Revenant: Battle of Central Park West

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

X-Force is on the move in an attempt to find Meggan but what they find first is one hell of a mess.



It wasn't hard to see where Meggan and her new 'friends' had broken into the American Natural History Museum - the front doors had been blown off their hinges and hung askew. The security alarms had been bypassed, however, dead silence reining over the scene. It wouldn't be long before a passer-by noticed something, however, and called the police, so the pressure was on to deal with things quickly.

If anything, Wanda's expression became more grim at the sight of the front of the museum. It was wasn't that she'd worked for people there on occasion and had friends who worked there - no, it simply brought back memories of when she had last been in England. And she knew that what they were about to face in there would be more punishing than what she had faced in Agatha's museum. Combine that knowledge with the current situation and it left her clearly pissed off. She glanced around as they headed towards the doors, alert but moving quickly. No one had seen the damage so far but in a city like New York, it was simply a matter of time.

"Wow. Someone needs a lesson in subtlety." Sarah eyed the property damage, and flexed her bone covered knuckles. "Everybody knows you don't just blow the fucking doors off the place you're stealing shit from. Especially the fucking Natural History Museum."

"Unless you don't care if people know what you're up to." Remy looked at his team, smaller than he would have liked, and considered the options. "We don't have de time to do dis carefully. Wanda, Marie-Ange, let's see if we can distract dem, get dem looking de wrong way. Sarah, slip 'round de edges, wait for a gap. Kurt, you get to make de call. When you see a change, Sarah will clear de way for you to get to de petite and pull her out of dere. Sarah make sure dat anyone inbetween you and her get made to pay for it. If we lucky, most de opposition should be looking our way long enough for you to have you shot."

Kurt nodded, tail flicking back and forth in his usual indicator of tension, and looked at Sarah. "Please leave a mark on Herr Klar for me. Someone needs to learn not only subtlety, but to stay away from my family."

"I would prefer the latter. The former makes our job easier, yes?" Marie-Ange said over her shoulder. "Remy, how big of a distraction would you like? Very large? Dinosaur sized? Do you think a dinosaur would be too much?" It was all too obvious she was covering the worry up with the babble. Unusual for Marie-Ange but not unexpected. She'd known Meggan a long time, and had shared a suite with Amanda and the younger girl when Meg had only just arrived at the school.

"We will have to be concerned about outsiders stumbling across this as well," Wanda commented quietly, spreading her arms slightly to encompass the damage before them. "So far, no one has noticed this but we all know that unless this is being hidden by magic - a possibility, I grant you that much - someone is bound to call security or the police." She didn't mention that Doug could have been very useful with keeping the police off their backs. Wanda knew she wasn't the only one thinking about that. "I think the distraction needs to be big enough to get their attention without dragging any more attention towards us. We'll have to walk a fine line."

Remy looked around. "Non, if de police were going to be a factor, dey'd have been more careful. Just try not to cave in de damn roof and we should be fine." He motioned to Kurt and Sarah. "Get going. Wait for our signal... which will likely involve some kind of explosion and screaming. Dat kind of thing."

Sarah, not at all troubled by the 'signal', shrugged. "So the usual. Got it." She turned back to Kurt, and motioned with her hand. "Ready to go? Explosions and security lighting always put me in the mood for a scuffle."

"Absolutely." He was standing ready to follow her whichever way she chose. "Let us get started."

***

Meggan and several escaped cultists stepped into the room holding the stones from Nova Roma. And there they were, she mused, all sitting nicely in one case, making them that much easier to steal. She chuckled at how easy this would be, gloved hands stroking the case once before signaling for one of the men to smash it open for her. One particularly dim one rushed to obey her commands. She carefully lifted the first of the stones once the deed was done.

She smiled to herself. Things were going quite smoothly, but one never knew. Just in case anyone dared to intrude, though, she was taking a few precautions. A whisper of a spell, and two living shadows were now located in various spots, just in case someone wandered in, curious to know what was going on. Anyone foolish enough to intrude while she was still here would be surprised.

Collecting the last stone, Meggan turned to the cultists. "Come. We have everything we need."

Everything except the Mistress and that would seen to soon enough. Behind his robe and cowl, Klar smiled darkly. All was going according to plan. The ritual would be completed, his Mistress would return, restored to her former glory and he would be rewarded. Perhaps with the girl. "At once, Fraulein."

