
“Company!” she barked and lunged, slamming into Mark as someone opened fire on their position. She rolled the two of them out of the way, knowing a few bullets flown through the air in their exact position.
Only months upon months of training with Wanda stopped Mark from breaking a leg when they fell. His headphones fell from their place around his neck, and he made a desperate grab for them with one hand while the other sparked. He flung it out and discharged. He didn't need to hear the attacker's grunts to know he'd struck true.
On the other side of Mark and Wanda, a similar scenario was being enacted as Amanda threw up a shield between the guards and Doug and herself. With a grunt and a thrusting out of her hands, she shoved the figures coming out of the dark backwards with the faintly glowing wall. "Looks like it's big boom time!" she called over her shoulder to the others.
The 'fog of war' was actually helping with Doug's mild anxiety, and his pistol was out and in his hand smoothly without a conscious thought. Still, he held it low and at the ready, since he was behind Amanda's shield. It wasn't one-way, which meant that firing a gun from behind it was about as ill-advised as firing into it. He stood between Amanda and the shield, leaving her enough room to see around him, but staying close enough to shield her himself if anything should happen to her gleaming barrier.
Clapping Mark on the shoulder, Wanda rolled off of him; she still kept low to the ground, tucking her hands under her chest as she moved so that when her powers flared back on, the red was less visible. "Mark! There is a weak spot! Left and up; hit it on the count of three." Wrenching strings and moving variables, making that weak spot even more vulnerable for one solid hit. She muttered under her breath and then, "3!"
Mark made a run for the generator and rolled behind it, using it as a shield between himself and the guards. "This is a very precise operation," he said to himself, his voice scratchy as if he was speaking through a speaker with poor reception, and laid his hands on the structure. "No room for error, gotta be careful." On Wanda's command, he fed power to the generator. The lights in the compound dimmed, then lit up almost blindingly, and then died.
There was a pause of darkness between the loss of power, and the backup generators kicking back in. What no one had expected, save Wanda of course, was that the sudden loss and then return of power would cause a hitch in the active fuel pumping system, where an already worn transfer rod would jam slightly as the power returned and bend just enough to touch the impellor on the pump, creating sparks in the induction chamber.
The darkness was split by fire as the fuel reserves to the west of the compound went up in a huge conflagration. Burning fuel splashed across barracks and vehicles, turning the orderly grounds into a raging pyre. The guards who were not directly engaged found themselves forced to pull back from their defensive positions or be consumed by flame, leaving the way to the main building open and inviting.
"You've got to admit, we're damn good at this," Amanda grinned. "Sarah should have cleared up things inside a bit - time to go join her." And with that she concentrated, bending the shield around all of them as a protective wall that would cover them as they sprinted for the main door.
Our heroes make it to the command centre, and things start to go extremely pear-shaped.
"Herr Rumlow, if we are retreating then you're coming with us."
"I don't like being questioned, Herzog." Brock Rumlow said quietly. He was not a big man, average height and slim, although every ounce was lean muscle. His dark eyes were always cold, always calculating, and in the years working with him, had never shown pity.
"The files, the database--"
"All of it is backed up electronically. I'm not entirely sure who our opposition is, but they've only dealt a blow to the most visible part of our organization. If they capture you, that will not be the case." Rumlow disliked his choice, but his tactical position was severely compromised, he lacked substantive intelligence on the enemy and their capabilities, and wasn't ready to risk everything he'd built gambling that he could win. "I need to evaluate these attackers more closely. Gustaw and Thomasz will be more than enough support. Now please leave. I have guests to prepare for."
As he left, Rumlow opened his desk drawer and drew out his automatic pistol. It was a Glock 22, with an extended clip, and in a rare moment of self-indulgence, Brock had the grip designed to incorporate the Totenkopf, a skull and two crossed bones, as adopted by the Nazi SS. Rumlow was aware that symbols were important. His two men kept their HK submachine guns, and watched the monitors as the attackers entered the building, and made their way to the command centre.
With Amanda providing the defense, Mark set his music to take the offense. His purple-glowing fists helped lead the way down the darkened corridor. "I was hoping this wouldn't end up so loud and fiery," he muttered.
"If wishes were horses..." Amanda replied, sounding a little strained - this far away from a major centre, she was finding her reserves were being tapped faster than usual. "Still, looks like we've caught them on the hop. Let's keep them that way, yeah?" The corridor opened out into a large room, filled with computer equipment, filing cabinets and laden bookshelves and she stopped, to avoid an ambush. "Ooh, shiny."
