Operation: Wonderwall, Day 1
Jul. 28th, 2015 09:03 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsFelicia has to pretend to be a receptionist. It's possible she's even worse at it than Cammie. And as a result Wanda receives a rather unexpected call.
The strains of whatever neutral "best of the 80s, 90s, and today!' radio station had replaced Muzak as the background noise of most stores and offices were mutedly playing in the front lobby of the Snow Valley Centre on a very slow Tuesday morning.
"...should be another hot one today. Anyway, here's Wonderwall."
~Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you...~
At the front desk, the phone rang, caller ID showing as the NYPD 6th Precinct.
Generally, Felicia did not answer phones. It's not that she thought she was above it, though, let's be honest, yes she did, but mostly it was because they specifically paid someone to do this. As their job. Not that you would know it at the moment, as by the sixth ring Felicia let out a frustrated, high noise, and pushed herself from her desk.
This is probably what she got for being more of a eleven to seven or, more likely, five am because I haven't gone to bed yet to whenever stuff got done kind of girl. She did her numbers wizardry, gathered intel, stole things, but she was not punching any clocks, and she certainly didn't do a normal lunch hour. "Snow Valley, what," she monotoned into the receiver, idly tapping a black fingernail against the display, her mouth pulling slightly to one side.
"Finally, sweet baby Jesus," came a haggard voice from that other line that sounded far more relieved than annoyed. In fact, it was the type of raspy tone indicative of someone who had not slept in entirely enough hours or was at the hangover-end of a twelve hour bender.
The sound of a deep breath echoed across the connection, and the same voice, now much more cock-sure and collected, declared, "I need to speak to Wanda Maximoff."
"Transferring you over. I may hang up on you, but this isn't my job and you sort of sound like an idiot, so I don't really care," Felicia replied bluntly, randomly prodding a combination of buttons that, luckily, did indeed happen to be Wanda's transfer code. She then returned to her desk and, deciding that all this deserved a martini for lunch, picked up her purse and headed for the stairs.
Wanda paused mid-cursing at her computer and reached thankfully for the ringing phone. She had been struggling with the damned thing for the last half an hour and had been looking for an excuse, any excuse, to abandon her current headache. "Wanda Maximoff," she answered, glancing at the caller ID but not recognizing it.
It could be one of a number of options - Snow Valley business, their real business or a wrong number. Any of those were better than dealing with her computer.
"Babe, you're the best thing I have heard all week."
"Simon! Well, this is a surprise." But a pleasant one. The trip to Acapulco had been an interesting step but they had both avoided cementing anything. Wanda hadn't anticipated hearing from him for a few weeks, knowing their schedules both kept them busy. "If this is another call in which you try to convince me to run away with you...well, I could probably be persuaded."
"I..." The actual relief in his words was almost palpable, but there was a hesitant edge to them. "See babe, let's roleplay a little. I'll be the guy who got tossed into jail for making a dumbass, yet intensely satisfying, decision, and you can be the brave, pretty, and immensely sexy hero who saves me. Preferably in a short skirt."
Wanda's eyes closed and she let out a small laugh as she shook her head. "Simon," she nearly purred, "I do enjoy our times together. Though it might sound like you have taken this little fantasy a little too literally if I miss my guess. The last time we saw each other, there was one thing you said would be more satisfying than our time together ..."
She brought up the news on her phone and couldn't help but laugh. "Oh darling, that was one hell of a punch."
"That was my argument, but the cops here say that it was too satisfying. As they do."
There was a sigh on the other end, "But really. I am sure that my lawyers would say the same thing plus much better lecturing. If I could get ahold of them. Obi-Wanda, you're my only hope."
"Now we are onto your Star Wars fantasies." His words troubled her. What lawyers office couldn't be reached? Simon had the ability to tap into studio lawyers — at the very worst, he could reach a secretary. "I always did like those. Seriously, though, what can I do? And what do you mean you cannot reach your lawyers? Hell, one would think they would be all over you at this point."
"Babe you're literally," and he drew out the word in agitation, "the only number I could call that didn't go straight to voicemail or shoot me to a call center in India."
Wanda blinked and then shook her head. "In this day and age, that seems highly strange. Especially considering you were attempting to reach studio lawyers, who should be reachable at all hours. For exactly this reason." She thought about what she had scheduled for the day and mentally dismissed them all.
"Well, you have me, do with me as you will."
"I could have some fun with that... how about some roleplay? I need you to play assistant. I need cash for bail and to get out of here as soon as possible. I need my people in Cali. Celebrities do not carry wallets at movie premieres." He sighed. "Anyway. I'm stuck here and far too pretty for the general population. Save me, babe. I'll buy you something naughty when we're laughing this off over drinks later."
"Consider this your rescue attempt," Wanda reassured him. "And trust me, I may be calling in another Acapulco. Now, Simon, tell me everything you can before they make you hang up on me. Who I should call and your backups just in case I too cannot get through."
He did.
A few minutes later, Wanda was gifted with a list of agency contacts and family lawyers, vague and cryptic passwords for navigating his people's command structure, and a few suggestions on places Tony Stark's people could stuff their lawsuits.
"Consider it done," Wanda said firmly. She hesitated for a moment, feeling concerned and more than the fact that Simon was in jail. That was, after all, his own fault. "And be careful, please. There is something very strange here, so sit tight and wait for your heroic rescue." She smiled. "In the meantime, rest assured that I will be thinking up a creative repayment."
Once off the phone, she set to work.
---
Wanda and Marie-Ange go to Simon's bail hearing, where they notice an unexpectedly familiar face.
"...all rise," the bailiff said in that sort of perfunctory but still formal tone of a ritual that they had performed over and over every day for years. "Docket ending 616404, People vs Simon Williams. Charge is assault in the first degree..."
"They certainly got him into court quickly," Wanda remarked quietly to Marie-Ange. "I suppose that is what happens when you assault a man worth more than God." She wouldn't normally even try to talk during a court hearing for fear of being reprimanded by the judge but it was hardly a quiet court room that day. It was like a circus in there, filled with press and people who thought they'd get to be close to Stark and who were probably disappointed that the man himself wasn't there.
The two women had found a seat fairly close to the front but they were boxed in and Wanda was freely using her sharp elbows to give herself some breathing room.
"Hopefully they will process him just as quickly." Marie-Ange said. "The last thing that anyone wants is more tabloid coverage - perhaps if we are lucky we can get him bailed out and figure out just what is happening here. It is a wonder his own lawyers would not answer the phone."
"Not just his own lawyers," Wanda responded, "but not a single other person he called. He tried close, good friends, and several people in the industry and they all either went to voicemail or just kept ringing." She shook her head. "And so he tries one last time before the police finally get sick of the never ending attempts and he calls me - and it goes through? Honestly, I was intrigued and it helps that he has a nice ass, so here we are."
Marie-Ange shrugged, and kept her voice low and her head down - glancing up every so often at the court proceedings. "Well, I have nothing from a reading. I got - Doug called it a 'statistically improbably random series of cards'. There was math I did not entirely understand. Which... He said it could really only be because of you, because of fractal chaos theory. I do not even know, he said he was changing your computer background screen again though."
