Cathouse: End game

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

The members of X-Factor, Jubilee and Sarah decide to go have a pointed talk with Barry and Co



It was time to go find Laura and the others, they should have made it into at least the dayspa by now.

Laura was nowhere near Jubilee's skill to go and choke someone to unconsciousness, but a single well given smack of her client's head against the wall was enough to get him out of commission. Taking a couple of steps back once she was sure the man was just knocked out, Laura headed for the door slowly; she had to find Jubilee and then the rest.

Jubilee moved quietly down the hallway, keeping her hands behind her back as she moved and then bringing them forward to wind the tie around the throats of each client she came across who was by him or herself. It was taking some time, and she could feel the tension in her shoulders as she realised that being non-lethal in her methods was taking much longer then she'd counted on.

She hoped Laura was headed toward her, as Jubilee wasn't going to have time to look for her.

Times like those were when Laura wished she was more skilled on those fancy neck hits that rendered people unconscious; all the customers around her zone were getting head bumps instead. It was harder than it seemed, as she could break a neck if she wasn't careful, but for far so good. She found Jubilee as she took a turn, noticing how she was disposing on the customer on 'her side'. "Okay, I could have thought about that..:", mentioned as she looked at the closest guy with she had hit. "Let's get going, then?", asked as she looked up at Jubilee.

"Long hours training about how to use improvised weaponry," Jubilee noted, offering a hand to help Laura to her feet. "Time for us to go meet the others, and deal with Barry, Lars and friends. I'm thinking of something in a more 'ow, ow, my face, my beautiful face' weapon for Lars though. Wouldn't want to disappoint the man and do something half-way."

------

The back door of the building was propped slightly with a sand-filled coffee can that doubled as an ashtray. Sarah 'tsk'ed as she pulled the door open and her companions slipped through. "Apparently they weren't expecting us."

"Ain't that just a damn shame," Vanessa replied in a disapproving voice. Vanessa let Sarah lead the way through the spa. Jubilee and Laura had helpfully sketched out basic floor plans for them the night before. Her eyes scanned the area, double checking each room as they passed its doorway. It was possible she was a little paranoid. The girls in the spa gave them an odd look but they didn't bother to inquire who the three strangers were even when they headed through the door that led to the stairs up to the second floor where all the happy endings happened.

Jean-Paul paced behind the women, arms loose at his sides as he followed them up the stairs. It grated on his nerves, how slow they went. The no-kill order also grated on his nerves, but he would abide Vanessa's word and do as she asked. Truth be told, there wasn't much about this particular job that didn't grate on his nerves.

A bored-looking guard stood at the top of the stairs, and he looked Sarah and Vanessa over curiously as they approached the top of the stairs. The boss hadn't said anything about new girls, but they didn't really look like clients. "Where to, ladies?" Sarah didn't respond, instead pulling a bone club from her hip, and in one smooth movement swinging it at his midsection. He doubled over, falling heavily to the ground.

"Right then. Where were we?"

"Encouraging my crush on you," Vanessa murmured with an approving tone to her voice. She watched the guy inch down the stairs and simply stepped over him as Sarah passed through the door ahead. A glance back at Jean-Paul was all she thought she needed to encourage him to make sure the guy couldn't get anywhere to ask for help. Unconsciousness was handy but she also wanted to make sure she had Sarah's back in case she needed it.

The Quebecois considered the downed man for a moment, then struck with the side of his hand. Windpipes were necessary for maintaining life, but the larynx wasn't. The man stopped moving and, just to be sure, Jean-Paul shifted him to lean against the wall before following Vanessa and Sarah.

They didn't make it very far before one of the doors opened, and another man entered the hallway. Wearing a suit, this one avoided eye contact with the group, making it easy to take him down. The bone still grasped firmly in her hand, Sarah swung it at the back of his knees, sending him backward. He looked up at them in horror as he gasped for air, trying to replace the air which had forcibly left his lungs at impact.

The butt of a knife handle came down against his temple in one smooth, quick motion soon after. The john lost consciousness and Vanessa moved on. "They're supposed to meet us up there." She nodded toward the corner up ahead. Hopefully Jubilee and Laura got clear of their "duties" easily enough. If the women weren't there then they would have to search them out or go ahead without them. The latter was more time efficient but Vanessa didn't think anyone liked the idea of abandoning them with a client who maybe had them in restraints that could actually hold either woman.