"Oooh," Doug said as he holstered his pistol. "That sounds like my tune." He slid up to one of the terminals closest to the corridor, keeping his head down below the top of the monitor in case another firefight broke out. "Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me..." he muttered under his breath.
As Doug continued to mess around with the computers, hopefully finding any sort of useful information, Wanda kept watch. "I do not like this," she said quietly. "It seems as if the place has been evacuated after our arrival but..." She shrugged. "I trust none that worked with Strucker, we have already had our share of surprise attacks through his men."
"As long as that bee-Nazi isn't around, I'm happy." Amanda dropped the shield as people started to spread out. "These papers are pretty old and pretty valuable, so he wouldn't have them just lying around. I hope they haven't scarpered with them."
"You know, the second we turn our heads, they're gonna attack us. What? That's the way it always happens." Mark opened a file cabinet not far from the doorway so he could still see out. "If I were the key to a miniature nuclear weapon, where would I file myself?"
"Under 'I', for 'I have such a small penis I need nuclear weapons to make me feel virile." Sarah said as she appeared in the other doorway as if it was just an ordinary day. She nodded to Wanda and moved to examine one of the bookshelves, but doubted what they were looking for would be in such an obvious spot as the bookshelf. "Or 'T', for 'This is what you're looking for'."
As if on cue, there was a clatter outside the open door, and two grenades bounced inside. Both immediately started hissing gas into the air; a standard pepper gas bomb loved by police and anti-riot forces around the world. In seconds, the room would be filled with the caustic stinging gas, rending them blind to their surroundings.
Using her powers blind was a recipe for disaster; instead, Wanda tried not to breath too much gas in and hunched over, trying to stay low. The grenades had been tossed in through the door they had entered so she turned and dove out the door behind them. They had wanted to get to the information first before potentially exploring beyond but right now, they didn't have much of a choice.
As she got to her feet, the butt of the pistol crashed into her nose, breaking it. Immediately, both eyes began to water uncontrollably as her face started to swell from the assault. A boot slammed into her stomach, and she was body-blocked against the wall, even as the other members of X-Force hurried through the door and into a large room that was half office and half observation post. Wanda was cruelly tugged around by her hair, and an arm like an iron bar locked across her throat, pushing her between her people and her still unseen attacker.
Mark blasted blindly in front of him, hard enough to clear his way but not to harm. He had to get out of the gas before he could do anything else. Even when he cleared it, though, he couldn't see through his tears to change the music to something better suited to the situation. He cursed and fired again at the figure approaching him.
Rumlow shifted his grip on the taller Wanda, angling her away from his gun hand and took careful aim. His time watching them on his monitors had not been wasted. He did not know the specifics of their powers, but he had made some intelligent deductions on how they used them, and now the man was using those things against them.
His shot ricocheted off Mark's wrist, and the iPhone fell from the young man's now broken and useless hand.
Amanda had been right on Mark's heels, staggering through the door coughing and her eyes streaming tears from the gas. Instinct more than planning had her shielding again at the sound of the gunshot, throwing up a wall between Mark and the rest of the room.
The other two gunmen opened up on the figures in front, watching their bullets flatten against the mystical barrier. The wall stopped the bullets, but the pepper gas was starting to build behind it, and curl over the top. Rumlow saw it, and backed an order to Thomasz, who unhooked an incendiary grenade from his belt, and lobbed it up in a gentle arc over the top of the wall, to see it land behind the members of X-Force. All three men smiled hugely.
"Fuck!" The tell-tale sound of something metallic bouncing behind her prompted the witch to do something she hadn't really done often - she yanked the shield back in and flipped it over her head, to provide cover between herself and Mark and the device. "Cypher, Marrow, get down!" she screamed back into the other room, unsure of where her other teammates were. There was a loud boom and an impossibly bright flare, ignited phosphorus licking against her shield and she squinted, well and truly blinded by the combination of pepper gas and bright light.
The butt of the submachine gun hit her precisely in the back of the head, and folded her up like cheap laundry. Rumlow had one invader, another was out cold and a third was dripping blood from his wrist injury. The only reason Amanda hadn't been shot was that they believed that they were going to win, and they wanted prisoners to find out whether they were just the first wave.
