The Best Deceptions: The Finale, Part 2: Highway to Hell (backdated)

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Nanny and Orphan Maker get in the car, but Nanny encounters problems in the form of the Wasp.



"Molly, get down!" Alice screamed, her hands flying up in front of her face to protect herself from flying glass, shards of it cutting the backs of her hands. The air was full of the screeching of metal as the roof of the car gave way under the onslaught. Desperately Alice punched out with her mind, no finesse now, just pure instinctive violence.

As Peter pulled the roof off the car, Francine returned to the controls inside her tank-chair. She retracted the grasper claws, and after they had pulled back into their compartments in the chair, she flipped a switch. A small nozzle rose from a opening in the front of the tank-chair. "This will not hurt a bit, I promise. Those people will go to sleep and then we can bring you safely home where you belong." She said, as a sweet-smelling gas began wafting from the nozzle.

Molly squished herself against the floorboards as she covered her ears to muffle the sounds of her mother screaming and the metal screeching as the roof was tore off. She could see a flash of pink out of the corner of her eye and the whir of the old lady's tank thing that made it look like she had no legs. She smelled like flowers and motor oil and fried chicken.

Turning her head, Molly saw the old lady's smile, all sweet but snakelike, like the school nurse before she gives you a shot and says it's only a pinch but it really hurts a lot. So when the old lady said it wouldn't hurt she have her a really skeptical look and tried to move to the opposite end of the car.

"I am home! Well...okay... not really because our house burned down but those people are my parents and I'm definitely not going with you! Um...ma'am," she added, because her parents told her to be polite. Her eyes darted around. She wanted to try to save her parents too but there were too many people trying to grab her.

~Molly! Run!~ Her father's voice exploded in her mind. Gene held one hand over his mouth and nose, and tried to concentrate enough to ignore Nanny and focus on Peter. He'd gotten through the man's shields before, and this time, he was going to have him punt the old bitch into the ocean. The shifting shields and the gas worked against him, keeping him from slipping past and seizing control. Finally, Gene gave up subtle. They were trying to take his little girl, and he was going to hurt them for trying. Peter's shield's wilted under the hammer of Gene's psi-blast, and he focused on the most basic projection he could hold on to against the distractions; pain. The imput of every nerve in Peter's body suddenly turned into white hot fire to his brain's perception.

In Peter's confused mind, the pain was coming from the car itself, and he turned his attention on the hood of the vehicle. He pounded on it with his fists, crushing it and even when the metal buckled, he kept hammering at it, blows growing weaker but never ceasing in his attempt to stop the pain, and to destroy the thing that he was convinced had caused it.

Being encased in a biohazard suit wasn't Jan's idea of fun, but of course X-Men missions were never about fun. At least the extremely unfashionable thing was roomy enough so her wings weren't cramped; her specially designed X-Men uniform this was not. It was bad enough that both flying and shrinking were out of the question in this particular situation, and measures had been taken to ensure that she still had one of her powers at her disposal. For Jan, being in the suit was sort of like being stuck in a box, and the gloves that would usually be worn with the suit would have effectively rendered her useless. But with metal on her palms and fingers, this Wasp could still sting.

Usually, Jan would sneak up on someone while tiny, and creeping up behind someone while full-sized was quite a different experience. Still, there was a lot going on, and by the time Lady Tank knew what was happening it would be too late. Wasp reached out and rested her hands on the tank/chair, metal touching metal. The woman had to be stopped, and as Francine was entirely enclosed in her odd vehicle of plexiglass and metal, getting to her or the controls was out of the question. The electricity moved from directly from Jan into Nanny's chair.

Francine didn't feel the shock, but she saw and heard the effects. The panel in her chair gave off several loud pops, and tiny wisps of smoke where the electronics overloaded. Out of the corner of her eye, Francine saw the ... woman... she wasn't sure, exactly, because of those suits they'd all been wearing, but she thought it was a woman dash away from the tank-chair. "You! Young lady, you are in a lot of trouble, I hope you know that!" She yelled.

