Christian's Angels: An Unholy Ambush

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

The team arranges a meeting with Sublime using the files stolen from LLL as leverage.



Despite all of their attempts to arrange a meeting in a public place, it became entirely clear that regardless of what information they had, John Sublime had no intentions of being caught in a place with witnesses. Instead, they agreed on a former cargo marina which had been seized by local authorities and unused since then. Which led to Hank, Paige, Garrison and Cage sitting on empty crates, waiting for their 'guest' to arrive.

After a half an hour past the deadline, three armed bodyguards stepped into the warehouse, weapons at ready. Cage was armed, but kept his hands away from his firearm. As for the other three, the guns didn't concern them. After a moment, a tall Asian man stepped in, dressed in an expensive pearl grey suit, with a blue silk shirt and patterned tie. The reports on John Sublime were easily available; the son of a Japanese-American businessman and a Chinese fashion model. He had been a child prodigy, graduating from Harvard at nineteen and then moving to the Pacific Rim to build up his business. He was immensely wealthy, charismatic, and inscrutable in his goals.

"Good afternoon. I'd say this is a pleasure, but I'm afraid we both know that would be a lie. Doctor McCoy, I've been waiting to meet you for years. If you're interested in a business opprotunity, I can guarantee you five times what you're making right now and stock options if you come onboard."

Hank smirked, "While I do appreciate the offer, I fear I must decline based on some, shall we call them, interesting facts that have come to light about your company and business practices." The blue doctors fur bristled slightly, but he settled it down and hopped off his perch to the ground in order to back up the rest of the team.

"Well, you can't clone a new super race without breaking a few eggs, can you, Doctor?" Sublime joked lightly, and turned his smile to Cage. "And Special Agent Luke Cage. I was surprised that SHIELD would take so much interest in my operation. Or, at least, I was until my lawyers contacted the agency and were assured that Special Agent Luke Cage had left SHIELD over a year ago and assured me that any actions were only under his own initiative."

Luke paled slightly, immediately understanding what Sublime meant; SHIELD had disavowed him. His career was over for all intents and purposes in the mind of the American government. He kept his silence, but his hands clenched in anger.

"Now, I don't think I know the beautiful blonde, but I remember seeing the bearded man wearing a Mountie uniform in the rain during that lovely state funeral in Ottawa a couple of years ago. That was you, right?"

"You know it was." Kane said coldly.

"Thought so. So, now you rob my lawyers of sensitive information that would prove needlessly expensive and embarrassing to my company in return for answers. Well, you got me here. What do you want to know?"

Paige shifted to her other hip, reaching out. Her thumb dragged against the back of Garrison's shirt, as she regained her balance. "Well, I'd like to know how you managed time travel, myself. Since somehow your new, and I say this with emphasis to implicate quotation marks here, genetic program, jumped a decade or two forward within the span of a month. Or, maybe just the research between August and September? I've been looking for something to write my doctorate on."

"I'm afraid that my research isn't going to help you with your studies, young lady. But let me know when you graduate." Sublime said, and held up his hands. "I'd like to make this clear that absolutely anything I say will be less than useless to you if you have have delusions of charging me."

The man adjusted his suit, and took a seat on the only folding chair. "Very well. The jump in my company's genetics program was the result of a payment. Several years ago, I hired a former USAMRIID researcher who had been involved in a program called 'Weapon' by the military. Thanks to his information, I was able to track down three former members of the program; all ex-military, extremely well trained, their mutant abilities augmented, and their memories suppressed. A telepath on staff was able to force their personalities to re-emerge, but unfortunately, most of their memories of the program itself were lost. Picture it, Doctor McCoy-"

Sublime punctuated his words with his hands. "-advanced weaponization of mutant abilities at the highest level. When we discovered trace particles of a metal we couldn't identify, it led us to Professor Oyama's research into his rumoured 'adamantium'. The US government sponsored the most successful mutant augmentation program in history, and then made it disappear like it never existed. So months ago, a random offer filtered its way up to my office from the men I had working on researching the program. It was simple - in exchange for targeting a Canadian mutant operations team, I would receive files related to the US mutant research program - oh, and there was a sweetener."