Brock Rumlow brought the gun around to rest the barrel against Wanda's ear. "I don't think we need them all." He said to his men.
Everything was so fucking red - Wanda's mind spun from the pain radiating out from her face, salty blood seeping into her mouth when she gasped painfully. The barrel of the gun bit painfully into her skin and she couldn't fucking see. Too disoriented to use her power, afraid that one wrong move would bring the house around her ears, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to act or she was dead.
She was more than just the sum of her powers.
Her legs had been splayed awkwardly in front of her because of the height difference; Wanda now used it to her advantage, shifting her weight forwards and then down, yanking on the arm around her neck. How tightly he had been holding her played in her favor as she curled her back as she dropped, effectively flipping him up and over her head. She felt more than heard the gun go off, smelled burning hair as it missed her scalp by inches and then she could breath once more.
The size of the record room helped disperse the pepper gas slightly, and Doug grabbed a large volume and hurled it through a nearby window to help it along before ripping a strip of cloth off of his shirt and tying it over his lower face. At Amanda's warning, he dove for cover behind one of the computer terminals and put his arms over his head.
After the detonation, he struggled to his feet and shook his head. He caught Sarah's eye and dove through the door first, rolling to his knees with his Glock in hand. He took in the three men with a glance. The one Wanda had shaken off was the most immediate threat, but Wanda was too close. Instead, he tracked left and squeezed a pair of shots at one of the other men before continuing out of the doorway to clear Sarah's way.
Sarah slipped through the doorway right behind Doug, bone club swinging at the man closest to her. It hit the gun forcefully, but didn't dislodge his grip. He pushed her aside as he removed himself from the gunshots behind them, sending her into the office chair behind her.
The shots might have missed but it forced Thomasz to move away from Rumlow, away from Lasley. He might have lost some ground but he ducked his head and kept moving, noting that at least one of those mutants was armed, his own gun out and pointed at Amanda. They really didn't need them all especially since more of them seemed to be coming.
Mark had fallen and crawled behind a nearby desk upon being shot, and hastily pulled off his bandanna to wrap around his hand. He peeked his head out and spotted Esther, but there was no way he could reach it without getting shot and he doubted he'd be lucky again. Retreating back under the desk, he desperately wracked his brain for a plan. His head brushed against the bottom side of the desktop, but something didn't feel right. He raised his non-broken hand and felt something misshapen, like a thin panel had been placed over the desk proper. It was a simple matter to wrench it off, and he was rewarded by a thin sheaf of old papers.
Ignoring everyone else, Thomasz prepared to fire a bullet into the head of the blond that was weakly stirring on the ground. “Fuck th-” His words changed to a grunt as Wanda’s shoulder slammed into his ribs, his shot going wide as they both went down and he lost his grip on his weapon as he tried to brace his fall.
Wanda’s added weight meant that he went down hard; she could barely see and gore was still pouring down her chin but it didn’t stop her from gripping his hair in one hand and slamming his head against the ground. He was dazed but not out, struggling as she shoved herself up and straddled him. The pressure on his head disappeared but she hadn’t gotten up – the reason showed itself as her hand found the gun on the floor.
One attempt at bucking her off failed before the butt of the gun slammed into his temple and then once more for good measure.
Doug continued to mentally catalog the situation, his brain whirring and assessing. Amanda, unconscious but no longer in immediate danger. Wanda, free of the grapple and taking care of Flunky Number One. Mark, under cover behind the desk. Sarah, putting down Flunky Number Two. That just left Rumlow, still standing in the middle of the situation that had turned to X-Force's favor in a matter of seconds. He spotted the pistol in Rumlow's hand, still at his side. "Drop it!" he barked in Polish, his own Glock trained center mass on the man.
"Get someone to teach you how to use that weapon, boy." Rumlow said in English, his pistol firmly in his grip. He held up his other hand, and there was a metallic 'ping' as the pin on the incindiary bounced off the floor. Only his grip kept the grenade from going off, and where he was in the room, he'd certainly kill half of them if he dropped it.
Rumlow tucked his gun into the holster at the small of his back, the hand with the explosive extended. He walked backwards towards the corner, and hefted an ASP from the table, clicking it out to full length. With a single blow, he cracked the glass, and tossed the baton to the floor. "This is all very far from over. I will find out who you are, and I will make you pay for this." With a smile, he lobbed the grenade underarm, right at Doug, forcing the man to either shoot or deal with the grenade. Without hesitation, he plunged shoulder first into the window, shattering the weakened glass, and plummeting out of sight.