Wanda's mind tried to figure it out but kept going in circles. This was larger than just her powers, that much was obvious. She normally didn't impact things when she wasn't around. But something was going on, enough to intrigue her teammates. She listened with half an ear as the lawyer - who Wanda had managed to contact - talk about bail. Too visible to be a flight risk, despite that he had the money for it, something about his integrity ...
"So we sit and we have a nice chat once bail has been made."
Back and forth between the lawyer, who seemed more interested in his overpriced watch than Simon - and the judge went quickly - there was barely any negotiation, and bail was set at 100,000 dollars, cash or bond.
"His lawyer is terrible." Marie-Ange muttered. "I hope we are not paying for him. I hope he is not paying too much for him. He could have gotten that lower." She bent over her phone and tapped out a message. "We have a bondsman on call, a tenth of that is not terrible to cover."
The phone disappeared up Marie-Ange's sleeve as the bailiff made further announcements about the next bail hearing and Simon was shuffled off to booking to wait for his bail to be paid. The red-head leaned back in the uncomfortable bench and pulled out a sketchpad and pencil. "And now we have a nice chat, while I draw the backs of people's heads, in order to stave off boredom until we can sneak out, yes?"
Wanda grimaced. "Considering the weird interference Simon was having, he is lucky I managed to get a hold of this one," she sighed. Marie-Ange was right. The lawyer was terrible and Simon had been completely thrown under the bus. It wasn't a matter of the fact he could afford it, it was the principal of the matter. "No worries, all legal fees are being covered by Simon, now that they know he's in trouble."
It was the perfectly styled hair that caught her eye. It was perfect - the braids had no stray loose ends, and they were intricately coiled around an elegant bun that was too symmetrical to be real, but it was real - the hair moved and shone and reflected like hair. It was just simply - perfect. Marie-Ange flipped the pencil in her hand and poked Wanda's arm with it to get her attention.
[Far left. Blonde. Familiar? MN.] she scratched out on the paper quickly, the letters spiky in her haste.
It took Wanda a moment to figure out what MN meant but then the pieces fell together and she realized Marie-Ange had recognized the Enchantress of all people. Watching them? Watching Simon?
Wanda took the offered pencil and went to write a quick response but suddenly the paper in front of her blurred and she felt a weird sense of vertigo crawl over her. She steadied herself on the back of the bench in front of her and sat back with the realization that the pencil had snapped in half.
"Okay," she said quietly, "I think we may want to leave now."
"Yes, before you throw up." Marie-Ange was not even going to hope they were not spotted, she did not believe in coincidences. "That would garnish us even more attention and your paramour has already attracted enough, no?"
It was then that the blonde chose to look back over her shoulder - just a casual glance, really, but her icy blue eyes swept across Marie-Ange and Wanda in a way that was very much not a coincidence. Secrecy was very much out the window at this point.
The lights suddenly went out in the courtroom and, from the sounds coming from the back of the room, the reporters were suddenly having issues with their equipment. "Go, now!" Wanda said, shoving her way out of the booth as everyone stood up and tried to find the exit in the dark. The use of her powers should not have given her such a sharp headache but she could not think of that now.
They had to get to Simon.
---
Marie-Ange and Wanda take Simon to an X-Force safehouse and some of the other members arrive as backup, trying to figure out what someone could want with a minor celebrity.
The safehouse that the members of X-Force had gathered at was a perfectly anonymous townhouse in the East Village — two bedrooms (with weapons lockers in the closets), one and a half bathrooms (cupboards filled with painkillers, bandages, and sterile gloves), and a spacious kitchen (well stocked with a wide variety of alcohol). Doug leaned over his laptop where it sat on the small kitchen island and made a frustrated noise at the lack of anything like productive results. "What does an Asgardian sorceress-slash-possible-demigod need with — no offense, Wanda — at best a C-list celebrity?"
"I like how you apologize to me but not to the man you insulted," Wanda noted mildly. Shrugging off her business jacket, she tossed it on the couch as she kicked off her high heels. She'd been dressed for the courtroom but now she needed to dress for what might be a fight with very powerful enemies. Luckily, they had clothes stashed at their safe houses.
Barefoot, she walked over to Simon and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You suddenly managed to acquire the attention of a dangerous woman, darling," she said. Though her words were teasing, her tone was worried and concerned. "Any idea how that happened?"
It said something that Simon Williams did not even flinch at the affront to his ego. Then again, judging from his body language, it wasn't at all — the man was clenched like a fist; joints white, eyes puffy and wide, and all adrenaline. Wanda's touch, however, broke some of this and he melted a little as she knowingly refocused his world to just her.
He breathed, and then the swearing began. "The. Fuck. What the fuck? The flying fuck? What is this? Is this a joke? I'm no lawyer, but that was not due process. But again: what the fuck?"
He breathed again, and only sheer force of will kept him from slumping to the floor in exhaustion.
Wanda sighed and squeezed his shoulder, unwilling to let go of him for the moment. "Well, I have part of an explanation but certainly not all. Do you remember one of our talks on our vacation? You had known for a while that I was a mutant but I told you a bit more, that some of my work was, ah, more dangerous than simply dealing with research. We managed to turn it into drinking game, actually, where you tried to guess what I did..."
She shook her head and trailed her hand down from Simon's shoulder to his hand, where she tangled her finger with his. "Surprise, I am a - a -" Wanda glanced over at Doug, at a loss for the words. "Kickass lady spy? Douglas, a little help here?"
"I dunno, I thought you were doing okay with 'kickass lady spy', personally." Doug shrugged, then looked around the room. No Pete to talk about the bastards of the world. No Remy to harp morbidly about the price of the job. Empty chairs at empty tables. ~I guess everyone has to grow up sometime.~ He dropped his feet to the floor and stood, his hands in his pockets as he gathered his thoughts.
"Okay, Cliffs Notes time, Hollywood," he said to Simon. Most everyone in the room knew the score, except for perhaps Gabriel as the newest of them. "The world is a messier place than you're even starting to suspect right now. Gods and monsters, things that go bump in the night." He waved a hand to indicate all of his teammates in the room.
"We're the ones that bump back."
Wade gave Doug dual thumbs up from his position near the door, his back braced against the wall. He was definitely hungry, but he figured being around in case somebody needed to get punched was a good idea. He'd skipped the taco truck on the way over. "We're really good at bumping back, dude," he said, nodding a little as he offered Simon a smile. "Sometimes we're even better at blowing up whatever started the whole bumping contest."
"I find that a lot of alcohol helps," Jubilee suggested from where she stood look out at the window. "That and a functional sense of black humor."
"We'd prefer to avoid blowing stuff up mostly," Artie said through his synthesizer and, a moment later, floating text said "Don't give me that look!"
