Into The Fog

[x-roulette.livejournal.com]

A small team of XFers board a Russian tanker in the Baltic sea carrying some very precious cargo. And make a horrific discovery.

Warning - graphic and potentially disturbing content



The rubber side of the inflatable boat they'd taken from the pier at their drop off location nudged the side of the oil tanker they'd finally gotten to. They'd cut the engine a mile out and were without lights - so Wade and North had rowed the last stretch. The ship itself was dark, which didn't bode well. "Comm's up and running?" Wade asked, nudging the earwig he'd put in place before they left land.

"Affirmative," North responded, echoed by Jubilee as the precog reached up in the dark to tether Exit Plan A to the lowest rung of the ladder which ran down the side of the ship. That done, he wasted no time in foisting himself up onto it and swiftly scaling its length until he ran out of rungs to grasp onto. Rubber soles and gloved fingers made no noise as he hauled himself onto the deck and crouched to scan their new surroundings before his companions joined him.

Jubilee dropped down beside him, silent as a ghost as she looked around their immediate vicinity and then signed that she'd move out on point while North watched her back.

Amanda was a little slower than the previous two, but just as noiseless as she dropped down beside North. "Got any hints about where to start looking?" she murmured, barely audible, knowing his earpiece would pick her up. She didn't like not being tethered to a city - any city - but she'd make do the old fashioned way.

"Command's up top," Wade murmured, bringing up the rear. "Seems that'd be a good place to start. You got anything poppin', Mav?"

"Too quiet," North replied. "Not yet." His powers could only extend so far after all, and all he was getting for the next two minutes was darkness and silence. "Something is up, but Command is as good a place to go as any."

North led the way and Wade brought up the rear, their small group making as little noise as possible as they eased their way across the deck and up towards the command room. It was only when they were about to slip inside that the precognitive froze and held up a hand to stop them.

"Can you smell the blood?" He asked, voice a whisper as he cocked his head to the side. "I know where our target is. But something is wrong inside."

"So much for a simple sneak and grab," Amanda murmured with a sigh. "Jubilee, you got anything?"

"Dudes, you will not believe what I just found."

Jubilee had paused as she spotted the body, and she now crouched beside it, checking for any kind of pulse. She wasn't particularly hopeful at this point, given the amount of blood and the obvious signs of mutilation but you could never tell. This had not been what she was planning on for this operation, and she had a bad feeling that things were about to go down the shitter quickly if whoever did this was still on board.

North asking if people could smell the blood just did not bode well. Jubilee saying they wouldn't believe what she'd found boded even worse. The kicker, though, was realizing that it wasn't just a shadow hung on the wall across from the lumps of meat that had once been living, breathing people. There were three oddly textured, dark patches and, after stepping a little closer, Wade realized they were actually made of skin. Human skin. Blood dribbled down the wall and a brief touch let him know all he needed. "This was done within the last hour. Blood's still sticky but on its way to being completely dry."

"Which means the thing-" Amanda was positive this hadn't been done by a normal human. "-is probably still on board. Shite. We'd better move fast before we end up as modern art pieces ourselves, which means splitting up." She glanced at the two much older, much more experienced spies, wondering if they weren't just humoring her first command that wasn't magic-related. "Deadpool, you and Maverick team up and do a sweep of the ship, see if there's any evidence of who's responsible. Jubilee and I will grab the disk. Keep comms open, sing out if you find anything. Okay?"

"Aye aye," Wade murmured, keeping his reservations about the division of labor to himself. This looked gruesome and had all the hallmarks that something could - probably would - go horribly wrong. But he hadn't been with X-Force very long and he had no real idea what tricks Amanda might have up her sleeve. It was her command, she knew the others and their operational strengths better than he did. He and North broke away from the women smoothly, heading for the forecastle deck.