Doug squeezed off one instinctive shot, but his pistol was practically already dropping from his fingers. His brain supplied the count of seconds since Rumlow had released the grenade. One one thousand, two one thousand... He snagged the tiny spheroid from midair, and, like a shortstop barehanding a grounder to try and turn a double play, he whipped his arm forward to hurl it out the broken window. He turned, throwing his body over Amanda's unconscious one and covering the back of his neck as an explosion and wash of heat shattered what remained of the window and scattered glass fragments over them all.
"Ow," Wanda muttered, dropping the bloodied gun from her hand; she uncurled, her body having naturally tried to shield itself at the explosion. "Papers?" She cupped her face tenderly, knowing it wouldn't really help but she couldn't help the reflex anyway. Now she just had to get off the unconscious soldier and get back on her feet...
"Is it safe to come out now?" Mark asked, though it came out rather whimpery. He peaked his head out again and, seeing that two of the three attackers were down and the other one gone, breathed a sigh of relief and got out from under the desk. "Found 'em. Let's go. Now. I need a doctor." He grimaced at the white bandanna that was now mostly red. "God dammit. I really liked this one."
From underneath Doug there was a groan and a kind of feeble twitch. As he moved off her, Amanda's swollen eeys fluttered open, then closed again. "Pete?" she mumbled thickly. One hand moved clumsily to feel the back of her head, prompting another groan and a whimper. "Ow."
Sarah pushed herself off of the floor, climbing up to peek her head out of the window to take a quick glimpse of the outside. There didn't seem to be any way he could have survived the landing-- nothing was there to break his fall but the rocks below. She pushed herself further out the window and spit bloody saliva down onto what was surely Rumlow's corpse, somewhere down there. She turned to her teammates. "Son of a bitch would have to be me to take that fall and survive it."
The words Wanda was muttering were mostly unintelligible, slurred and nasally from the broken nose. What they could make out, however, was a sentiment probably shared by all.
“Ow.”
“Fuck.”
And the ever popular “Leaving now.”
The compound was everything you'd expect a paramilitary unit to have. It crouched at the end of the access road from the highway, uphill, perched against a steep cliff that ran straight down to the small lake. While the surrounding area was dense with thickets of pine, much of the area surrounding the complex had been cleared, to provide clear views of anyone approaching.
The compound itself was surrounded with a high fence, and beyond it, dominated by a large three-story structure, big enough to have once been a manor home of some type, but now remodeled into a more professional looking structure. Clustered around it where some smaller buildings, likely housing for some of the men, and storage buildings for weapons and equipment. A helipad was set off to one side, with a new looking black Bell style light transport sitting idle on it.
It was easy to tell this was operated by people who knew what they were doing. There weren't the clusters of guards ostensively showing off their weapons at the access points. Instead, camera based security dotted the parameter, and roving squads of lightly armed men made circuits of the area. Obviously, Rumlow's skills extended into intelligent planning, and the security shell company that owned the place on paper looked entirely legitimate to the outsider's view.
"I've been watching too many movies, I was kind of hoping for the Bavarian-type castle," Amanda murmured as the small group paused, taking in the lie of the land. "Too bad 'Yana went to Istanbul - we could have done with a quick 'port in and out with this one."
"The day we have to storm a castle is the day I double check to see how well my 401k is doing," Wanda responded as she peered through a small set of binoculars. "I wish we had more time to study this layout; I hate the idea of going in half-blind."
"Best case scenario is we can still blind them," Mark suggested, and took the binoculars from Wanda for himself. "If we can find just one power line or generator or something, then I'm sure I can shut off the power. And Wanda can make sure it stays off for a while, yeah? It's the only cover we can get."
Wanda drummed her fingers on her knees. "Get Sarah in to distract them, get us close enough to some central nerve so we can keep hitting the power. But we need to start moving soon - goddamn it, I hate working on a time line."
Doug reached to the shoulder holster under his jacket and swallowed heavily. He really wished Emma would have gone in and locked some things back away, but he was beginning to understand why she didn't. Your average person didn't get a 'get out of jail free' card from their fears, and had to overcome them the normal way. Still, adrenaline already left a bitter taste in his mouth. "Let's get moving," he said shortly.