The door swung open and slammed shut as Gabriel appeared, plastic bags in hand. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," he said, nearly breathless. He whooshed over to a nearby table, gently placing both bags down. "I know, I'm, like, super late," he turned, wiping sweat off his forehead. "I only woke up, like, two hours ago, and I had to get a run, leg day, a bunch of emails, some laundry and a shower in all that time. And I was in Brooklyn." He looked over the shoulder at the bags, pulled a bottle of Perrier out, still moving faster than necessary. "But I brought Thai."
His phone vibrated, and he pulled it out of his pocket, almost dropping it but grabbing it in the nick of time. He looked up and smiled triumphantly at the group before darting in the nearby chair. "Okay." The speedster glanced over at Simon, appraising him for a second. "So..."
"We need to figure out what they want with our boy Simon here," Jubilee replied, headed to the white board to draw up a basic flowchart. "Doug, give me some names."
Doug's face scrunched up in thought. "Well, we start from Simon - if she wants him, there's gotta be a reason it's him. So, I mean, who's he connected to besides Wanda and a bunch of Hollywood studio people I'm guessing Enchantress wouldn't care about?"
"Zey vant you for zur body," Wade deadpanned, doing his absolute worst imitation of North's accent that he could possibly manage. Then he cracked up and pointed at Artie, "Also, still totally giving you that look." Then he shrugged a little and made a beeline for the Thai. "I mean, what's this Enchantress chick's schtick, though. Like, take it from the other angle. Norse something something nobody cares about her. She likes fucking with people's brains, she's on my shortlist of women I actually wouldn't mind stabbing. Or letting someone else stab. I mean, I wouldn't stop somebody from stabbing her. I'm shit at Norse mythology, guys, someone not me start talking."
Despite the situation, the look on Wanda's face during Wade's poor attempt at a German accent was hilariously disgusted. Like she'd smelled something bad but couldn't comment on it in public. She accepted a container of something that smelled delicious and spicy and passed it to Simon before grabbing something that smelled equally as good.
"We do try to keep Wade from talking much at all," she deadpanned, gently shoving Simon over with her hip so she could steal half his seat. It wasn't only so she could finally take a seat but it was also to keep him focused on her. There was a lot of moving pieces and she'd seen the panic in his eyes earlier. "Norse mythology only helps us to a point with the Enchantress and the rest like her. Our mythos and their history are similar only to a point and then it promptly goes to hell."
Wanda looked at Simon and frowned. "Besides the immediate weirdness these past few days, has anything else lately seemed out of the ordinary?"
The man had shifted out of his cursing spree and then into confusion as people had appeared out of the woodwork to add to this conversation, but the lull had given him enough time to regroup to his usual, confident showboat of a self.
Simon straightened his posture a little bit, confident. "Well. I'm not usually in jail for punching Tony Stark. I'm not usually whisked away from a bail hearing? Ugh, imagine the papers tomorrow."
He sighed dramatically, but caught himself as he took stock of all of the eyes on him. "What? That's it. I got processed. No paperwork, one phonecall, and a medical exam. I was in jail for half a day. I'll give you New Yorkers points for expediency."
Doug looked at Simon. "Uh, hate to break it to you, but it was more than half a day. You were in jail overnight." Something was definitely off if he had lost time due to whatever shenanigans Enchantress was pulling.
"Okay, so..." Whatever Doug had been about to say was cut off by a loud slam, as of something crashing against the front door of the townhouse.
---
As X-Force's brainstorming session gets rudely interrupted, there's more than one familiar face in the mix.
There is only so much reinforcing that can be done to the door of a townhouse in the middle of New York City without arousing the suspicions of neighbors. Those precautions are good at keeping out the casual B&E set, but don't do much against a determined strike force with a small battering ram.
Even as the loud bang of the door giving way sent X-Force scurrying for their weapons, several men in black balaclavas scurried through the doorway, semi-automatic weapons at the ready. But they held fire, waiting for another person to enter. The person who followed them in, though, was not Amora the Enchantress. Instead, it was another foe that at least some of the people in the room recognized immediately by the bright purple sacklike mask fitted to his head.
Zemo did not walk so much as strut into the townhouse. He looked the definition of poise and confidence as he took in the room, smiling under his mask. Everything was going exactly according to plan.
"Ah," he said simply. "'The gang, it is all here,' as you Americans are prone to saying." He turned an eye to the leader of the mercenary crew. "Remember, I'm simply here for my masterpiece. The rest... are unnecessary, so if they move..." X-Force appeared surprised to see him. Zemo was almost offended.
"Come, come now. Surely you must have suspected, expected my involvement? Who else could have been responsible for such a momentous achievement for humanity? None but I have the intellect, the skills, the genius to have made such a creation! He is far beyond anything the likes of which Red Skull or Hydra could produce!"
He met each of their eyes in turn. There was no reason to show fear; he held all the cards and he knew it. "They claimed he was impossible. A fools ambition far beyond the scope of anything that had ever been achieved before. I, in turn, chose a different path. I chose the impossible. I chose to create a Master Man.
"All things great I have accomplished flow through him. He is to be the first of many; the greatest of them all. Your simple minds cannot comprehend the depths of my accomplishments, so allow me to simplify this in such a way even you can understand:"
Zemo pulled out his pistol and aimed at at the closest target, the tiny Asian who dressed as though she were still in the eighties. Her death would be the perfect catalyst for his triumphant victory and the final cleansing for humanity.
"He is mine. You cannot have him, nor can you keep me from him. It will be as I will it, for I am Baron Zemo!"
The question of whether Asgardian goddesses were aware of the slow clap was answered a moment after Zemo finished his triumphant speech as Amora sauntered into the townhouse, her 'applause' as slow and regular as the ticking of a clock. "Yes, you have created a man. Do not forget, Zemo, that women have been doing this from the beginning of time, and few of them have expected the world to bow at their feet for it."
Dressed in a skintight emerald jumpsuit and impossibly high boots she certainly looked like the type of woman who expected the world - or at least men - to leave lip prints on her feet, but then she certainly wasn't the average woman.
"But I will not tarnish the weapon because of the master's hubris; he will serve our purposes all the same," she continued breezily, "and for that he is under our protection. Come, let us take him and go - I am tired of this place."
There was a beat as all heads turned to the man of the hour: Simon stood shell-shocked behind as much as a protective barricade a few pieces of furniture and X-Force could provide. His eyes, however, were drawn tight as his gaze drifted in sudden epiphany between Zemo and Amora.
"You," and it was unclear who he meant, "You both were at the prison."
He turned to Wanda, pleading, "That guy, not with the bag because seriously prison isn't that weird, did my medical exam."
It took a second, but the shocked expression then melted from Simon's face as he took in the larger, gun-filled, picture. He gulped and practically shrunk behind Wanda. His voice was suddenly small. "Apparently he talks like that all the time."
"Did he touch you in your special place?" Wade asked, expression flat.
Ugh, simple and crude. Were they truly the best test for a man of his genius? "Amora, you truly lost my masterpiece to such simpletons?"