Jean-Paul moved the second body out of the way, propping him against the wall and moving his legs out of the way, just in case. He followed behind the women to the point where they were meant to meet Laura and Jubilee.

"Enjoy the tour?" Jubilee asked, untensing as she saw who it was coming around the corner, she'd never tell how close they'd come to a face full of plasma sparks.

Sarah snorted. "No. I'm complaining to the the manager as soon as we get out of here." She looked over Laura and Jubilee, adding, "Everything okay so far?"

The moment she saw the familiar faces, Laura let a small sight of relief. At last. "We have already made sure things are pretty calm around here," she said as they came closer, she looked at Sarah, but while familiar, she couldn't really place her anywhere. "About that talk to the manager, I think we can pull that one right now, though."

Vanessa smiled, the expression hardly warm or kind. "I love meeting the men in charge of such fine establishments. Do we know where all his underlings are at the moment? I'd rather not have any take us by surprise." Between Laura and Jean-Paul it was doubtful anyone attempting to sneak up on them would get very far with their attempt, but Vanessa liked her bases covered.

Checking around the corner, Vanessa nodded for people to get moving while it was clear. The sooner they got that creep and his minions dealt with the happier she would be.

"I can account for at least three of his goons being unconscious," Jubilee replied, moving out in front of the group at a silent trot, her feet seeming to fall just right to avoid any sound on the dingy carpet floor. "There's also at least two with him in his office according to my bugs, but Lars is nowhere to speak of."

"Lars," Vanessa said as she tried to remember which one he was. She watched Sarah move in behind Jubilee, then waved Laura on. Vanessa took up the rear side-by-side with Jean-Paul. "That's the one who test drives, isn't it?" Terrible things ought to be done to that one, she thought. Truly horrific things. She smiled at the knowledge that Jubilee and Sarah would have him at their mercy.

"I knocked a couple out on my way here, but there are some more left, I think." Those were the ones she had needed to be extra careful with so she didn't reduce them to bloody pulps. "Yeah, Lars is the bastard that test drives the new arrivals." She only hoped they made him scream loud enough for her to hear him whenever she was.

"Lars is gonna get his," Jubilee replied, her movements relaxed, but her body was tensed to move should they be surprised. It didn't take long for someone to do just that, a client stepping out of a room right in front of her. She flipped backward, kicking him in the jaw and sending him crashing to the ground as she landed in a cat-like crouch.

Vanessa sighed and shook her head. "You couldn't just hit him like the rest of us?" The john's body made enough noise to attract unwanted attention and the sound of Jubilee's weight hitting the floor when she landed only made it worse, even if she was fairly quiet. The metamorph checked his pulse as they passed. He was out cold and likely had at least a dislocated jaw. She moved him out of the way while the others continued on down the hall. "Let's not injure too many clients, aye? Not all of them deserve the beating and if we don't act so fucking twitchy they won't think anything's up."

"Dude, I've been like, controlling the urge to choke the living shit out of so many of these guys, live a little, yeah?" Jubilee replied, holding her hand up as they reached a corner. She walked around it, looking like she had absolutely nothing to hide, and upon seeing nobody close by, waved for the others to follow. "Twitchy and a few broken jaws is way better then shot in the face and dead, yo."

Jean-Paul kept pace with Vanessa until they reached a set of stairs that ran up to the third and forth floors. He paused by them, quirked a brow, and then said, "I can go upstairs to clear out the other men who work for Barry. Make sure he cannot call in reinforcements, oui?" He'd been watching them go about their business for almost a week, he figured he could at least exact a little revenge.

Vanessa looked up the staircase, over to her companions and then back to Jean-Paul. She gave a single nod. "Do it." She would have sent Laura with him but she wanted to make sure the kid didn't end up with any blood on her hands. The temptation might have been too great if Vanessa let the kid out of her sight.

***

It had been almost two days since Lars had gotten any action and he was in need of relief. He had asked Barry for permission and had been given the run around, so he waited for Barry to dismiss him for the night and then snuck upstairs. There were several women who would not report him, their fear was so great of what he could do to them. The woman he was with at the moment was a particular treat, her skin soft and tender. She was a sweet piece of ass and he couldn't wait to be inside of her.

Jean-Paul had cleared the third floor without any real trouble - that was one of the best things about moving faster than the speed of sound. Sure, he couldn't actually dodge a bullet, but he'd be damned if he couldn't move quick enough to dislocate your wrist before you could get your gun pointed at him for an accurate shot. There were only two men he was still looking for, having kept a mental list of all the goons Barry employed.