"Little bit of death, little bit of monstrous psychos hiding just out of sight and a whole lot of 'I have fuck all idea how they fight'. Just like old times. Hey, think the disk will be in a drawer marked 'my evil plans, just ask me'? I for one could use a little more easy mode and a whole lot less 'Holy fuck, I'm gonna throw up'"

Jubilee headed toward the port side of the ship and a hatch that would lead them downwards.

"We should be so lucky." Amanda followed after Jubilee.



Amanda and Jubilee go in search of their target, hoping that whatever's on the ship hasn't gotten there first.



"Dude, I hate ships - nothing good ever came of me being on a ship ever. Or is it a boat? I could never get the designations like, straight or anything. Probably cause I was avoiding being anywhere near them."

Jubilee was leading them down a narrow corridor on the crew deck where the blueprints Doug had given them showed a room not on the official layout of the ship. She took a left into a smaller room and then looked around at the walls, there would be an entrance here somewhere, they just had to look.

"At least you still have your powers working at full strength," Amanda muttered. "And can you ease up on the motor mouth? I don't fancy being skinned alive and then exploded, or whatever it was happened to that poor bastard." She knocked gently on the wall, listening for a hollow sound. "Looks like it might be behind that cabinet. Give us a hand to move it out of the way."

"My lips are sealed, only not with any of that sick stitching crap, cause ew, gross."

Jubilee stepped over and helped Amanda push the cabinet aside, revealing a concealed bulk head door.

"You got any cool magic mojo that can like, scry out what's behind door number 1?"

"I swear Jubes, if you don't start listening, I'm going to smack you one," Amanda replied. "No cities in range, remember? I'm running on what I was able to get from New York, and if that mess up there is anything to go by, I'm going to need to save it just in case." She nudged her teammate aside and lay her ear on the door, closing her eyes as she focused on listening. "No movement, at least. Ready up a plasma burst while I get this."

"Sure," Jubilee replied mildly, lighting up her hands with multicolored sparks that ran up and down each finger before spitting small sparks at the nails. "All juiced up, Mandy."

Amanda heaved on the lock, turning the metal wheel with a slow and far-too-loud screech before heaving back on the heavy metal door with all her weight. It slowly opened with a creak and the witch wrinkled her nose at the smell that wafted out - blood and bowel contents. "Fuck. Smells like a bloody abattoir in there."

Jubilee waved her back and stepped forward to take a look, it was dark inside but brightening the plasma running through her palms showed them a grizzly tableau.

"I don't think these guys are gonna be much of a threat."

Wrinkling her nose, she stepped over the first body, as badly mangled as the ones they'd seen outside and headed over to the banks of monitors lined against the far wall.

Another body lay crumpled against the legs of a chair, blood a thick, syrupy mess around his head.

"Looks like they weren't expecting whoever hit them."

"Any sign of the list?" Amanda asked, stepping gingerly into the room. It wasn't large, and there was nowhere for anyone to hide. Likewise, however, there didn't seem to be anywhere for their target to be, either. Which meant they'd been beaten to it.

Jubilee's answer was a string of obscenities that would have made a sailor blush but she contained herself to harsh language, no reason to blow anything up and leave a trace.

"All the hard disks have been erased, if we had the time I could fish them out and get them back to Doug to like, un erase them but I get the feeling he'd have just as crappy luck as I just did. Search the dead arsehole near you, yeah? I'll get this lovely pile of entrails in a suit over here."

Amanda wrinkled her nose, but bent over the messy form. "Looks like he had something chained to his wrist," she said after a moment. "His hand's gone. My bet is that he had the list - your traditional locked briefcase with a handcuff arrangement." A glint of metal under the desk caught her eye - the remains of the briefcase, torn apart and cast aside. "Fuck," she said, pulling it out and discovering it was empty, the disc gone. "It's not here."

"Great, I guess..."

Jubilee's voice trailed off as she noticed the screen in front of her.

"I think we better get back topside quick time"



Wade splits off looking for whatever is on the ship. And finds it.