Sublime leaned back, as a woman stepped forward with a feline grace: Yuriko Oyama. He smiled at her as she took up station beside his chair. "The services of Ms Oyama for two years following the incident. I admit, it will be hard to let her go." He nodded to her, and she pressed a button on her phone before turning her gaze back to them.



Outside of the marina, the back doors of a pair of vans opened up, and ten black-clad men stepped out, hoisting their German made sub-machine guns. Two men in charge; one huge and oversized, and the other a slim, older black man directed the men towards the marina entrance. The trap was obviously meant to ensure that regardless of what information they had brought out of the mansion on Macau. Fortunately, they were not willing to trust Sublime, and had left their own ambush behind.

"Looks like the party's starting," Misty remarked, eying the scene through binoculars from their own ambush point. "I count twelve - are you ready, boys and girls?"

"Who's the big fucker?" Callisto said, adjusting the wrist straps that held her knives. "He looks like he'll go down pretty hard..." She grinned, or rather, bared her teeth, then ruined any note of menace by blowing her hair out of her eyes.

"Trouble," came Angel's immediate reply. There was an unusual seriousness to her tone as she glared down at the group. "The big guy is, well, he'll be a handful but the other one - don't underestimate him, you know?" She looked over at Bobby and grimaced. "Not quite sure what you might want to call it but he was yanking me around by my blood for fun the last time Iceman and I tangled with him."

"Not to mention he tried to pull a Frosty the Snowman on me and melt me." Bobby stared a hole in the man. He wanted another shot at him, but he'd grown a lot since his younger days, when he would charge straight in, firing as many frozen spears as possible. Instead he did his best to look around for a tactical spot the team could gain. Maybe, even though they had their difficulties, Scott had rubbed off on him a bit. "Whatever we do, we can't let our guard down."

"I wasn't planning on it, sweetheart," came Misty's amused-sounding response, however the woman's body language was all business. "We need to take them out hard and fast, otherwise Sublime will know his backup's been taken down and rabbit. Red, Frosty, you take the man-mountain there. Try and lead him away from the marina is you can. Cal, honey, you up for the rent-a-goons? Silent and deadly seems like your thing."

Callisto scowled, but then, this seemed to be her reaction to basically anything so it was hard to tell whether she was irritated or just conscious. She nodded, hunkering down a little for no apparent reason as she took in the henchmen's movements.

Angel looked a little relieved at who she had to fight and who she probably didn't. Not that the other guy was going to be easy but at least he hadn't kicked her ass last time. She clapped Bobby on the shoulder. "That shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully."

Bobby cast one more look towards the man who had pretty much beat the crap out of him during their last meeting. "Well, that's what we thought last time. But you know what they say...." Within a blink of an eye, his entire body had iced over, and his eyes were looking directly towards the mountain of a man that was pointed out a while ago. "The bigger they are... the... fatter they are... or something like that." And in an instant he was starting to form an ice chute underneath his feet, trying to move it as silently towards their target as possible.

The squad moved out, tracking on the building with the two obvious commanders in front. They had their target and were prepared to take down anyone between them and it. The massive man paused at the outside fence, and simply ripped it away like Christmas wrap between him and his objective.

Misty ripped the glove off her right hand, metal gleaming in the dim light, and flexed her fist. "Enough talk, let's go." And with that she was sprinting silently towards her target.

In response, Angel threw herself off the roof and in mid-fall, burst into flames. It served two purposes - one, she didn't leave a mark and potentially draw questions later on and two, it got people's attentions. Hopefully, the big one, too.

Callisto raised her eyebrows, taking a step back from the edge and sticking her hands in her pockets. "What is this, fuckin' charge of the light brigade?" she asked, though the likelihood that she had the slightest knowledge of the origin of the expression she'd just uttered was very slim indeed. "So much for stealth. Were we doing stealth?"