Sarah balled her hands up into fists, letting the skin stretch and split around the bone growth below. "Right then. I'm going in." With a nod, she separated from the group, moving along the tree-line, in the hopes that the cameras would miss her until it was too late. Yeah. That would be the day.
Providing distraction for Sarah, the bulk of the team runs into opposition, but manage quite nicely.
"'I wanna hold them like they do in Texas plays,'" Mark sang softly, his right hand briefly lighting up with a zap of lightning that short-circuited the gate-mounted camera closest to them. "'Fold em' let em' hit me raise it baby stay with me.'" Another camera a few yards away was snuffed out, too. "'Luck and intuition play the cards with spades to start.'" Then a third went out, sparking and smoking for a few seconds before going dead. Mark smirked. "'And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart.'"
By his side, keeping an eye out for guards, Amanda grinned. "You always give me powers-envy," she murmured. "Now, if I was a central electricity thingie, where would I be...?"
"Hm." Doug looked around at the row of cameras, trying to extrapolate from their placement where they might draw power from. He superimposed the surveillance photos they'd used in planning, and pointed off to the right. "I think I remember a building over there that's a likely suspect."
The loss of cameras set off the alert in the compound, and already, units were on the move to defensive points in the parameter. The advanced units that had run into Sarah had failed to get the alarm off, but their silence coupled with the loss of the cameras had switched things to high alert.
Brock Rumlow stood at the security central controls in the main building, watching the action begin to unfold on the active screens. He'd already dismissed the idea that it was government or law enforcement troops on the way. He hadn't done anything illegal that they could pin on him, and thanks to his former patron, Strucker, he had inherited some powerful political protection across Europe. No, this was a private attack, and a small one. No air or armored support, which would be suicide unless they had other less obvious support; mutants.
Across the communications network, the order went out. "Engage the enemy."
Wanda would have missed the movements had she not been studying the chaos lines that streaked out from the compound. When a number of new ones suddenly flared out on her senses, her head snapped up. Movement could be seen coming from the compound but also from…
“Company!” she barked and lunged, slamming into Mark as someone opened fire on their position. She rolled the two of them out of the way, knowing a few bullets flown through the air in their exact position.
Only months upon months of training with Wanda stopped Mark from breaking a leg when they fell. His headphones fell from their place around his neck, and he made a desperate grab for them with one hand while the other sparked. He flung it out and discharged. He didn't need to hear the attacker's grunts to know he'd struck true.
On the other side of Mark and Wanda, a similar scenario was being enacted as Amanda threw up a shield between the guards and Doug and herself. With a grunt and a thrusting out of her hands, she shoved the figures coming out of the dark backwards with the faintly glowing wall. "Looks like it's big boom time!" she called over her shoulder to the others.
The 'fog of war' was actually helping with Doug's mild anxiety, and his pistol was out and in his hand smoothly without a conscious thought. Still, he held it low and at the ready, since he was behind Amanda's shield. It wasn't one-way, which meant that firing a gun from behind it was about as ill-advised as firing into it. He stood between Amanda and the shield, leaving her enough room to see around him, but staying close enough to shield her himself if anything should happen to her gleaming barrier.
Clapping Mark on the shoulder, Wanda rolled off of him; she still kept low to the ground, tucking her hands under her chest as she moved so that when her powers flared back on, the red was less visible. "Mark! There is a weak spot! Left and up; hit it on the count of three." Wrenching strings and moving variables, making that weak spot even more vulnerable for one solid hit. She muttered under her breath and then, "3!"
Mark made a run for the generator and rolled behind it, using it as a shield between himself and the guards. "This is a very precise operation," he said to himself, his voice scratchy as if he was speaking through a speaker with poor reception, and laid his hands on the structure. "No room for error, gotta be careful." On Wanda's command, he fed power to the generator. The lights in the compound dimmed, then lit up almost blindingly, and then died.
There was a pause of darkness between the loss of power, and the backup generators kicking back in. What no one had expected, save Wanda of course, was that the sudden loss and then return of power would cause a hitch in the active fuel pumping system, where an already worn transfer rod would jam slightly as the power returned and bend just enough to touch the impellor on the pump, creating sparks in the induction chamber.