The Quebecois found one at the top of the stairs on the fourth floor and took him out silently, then moved on. The last guy... well. There was very limited space up here, which meant Jean-Paul was going to find him. Probably in one of the rooms. Pushing the second door open, he scowled at the sight that met his eyes.

The woman was bent over a chair and Lars stood behind her, his head thrown back in ecstacy and his hands wrapped around her throat. She would have screamed if she could and that made it all the more pleasurable for him. He could not stand the one's who tried to fight back; they were too much of a hassle when it came time to clean up after.

The sound of the door was too soft for him to hear, and so his face turned to ghastly horror when he saw the man standing opposite him in the doorway.

Jean-Paul moved without any conscious thought, shifting forward at high speed and hitting the other man squarely in the stomach to double him over. The main point was to cause him to release the girl so that the Quebecois could then set in and do some actual damage to him.


The impact sent him reeling and he tried to hold onto the girl to use her as a shield. His grip slipped off her as his assailant continued moving through him. "You fucking bastard, I'm gonna-" his words were cut off as he hit the wall. He had to do something quickly or else he was dead. Thank god I'm never without Mia, he thought and reached for the revolver slung at his side.

The speedster didn't even give the man a chance to level the barrel of the gun, his curled fist hitting Lars' wrist with a rapid fire precision and knocking the gun away, though he kept up the jackhammer punches. A moment later and Jean-Paul heard a distinctive crack. He paused, then punched Lars at the joint where jaw connected to skull, his anger simmering low in the pit of his stomach as he fought the urge to do more damage to the man. The only thing that stopped him was Vanessa's no-kill order.

Lars crumpled to the floor as the mutant stopped the flurry of blows. He couldn't move, could barely breathe and all he wanted to do was die. He was in too much pain to even think about revenge. What had Barry cost him? How could he have been taken down so quickly? The questions were there but he could not even concentrate enough to answer them. What was going to happen to him, now? With the thought resounding through his mind he faded from consciousness.

***

The group moved along, dispatching men when they needed to but largely letting them go about their business until they reached the end of the hall. Around the corner was Barry's office and with him would certainly be his men. Whether or not they were outside or inside, however, was a gamble. Vanessa wondered for a moment where Lars was if he wasn't with Barry. If Jean-Paul found him would he manage to keep to her no kill order? She hoped so, but she wouldn't be that concerned if he didn't, honestly. It could be problematic if a john saw and reported it. It was a small possibility but one nonetheless.

Making her way to the door, Sarah tried the doorknob, and to her surprise, it turned easily. "Doesn't anybody here know there are people out to get them?" The door slid open with a squeak, and she kicked it open the rest of the way. "We'd like to lodge a complaint, asshole."

"Don't feel you need to get up, dude. We're like, a 'bring the ass kicking to you' kinda people," Jubilee noted, moving into the room behind Sarah and giving Barry a decidedly vicious grin. She had to admit, there were certain times in her job where she fucking loved being able to play the motherfucking badass.

Barry wasn't scared, he'd been in the business too long to fear people coming to get him. What he didn't expect was the change in one of his assets. He feigned shock, moving away from the intruders and slipping the revolver he kept under his pillow into his unoccupied hand. "You are, are you? Well, I don't see how that can be a good business model, especially when you underestimate your target." He drew the gun and fired two rounds at the ladies while bolting for the window.

Jubilee was already moving, having tensed the moment the gun appeared. She trusted Sarah to take care of herself, and instead dodged to the right, flinching as the bullet burnt across her cheek, but missed otherwise.

She bounced off the wall, flipping herself as she did so to land on her feet in a crouch.

Sarah pulled a bone knife from her shoulder, throwing it at Barry as she dropped the ground to avoid the bullets. It embedded itself in the wall just left of her intended target's head.

The window was right before him and he knew he would be able to make it before they could stop him. I don't want to have to start over, but these are definitely not cops and I'm not sticking around to see how many of my men are still capable of fighting, he mused, his stomach churning at the prospect of being caught by the ladies. He fired again, trying to hit the woman who'd done a flip off the wall. If he could take her out then he'd have a much better chance of escaping.