The squad turned at the mutants headed towards them, and a few quick words started a volley of suppression fire as their commanders set up for the charge. Ajax reached down to the fence he'd just ripped apart and pulled out the metal pole. With a moment's aim, he sent it speeding directly into the ice chute behind Iceman, shattering it into a million fragments. Before they could hit the ground, the icy shards became steam, and a bolt of superheated liquid caught the X-Man in the small of the back, trying to throw him to the ground.

"Damnit, here we go again..." Was all Drake could get out as he found himself flying quickly downward. But he was able to focus his head just enough to form another small ramp just off the ground. He was moving at a pretty good clip, but the make-shift ice ramp slowed his fall enough that he only did about a half dozen barrel rolls before coming back up to his feet, thankfully still in his ice form and in one piece. Bobby already knew what these guys could do, and kept his hands up in front of him as he began forming several small spikes of ice near his head. "Alright, which one of you is gonna pay for screwing up my hair?"

Misty rolled her eyes silently as she used the distraction created by Bobby and Angel to come at Washout from behind. Raising her cybernetic fist, she aimed a blow at the back of his head - she didn't know this man's strengths or weaknesses and wasn't about to risk underestimating them. "Cal! Take care of those guns!"

Having seen that Bobby was in no danger of smashing himself into a million pieces of crushed ice, Angel swung herself around in a tighter circle above where Ajax was. She concentrated on super heating the area around him, exciting the microwave energy that she could see. A trashcan near by exploded from the heat and the fence started to melt - better yet, as she pushed and pushed, so did the very road under his feet.

Ajax found himself sinking into the asphalt, even as the men around him jumped away with their boots smoking. The viscous nature made it had to move, and he pushed to try and get himself free to resume his attack. Meanwhile, Washout had caught sight of Misty, and he lashed out with one hand, a whip of water condensed almost to a razor's edge cracking towards her throat.

Misty blocked with her cybernetic arm, the water whip shattering against the metal with a harsh screech and leaving several deep gouges behind. She winced, more out of thought of the repair bill than actual pain and aimed a savage kick at Washout's knee, intending to shatter it.

Drake noticed the strike against Misty, but only hesitated a brief moment. He knew how vicious these guys could be, and he wasn't going to let a second pass by without keeping an offense going against them. He already had about a dozen large ice spike floating around his head, and with a motion of his hand, sent them flying at the impaired Ajax. "Looks like it's time to start shooting fish in a barrel."

Washout sidestepped just as fast as Misty, twisting away from the strike with surprising speed for an older man. His firing line was broken. Meanwhile, Ajax had simply covered himself up as the ice lances gouged him, shattering on impact. Washout spun and smashed a fist into Misty's stomach forcing her back.

"Ajax," He held up a hand, waving to his partner. "Zulu!"

The hulking man just nodded, and ripped his feet from the road. The rest of the shooters started to retreat, lying down covering fire for them.

Up in the air, Angel grinned - not too cocky, though, because that would totally cost her. But if they were wanting to retreat, well, wouldn't it be nice to give them a helping hand? Angel simply crossed her arms over her chest and across the road, behind the bad guys as they retreated, burst into a wall of flame. It was a way of making sure they were not going to come back around and maybe it was a bit of a "fuck you", too.

Alright, maybe being a little cocky didn't hurt anyone.



Across from the marina where Hank, Paige, Kane and Cage were meeting Sublime, the last team waited in the small repair facility. The first of the cellphone alarms had gone off as Sublime sprung his expected ambush, and an alarm from the second team of X-Men indicated that there was a second team there to back up the ambush. When a small team of seven shooters led by an odd looking yellow skinned man stepped out of the back of a cargo truck and started towards the marina, they were ready to intercept.

"Oh, look, Jubilee, that man has your favorite coat as a skin." Marie-Ange said. She palmed a card from the deck in her coat pocket, and a shield and sword, both with the appearance of battered iron, appeared in her hands.