The hair along the nape of Wade's neck had been standing on end since he and the others had split up. He'd been feeling twitchy when they found the bodies — the mutilation there was intense, almost like someone had been playing with their victims, drawing it out and teasing at death inch by inch. It was nothing he hadn't seen before, but it was unexpected. This was supposed to have been a simple smash and grab — now it was a board, investigate, and probably go up against somebody who didn't mind filleting the skin off a man while he was still alive.

The whistling really wasn't helping and he could swear someone was behind him. Wade knew better than the turn and look, though, so he just kept creeping forward, weapons drawn as he made his way to the forecastle deck.

The whistling itself was a low, decidedly off key production that only grew in volume as Wade advanced toward the ship's prow. It was punctuated in spurts with what might have been a deep, manic chuckle or merely the sound of the ship against the sea. It was recognizable. The whistling was —

A flickering shadow passed briefly across the far silhouette of the ship's breakwater.

Wade knew better than to turn abruptly toward the flickering motion — instead, he froze and put his back toward the nearest solid thing he could find, watching silently to see which direction an attack might come from. Nothing happened. The whistling picked up again, sending a chill down the mercenary's spine. It was like every really awful horror movie he'd seen in the last ten years all rolled into one.

When nothing attacked after he'd held his position for several long seconds, Wade began inching his way toward the prow again. He hadn't gone six feet before the toe of his boot hit something small that rolled across the deck. It wasn't a smooth roll, though — the object wasn't spherical. He sat slowly on his heels, weapon still raised and ready, eyes barely glancing down as he attempted to examine the object in the dim light without leaving himself completely vulnerable. Oblong, smallish — that was definitely a finger.

After the gore upstairs, he shouldn't have been surprised, but Wade found himself shaking his head anyway. There was so much gratuitous death here — someone really was playing with their victims. The people on this ship hadn't stood a chance. Straightening, he began moving forward again, still catching a flicker of movement here and there in his peripheral vision, then again ahead of him.

The play of shadows against the narrow hallway created by stacked cargo containers would have made more sense if it were daylight. The glow of the moon on the sea and the pitying illumination of Wade's flashlight created their own ghosts and phantoms across the narrow, ridged surface leading from the forecastle deck stairways in addition to the figure that was and wasn't there. A dash. Another flicker. A vaguely humanoid shape against the darkness.

A sweep of his flashlight revealed that the sides of the ridged containers were painted with broad strokes of a dark substance. As Wade adjusted his headlamp, he could see the whimsical, sticky trail lead directly toward the ship's prow.

The whistling paused for a beat and dissolved into a momentary giggle before resuming.

Wade panned the beam of the flashlight back and forth, taking in the fact that it was blood smeared on the cargo containers around him and that it actually spelled words in some places.

Obey.

The mercenary walked a few more feet. The word was unmistakably English, which gave some small bit of insight into whoever had done this, since they were on a Russian tanker.

Snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails.

The letters ran together on that one, but Wade was familiar with the rhyme. He flicked his flashlight off and tucked it into its spot on his belt, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the darkness around him as he drew a second weapon. It didn't take him long to realize the objects hanging from the containers weren't supposed to be there. Bits and pieces of people were strung about like Christmas ornaments, barely visible in the dimness. A leg here, an arm there — and that was most definitely someone's head. Wade felt something wet hit his shoulder and made himself exhale slowly before moving forward, out of the gangway.

As Wade began to ascend the stairway upward, out of the grim landscape, the feeling of someone behind him suddenly returned and then some — a male voice, now close and intimate, hummed a string of four, short notes directly into Deadpool's ear.

"Company," Wade muttered, knowing the others would have heard the creepy string of Corey Hart notes over the comms, anyway. He whipped around, knife in one hand, gun in the other, but instead of hitting someone in the face with his elbow, he hit empty air.

That high, malicious laugh once again echoed off the metal of the deck, but now it was overlaid an additional chorus of whistling that aspired toward the electronic quality of 1980s pop music.

The song made a lot more sense given the brief flash of face Wade had seen before the man dodged and was gone - he was wearing sunglasses at night. "Ha ha," the mercenary murmured. "At least one hostile with a whacked out sense of humor," he said, turning slowly in an attempt to locate the man again.