***

The pack moved quietly - even more so than a pack of grey wolves would have in nature, padding across the floor of the museum in silent near-unison, each member a perfect watercolor painted copy of the other. They surged forth in fours and fives past the doors, paying no attention to the wrongly shaped shadows or robed cultists or the dark-haired girl and her towering bodyguard. Even as one of the cultists pulled a gun and fired on the wolves, they continued to file past the doors, the other members of the pack filling in the gaps as wolves disappeared into wet splats of goo.

Meggan quickly turned at the first sound of shooting. “Fools,” she hissed, once it became apparent bullets were doing nothing. “Don’t waste your bullets.” She eyed the identical wolves as one of the cultists continued to open fire. She tilted her head, watching the creatures as they continued filing through the doors. They weren't a true threat. Shooting at them was obviously a futile effort, one which was only succeeding in angering her further.

A muted red light flashed once, twice, from down the hall and the cultists around Meggan tensed in anticipation of an attack, guns up and sweeping back and forth in an attempt to cover the entire space around them. When nothing came, they started to relax - until two of their number started to whimper in pain as they fell to their knees. Soon, they were falling to their sides and screaming as their nerves exploded into a million points of pain. They'd been walking time bombs with hidden triggers biding their time but a touch here or there by someone who knew what they were doing turned "twenty years of degeneration" into "two seconds of full degeneration".

"What is happening?" Mordo said angrily, looking around as his two men writhed on the ground. He had endured too many indignities over the last several years; barely avoiding prison on the basis of numerous appeals, an extremely expensive legal team, and the useful corruption of the Brazilian foreign ministry. However, his once great fortune was now tied up in his defense, or under investigation and frozen by the FBI. All of his attempts to derail the process had failed, and even political pressure had proven at first useless, and as he pushed, counterproductive as his former allies had simply dropped him. The ignominious fall had tempered both his devotion to his dark goddess and his hate of the X-Men. Only she could get him the revenge he needed, and he'd sacrifice a thousand men or follow a hundred 'daughters' in order to see it happen.

"Whoops! Here it comes! It always comes, you know, when you have the stones. Always always." Dr. Peter Alarune said, his manically cheerful voice out of synch with his trembling form, kept upright by an attending cultist. The last encounter with the X-Men had broken his already fragile mental state, and the former Professor had suffered a complete nervous breakdown before being instituitionalized. Mordo had conselled against bringing him, but Klar had been insistent. Even if he was insane, Alarune knew the ritual and with enough drugs to grant him temporary lucidity, he'd be able to ensure that there were no last minute 'modifications' to the ritual. Prehaps the Dark Mistress would be able to repair his shattered mind, Mordo thought with a moment's pity before discarding the concern.

The man holding up Dr. Alarune started to hiss "Where are the ..." as a tall and dark figure from at the other end came into view. But the cultist only had eyes for the sudden flight trajectory his fellow cultist had as Wanda wrenched him up and over her shoulder, throwing him straight into a glass display case. The case only fractured under the blow but the man slid down, limp as a dish rag. "...stationed guards?" he finished weakly as he watched the woman dodge out of the line of sight.

"Dead." Marie-Ange relieved the fallen man of the knife he had been holding limply, buried it between two of his ribs and moved on, following behind Wanda with a pack of the imaged wolves dogging her heels. She, but without the wolves returned a moment later, to pull the knife back out. "Pardon. Cannot let you keep that." she said to the dying cultist.

"Vergeblich..." Klar growled, putting his massive frame between Meggan and the invading force. He reached forward and pulled Alarune away from the cultist supporting him, throwing the doctor over his shoulder. "All of you, go! Kill them or I kill you!" They could not afford to lose Alarune, he would sacrifice the rest if needed. Even Mordo, the man's money was running out and he had already done his part.

A hissing explosion took one of the guards in the chest, tossing him aside like a rag doll. Gambit smiled as he pushed forward. Klar was heading towards Sarah and Kurt, which was exactly what they wanted. Now there was the small problem of not getting killed by the armed men in the meantime. The cultists had regrouped under Mordo's frantic shouting, and he disappeared to the side as a hail of gunfire poured out. They were finding defensive positions, crouching behind benches and displays, laying down short, controlled bursts designed to push the enemy back, establish a clear field of fire. That had a limited effectiveness against X-Force.