"Yes, I know, ridiculous. Useful though."

"A weapon that's useful and that you wield effectively is never ridiculous." Colleen's favorite katana was still sheathed across her back. The woman had the sword's matching wakizashi in hand and a tantō sheathed and latched to each leg. She was watching the yellow-skinned man closely. Unlike the other women, Colleen had no genetic mutation to aid her against mutants in a fight. There was only her, her blade and what she had been taught over her life. Usually it was enough to win a fight but she wouldn't underestimate him. "Do we know who the sunflower is?"

Jessica's attention shifted between the redhead and the blonde with a smirk at their

choice of weaponry before glancing back toward their would-be potential opponent. "Not sure, but I would very much love to find out." More often than not she had a way of charming people, unnaturally of course, though it could sometimes backfire if she didn't act wisely.

"Remind me to think of something cutting to say about your insult to my wardrobe later," Jubilee responded, allowing miniscule plasma sparks to rise from her skin giving her flesh the kind of sparkle a Twilight vampire groupie could only envy. It took slightly more effort and energy to maintain then the more dazzling displays but it gave the benefit of being less noticeable in a 'teenage looking girl wearing glitter makeup' kind of way but having the same amount of kick over a wider area when she decided to throw down. "Let's do this thing, shall we?"

"Sure, we'll use the sparkle girl as our distraction so everyone is so confused as to why some glittery kid is there they forget why they're actually here," Colleen replied with a dry tone. She was going to have to have a chat with Kane eventually about the quality of his referral business he was sending her way. "Since sparkle princess here seems keen on attracting attention, why don't we let her and a kind volunteer come at them from the front and the other two of us can stick to the shadows to get at them from the sides near the rear of their formation? Give them enough places to watch and we'll see how good they are at what they do." Colleen was very obviously putting herself in the shadowed rear assault category. The sparkle princess gig was far from her style.

"Not it." Marie-Ange was going to have words with Jubilee about what was and was not good strategy on the plane ride home, if they did not come out of this with concussions or injuries necessitating pain killers. "But I can even the odds a bit." She flipped a second card out from under the first, and a quartet of skeletons armed with wooden swords and shields appeared in front of the women. They stood very still for several seconds and then moved forward quickly - and totally silently, rushing the armed men.

Jessica gave Colleen and Marie-Ange an eyebrow.

"Et tu, Brute?" she said with a smile, before turning back to Jubilee.

"Well, looks like its just you, me, and the chaps from the 7th Voyage of Sinbad.Start using your head now and we'll get along fine, alright love?" she said, motioning ahead of her.

"After you. I'll follow."

She still didn't think she had much field experience in the first place, as was apparent by the glitter show but they'd soon see. She didn't particularly want to play babysitter if it came down to it but there wasn't any turning back now. All they could do at this point was get back in one piece and argue later. She had hope the slip up was just a small thing and not something that would result a hospital stay. If she got hurt she'd be very cross.

For one, she disliked the jello they served. Oh, and, yes, the massive amount of pain.

Jubilee dropped the sparks, realizing that Marie-Ange's images would be much more effective in drawing fire, and much less vulnerable to bullet holes then she was. Which left her with two options, get big time explosions, which would screw everyone's night vision, an obvious no-no at night, or the one she preferred, stick with the Jessica chick and stop them both from being shot up while the others did their Wu-tang, sword fighting badassness impersonations. She grinned at the older woman, flourishing a hand to indicate that she should go first.

"After you, English."

Peering down at the scene, Jessica held up a hand. "Hang on a tic," she said as she checked for an opening, and to see what the reaction of the men was against the skeletons Marie-Ange had already sent ahead. The surprise was gone anyway, after all, and perhaps they'd have an idea of what they were up against.

While the weapons fire seemed only to stagger the skeletons, the yellow hued man lunged forward, swiping at them with his clawed hands. To his surprise, they virtually exploded on impact, and he stopped, shouting a warning to ignore the skeletons until they closed, and use the butts of their weapons to destroy them.