This was definitely a mess, and the plan had not gone at all like she had hoped. Perhaps a retreat was in order. "Children, it is time to cause a distraction!" Francine yelled, unsure if they could hear her through the plexiglass, now that her microphone and speakers were shorted out. She reached down with both hands and pulled on a handle under the control panel. Backup systems were bulky but any good engineer always made sure they had at least one. The manual wheels on the chair were slow and heavy, and she was sure to stain her sweater, but better a stained sweater than being stuck there.

If only she had been faster. Or stronger. Or those blasted perverts in the suits weren't wearing the suits. Francine got perhaps a whole five yards away before the woman who had shorted out her chair return, holding a handful of those plastic zip-ties.

"And where do you think you're going?" Jan shook her head. "Tsk-tsk, looks like your vehicle broke down. Funny how that happens sometimes, isn't it? Here, let's make sure no one gets hurt while we arrange a new ride for you."

~X~


When a frenzied Orphan Maker tries to hurt Alice, he gets a little more than he bargained for.



The gas was hitting her central nervous system - Alice was having trouble focusing her eyes, let alone her psionic abilities. She cast about, seeking a way out with Molly, but her body was growing weaker. Desperately, she grabbed Molly's hand half-pulled, half-toppled her over the seat and out the front passenger door, seeking to run but instead collapsing to the pavement as her legs refused to work.

Gene threw his hands up to protect his face as the car's windshield exploded inward at the impact. He gritted his teeth, trying to push the wooziness from the gas and the pain of dozens of small cuts on his hands and face away, and focus on keeping Peter locked in a world of pain. ~Break, you little bastard,~ He snarled mentally, as another blow threw him partway from the car. He hit awkwardly, his back slamming painfully into the ruined door, and with it, his control snapped. Gene toppled heavily to the ground, trying to push away the blackness entering his vision. He managed two painful feet towards his wife, dragging his non-responsive body before he finally collapsed, facedown on the asphalt.

Molly tumbled to the ground when her mother pulled her out of the car. She tried to reach for her mother, leaning to the rhythmic sounds of the robot man smashing up the car, getting closer to splatting them.

But she wasn't scared. She felt a surge of something building up in her that felt a little stronger than rage, an actual physical feeling. It was almost like gasoline to a fire. Her head turned toward a big red truck.

"LEAVE MY MOM ALONE!" she said. The sight of a tiny girl with glowing purple eyes effortlessly picking up a 4 ton truck was seen just before the truck went flying toward Orphan Maker.

In the aftermath Molly smiled in satisfaction,

"Butthead," she said, but her eyes soon took on an unfocused look and she suddenly dropped to the ground, out like a light.

It was totally worth it.

Peter barely registered the thing that came at him as a truck. It hit him, hard, cab first, denting the plates of his armor. Peter, and truck went flying, into an SUV which had been emptied of it's panicked occupants just as the fight started. The whole pile of man, truck and SUV crashed into the edge of the bridge and broke through the short wall that was all that separated the road from the water below. The SUV fell through, and Peter only had a second to grab at the road with his fingers. He left gouges in the concrete where his fingers slid, and came to a stop hanging halfway over the edge, grasping a piece of rebar tightly enough to bend it nearly in half.

Beast bounded toward the boy as he slid off the edge, determined to not let him fall to his death in the cool water below. With a roll, Hank anchored himself to the bridge and offered the boy a hand, "Grab on!" As Peter took hold of his furred hand he felt the weight pulling him down- it took all his strength to lift him up and over the broken barrier. Out of breath, Hank pushed himself to a standing position and began to inspect the exhausted mechanoman for injuries. Satisfied he'd survive, he removed a tranquilizer dart from his belt and pricked the tip into the crook of the boy's arm, knocking him unconscious in seconds.

~X~


Amidst the chaos, Nightcrawler tries to help one of the Lost Children and Wasp watches over the fallen Hayes family.



With Nanny at the very least slowed down and Jan still pursuing her, the children were Kurt's priority. Peter, Jack and Lucy were in hand, so that just left the girl he'd seen peeping nervously out of the car. He approached carefully, offering her a kind smile.

"Hello. What is your name?"

In Addie's head, everything was going to Hell. Everything.

So when the blue man -she barely missed the blue part out of sheer shock- came along as asked her something she didn't hear, but sounded an awful lot if she was fine, all Addie could do was shrink even more and shake her head vigorously. Everything was obviously not right, and she was obviously not well and she wasn't supposed to talk with strangers. Even if they were blue.