Wade was only greeted by a shadow, but it was stationary; it's owner just out of sight past the top of the stairs. The shadow raised a hand to beckon the other man forward.

Squeezing off three shots in rapid succession, Wade didn't wait to see if he'd hit the man before taking a running leap and clearing half the stairs with one step. He took the second half just as easily, reaching the top even as he holstered his gun. Close-quarters fighting didn't lend itself particularly well to use of firearms.

There was, unfortunately, no corpse with bullet holes bleeding readily on the forecastle deck. What there was, and in abundance, was the source of the gangway gallery. A pile of bodies was piled directly near the prow, and blood drained into a spillway already cut into the deck surface. Two bodies were suspended by and lashed to the anchor wenches, and if the strained rise and fall of their exposed chests did not prove they were alive, it was obvious by their continued whistling.

The disembodied voice, again, now singing. "Don't switch the blade on the guy in shades."

The two torsos ceased their backbeat and replied, mechanically, "Oh no."

There was extensive visible damage on both of the men hanging from the anchor wenches and they were both incredibly pale in the moonlight. Wade wished he hadn't put Bea away — he'd have shot them just to put them out of their misery. As it was, he sang back, "Don't masquerade with the guy in the shades." Because awful eighties music was a universal sort of thing. Right? He needed the guy to come closer. Cat and mouse was all well and good, but Wade could only handle being the mouse for so long.

The torsos again. "Oh no, I can't believe it."

Wade walked over to the men, careful as he went to make sure there were no traps laid, and then very calmly slit first one man's throat, then the second. The background singing ended in gurgles but there was so little blood left in their bodies that it didn't take either of them long to die.

"They were growing dull anyway." As Wade turned, the figure he had pursued stood not five paces away. The man was tall, lanky, and brown, but his features were obscured by the night and his pair of over-sized aviator sunglasses. He continued, and the sing-song quality of his voice replaced by predatory glee. "You seem the type of feck who will make a much better toy."

"C'mon, Spanky. Less talk, more action," Wade said, flipping his knife so he held it with the blade facing down, a dangerously sharp edge to protect his forearm. He took a measured step left, putting one of the anchor wenches at his back. He wasn't sure where the others were, he caught snatches of conversation back and forth, knew there was another guy somewhere aboard ship, thought he'd heard when North dealt with someone else - maybe it was the same person, who knew? The mercenary was a little preoccupied with the man in front of him and the grotesque art show he'd put on.

There was a glint in the dark as his opponent happily produced not one, but two combat knives of his own. He smiled happily and advanced, circling Wade appreciatively. "Yer some type of paramilitary poser, hm?"

He lunged with an experimental stab, but reset his stance immediately; cooing in delight at Wade's defensive responses.

"Aah, nah. I'd wager on private security. You reek of American. I am going to savor scrubbing that redneck smile off yer prettyboy face."

Wade openly scoffed. "Jeez, you can do better than that, right?" His number one rule when it came to hand-to-hand was always to know your opponent. Or well, that was it usually. He had zero intel on this guy, abundant evidence that he was the bad kind of crazy, and the frigid Baltic Sea close enough to his back to make him wary of being propelled over if the other man decided to do something tricky and managed to get him farther from the anchor wench than he wanted to be.

He remembered telling Summers that it was basically impossible to kill him, though, and even baseline humans could survive in freezing water for a bit... sort of. He had teammates on this boat - he still wasn't entirely sure what was going on with them. So he lunged forward, going on the offensive. Fake, fake, slice - he needed to get a feel for what the man was capable of when he wasn't simply ripping people apart and playing with the leftovers.

"Why the hell would I..." and he dodged while replying with an almost lazy sort of agility. Like he wasn't trying. In fact, the man in sunglasses caught the real slice full on in the chest, but for Wade it was like trying to slice through leather armor. His opponent took this opportunity to plant one of his own knives into Wade's vest and used the improvised lever to toss Wade over one shoulder and away from the anchor with a judo throw. "... care. I get to play so little."