Zemo sighed theatrically. Apparently it was true what they said; if you want something done right, do it yourself. "Men, I grow tired of these imbeciles. Do with them what you will."
X-Force does what they do best - but something goes sideways.
"Do with them what you will."
As it turned out, Marie-Ange could roll her eyes and throw up a half solid barrier of interlocking discs with a metallic sheen at the same time. It sagged a bit, and where the image met the floor, it was wet with ectoplasmic ooze, and it would barely provide cover, and might stop one - maybe two bullets, and hopefully it would give her time to get out of the line of fire. ~I hate him I hate him I hate him shoot him in the bag.~ She thought - loudly - and belatedly apologetically.
Wade slid forward, putting himself between Purple Bag Man and most of the others. "Let's talk about crude," he said, foregoing his handguns and leaving them buttoned in his holsters because there were too many friends who might get hit if the bad guys switched things up too much when they cast their vote for how things were gonna go in this fight. Waggling his eyebrows, he dodged a couple of the mercs as others moved to intercept them, popping up right in front of Zemo with a devil-may-care smile. "I'm good at crude. You're just kind of a Nazi asshole."
"I've met many kinds of asshole in my life," added Emma in a purr. "And Nazi assholes are always the worst. So much theatre, so little thinking." She moved with a shimmer of diamond and placed herself on Wade's left hand side. "And they so often assume that a lady won't punch first." Emma's fist glittered through the air and stopped short as a diamond-hard boot very firmly connected with Zemo's ankle. Emma danced backwards immediately, leaving Wade's arms clear for another shot if needed.
Hurentochter! Zemo actually felt that kick. So, it looked like they'd be doing this the hard way after all. That was fine with him. A proper gentleman was never above getting his hands dirty, after all.
Zemo moved, perfectly efficiently. He drew his sword in one hand, holding his pistol in the other even as he stepped towards the closest target not currently made out of diamond (he only had a limited number of high-penetration rounds; no point in wasting them just yet): the loud one with the crude mouth. He put his new shield between him and the others, blade across the stupid one's throat. With his other hand, he aimed the gun.
"Now, now," he said in the crude one's ear, his smile showing far too many teeth to really be considered friendly. "That was hardly polite."
Wade grinned. "Polite's not really my schick, douchecanoe." He raised his hands, faster than anyone save the speedster would have been able to manage, and knocked the sword away from him with his armored forearm. With his free hand, he batted Purple Bag Man's gun upward, toward the ceiling - and then he waggled his eyebrows even as he dropped to the floor to hook Zemo's legs right out from under him.
What was with all the kicks to the legs?! The indignity of it all was crushing. Still, Zemo thought as he used the momentum to roll towards the last member of the group, it wasn't all bad. He'd just have to make their inevitable deaths extra painful in response.
There wasn't any more time to waste talking, clearly. If they couldn't appreciate the genius he would bestow on them, then he would save his breath. Which is why, when he came out of the roll towards the last one, it was sword-first at full lunge, tip aimed right for the heart.
Marie-Ange slid sideways - fast and smooth, away from the sword, but not quite fast enough, not quite smooth enough. The tip of Zemo's sword caught her on the shoulder, cutting a sharp line down to her arm. She brought up a hand to catch it, one moment flesh and skin and cute bracelet, and in the next, wrapped in a steely gauntlet. It saved her from the sword coming back to slice through her chest - but left her open for Zemo to push forward and grab her around the neck.
"Well, that can't be allowed," muttered Emma. She'd been staying back from the fight, keeping a telepathic overview across everything that was going on, but also using her power to fade out of sight and memory. Thus her sudden re-appearance, telepathic cloak dropping away as she turned herself into diamond, was enough to give her the element of surprise. That, combined with the extra force she could exert in diamond form, meant her focused punch into the inside of Zemo's elbow actually broke his grip and sent all three participants spinning apart from each other, momentum redirected and turned outwards into the kind of chaos Wanda would be proud of.
Zemo righted himself first. This was unacceptable. He would not be made a fool of! Instinct honed by years of practice guided his hand as it snapped up and at the ready. The bangs were almost lost in the noise and confusion. Four shots rang out at the first target that crossed Zemo's field of view. There wasn't any thinking or planning involved; just the pure, overwhelming desire to see someone dead.
Four bullets flew directly at the stupid one with the crude mouth. And it was satisfying.
The shock of impact was, as always, just enough to jolt Wade backward a bit. Adrenalin hit a moment later as he paused a moment to evaluate the injuries, the chaos swirling around him. Two to the hip, obviously fired as the gun rose, two more to his shoulder on the same side. Minimal damage, all things considered. Laughing, Wade allowed himself to stumble back another step, though he remained on his feet. It was gonna hurt like a bitch later, but for now, he'd handle the pain like he always did. "Gotta do better than that, bagface."
Marie-Ange rolled to the floor, and scrabbled across the carpet until her hands reached the smooth floor of the little kitchenette. She flattened herself down, not able to get entirely out of sight but at least presenting a smaller target and pulled card after card from her pockets. Statues. Cups. Spears. Nothing useful. Nothing helpful. The same cards over and over. The sun. The wheel of fortune. The lovers.
This was taking too long, Zemo decided. It was time to be done with it all. Conveniently, the opportunity had presented itself for one final teachable moment. They didn't want to listen, so he'd just teach by doing.
Never take your eyes off a battle.
Zemo slid to the side, around some broken piece of furniture his men had wrecked (and he would definitely have to talk to them about that, should any of them have survived), and fired three shots at the woman's unprotected back.
Diamond skin. Telepathy. Neither of them the slightest use against the bullets that shredded through Marie-Ange's back. Emma, who was flesh now, felt the black whirl, the telepathic vortex that was a team mate dying, reaching out for safety, a mind to cling to to stop it falling into darkness. But Marie-Ange was a precog and the darkness surged outwards as she fell, threatening to tear Emma's mind apart as it scrabbled for a hold.
Diamond skin. Marie-Ange's dying telepathic howl cut off abruptly and was replaced with Emma's own scream as she ran forwards, diamond fists curling in rage and swinging hard, every ounce of rage and force concentrated on Zemo's head. He was turning back towards Emma, towards the scream, but he only made it halfway before Emma's fists swung at speed and connected with a sickening noise. For a second, momentum continued to turn his body, blood leaking from the holes and tears in the purple bag and then Zemo dropped like a stone.
Emma dropped her diamond form as she reached out with her mind, ready to catch Wade in telepathic arms. She reached out and the black hole that was Marie-Ange's dying mind caught Emma instead, black and red and not Marie-Ange's mind, something else instead that swallowed up Emma's mind and Emma and all of them and drew them down into the darkness.
Reset.
-
"Do with them what you will."
Doug was already moving upon seeing the dismissal in Zemo's body language - if the posturing was over, that meant things were about to go pear-shaped. He vaulted over a large chair, taking cover behind it and producing a pistol. He snapped his fingers at Artie, his brain still processing where Zemo's goons had fanned out to in the room. ~Cover us,~ he signed choppily around the handle of the pistol, before calling out at Gabriel. "Velocidad, take the far ones and I'll take the closer ones," he said in Spanish.