With the skeletons adequately serving as a distraction for the moment Colleen gestured to where she was sneaking off toward and disappeared into the shadows. Bullets would tear her up just as effectively as the next person so she needed to get close and preferably behind them to have any hope of helping dispatch some of their threat. Guns were nasty things, which is also why she had several smoke grenades on her. One could only get so close from stealth alone when men were looking to make a mess of anyone nearby. Three different smoke grenades were thrown in quick succession of one another, each seeming to come from near one another but not the exact same place. Grey, green and purple smoke erupted in turn, killing the visibility of the lovely jaundiced man and his associates so the ladies could take back the upper hand and some element of surprise.

Seven guns, and a yellow... person. Marie-Ange's personal jury was still out deliberating on whether or not she wanted to give it enough attention to figure out race. As she moved in, she kept a mental 'eye' on the skeletons, replacing them as needed. Even if the shooters were clubbing them away, she could replace them. The unreal boned infantry moved to corral the shooters, popping back up as fast as they disappeared in order to herd the men around and separate them into smaller groups.

Jubilee saw her chance as Marie-Ange and Colleen separated out the various shooters into smaller, more manageable groups. She stepped lightly to the side of Jessica, and let loose with several small plasma balls, the smoke diffusing the light from them, making it difficult to figure out exactly where they were unless you happened to have a connection with them. She pushed them toward the men closest to her and Jessica's position, stretching them as they touched the guns to surround the weapons, not being particularly delicate since she didn't particularly care if their attackers happened to lose a limb or two.

The shooters attempted to scatter in the face of the explosions, blinded by the smoke and pushed off of their attack plan. The yellow skinned man pushed through, ignoring the plasma explosions and the smoke to close with him, claws spread wide. Random shots came through the smoke as they tried to sort themselves out.

Of the three men that had their guns effectively melted by Jubilee's plasma balls, one was clutching his hand, which was an ooey gooey little mess after the gun exploded in backfire when the sides of the barrel fused together. The other two were smart enough to drop their guns but still suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns, and were mostly down for the count as they tried to fall back to a safer position.

Jessica, however, caused one man to fall back mostly on the ground when a bright greenish light, buzzing with energy, erupted from her hand and struck the guy in the chest. As the man's muscles seized up, she finished him off with a roundhouse kick to the face.

The third man started to run away and she was about the go after him when some of the random shooting came her way and she backflipped out of the way of a couple of bullets. Landing on the ground, she caught sight of the yellow skinned man and aimed a blast of energy at him. Those claws didn't look sanitary.

The man running from Jessica was unlucky enough to head straight for Colleen's hiding spot as she emerged. A slice of her blade swept cleanly through the man's neck, hitting bone and the heel of her palm hitting the back of his neck so his head shot backward and released her blade easily. The martial artist was caught with a stray bullet clipping her arm and stealing her attention to the man stupid enough to be shooting at her. She ducked into the shadows again and quickly made her way around boxes, under tables and behind pillars. The advantage of the repair facility was the cover it afforded.

Colleen emerged behind the shooter, foot striking out to connect with the back of his knee. He crumpled and spun in an attempt to defend himself but before his gun was aimed it was clattering to the floor and his feeble blocking was swept aside smoothly. Colleen winked at him. "Night, sweet pea." The tantō she'd pulled from its sheath en route came up lightning face only to be buried in his eye.

Even the most well-trained men had a moment of distraction when their colleagues had their guns - or hands - melted. A second of pause was all Marie-Ange needed to slide in around a trio of skeletons and slice another of the men across the neck, cutting open his throat almost at the jaw where the body armor could not protect without removing their ability to turn their heads. Armor could only do so much.

The sword misted away, and another, slightly different in length appeared in her hands almost immediately after.

Jubilee examined the ambush, eyes moving from those already taken out, to those still shooting, and then tracking the movements of her allies. Any overt display of power in this situation would put her companions at a disadvantage, which meant taking a more stealthy option now that she'd done at least a small amount to level the playing field.