Tough skin, probably not impenetrable, but it'd take more than the knife Wade was currently wielding to do the job. "To make it interesting," Wade answered, moving into a series of rapid punches and kicks. It didn't seem like the guy had much formal training but the mercenary couldn't discount the viciousness in the other man's movements. It didn't take a black belt to snap somebody's neck, just the strength, determination, and proper positioning. "I mean, seriously. You're rating like at three on my 'should I even bother with this jackass' meter."

This phrase caught the dark man's attention. "You would never say that if you knew Mother's love." He took the hits like a punching bag with barely any shows of pain or resistance. For each kick and each punch, each resulting twist and turn of Sunglass's frame, Wade threw himself enough off balance so that, when the time came, the dark man joyfully lunged to slide his long knife past the chinks in Deadpool's armor and land a squelching stab.

"I've itched to do that since yer sorry team boarded. You have that kind of face."

Wade smiled through the pain, clamping his arm down on his side and jerking away from the creepy fucker before twisting and snagging him around the neck with the effortlessness of muscle memory. Take the jab and the blood and the sharp agony in one side and let it flow out the other, conscious of it but not letting it inhibit him as he swung himself up and around to put the creeper in a classic jiu jitsu choke hold. He dislodged the knife from its place between his ribs and flung it away.

Somewhere in the move, though, the sunglasses got knocked askew and, as Wade pulled backward, leveraging himself against the deck to put as much pressure on the other man's throat as possible, he took a moment to check out his dimly lit but visible face. The eyes. The eyes were shattered, fractured patterns of jagged pupil, retina, sclera. The mercenary tightened his hold - whatever this man was, he wasn't normal... and he had an unnatural fixation on his mother.

A moment's hesitation was enough. The eyes shone brightly, and then Sunglasses broke the hold as he pushed Wade's elbow through and around with inhuman strength. He did not let go, however, and used his new grip on Wade's wrist and elbow to deliver a swift series of kicks that spoke to the speed only previously hinted at.

"She's got," he sang again.

"Control of me." Another kick.

"I tuuuurn," And a final blow before he used the advantageous position to flip Wade into the air and back-first onto the steep stairwell below.

"And obey." Sunglasses grinned as Wade tumbled down the metal stairs. He absently wiped a trickle of blood from his nose, and there was a faint hiss and spitting sound as the blood boiled against the metal of the stairway handrail.

Definitely some broken ribs in addition to the stab wound - both injuries would take a little while to heal. That was time Wade didn't have. So he pushed himself up, spat blood on the deck, and stood. Even accounting for a mutation that left him super strong, it should have taken more to break that hold than it had - and those eyes. "Guys," Wade said, raising one hand to check his ear for his comm. "This — " He didn't finish though.

His comm was gone.



North has gone to the wheelhouse, where something is waiting for him.



The wheelhouse was like the rest of the ship, quiet except for the humming of the engine, and the lights that flickered in and out. There were bodies here as well, beaten, broken, ripped apart. Their faces twisted in expressions of horror, at whatever came and killed them. The lights flickered again, briefly, and then went dark, leaving North in the wheelhouse, lit only by the green of the radar screens.

He went still as the room was plunged into darkness, casting his gaze out for his eyes to accustom themselves to the dark as he unholstered a hand gun with his right hand and slipped an Arkansas toothpick out of its sheath with his left. Carefully, he stepped over a bloody corpse, visions flashing rapidly in his head in a dizzying mix of darkness, green light and movement.

One thing was clear: North was not alone.

The exit was still marked by a green emergency sign. The German man could, maybe, slip out before his unlikely companion made his presence known.

But that was a Fool's hope.

The young man sat upon the radar controls, his legs swinging merrily in the dark, though he was small in stature there was something so very off about him.