Well, the young man's first official job with X-Force, and it was to be a trial by fire.
Artie had dropped behind the other chair, everything that wasn't relevant to here and now pushed aside in a box for later. He didn't have a good line of sight so he set a second set of figures at the door, nothing too real but visible, distracting as they ran in while strobe lights flickered in the corner of Zemo's men's eyes.
"Velocidad?" Gabriel muttered after a snort. He darted behind a lamp, looking from around it to take stock of the goons' position. "Here's hoping that doesn't stick." Pushing the lamp to the ground, he tried to calculate the distance between his location and the farthest enemy. "I'm off," he called out. He sprinted out from behind the couch, moving toward the closest of the more distant group of gunmen.
"Well, I needed -something- to call you," Doug retorted, but Gabriel had already taken off. Taking advantage of the distraction in their ranks brought on by Artie's illusions, Doug rolled out from the opposite side, squeezing off a few rounds at the closest goon and using the man as cover from the rest. They were clearly wearing body armor, from the way two shots center mass didn't take his target down, so Doug closed in and pistol-whipped his opponent into unconsciousness, holding the slumping body as a shield and shooting the next one in the face, the bullet smashing through the bridge of his nose and sending him spinning down.
Right. Body armour. Artie shifted the gun to his off hand and shook out an extendable baton, blinding a man with a bubble of darkness around his eyes before swinging the baton from behind, hitting his neck and knees before sliding back as a blow from the side sent him sprawling, two hard kicks to his ribs following as Artie lay on the floor gasping.
The hired gun drew back for another kick, but a second later, he was flat on the ground, groaning in pain. As he dropped, Gabriel appeared behind him, a stern look on his face and the butt end of a handgun facing out from his right hand. "Oops." Gabriel glanced at the man, then gave him a kick on the ribs to match the two the thug had given to Artie. "My bad." He grabbed the guy's gun, then bolted back into the fray.
Just fucking focus, Gabriel. Artie wondered if he'd remember to mention that later. He dragged himself to his knees, still gasping and raised the gun, aimed, shot. Missed. He couldn't stand yet, so he went for more bubbles of darkness, wrapping them around the heads of the attackers, keeping them more or less in place though the faster they moved, the harder he had to work to keep their vision obscured.
Artie couldn't stand and shoot yet, but Doug could. And wherever the bubbles of darkness went, so went bullets from Doug's gun. He was aiming blind for the spots between body armor and head protection, but some of his shots found their marks, and several of the mercenaries dropped to the floor. Doug dropped back behind the chair as several men returned fire, calmly reloading and moving to another spot, keeping furniture between him and the bulk of the enemy.
The reloading was the cue Gabriel needed to take action. As one man switched his clip, the young speedster appeared suddenly in front of him, wrenching the gun out of his grip and quickly pistol-whipping the man in the face. The goon staggered back toward a wall of the safehouse and ended up falling into the arms of Gabriel, who'd darted around behind him so he could use most of his strength to hurl the man into a window.
Artie sucking shallow breaths in, still trying to breath, watching Gabriel take the man out through the window. The man landed and sprang back onto his feet, armour having cushioned the fall. Artie pulled himself together long enough to aim and shoot, bullet catching him in the throat, even as lifting his arms made his ribs burn like fire and he dropped again, gasping.
Doug scanned the room - between the three of them they'd made relatively quick work of the henchmen, and he turned to where his teammates were engaged with Zemo and Enchantress -
- just in time to see Wanda and Enchantress both raise their hands to attack, and a wave of red to spill out from them to fill the room.
And then nothing.
-
"Do with them what you will."
The room was exploding into chaos around them and Wanda hadn't even done anything yet. She watched as the various members of her team clashed with Zemo's men and then she turned, grabbed Simon by the shoulders and shoved him down under the table. "Stay down and behind me," she said calmly. "Trust me, darling, they'll need to go through me first if they want to get to you."
Turning back, she locked eyes with Amora and red rings flickered into life around her hands. Her field of vision turned a familiar hue and she threw hex bolts at the Asgardian, knowing they were only the first volleys.
Amora raised a shimmering shield with a flick of her manicured hand, deflecting the bolts and only just refraining from yawning. "Come now," she purred, a warning blast of light sizzling over Wanda's shoulder, "you don't think you can keep him from me, do you? I will have my pet, one way or another."
Wanda wanted to roll her eyes at the speech but knew that Amora was not a two bit villain and she had to concentrate. The shield around her was powerful and thick but it didn't mean there weren't ways around it. Mentally she dove after the strings and followed them, studying them quickly as the bullets and mayhem around her got worse. "Jubilee, if you wouldn't mind!" Wanda shouted, knowing she'd go for the shield.
There. That's what she was looking for. As she pulled, the floor underneath Amora shuddered and started to break open.
"I would just like to put on record that fighting someone who thinks Xena: Warrior Princess is a good place to model your dialogue on was not how I pictured this going," Jubilee noted, seemingly to the universe in general before she followed Wanda's suggestion and attacked the gap in Amora's shield left by the destruction of the floor.
It lit said floor on fire rather spectacularly at that.
"You know, they just don't make floors like they used to."
"Some of us back here aren't fireproof, you know!" Simon was, for all intents and purposes, doing his right best to stay where Wanda had stuffed him despite the terror of fire on hardwood. "Less with the banter and more with the climax! Kick her ass!"
Amora gave a cry of rage as the floor and her shield crumbled under the double-barrelled attack. Fortunately for her the fire posed little threat; it licked at her skin harmlessly, singeing the edges of her clothes.
"You!" she snapped to the two thugs nearest her, "eliminate them!" Whether it was blind obedience or something more magically-induced, the result was the same. They turned their weapons on Wanda and Jubilee and opened fire.
Amora's goal was to keep Simon alive but that didn't mean that he couldn't die because some magically induced moron was shooting at him. Wanda dove behind the couch and winced, hoping it would absorb the brunt of the attack. She caught Simon's panicked look and gave him a tight smile. "Hold tight," she said.
She pushed herself off the ground and threw a ragged bolt towards the two men. Her plan was to scatter or kill them, it did not matter. All that mattered was that she was between Simon and the shooters and ...
Sharp pain exploded from her shoulder. Wanda staggered backwards until her hip hit the table and then she was on the ground, gripping her shoulder as blood ran through her fingers.
Jubilee threw plasma at the bullets, melting them before they could reach her, and then moving forward to start melting through the bodies of both gunmen in front of her.
She ignored their screams and turned to where she'd last seen Wanda and Simon.
Simon, for his part, had maneuvered to catch Wanda with one arm before she hit the floor. He had done very little since expect huddle like a trapped animal with Wanda in hand — his eyes, wide as saucers, painted just how in over his head the man was feeling. If his expression tightened any further his eyes might just pop out of their sockets.