The darkness was split by fire as the fuel reserves to the west of the compound went up in a huge conflagration. Burning fuel splashed across barracks and vehicles, turning the orderly grounds into a raging pyre. The guards who were not directly engaged found themselves forced to pull back from their defensive positions or be consumed by flame, leaving the way to the main building open and inviting.
"You've got to admit, we're damn good at this," Amanda grinned. "Sarah should have cleared up things inside a bit - time to go join her." And with that she concentrated, bending the shield around all of them as a protective wall that would cover them as they sprinted for the main door.
Our heroes make it to the command centre, and things start to go extremely pear-shaped.
"Herr Rumlow, if we are retreating then you're coming with us."
"I don't like being questioned, Herzog." Brock Rumlow said quietly. He was not a big man, average height and slim, although every ounce was lean muscle. His dark eyes were always cold, always calculating, and in the years working with him, had never shown pity.
"The files, the database--"
"All of it is backed up electronically. I'm not entirely sure who our opposition is, but they've only dealt a blow to the most visible part of our organization. If they capture you, that will not be the case." Rumlow disliked his choice, but his tactical position was severely compromised, he lacked substantive intelligence on the enemy and their capabilities, and wasn't ready to risk everything he'd built gambling that he could win. "I need to evaluate these attackers more closely. Gustaw and Thomasz will be more than enough support. Now please leave. I have guests to prepare for."
As he left, Rumlow opened his desk drawer and drew out his automatic pistol. It was a Glock 22, with an extended clip, and in a rare moment of self-indulgence, Brock had the grip designed to incorporate the Totenkopf, a skull and two crossed bones, as adopted by the Nazi SS. Rumlow was aware that symbols were important. His two men kept their HK submachine guns, and watched the monitors as the attackers entered the building, and made their way to the command centre.
With Amanda providing the defense, Mark set his music to take the offense. His purple-glowing fists helped lead the way down the darkened corridor. "I was hoping this wouldn't end up so loud and fiery," he muttered.
"If wishes were horses..." Amanda replied, sounding a little strained - this far away from a major centre, she was finding her reserves were being tapped faster than usual. "Still, looks like we've caught them on the hop. Let's keep them that way, yeah?" The corridor opened out into a large room, filled with computer equipment, filing cabinets and laden bookshelves and she stopped, to avoid an ambush. "Ooh, shiny."
"Oooh," Doug said as he holstered his pistol. "That sounds like my tune." He slid up to one of the terminals closest to the corridor, keeping his head down below the top of the monitor in case another firefight broke out. "Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me..." he muttered under his breath.
As Doug continued to mess around with the computers, hopefully finding any sort of useful information, Wanda kept watch. "I do not like this," she said quietly. "It seems as if the place has been evacuated after our arrival but..." She shrugged. "I trust none that worked with Strucker, we have already had our share of surprise attacks through his men."
"As long as that bee-Nazi isn't around, I'm happy." Amanda dropped the shield as people started to spread out. "These papers are pretty old and pretty valuable, so he wouldn't have them just lying around. I hope they haven't scarpered with them."
"You know, the second we turn our heads, they're gonna attack us. What? That's the way it always happens." Mark opened a file cabinet not far from the doorway so he could still see out. "If I were the key to a miniature nuclear weapon, where would I file myself?"
"Under 'I', for 'I have such a small penis I need nuclear weapons to make me feel virile." Sarah said as she appeared in the other doorway as if it was just an ordinary day. She nodded to Wanda and moved to examine one of the bookshelves, but doubted what they were looking for would be in such an obvious spot as the bookshelf. "Or 'T', for 'This is what you're looking for'."
As if on cue, there was a clatter outside the open door, and two grenades bounced inside. Both immediately started hissing gas into the air; a standard pepper gas bomb loved by police and anti-riot forces around the world. In seconds, the room would be filled with the caustic stinging gas, rending them blind to their surroundings.
Using her powers blind was a recipe for disaster; instead, Wanda tried not to breath too much gas in and hunched over, trying to stay low. The grenades had been tossed in through the door they had entered so she turned and dove out the door behind them. They had wanted to get to the information first before potentially exploring beyond but right now, they didn't have much of a choice.
As she got to her feet, the butt of the pistol crashed into her nose, breaking it. Immediately, both eyes began to water uncontrollably as her face started to swell from the assault. A boot slammed into her stomach, and she was body-blocked against the wall, even as the other members of X-Force hurried through the door and into a large room that was half office and half observation post. Wanda was cruelly tugged around by her hair, and an arm like an iron bar locked across her throat, pushing her between her people and her still unseen attacker.