Maybe it was his eyes, irises as white as milk, pupils exploding with black jagged lines. He smiled when he saw North,

"I'd run out of people," he said, his accent marking him as Scots, though Asian. "They all went so quick. I took my time, but they were so fragile, don't you see?"

North stared at him for a long while, taking in every eerie aspect as his mind worked quickly for the best route forward. He stamped down an involuntary shudder that threatened to rise and schooled his breathing into even beats. No use showing fear before a psychopath.

Not one for much posturing or chit chat, the marksman raised his handgun and fired two successive shots -- one to the forehead and the other to the right eye. Then he dropped to the ground in a swift roll, coming to a crouch behind a console.

There was a pulsing silence as the ship's engines thrummed on, broken only by the steady drip of blood on the floor from the unfortunate man who'd been hung from the ceiling.

"Oooh, you're going to be fun, aren't you?" the voice came from somewhere in the dark. Somewhere above. The was a giggle and a rattle, and then something wet splatted North in the face. It was a lung.

An irritated (disgusted) sort of expression crossed North's face as he flung the offending organ to the side and he rose from his crouch. "It is rude to throw internal organs at someone's face," he said, all sorts of growly now.

Stepping onto a chair to help leverage himself up onto the desk, the man swiftly reached up into the dark with a gloved hand that was damp with blood. Fingers closed around an ankle which he latched onto and pulled, swinging his target in the direction of the floor with a grunt.

The figure hit the ground, but didn't make a sound. No grunt or hiss or any indication he felt pain. Instead his shoulders heaved with silent laughter, and then-- faster than North could react, he swung himself over and kicked out the legs of the desk, sending the heavy object flying towards the wall.

Stumbling with a kind of surprise that he was rarely caught in, North dove and front-flipped off the table, booted feet landing solidly in the middle of a pool of blood. Given how difficult it was to wash out blood and gut from clothes, his annoyance was probably justified. His heart rate was elevated to the point where it should have translated to nervousness were he not preoccupied with the flashing visions in his head.

Blue irises were now hidden behind a film of white and North strode forward, ducking whatever shit it was that the crazy kid was flinging at him, bullets flying from his gun despite knowing that most of them wouldn't hit.

That was fine. He only needed the one to meet its mark.

The smaller man dodged again, and then was shot in the shoulder. He didn't even pause really, just cocked his head to the side.

"Ow," he said with a grin, and then jumped, reaching for a bit of piping and slamming North in the face with his boots. He dropped as North staggered, and hit him with several precise blows, gut, chest, and a roundhouse kick. The moves bespoke practice and discipline, the power behind them was less so. It seemed like he was almost drunk with glee as he registered how strong he really was. One final blow and North was sent flying.

"Could it be true, then? A whole group of you? I understand now, I understand." The smile was wide, the empty, ruined eyes looking halfway insane. "You're so much fun. I'm so happy."

His glove came away with blood when North wiped at his mouth, but the mutant merely mirrored that half-crazed grin, bloodied teeth eerie in the green light, fingers tightening over his weapons. "Glad to be of service."

He rolled forward, jumping over pieces of broken furniture and bones, catching the smaller figure by the shoulders and swinging him around. Arms moving a little too fast to catch, North pistol whipped him with the gun and drove his dagger into the hard tissue of his back, no mercy left.

When all he got in response was another creepy giggle, North gritted his teeth against a shudder and grabbed him by the waistband of his pants. With little effort, the precog hauled him over his shoulder and launched him through the glass window like a javelin that flew true.

The glass shattered, taking the smaller man with it. Precious seconds ticked by, but the smaller man did not reappear. The wheelhouse was again calm, save for the dead and North.

White film slowly receded to reveal cold blue irises that he cast once around the bloodied room. Then North turned sharply on his heel and left in search of his teammates, leaving behind only a trail of crimson footprints and the carnage of a mad being.



The others hurry to regroup before something even worse happens, but the creatures have one last surprise in store.



It wasn't hard to find Wade, the bloody trail left by his assailant led Amanda and Jubilee to the forecastle deck. They arrived to find Wade on the ground, and his assailant closing in on him.