Like a fox who had run her prey to ground Amora stalked forward then, her patience all but worn thin. Despite her anger she was still radiantly beautiful - but then, how could she not be, with her green eyes snapping and her golden hair lit beautifully from the still-flickering flames at the edges of the room. Queenlike, she paused where Simon cowered on the floor and then smiled as she saw the crimson puddle spreading out around them. "You look scared," she crooned to Simon, "so scared. Come with me and I promise you will never have anything to fear ever again."
"Oh shut the fuck up," Wanda snapped, trying to ignore how her vision was going grey around the edges. Pain seared through her entire body but she pressed herself against Simon, wondering how she could shield him from this.
Amora closed in, attention drawn away from Simon for the moment. The Asgardian was raising her hands to cast a spell and Wanda knew, without a doubt, that this would be the killing blow. She lashed out with her powers as the spell was released ...
And the whole room went red.
Then black.
Reset.
The strains of whatever neutral "best of the 80s, 90s, and today!' radio station had replaced Muzak as the background noise of most stores and offices were mutedly playing in the front lobby of the Snow Valley Centre on a very slow Tuesday morning.
"...should be another hot one today. Anyway, here's Wonderwall."
~Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you...~
At the front desk, the phone rang, caller ID showing as the NYPD 6th Precinct.
Generally, Felicia did not answer phones. It's not that she thought she was above it, though, let's be honest, yes she did, but mostly it was because they specifically paid someone to do this. As their job. Not that you would know it at the moment, as by the sixth ring Felicia let out a frustrated, high noise, and pushed herself from her desk.
This is probably what she got for being more of a eleven to seven or, more likely, five am because I haven't gone to bed yet to whenever stuff got done kind of girl. She did her numbers wizardry, gathered intel, stole things, but she was not punching any clocks, and she certainly didn't do a normal lunch hour. "Snow Valley, what," she monotoned into the receiver, idly tapping a black fingernail against the display, her mouth pulling slightly to one side.
"Finally, sweet baby Jesus," came a haggard voice from that other line that sounded far more relieved than annoyed. In fact, it was the type of raspy tone indicative of someone who had not slept in entirely enough hours or was at the hangover-end of a twelve hour bender.
The sound of a deep breath echoed across the connection, and the same voice, now much more cock-sure and collected, declared, "I need to speak to Wanda Maximoff."
"Transferring you over. I may hang up on you, but this isn't my job and you sort of sound like an idiot, so I don't really care," Felicia replied bluntly, randomly prodding a combination of buttons that, luckily, did indeed happen to be Wanda's transfer code. She then returned to her desk and, deciding that all this deserved a martini for lunch, picked up her purse and headed for the stairs.
Wanda paused mid-cursing at her computer and reached thankfully for the ringing phone. She had been struggling with the damned thing for the last half an hour and had been looking for an excuse, any excuse, to abandon her current headache. "Wanda Maximoff," she answered, glancing at the caller ID but not recognizing it.
It could be one of a number of options - Snow Valley business, their real business or a wrong number. Any of those were better than dealing with her computer.
"Babe, you're the best thing I have heard all week."
"Simon! Well, this is a surprise." But a pleasant one. The trip to Acapulco had been an interesting step but they had both avoided cementing anything. Wanda hadn't anticipated hearing from him for a few weeks, knowing their schedules both kept them busy. "If this is another call in which you try to convince me to run away with you...well, I could probably be persuaded."
"I..." The actual relief in his words was almost palpable, but there was a hesitant edge to them. "See babe, let's roleplay a little. I'll be the guy who got tossed into jail for making a dumbass, yet intensely satisfying, decision, and you can be the brave, pretty, and immensely sexy hero who saves me. Preferably in a short skirt."
Wanda's eyes closed and she let out a small laugh as she shook her head. "Simon," she nearly purred, "I do enjoy our times together. Though it might sound like you have taken this little fantasy a little too literally if I miss my guess. The last time we saw each other, there was one thing you said would be more satisfying than our time together ..."
She brought up the news on her phone and couldn't help but laugh. "Oh darling, that was one hell of a punch."
"That was my argument, but the cops here say that it was too satisfying. As they do."
There was a sigh on the other end, "But really. I am sure that my lawyers would say the same thing plus much better lecturing. If I could get ahold of them. Obi-Wanda, you're my only hope."
"Now we are onto your Star Wars fantasies." His words troubled her. What lawyers office couldn't be reached? Simon had the ability to tap into studio lawyers — at the very worst, he could reach a secretary. "I always did like those. Seriously, though, what can I do? And what do you mean you cannot reach your lawyers? Hell, one would think they would be all over you at this point."
"Babe you're literally," and he drew out the word in agitation, "the only number I could call that didn't go straight to voicemail or shoot me to a call center in India."
Wanda blinked and then shook her head. "In this day and age, that seems highly strange. Especially considering you were attempting to reach studio lawyers, who should be reachable at all hours. For exactly this reason." She thought about what she had scheduled for the day and mentally dismissed them all.
"Well, you have me, do with me as you will."
"I could have some fun with that... how about some roleplay? I need you to play assistant. I need cash for bail and to get out of here as soon as possible. I need my people in Cali. Celebrities do not carry wallets at movie premieres." He sighed. "Anyway. I'm stuck here and far too pretty for the general population. Save me, babe. I'll buy you something naughty when we're laughing this off over drinks later."
"Consider this your rescue attempt," Wanda reassured him. "And trust me, I may be calling in another Acapulco. Now, Simon, tell me everything you can before they make you hang up on me. Who I should call and your backups just in case I too cannot get through."
He did.
A few minutes later, Wanda was gifted with a list of agency contacts and family lawyers, vague and cryptic passwords for navigating his people's command structure, and a few suggestions on places Tony Stark's people could stuff their lawsuits.
"Consider it done," Wanda said firmly. She hesitated for a moment, feeling concerned and more than the fact that Simon was in jail. That was, after all, his own fault. "And be careful, please. There is something very strange here, so sit tight and wait for your heroic rescue." She smiled. "In the meantime, rest assured that I will be thinking up a creative repayment."
Once off the phone, she set to work.
---
Wanda and Marie-Ange go to Simon's bail hearing, where they notice an unexpectedly familiar face.
"...all rise," the bailiff said in that sort of perfunctory but still formal tone of a ritual that they had performed over and over every day for years. "Docket ending 616404, People vs Simon Williams. Charge is assault in the first degree..."
"They certainly got him into court quickly," Wanda remarked quietly to Marie-Ange. "I suppose that is what happens when you assault a man worth more than God." She wouldn't normally even try to talk during a court hearing for fear of being reprimanded by the judge but it was hardly a quiet court room that day. It was like a circus in there, filled with press and people who thought they'd get to be close to Stark and who were probably disappointed that the man himself wasn't there.
The two women had found a seat fairly close to the front but they were boxed in and Wanda was freely using her sharp elbows to give herself some breathing room.
"Hopefully they will process him just as quickly." Marie-Ange said. "The last thing that anyone wants is more tabloid coverage - perhaps if we are lucky we can get him bailed out and figure out just what is happening here. It is a wonder his own lawyers would not answer the phone."