Mark blasted blindly in front of him, hard enough to clear his way but not to harm. He had to get out of the gas before he could do anything else. Even when he cleared it, though, he couldn't see through his tears to change the music to something better suited to the situation. He cursed and fired again at the figure approaching him.
Rumlow shifted his grip on the taller Wanda, angling her away from his gun hand and took careful aim. His time watching them on his monitors had not been wasted. He did not know the specifics of their powers, but he had made some intelligent deductions on how they used them, and now the man was using those things against them.
His shot ricocheted off Mark's wrist, and the iPhone fell from the young man's now broken and useless hand.
Amanda had been right on Mark's heels, staggering through the door coughing and her eyes streaming tears from the gas. Instinct more than planning had her shielding again at the sound of the gunshot, throwing up a wall between Mark and the rest of the room.
The other two gunmen opened up on the figures in front, watching their bullets flatten against the mystical barrier. The wall stopped the bullets, but the pepper gas was starting to build behind it, and curl over the top. Rumlow saw it, and backed an order to Thomasz, who unhooked an incendiary grenade from his belt, and lobbed it up in a gentle arc over the top of the wall, to see it land behind the members of X-Force. All three men smiled hugely.
"Fuck!" The tell-tale sound of something metallic bouncing behind her prompted the witch to do something she hadn't really done often - she yanked the shield back in and flipped it over her head, to provide cover between herself and Mark and the device. "Cypher, Marrow, get down!" she screamed back into the other room, unsure of where her other teammates were. There was a loud boom and an impossibly bright flare, ignited phosphorus licking against her shield and she squinted, well and truly blinded by the combination of pepper gas and bright light.
The butt of the submachine gun hit her precisely in the back of the head, and folded her up like cheap laundry. Rumlow had one invader, another was out cold and a third was dripping blood from his wrist injury. The only reason Amanda hadn't been shot was that they believed that they were going to win, and they wanted prisoners to find out whether they were just the first wave.
Brock Rumlow brought the gun around to rest the barrel against Wanda's ear. "I don't think we need them all." He said to his men.
Everything was so fucking red - Wanda's mind spun from the pain radiating out from her face, salty blood seeping into her mouth when she gasped painfully. The barrel of the gun bit painfully into her skin and she couldn't fucking see. Too disoriented to use her power, afraid that one wrong move would bring the house around her ears, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to act or she was dead.
She was more than just the sum of her powers.
Her legs had been splayed awkwardly in front of her because of the height difference; Wanda now used it to her advantage, shifting her weight forwards and then down, yanking on the arm around her neck. How tightly he had been holding her played in her favor as she curled her back as she dropped, effectively flipping him up and over her head. She felt more than heard the gun go off, smelled burning hair as it missed her scalp by inches and then she could breath once more.
The size of the record room helped disperse the pepper gas slightly, and Doug grabbed a large volume and hurled it through a nearby window to help it along before ripping a strip of cloth off of his shirt and tying it over his lower face. At Amanda's warning, he dove for cover behind one of the computer terminals and put his arms over his head.
After the detonation, he struggled to his feet and shook his head. He caught Sarah's eye and dove through the door first, rolling to his knees with his Glock in hand. He took in the three men with a glance. The one Wanda had shaken off was the most immediate threat, but Wanda was too close. Instead, he tracked left and squeezed a pair of shots at one of the other men before continuing out of the doorway to clear Sarah's way.
Sarah slipped through the doorway right behind Doug, bone club swinging at the man closest to her. It hit the gun forcefully, but didn't dislodge his grip. He pushed her aside as he removed himself from the gunshots behind them, sending her into the office chair behind her.
The shots might have missed but it forced Thomasz to move away from Rumlow, away from Lasley. He might have lost some ground but he ducked his head and kept moving, noting that at least one of those mutants was armed, his own gun out and pointed at Amanda. They really didn't need them all especially since more of them seemed to be coming.