"Scarlet Witch, now dat we have dere attention..."

"I do so love a captive audience," Wanda responded, coming out of the shadows in time to grab an unlucky cultist by the back of the shirt. She'd been attempting to get close enough, without being seen, to attack the encroaching trio. Suicidal at best but, then again, what better sort of person to join a cult...? With a grunt, Wanda lifted the woman off her feet and slammed her hand into her chest where a number of weapons hung from. The woman's eyes widened as a number of items started to grow impossibly warm before she was tossed back towards the rest of the group, her body serving as a shield to those in X-Force as a number of the guns and small explosives started to randomly detonate. A few cultists went down from either a bullet wound or an explosion to the face while the rest shuffled just a further back but didn't break.

***

Every single one of the cultists was expendable and if even a hair on the girl's head was harmed in this, he would personally skin whoever he decided was responsible. For now, she was key, and he was responsible for her safety. In this, she was as important as the Dark Mistress would be and he would have gladly killed scores for her. The red-eyed Cajun was the most dangerous, Klar knew the man's reputation. Gambit would kill a child. Whatever that bitch mageling that had betrayed Selene had done to him to convince him to fight with her, he didn't know or care. Klar simply knew Gambit was the most dangerous man in the room.

"My lady, we must go. We have all we have come for." He didn't wait for an answer. If she punished him for temerity, it would be worth it when the Mistress was returned. He turned to offer Meggan his arm in order to speed their exit out the far door.

"Explosions and screaming", Kurt noted dryly to Sarah. "I think that was our cue - so please, let the show begin."

Sarah stepped out of the shadows, directly between Klar and Meggan and their closest exit. She smiled, a jagged bone club in one hand, and a smaller, sharper sliver of bone in the other. "I'm sorry, this exit is blocked."

The look from Meggan was pure, unbridled fury for a moment, before it swiftly changed to calculating. The real question here was, could she cast a spell and send a few inanimate objects--perhaps a bear she'd seen on display--upon the woman before her before the two of them were clubbed or otherwise detained? Judging by the carnage surrounding them, perhaps not...but she would still make the attempt.

"Sarah", Kurt said without looking at her, all his attention on his little sister, "I trust you can deal with Herr Klar. Good luck." And he teleported forward to seize Meggan.

Meggan stopped in surprise midway through the spell, giving a brief shout of rage as Kurt grabbed her from behind. She twisted back and forth, but it was apparent he wouldn't be shaken off so easily.

He had a good grip on her arms, held behind her back as firmly as he could without injuring her, and his tail wrapped in a binding around her legs. "Time to go, baby sister", was the last thing anyone heard before they both vanished.

Rage overtook Klar as Meggan disappeared in the foul-smelling smoke, and he dropped Alarune onto the ground carelessly as he charged at the bone-armored woman. No care for Gambit or Mordo or the attackers, he would kill the woman with the bones and then he would use her bones to kill the blue demonic man and then he would get the girl back and then, -and then- he would get his Mistress back and she would reward him. But that was later, and now, it was time to kill.

Sarah watched as the man's expression went from shock, to anger, to an expression she knew all too well: excitement for the kill. Sarah laughed as he charged, swinging up with the bone club and lunging with the knife while the club had his attention. "I would introduce myself, but then I'd be like that guy in that movie... oh, fuck it."

***

Alarune scrambled to his feet, trembling violently but manic in his expression. His incarceration had involved a quiet room, with a window through which he could see the clouds. Orderlies brought him his medicine, his meals, his wheelchair for when he was taken out into the common room with the others. He didn't like them, not directly, but he liked their presence so long as they ignored him and let him sit in the sun near the window, and he could just watch. Whatever well of devotion, of zeal that had existed in Alarune and he had filled with Selene had been broken by the X-Men, like a shattered clay jug; pregnant with wine pouring through the cracks and over the shards. Now, all he wanted was his quiet where his mind wasn't haunted by men in black suits and stones of terrible fire.