Footsteps rang on the metal floor as Amanda, closely followed by Jubilee, appeared on the scene. "See you're making friends again, Deadpool," Amanda said with a humorless grin, mentally readying herself for a shielding spell while at the same time pulling a borrowed handgun from the holster beneath her jacket. "Back off, sunshine," she told the figure on the stairs.

Sunglasses, even though the mirror shades were scattered elsewhere, gave Amanda a wicked grin. "We're practically besties, love."

The pale white, cracked nature of his eyes were illuminated briefly before the man vanished. A split second later, the man reappeared on top of Wade, and he grabbed the still woozy man up into a super strength rear-chokehold. There was an additional glint of the man's knife in the glow of Amanda and Jubilee's power, but that too was brief as he plunged the blade straight to the cross-guard between Wade's cracked ribs and twisted eagerly. His next words were accompanied by the sounds of grinding bone and tearing organs. He smiled even wider like this was a welcome chorus.

"I say we take a minute to consider how fragile lives are."

"Dude, you have no idea." Jubilee drawled, stopping a yard away, as she watched the man who had their friend carefully. "You want us to deal with this arsehole, Deadpool, or you got it covered?"

Jubilee's previous glow, merely used to illuminate the area around her flashed into a brilliant light, enough to blind anyone looking directly at it.

When Wade chuckled blood bubbled from his mouth, dripping down his front to stain the already blood-soaked fabric of the stranger's sleeve. He couldn't help the pained wheeze that followed, though. Definitely broken ribs. Punctured lung. If the way the asshole was wiggling that dagger was any indication, he'd probably wind up completely eviscerated if things kept up the way they were going. "Little help, ladies," he said, trying to position himself so he could break the choke hold the other man had him in. He wasn't doing so well with coordination, though.

The stranger gripped his hold tighter as his prodding slowed. His attention wavered back to Wade as if he was just realizing something as skin tried to knit around the blade; a fact that also painted his features with horrid interest. "Oh, lookit that. I'm going to have to try harder."

The man drew his knife hand back to begin ripping instead of stabbing, but at that moment two unsilenced gunshots rang out across the space. Blood bloomed across the stranger's shoulder about the same time as another round of pain wrecked Wade's side. A bullet sliced through him and embedded it itself in the abdomen of his attacker, somehow missing everything vital to Wade's continued existence. North did enjoy using him as target practice.

North's shots were followed by another from Amanda, this time into the man's thigh. "Jubilee, eye shot, now," she barked at her teammate.

"With pleasure," Jubilee replied, a feral grin lighting her eyes as she sent a series of sparks directly toward the man's face.

The dark figure responded with reflexes too fast to register. The two shots that had already landed did very little to slow him down as he tightened his grip around Wade's neck. He used this leverage to duck behind and into the newest X-Force recruit's arched back to create an improvised human shield against Jubilee's plasma.

Sadly, a new figure appeared in the gangway before anyone could make a crack about friendly fire.

"It's done," the smaller man said. His clothes bore marks of being shredded, and there were shallow cuts in his face and hands, but he paid them no mind. In the light from the girls's powers, they saw his eyes were a mirror to the first man's own. Shattered, ruined, and lacking any soul.

A beat. Sunglasses pulled back, slackening his hold on Wade, and the crackling burns on his neck showed that he hadn't dodged all of Jubilee's punishment.

"Prep the charges." Sunglass's tone was now as flat and detached as his comrade's, but there was little time to appreciate that as he more loudly announced, "Sorry mates. Time to deliver on promises."

There was no banter as the figure broke his choke hold completely and kicked Wade's legs from under him. As Deadpool fell, the dark figure raked his own neck so that the razorblades hidden under his fingernails could break what remained of the tissue from where he had been burned. He began to bleed, but the hissing of his vital fluids hitting open air signaled something was not quite right. It was, however, enough of a distraction so that no one noticed that the other, late-arriving figure had disappeared

The dark figure was then over Wade; intimate. He pulled Wade's head back by his hair, and the blood from the newly opened wound did not so much trickle as it did gush downward.