Mark had fallen and crawled behind a nearby desk upon being shot, and hastily pulled off his bandanna to wrap around his hand. He peeked his head out and spotted Esther, but there was no way he could reach it without getting shot and he doubted he'd be lucky again. Retreating back under the desk, he desperately wracked his brain for a plan. His head brushed against the bottom side of the desktop, but something didn't feel right. He raised his non-broken hand and felt something misshapen, like a thin panel had been placed over the desk proper. It was a simple matter to wrench it off, and he was rewarded by a thin sheaf of old papers.
Ignoring everyone else, Thomasz prepared to fire a bullet into the head of the blond that was weakly stirring on the ground. “Fuck th-” His words changed to a grunt as Wanda’s shoulder slammed into his ribs, his shot going wide as they both went down and he lost his grip on his weapon as he tried to brace his fall.
Wanda’s added weight meant that he went down hard; she could barely see and gore was still pouring down her chin but it didn’t stop her from gripping his hair in one hand and slamming his head against the ground. He was dazed but not out, struggling as she shoved herself up and straddled him. The pressure on his head disappeared but she hadn’t gotten up – the reason showed itself as her hand found the gun on the floor.
One attempt at bucking her off failed before the butt of the gun slammed into his temple and then once more for good measure.
Doug continued to mentally catalog the situation, his brain whirring and assessing. Amanda, unconscious but no longer in immediate danger. Wanda, free of the grapple and taking care of Flunky Number One. Mark, under cover behind the desk. Sarah, putting down Flunky Number Two. That just left Rumlow, still standing in the middle of the situation that had turned to X-Force's favor in a matter of seconds. He spotted the pistol in Rumlow's hand, still at his side. "Drop it!" he barked in Polish, his own Glock trained center mass on the man.
"Get someone to teach you how to use that weapon, boy." Rumlow said in English, his pistol firmly in his grip. He held up his other hand, and there was a metallic 'ping' as the pin on the incindiary bounced off the floor. Only his grip kept the grenade from going off, and where he was in the room, he'd certainly kill half of them if he dropped it.
Rumlow tucked his gun into the holster at the small of his back, the hand with the explosive extended. He walked backwards towards the corner, and hefted an ASP from the table, clicking it out to full length. With a single blow, he cracked the glass, and tossed the baton to the floor. "This is all very far from over. I will find out who you are, and I will make you pay for this." With a smile, he lobbed the grenade underarm, right at Doug, forcing the man to either shoot or deal with the grenade. Without hesitation, he plunged shoulder first into the window, shattering the weakened glass, and plummeting out of sight.
Doug squeezed off one instinctive shot, but his pistol was practically already dropping from his fingers. His brain supplied the count of seconds since Rumlow had released the grenade. One one thousand, two one thousand... He snagged the tiny spheroid from midair, and, like a shortstop barehanding a grounder to try and turn a double play, he whipped his arm forward to hurl it out the broken window. He turned, throwing his body over Amanda's unconscious one and covering the back of his neck as an explosion and wash of heat shattered what remained of the window and scattered glass fragments over them all.
"Ow," Wanda muttered, dropping the bloodied gun from her hand; she uncurled, her body having naturally tried to shield itself at the explosion. "Papers?" She cupped her face tenderly, knowing it wouldn't really help but she couldn't help the reflex anyway. Now she just had to get off the unconscious soldier and get back on her feet...
"Is it safe to come out now?" Mark asked, though it came out rather whimpery. He peaked his head out again and, seeing that two of the three attackers were down and the other one gone, breathed a sigh of relief and got out from under the desk. "Found 'em. Let's go. Now. I need a doctor." He grimaced at the white bandanna that was now mostly red. "God dammit. I really liked this one."
From underneath Doug there was a groan and a kind of feeble twitch. As he moved off her, Amanda's swollen eeys fluttered open, then closed again. "Pete?" she mumbled thickly. One hand moved clumsily to feel the back of her head, prompting another groan and a whimper. "Ow."
Sarah pushed herself off of the floor, climbing up to peek her head out of the window to take a quick glimpse of the outside. There didn't seem to be any way he could have survived the landing-- nothing was there to break his fall but the rocks below. She pushed herself further out the window and spit bloody saliva down onto what was surely Rumlow's corpse, somewhere down there. She turned to her teammates. "Son of a bitch would have to be me to take that fall and survive it."
The words Wanda was muttering were mostly unintelligible, slurred and nasally from the broken nose. What they could make out, however, was a sentiment probably shared by all.
“Ow.”
“Fuck.”
And the ever popular “Leaving now.”