"All right", he said gently. "You do not have to tell me your name just now. But do tell me, little one... would you like to go home?"

The kind voice, Addie did register that. And now she did understand what he was saying. Home? That was a concept she had been hammered on lately, although she knew she wasn't home with Nanny, but really, what could the blue man do? At any rate, she could pretend to be hopeful and everything until someone knocked him out. She felt sorry for the blue man, at any rate.

"Yes", said in a tiny, tiny voice. "Nanny won't let me, though", added as if it were the simplest thing on Earth.

"Nanny cannot stop you now, my dear", he told her. "We know all about Nanny and Peter, and how she has taken you three and made you help her. If you want to go home, then home we will take you."

Addie had to accept the man knew how to make a point. And nobody had kicked him away just yet, so the girl allowed herself a moment of hope. It actually felt good. "Hm", said, although she didn't sound as scared as before. "Can you help Lucy? She's...not herself." It was hard to tell what the other girl had gone through, but Addie had noticed it, and she didn't like it. Nodding a bit, she leaned a bit towards Kurt, mostly convinced it was a worth a shot.

"We will do everything we can to help Lucy, and your other friend." He reached down to open the car door. "Now, pick up your things and come with me. It will all be all right now."

~X~
It was pretty hard to miss a flying truck, especially when it was a decent-sized one thrown by a little kid wearing a cute fuzzy hat. Also hard to miss was the kid falling to the ground after the truck had been thrown though the air. With the creepy lady in the tank-chair not a problem at the moment, and the rest of the team appearing to have a handle on her minions, Jan was able to rush to Molly's side. "Hey, Molly! You OK?" Hopefully, if the kid woke up, she wouldn't decide to pick Jan up and throw her at someone. Jan could fly all on her own, thank you very much. The girl didn't answer and Jan frowned. She wanted to pick her up, at least get the girl's head off the ground, but she didn't know if that would hurt her, and there was no way to tell what else Molly might be able to do other than throw really big vehicles around. Better to let the doctor on the team check the kid out before trying to move her.

The parents were out for the count, too, leaving Jan in the position of playing family protector. While there didn't seem to be an immediate danger, something could happen at any moment. If someone came to hurt Molly or her parents, Jan would be ready. She stayed near the unconscious group, closest to Molly, standing guard. Anyone who wanted to get to a member of the Hayes family had to get through Wasp first.
~X~


While fighting one of the Lost Children, Firestar discovers how ruthless Nanny truly can be to her children.


Lucy had been watching things carefully, half-hidden behind their car, as the girl they were supposed to be taking tossed the truck, then how Peter almost went over the edge of the bridge and a blue, furry man saved him. She was inclined to like the furry man - he was blue, after all, and he had saved Peter. Still, she was supposed to be helping Nanny, even though she didn't really want to.

"Go on, Bonzo," Lucy said, nudging the over-large, stuffed monkey forward. He moved fluidly, loping across the bridge, avoiding fires like she'd told him to, and hopping over debris. She imagined him pausing to make sure Peter was alright, since she liked Peter, and then he tapped the fuzzy blue man on the shoulder.

Bonzo gave the blue man a thumbs up as a sign of appreciation, since Lucy liked Peter, and then moved on. They needed to find someone to beat up so Nanny could get the other little girl and then they could leave. Lucy wasn't entirely sure why she was co-operating, she just didn't want Nanny to get mad at her again.

At first, Angel had thought that keeping the ring of heat up wouldn't be all that hard but it was proving more difficult than she'd first imagined. She had to keep a constant eye on the goings on beneath her so she could shift her perimeters from time to time. And making sure she had the right combination was just as tricky since she didn't want to set anything on fire.

For once.

Sweat rolled down her neck from the strain as she turned in mid-air, trying to keep the fight beneath her in view.

Lucy watched as Bonzo avoided the fires around the perimeter of the fight that had started, just like she'd told him to. But she thought she saw the person who was making them and it would probably be a good idea to stop whoever it was so they could leave after they'd gotten the girl Nanny wanted.