"Not just his own lawyers," Wanda responded, "but not a single other person he called. He tried close, good friends, and several people in the industry and they all either went to voicemail or just kept ringing." She shook her head. "And so he tries one last time before the police finally get sick of the never ending attempts and he calls me - and it goes through? Honestly, I was intrigued and it helps that he has a nice ass, so here we are."
Marie-Ange shrugged, and kept her voice low and her head down - glancing up every so often at the court proceedings. "Well, I have nothing from a reading. I got - Doug called it a 'statistically improbably random series of cards'. There was math I did not entirely understand. Which... He said it could really only be because of you, because of fractal chaos theory. I do not even know, he said he was changing your computer background screen again though."
Wanda's mind tried to figure it out but kept going in circles. This was larger than just her powers, that much was obvious. She normally didn't impact things when she wasn't around. But something was going on, enough to intrigue her teammates. She listened with half an ear as the lawyer - who Wanda had managed to contact - talk about bail. Too visible to be a flight risk, despite that he had the money for it, something about his integrity ...
"So we sit and we have a nice chat once bail has been made."
Back and forth between the lawyer, who seemed more interested in his overpriced watch than Simon - and the judge went quickly - there was barely any negotiation, and bail was set at 100,000 dollars, cash or bond.
"His lawyer is terrible." Marie-Ange muttered. "I hope we are not paying for him. I hope he is not paying too much for him. He could have gotten that lower." She bent over her phone and tapped out a message. "We have a bondsman on call, a tenth of that is not terrible to cover."
The phone disappeared up Marie-Ange's sleeve as the bailiff made further announcements about the next bail hearing and Simon was shuffled off to booking to wait for his bail to be paid. The red-head leaned back in the uncomfortable bench and pulled out a sketchpad and pencil. "And now we have a nice chat, while I draw the backs of people's heads, in order to stave off boredom until we can sneak out, yes?"
Wanda grimaced. "Considering the weird interference Simon was having, he is lucky I managed to get a hold of this one," she sighed. Marie-Ange was right. The lawyer was terrible and Simon had been completely thrown under the bus. It wasn't a matter of the fact he could afford it, it was the principal of the matter. "No worries, all legal fees are being covered by Simon, now that they know he's in trouble."
It was the perfectly styled hair that caught her eye. It was perfect - the braids had no stray loose ends, and they were intricately coiled around an elegant bun that was too symmetrical to be real, but it was real - the hair moved and shone and reflected like hair. It was just simply - perfect. Marie-Ange flipped the pencil in her hand and poked Wanda's arm with it to get her attention.
[Far left. Blonde. Familiar? MN.] she scratched out on the paper quickly, the letters spiky in her haste.
It took Wanda a moment to figure out what MN meant but then the pieces fell together and she realized Marie-Ange had recognized the Enchantress of all people. Watching them? Watching Simon?
Wanda took the offered pencil and went to write a quick response but suddenly the paper in front of her blurred and she felt a weird sense of vertigo crawl over her. She steadied herself on the back of the bench in front of her and sat back with the realization that the pencil had snapped in half.
"Okay," she said quietly, "I think we may want to leave now."
"Yes, before you throw up." Marie-Ange was not even going to hope they were not spotted, she did not believe in coincidences. "That would garnish us even more attention and your paramour has already attracted enough, no?"
It was then that the blonde chose to look back over her shoulder - just a casual glance, really, but her icy blue eyes swept across Marie-Ange and Wanda in a way that was very much not a coincidence. Secrecy was very much out the window at this point.
The lights suddenly went out in the courtroom and, from the sounds coming from the back of the room, the reporters were suddenly having issues with their equipment. "Go, now!" Wanda said, shoving her way out of the booth as everyone stood up and tried to find the exit in the dark. The use of her powers should not have given her such a sharp headache but she could not think of that now.
They had to get to Simon.
---
Marie-Ange and Wanda take Simon to an X-Force safehouse and some of the other members arrive as backup, trying to figure out what someone could want with a minor celebrity.
The safehouse that the members of X-Force had gathered at was a perfectly anonymous townhouse in the East Village — two bedrooms (with weapons lockers in the closets), one and a half bathrooms (cupboards filled with painkillers, bandages, and sterile gloves), and a spacious kitchen (well stocked with a wide variety of alcohol). Doug leaned over his laptop where it sat on the small kitchen island and made a frustrated noise at the lack of anything like productive results. "What does an Asgardian sorceress-slash-possible-demigod need with — no offense, Wanda — at best a C-list celebrity?"
"I like how you apologize to me but not to the man you insulted," Wanda noted mildly. Shrugging off her business jacket, she tossed it on the couch as she kicked off her high heels. She'd been dressed for the courtroom but now she needed to dress for what might be a fight with very powerful enemies. Luckily, they had clothes stashed at their safe houses.
Barefoot, she walked over to Simon and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You suddenly managed to acquire the attention of a dangerous woman, darling," she said. Though her words were teasing, her tone was worried and concerned. "Any idea how that happened?"
It said something that Simon Williams did not even flinch at the affront to his ego. Then again, judging from his body language, it wasn't at all — the man was clenched like a fist; joints white, eyes puffy and wide, and all adrenaline. Wanda's touch, however, broke some of this and he melted a little as she knowingly refocused his world to just her.
He breathed, and then the swearing began. "The. Fuck. What the fuck? The flying fuck? What is this? Is this a joke? I'm no lawyer, but that was not due process. But again: what the fuck?"
He breathed again, and only sheer force of will kept him from slumping to the floor in exhaustion.
Wanda sighed and squeezed his shoulder, unwilling to let go of him for the moment. "Well, I have part of an explanation but certainly not all. Do you remember one of our talks on our vacation? You had known for a while that I was a mutant but I told you a bit more, that some of my work was, ah, more dangerous than simply dealing with research. We managed to turn it into drinking game, actually, where you tried to guess what I did..."
She shook her head and trailed her hand down from Simon's shoulder to his hand, where she tangled her finger with his. "Surprise, I am a - a -" Wanda glanced over at Doug, at a loss for the words. "Kickass lady spy? Douglas, a little help here?"
"I dunno, I thought you were doing okay with 'kickass lady spy', personally." Doug shrugged, then looked around the room. No Pete to talk about the bastards of the world. No Remy to harp morbidly about the price of the job. Empty chairs at empty tables. ~I guess everyone has to grow up sometime.~ He dropped his feet to the floor and stood, his hands in his pockets as he gathered his thoughts.
"Okay, Cliffs Notes time, Hollywood," he said to Simon. Most everyone in the room knew the score, except for perhaps Gabriel as the newest of them. "The world is a messier place than you're even starting to suspect right now. Gods and monsters, things that go bump in the night." He waved a hand to indicate all of his teammates in the room.
"We're the ones that bump back."