She moved silently, ghosting up behind one of the remaining gunman to punch him, her small fist sinking into the fleshy part of his lower back just over the kidney.

Jessica disappeared into the smoke for a few moments, studying the intervals of the bullets that whizzed by, as well as their distance away. And when the bullets stopped firing from one of the guns she raced forward, ducking through the smoke as she came upon her prey: one of the men mid reload.

Grabbing the gun, Jessica shoved it at his face and broke his nose, then wrenched it from his hand before he could react, then wrenched it away from him and made a sweeping kick, knocking him to the ground.

Jessica didn't have time to avoid the strike from behind as four claws tore across her back. She was moving fast enough that the cuts were only shallow, but the blow forced her to retreat. The combat situation was breaking down, and over his comms, he could hear the breakdown of the other ambush team. It was becoming clear that the mission was a failure. With a motion, he turned and ordered the retreat, before plunging back into the smoke and making his own escape.



There was something familiar about the woman- certain he'd seen her before, Hank could not place where. In all likelihood she was a past enemy who had been filed away in the X-Men annals during a time he hadn't been active. Unsure of what she was capable of, Hank cocked a brow, "Yes, I'm sure she has proven indispensable to your operations. However, I'm not certain what you hope to accomplish by weaponizing mutants to an absurd degree, Mister Sublime. A supposedly domesticated tiger will eventually tear out its owner's throat...so unless there was a way to ensure your control over your...staff...I doubt you'd be stupid enough to do it. Correct?"

“Subjects, yes. Staff?” Sublime made an exaggerated sigh. “The problem with well trained staff is that methods to subvert free will eliminate the very thing that makes them useful. Ms Oyama and her team have instead given their allegiance based on the two oldest ways in the book: money and a chance for revenge. I fortunately can provide both.”

“Who hired you?” Kane said, breaking into the conversation. The Canadian couldn’t give a damn about the details of the deal. It didn’t answer who was involved, and why. “Who gave you all this information for killing my team!”

“That isn’t part of our deal, Mountie. More importantly, I don’t know his true name. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s a he, or a she, or the front for a larger group. Up until two years ago, it was nothing more than a rumour that I’d heard. A figure who would occasionally make deal, and had access to all sorts of research and technology.”

“A name, Sublime. Give me a fucking name!”

“The Director. Nothing more than a voice on the other end of a cellphone that I had believed no one else had the number for. When the job was done, my payment arrived along with Ms Oyama. You could ask her.” Sublime said, and the woman spread her hands, adamantium claws sliding from their sheaths.

“Oh, believe me. I’d like to ask her very, very much,” Paige answered, shouldering in front of Kane, preventing him from lunging, with the heavy step of her sneakered foot. “However, I’m a genius because of my good decisions, so I’m going to have to go with, did you seriously think we would physically bring your files with us, you condescending little shit?”

Sublime looked at them and back at Oyama. He made a gesture and she took a step back, sheathing her claws and folding her arms. “This is going to be one of those situations where – wait, let me guess – if you don’t make contact at a specific interval, the files end up getting shipped to the press or posted on-line or something equally ridiculous?”

Paige smiled, honey sweet. “Aren’t you clever. Something like that, yes.”

Sublime sighed. “I hate good guys. If you were Yakazu or something like that, you’d have just brought the biggest guns you could find and acted all tough. Instead-“ He made a disgusted noise. “We’re done here. Tell the teams to pull back.”

“Like hell we are!” Garrison tried to push past Paige. “We’re going to tell me everything about this Director, or I’m going to rip your fucking-“

“Kane! It’s not the time.” Cage said, going nose to nose with the other man. Even in the face of his sudden dismissal, he understood that turning this into a fight would do nothing but hurt them. Kane struggled to find his control before he ruined the mission at the very last post.

“Yeah, keep it in check, sweetheart.” Sublime said with a shooting gesture. “Enjoy the flight home.”