Jubilee rolled from her position on the floor, sparks of power melting the bullet as it went past where she'd been a second before. He was carrying a Raven Arms MP-25, a Saturday night special, that meant seven bullets and he'd used at least three. That was four more bullets, any of them could find there mark in either her or Sarah. Admittedly Sarah was more likely to be able to shrug off a bullet wound then Jubilee.

"Sarah, he's all yours, dude," Jubilee called, throwing several plasma balls at the window where they stretched out over it to form a barrier against retreat.

Barry stopped short of the window as it exploded into fire. "What the fuck!" He turned and aimed the gun square at the woman who'd launched them. His intent was to take her out before he bolted through the window, because she could easily hit him from a distance if he left her mobile. The gun roared twice and his face quirked in a smile as he knew the bullets would kill.

Jubilee had already set up another barrier in front of herself however, sick and tired of bouncing around trying to avoid the bullets. It wouldn't have worked with more then one gunman, or a large open space, but the shield of plasma in front of her was perfect for such a small space as Barry's office. She wouldn't be able to maintain it for long, not and still be standing afterwards but it would work long enough.

Jean-Paul had made sure the girl upstairs was alright, then gotten her back downstairs to sit with the women he'd cleared from the third and fourth floors - and then he'd heard the gunshots. He'd made his way upstairs and hung back, watching to make sure Jubilee and Sarah were alright, that Vanessa and Laura hadn't somehow been incapacitated. It seemed like the women from X-Force were handling the situation admirably, but someone really ought to make their task a little easier by taking Barry's gun away.

So that was what the Quebecois did. He came at Barry from an angle and simply knocked the gun out of his hands, then followed the weapon and picked it up, clearing the way for Sarah and Jubilee to finish the bastard off.

Laughing as she watched the gun fall from Barry's hand, Sarah pulled a thicker bone-club from her hip. She held the still bloody object in her hand like a baseball bat. "Oh, looks like someone's in deep shit now."

Jubilee grinned as she saw the blur, nodding her head in thanks at Jean-Paul before striding forward toward Barry, hands sparking with fireworks. "Dude, if you don't give up right now and let us walk you outta here all quiet like, I am going to burn your fucking face off. Got it?"

Clutching his broken wrist Barry nodded to the woman. He looked her in the eyes and held him self straight. "You're pathetic. You can't handle the way the world works and so you ruin a perfectly sound business model. What do you think you will accomplish by taking me out? Will you give these women the lives they've always dreamed of? Are you going to make sure all of the people who hurt mutants or profit from their suffering are killed? If you're conceited enough to think you can do that then you've got a lot to learn. There're people out there who make me look like Mother-Fucking-Teresa."

"You're right," Vanessa answered from the doorway. She and Laura had mostly made sure no one could come in from the hallway and surprise them while the Snow Valley ladies took care of Barry. "But we're giving them back the life you took and they were okay with that one. And now they won't get sold off to anyone with the cash to buy them. And you," her lips curled into a wicked smile, "will be very lucky to not have your skin peeled off before you die. This isn't about the people out there, it's about the ones in here. And you were never welcome so fuck your pitiful business model that took less than a week to be dissected and broken once we started looking."

The laughter that came out of Barry's mouth was full of hatred. The woman was right, he had trusted piss poor people to run his security and it had cost him everything. He would never admit it to her though. "Give them back their lives? Don't make me laugh. You self-righteous pricks can do whatever you want with me, I won't give you the satisfaction of begging for my life."

"Good, because we'd hate for you to be disappointed," Jubilee replied, grabbing his arm to pull him along.

"Besides, the begging part doesn't do anything for me." Sarah cackled then, a sound not entirely sane sounding. "I hope you like games."

Vanessa smiled as she turned around and slung an arm around Laura's shoulders. She shrugged a little and started to walk away with the kid. "I'm thinking Chinese after we take out the rest of the trash..." She held a hand out behind her, obviously for Jean-Paul.

Laura turned around, letting a long contained breath out as they walked away as she placed a hand loosely on Vanessa's back, just in case her legs decided to be silly and suddenly forget how to walk. Fortunately, it didn't happen. "Chinese, lots and lots of Chinese food." She would figure the rest later.

Jean-Paul made sure the Snow Valley women had Barry in hand and then tucked the gun he'd taken from the man into his waistband. He headed toward Vanessa and Laura, pausing just long enough next to Barry to kick the side of his knee. He heard a very satisfying crunch and smiled, then nodded toward Vanessa as he stepped up behind Laura on her other side. "I like Chinese," he said, resting a hand on Laura's shoulder.