A frisson of doubt crept into her mind at that thought - leaving. She would have liked to be able to leave, but she couldn't. Bonzo would help her, of course. But Nanny wouldn't let her. Frowning in concentration, Lucy watched Bonzo pause and look up to examine the person turning in the air. Then, just like she thought he should, he loped toward where two cars had wound up one atop the other and leaped upward, using the uppermost car to springboard himself at the flier.

Half-turning, Angel spotted the person hurtling themselves at her out of the corner of her eye. He was coming straight at her and he was coming at her fast, which didn't leave her a lot of options. She was forced to drop the heat shield and shot up higher, trying to get above the incoming trajectory.

Bonzo almost missed. Lucy scowled at that - Bonzo was too good to miss, obviously, but still. The stuffed ape latched onto the flying person's ankle and held on for a moment, swinging so far above the ground. Then he started climbing, his other hand grasping at the person's ankle, and Lucy smiled. That was better.

Things went from bad to worse to just weird. The thing that Angel had seen throw itself at her had turned out to be a stuffed animal and it was now. CRAWLING. UP. HER. LEG. She stifled a very unX-Men like scream as she spun in the air, trying to dislodge it.

In her motions, she spotted the little girl staring up at her from the ground and something clicked. The girl was working with Nanny and probably had something to do with the grabby hands but, like most of those people associated with the older woman, was just a kid. Angel forced herself out of the spinning freaking out circle and dropped lower slightly, reaching down to try and bat off the ape.

Which was starting to smoke.

"Kid," she called down, voice pitched to be heard over the fight around them, "your toy is about to be cinders if you don't call it off!"

This was a little ridiculous.

Phantom pain itched across the palms of Lucy palms and she looked at them for a moment, then back up at Bonzo. He was still climbing because that was what he was supposed to do, but the person was yelling at her now and Lucy was getting a headache. She felt like something in her head was pulled from one side of her brain to the other and it was slowly, inexorably tightening.

Her palms still hurt, Bonzo's hands really were smoking, and Lucy started to feel a fluttering sort of panic. Desperately, Bonzo dragged himself upward because if she failed, Nanny would be so, so angry - she'd do something, something bad, like she had the last time...

Angel was close enough to see the panicked look cross the girl's face and she struggled in her desire to simply incinerate the stupid toy. Instead, she shot her arm down in a straight shot and hit it square on top of its head. The sudden movement dislodged it and sent it tumbling to the ground.

The fire had caught at Bonzo's hands and Lucy ran out to him - there was nothing she could do, though. He'd stayed away from the fires, but she'd sent him right at the person controlling them without actually thinking. "Bonzo," she whimpered, the phantom pain disappearing from her hands even as the stuffed ape's smoldered and then burst into actual flames.

Tears rand down her face and the tightening continued inside her head as Lucy watched her most faithful companion burn. Reaching out, she tried to stifle the flames with her own hands, but they were too hot and even patting them as fast as she could didn't do any good.

This was her fault - her fault. She should have been more careful. She should have paid better attention. If she'd just done what Nanny wanted - but no. No, she'd tried to do what Nanny wanted and now look at Bonzo. He was getting smaller and smaller while she watched and the tightness in her head finally snapped.

Slightly larger hands caught Lucy's wrists and gently tugged her away from the burning cinders of the ape. Angel let go with one hand so she could reach down and smother the flames herself without worrying about getting hurt. It had burned so much that there wasn't much left but she was careful in her attempts to not damage it any further.

A well-trained eye showed her that the younger girl's hands were now really hurt and Angel suddenly felt ... old. She'd been attacked by a stuffed animal that a girl was now sobbing over. This entire situation was unbelievable but she couldn't find it in herself to be angry - not after watching Lucy attempt to save the monkey.

"I'm sorry," she said, quietly, "but I didn't have much of a choice." She was apologizing and actually feeling bad about setting it on fire. It was an officially strange day. Angel was watching her very carefully, not wanting to hurt her at all but having to protect herself if the younger girl tried anything else. "I think it's time to get you to the sidelines, okay?"

Bonzo wasn't talking to her. Even when he was small, Bonzo usually talked to her. Lucy liked that best because Nanny couldn't hear and Bonzo could say anything he wanted without getting in trouble. "I can't," she said, tears clogging her throat. "Nanny - Nanny'll be mad again. She'll be mad and - and..." Lucy couldn't finish the sentence, she could barely remember why she'd been doing what she'd been doing, but Bonzo was gone and her nose was stuffy and her head hurt and...