Karl Mordo's eyes only bulged as the blade was scraped across his throat, all the way to the bone, and he dropped with a clatter. The spray of blood covered those who had taken a defensive position with him, shielding Klar and Meggan's escape. Alarune stepped back and dropped the bloody knife back to the floor where he had picked it up from. "Please, I'd like to go back to my room now." He said to the X-Force members that closed in.

Quickly, even under the circumstances, Marie-Ange had the knife she'd taken from the cultist at Alarune's throat, and trapped his arms behind him. "Is there -any- reason we should not just kill him?" She was not feeling very forgiving at all. "I could not tell you at all right now if he needs to be alive tomorrow." Things were already not good and she had lost track of the future and all of the ways this could go horribly wrong.

"Dere's no good reason why we should bother to. Forget it." Remy said, scattering the cultist rear guard with a sweep of cards, forcing them back although they still hadn't broken yet. Sarah was on her own for the moment. "Tie his hands, leave him for de cops."

Somehow that felt inadequate. But Marie-Ange trusted Remy's judgement here, and they did need a scapegoat. She pocketed the knife and pulled a few zip-ties from a pocket, one of the useful things that she'd started carrying around. It was a struggle to get Alarune to stay still long enough to bind his wrists together, he was unsteady and she had to pull him steady more than once before he was tied, and then Marie-Ange just let the man fall to the ground. "I hope you have nightmares until you die from them." She hissed in his ear. "And that you live a -very- long time in that room."

Kneeling down next to Alarune, Wanda placed one hand on the man’s forehead. From a distance, it might have looked like she was almost imparting a benediction upon him even though it was anything but. A moment later and his head dropped with a thud to the ground as he went completely limp and the red light around her wrist died away. Wanda met Marie-Ange’s questioning gaze and simply said, “I cannot image that being chaotically knocked unconscious, especially unstable as he is, will impart pleasant dreams until the police arrive.”

She stood and dusted off her pants before pointing ahead at the small, now confused, band of men and women, the remnants of Selene's cult. “ ‘Untouchable’ as he might be currently? At least those are still fair game.”


***

"Let's face it. I've pissed off scarier guys than you, and nobody's managed to kill me yet." Blood dripped from the bone knife in Sarah's hand as she lifted her hand to wipe more blood away from a split lip. Throwing herself back at Klar with a growl, she brought a bony elbow up to aim directly under his ribs. "You're just going to end up dead, or disappointed."

Klar said nothing. He took the blow, grunting with the impact and brought up a massive fist to punch at the girl - no, woman - this was certainly a woman - woman's eye. Blind her, then she couldn't see to continue stabbing him with those knives, or whatever they were. He was aware they seemed to be coming from her body, which was disgusting. Disgusting in a way that he would have admired if he hadn't been busy trying to cave her face in.

The punch connected, so hard it cracked the bone growing along the side of her face like a pseudo-helmet. She fell backwards, momentarily breathless. Pushing herself off the ground, Sarah flaked the broken fragments away from her face, leaving a bloody patch of raw skin just underneath. There was another bone club sticking out of her right shoulder, and she pulled it and swung at the man in one smooth swipe. The sound of tearing cloth and tissue was audible even over the sounds of the struggles around them.

She was actually causing him pain. The club had connected with his shoulder blade and he actually felt the impact, and knew it would bruise. Klar could almost see the blossom of purple and black in his mind and he savored the pain. It had been years since he had really been marked. He continued to strike at the bone-armored woman with his fists, leaving smears of blood on her skin from where the bone armor cut into his hands.

Sarah may have been impressed. This guy had as little self-regard as she did, and there was very little chance of this ending without one of them dead. She lashed out at his face in between blows, aiming for his eyes with bone-covered fingers. If he couldn't see, maybe his aim would suffer.

"Time for you two to stop flirting." The Cajun voice carried as one of the cultist's guns, now glowing purple, smashed into the side of Klar and exploded, knocking the German bruiser sideways a dozen feet and sending him tumbling down the hall. Remy had broken through the last line of defense, and his shot drove Klar and Sarah apart. Remy could have started after Klar, who was already scrambling to his feet and away, but diverted instead to Sarah. "You alright?"

"Just fine." She didn't look it, covered in blood and resembling a pincushion, but still Sarah smiled. "And I wasn't flirting, you asshole."