To his credit, Wade attempted to roll with the kick that knocked him to his knees. He was hampered, however, by the fact that hello, those were his intestines and leaving them behind was anathema to what his instincts were telling him - keeping the intestines, even if they were outside the rest of him, meant he didn't have to straight up regrow them. The blood loss wasn't really helping. Which meant he hadn't moved enough to get out of the asshole's way when he leaned down and... squirted blood all over his face?

It took all of half a second for the blood's effects to become apparent but by that point, it was far too late. Open-mouthed screaming was definitely out. Blood loss or not, he knew swallowing that shit would be possibly the worst thing he could do in the situation. So he screamed but he kept his mouth shut — not that it would help if he didn't lean forward soon to let gravity help him out. The blood — acid — would eat straight through his cheeks and hit his throat. His eyelids would probably go first. This was an entirely new level of fucked.

A sudden rush of air and noise hit the man... no, the creature bent over Wade was hit by a blast of pure New York energy, everything Amanda had in her as she let loose with a cry of grief and horror. The blaring of cabs a millisecond after the lights, the stench of a thousand back alleys on garbage day, the heat and closeness of a mid-August summer day, the glare of oncoming traffic lights over a thousand days in the Lincoln Tunnel, the metallic tang of rush hour pollution... all of these barreled into the shape bent over Wade.

The blast didn't hit Wade's aggressor with the force of the L at Canarsie – Rockaway, but it packed enough of a punch to dislodge the two and send the creature reeling violently backward. He sat briefly silhouetted against the darkness in a grotesque parody of a human; limbs bent in odd angles, head askew. There was a brief moment of hope before he began, much like a marionette, to pull himself back together.

The crunch of resetting bone did not stop him from talking. "This is the most fun I've had since my fiancée burned me alive. Pity our time's all up."

Even with her knowledge that his healing factor was fairly strong, the possibility that the acid might eat his brain compelled her to act. Drawing up a sheet of plasma between her hands she hurried to Wade's side, trusting that Amanda and North would deal with the arsehole.

"Dude, this is gonna burn like a fucking curse but it should boil away the acid."

She drew her hands close, watching as the blood that covered him crackled and popped before burning away.

Gasping with the effort, Amanda lifted her gun and unloaded the clip in the creature's direction. The smell of burnt flesh was making her feel ill and she'd expended all of her energy stores. "Maverick, cover us. We're getting the fuck out of here."

As if to punctuate this, the ship rocked as a sound that was most definitely an explosion thundered through the air. A few seconds later, another.

"We are," North agreed, smoothly slipping a fresh gun from his ankle holster and into her hand. "Quickly now. Jubilation you need to move now. Heal later."

The precog did not explain as he emptied a clip of explosive rounds into their assailant's body, each bullet exploding shrapnel inside his body for maximum impact. With Amanda, they took out his shoulder joints, ankles and knees, a bullet each to his palms rendering him useless long enough for them to grab Wade and bundle him up into Jubilation's arms before North tossed them both over the side.

They did not spare a second to look back as Amanda and North took their own leaps off the ship, but North saw, in that one instance that he could have turned his head just so, the creepy, empty smile on the stranger's face just as the ship let out a loud groan and exploded in earnest, the heat chasing them all the way into the waiting dingy. The stranger's figure was silhouetted against the fire in the night sky, but then it was gone before fire reached the forecastle deck.

Acid, fiery plasma, sea water in all his wounds - the cold of the water shocked Wade's system, keeping him alert for longer than he probably should've been, but at least he managed to cram his intestines back in his stomach and keep the wound closed long enough for them to get back to the dingy. He wished he could pass out.

A hand gripped his shoulder gently. Amanda looked like a drowned rat, still coughing up the water she'd swallowed. "Hang in there, Wade," she murmured, looking back towards the burning ship. "Hang on until we get you home."