And she was getting sort of angry.

Bonzo was dead.

"It's all her fault," she said, reaching into her pocket to pull out a miniature circus elephant. She was tiny and her name was Mimi. Her decorations were pink and blue. Mimi could do a good deal more damage, too - to Nanny.

Angel half-yelped as the elephant in Lucy's hand started to grow. She didn't let go of the hand she still held onto but she peered over the growing pachyderm to look into the girls eyes. "Sweetie," she said, "we're here to help and make sure Nanny doesn't hurt you anymore. But you need to stop - I think an elephant running around might scare the people who are trying to help you."

Well. Less scare, more kill on sight. After all - giant. Elephant. Rampage.

"I'll find her. Mimi won't hurt anybody else," Lucy said, her free hand resting palm-up on the elephant's leg as she grew and grew. Mimi reached down with her trunk and rubbed at Lucy's back. "Promise," she said. "Mimi can squish Nanny."

Falling backwards slightly, Angel tried to maintain her grip on the girl. Nanny had obviously done a number on the poor thing and Angel totally understood the desire to get revenge. But. But letting a stuffed elephant grow large and rampage around didn't sound like a good idea at all.

"Nanny's a bad person and she's going to be punished," she said, firmly, "but you have to stop. Because I have friends out there and while they won't want to hurt Mimi, they might have to. If she gets big enough, she might accidentally hurt someone that doesn't deserve and, you know, you'd feel horrible. But I promise that we'll get you and the others out of here and we'll see Nanny punished. You just have to stop."

"People don't always keep their promises," Lucy said, turning eyes on Angel that looked far older than even her fourteen years should have allowed. It was enough of a distraction, though, to break her concentration and Mimi the circus elephant stopped growing larger.

Shaking her head a little, Lucy blinked and confusion replaced the anger that had burned through her a moment before. She looked down at her hands, the pain finally making its way past the adrenalin in her system. Her voice was very tiny as she said, "My hands hurt."

Mimi began shrinking.

Waiting until the elephant was back down to it's normal size, Angel very carefully scooped it up in one hand. "I bet they do," she said, helping Lucy to her feet. She was determined to keep a hand on the kid in case she tried to run or, worse, Nanny came after her again. "And while not all promises can be kept, this one will be. Come on, let's get you to the side of the road and I'll take a look at those hands."

She rested her free hand on top of Lucy's head as she guided her, noting that the rest of the fight was starting to wind up. "We've even got a real bona fide doctor with us, sweetie, so when he's free, I'll call up the fuzzy guy. You know, he sort of looks like a walking stuffed toy ..."
~X~


Monet and one of the Lost Children, a speedster, mix it up. And the day...is saved.


Monet shot after the speedster, throwing all the speed she'd built up in her dive into her passage. Fighting a speedster was never so much about closing on them as it was distraction and that suited her just fine: she'd really rather not close on a brainwashed kid again because hey, been there, done that, had the t-shirt.

She wasn't fast enough to catch up and Jack knew it. He was busy smirking to himself and praising his own superiority while she chased after him, the distance between them steadily growing. He grew so cocky, though, that when he went to turn to get around a car he was busy admiring how much distance he'd put between them. Jack smacked right into the side of the car - and a rather large, obvious car at that.

Monet landed beside the boy, Jack, she noted absently, catching the thought and didn't even pause as she snapped looped cable ties around his wrists. She and Laurie could have that discussion about appropriate first aid and the rendering thereof later. "You okay there, mate?" she asked, sounding quiet and friendly whilst keeping a vise-like grip on the ties.

His eyes narrowed at her and Jack immediately tried to break out of both the ties and her grip. Unfortunately he would have needed super strength for even the first feat, which he didn't have. Jack didn't answer her - she wasn't allowed to pretend to be friendly after making him crash. He instead resorted to what any speed-inclined young man would. He struggled for freedom, hoping he could move fast enough to counteract her grip and slip away.

"Seriously, stop it." Monet followed the words up with a telepathic command and the boy stopped struggling. She looped anther pair of ties around his ankles and hit her radio. "I've got the speedster and we'll need a pickup as he might be injured."