Wade gave Doug dual thumbs up from his position near the door, his back braced against the wall. He was definitely hungry, but he figured being around in case somebody needed to get punched was a good idea. He'd skipped the taco truck on the way over. "We're really good at bumping back, dude," he said, nodding a little as he offered Simon a smile. "Sometimes we're even better at blowing up whatever started the whole bumping contest."
"I find that a lot of alcohol helps," Jubilee suggested from where she stood look out at the window. "That and a functional sense of black humor."
"We'd prefer to avoid blowing stuff up mostly," Artie said through his synthesizer and, a moment later, floating text said "Don't give me that look!"
The door swung open and slammed shut as Gabriel appeared, plastic bags in hand. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," he said, nearly breathless. He whooshed over to a nearby table, gently placing both bags down. "I know, I'm, like, super late," he turned, wiping sweat off his forehead. "I only woke up, like, two hours ago, and I had to get a run, leg day, a bunch of emails, some laundry and a shower in all that time. And I was in Brooklyn." He looked over the shoulder at the bags, pulled a bottle of Perrier out, still moving faster than necessary. "But I brought Thai."
His phone vibrated, and he pulled it out of his pocket, almost dropping it but grabbing it in the nick of time. He looked up and smiled triumphantly at the group before darting in the nearby chair. "Okay." The speedster glanced over at Simon, appraising him for a second. "So..."
"We need to figure out what they want with our boy Simon here," Jubilee replied, headed to the white board to draw up a basic flowchart. "Doug, give me some names."
Doug's face scrunched up in thought. "Well, we start from Simon - if she wants him, there's gotta be a reason it's him. So, I mean, who's he connected to besides Wanda and a bunch of Hollywood studio people I'm guessing Enchantress wouldn't care about?"
"Zey vant you for zur body," Wade deadpanned, doing his absolute worst imitation of North's accent that he could possibly manage. Then he cracked up and pointed at Artie, "Also, still totally giving you that look." Then he shrugged a little and made a beeline for the Thai. "I mean, what's this Enchantress chick's schtick, though. Like, take it from the other angle. Norse something something nobody cares about her. She likes fucking with people's brains, she's on my shortlist of women I actually wouldn't mind stabbing. Or letting someone else stab. I mean, I wouldn't stop somebody from stabbing her. I'm shit at Norse mythology, guys, someone not me start talking."
Despite the situation, the look on Wanda's face during Wade's poor attempt at a German accent was hilariously disgusted. Like she'd smelled something bad but couldn't comment on it in public. She accepted a container of something that smelled delicious and spicy and passed it to Simon before grabbing something that smelled equally as good.
"We do try to keep Wade from talking much at all," she deadpanned, gently shoving Simon over with her hip so she could steal half his seat. It wasn't only so she could finally take a seat but it was also to keep him focused on her. There was a lot of moving pieces and she'd seen the panic in his eyes earlier. "Norse mythology only helps us to a point with the Enchantress and the rest like her. Our mythos and their history are similar only to a point and then it promptly goes to hell."
Wanda looked at Simon and frowned. "Besides the immediate weirdness these past few days, has anything else lately seemed out of the ordinary?"
The man had shifted out of his cursing spree and then into confusion as people had appeared out of the woodwork to add to this conversation, but the lull had given him enough time to regroup to his usual, confident showboat of a self.
Simon straightened his posture a little bit, confident. "Well. I'm not usually in jail for punching Tony Stark. I'm not usually whisked away from a bail hearing? Ugh, imagine the papers tomorrow."
He sighed dramatically, but caught himself as he took stock of all of the eyes on him. "What? That's it. I got processed. No paperwork, one phonecall, and a medical exam. I was in jail for half a day. I'll give you New Yorkers points for expediency."
Doug looked at Simon. "Uh, hate to break it to you, but it was more than half a day. You were in jail overnight." Something was definitely off if he had lost time due to whatever shenanigans Enchantress was pulling.
"Okay, so..." Whatever Doug had been about to say was cut off by a loud slam, as of something crashing against the front door of the townhouse.
---
As X-Force's brainstorming session gets rudely interrupted, there's more than one familiar face in the mix.
There is only so much reinforcing that can be done to the door of a townhouse in the middle of New York City without arousing the suspicions of neighbors. Those precautions are good at keeping out the casual B&E set, but don't do much against a determined strike force with a small battering ram.
Even as the loud bang of the door giving way sent X-Force scurrying for their weapons, several men in black balaclavas scurried through the doorway, semi-automatic weapons at the ready. But they held fire, waiting for another person to enter. The person who followed them in, though, was not Amora the Enchantress. Instead, it was another foe that at least some of the people in the room recognized immediately by the bright purple sacklike mask fitted to his head.
Zemo did not walk so much as strut into the townhouse. He looked the definition of poise and confidence as he took in the room, smiling under his mask. Everything was going exactly according to plan.
"Ah," he said simply. "'The gang, it is all here,' as you Americans are prone to saying." He turned an eye to the leader of the mercenary crew. "Remember, I'm simply here for my masterpiece. The rest... are unnecessary, so if they move..." X-Force appeared surprised to see him. Zemo was almost offended.
"Come, come now. Surely you must have suspected, expected my involvement? Who else could have been responsible for such a momentous achievement for humanity? None but I have the intellect, the skills, the genius to have made such a creation! He is far beyond anything the likes of which Red Skull or Hydra could produce!"
He met each of their eyes in turn. There was no reason to show fear; he held all the cards and he knew it. "They claimed he was impossible. A fools ambition far beyond the scope of anything that had ever been achieved before. I, in turn, chose a different path. I chose the impossible. I chose to create a Master Man.
"All things great I have accomplished flow through him. He is to be the first of many; the greatest of them all. Your simple minds cannot comprehend the depths of my accomplishments, so allow me to simplify this in such a way even you can understand:"
Zemo pulled out his pistol and aimed at at the closest target, the tiny Asian who dressed as though she were still in the eighties. Her death would be the perfect catalyst for his triumphant victory and the final cleansing for humanity.
"He is mine. You cannot have him, nor can you keep me from him. It will be as I will it, for I am Baron Zemo!"
The question of whether Asgardian goddesses were aware of the slow clap was answered a moment after Zemo finished his triumphant speech as Amora sauntered into the townhouse, her 'applause' as slow and regular as the ticking of a clock. "Yes, you have created a man. Do not forget, Zemo, that women have been doing this from the beginning of time, and few of them have expected the world to bow at their feet for it."
Dressed in a skintight emerald jumpsuit and impossibly high boots she certainly looked like the type of woman who expected the world - or at least men - to leave lip prints on her feet, but then she certainly wasn't the average woman.
"But I will not tarnish the weapon because of the master's hubris; he will serve our purposes all the same," she continued breezily, "and for that he is under our protection. Come, let us take him and go - I am tired of this place."
There was a beat as all heads turned to the man of the hour: Simon stood shell-shocked behind as much as a protective barricade a few pieces of furniture and X-Force could provide. His eyes, however, were drawn tight as his gaze drifted in sudden epiphany between Zemo and Amora.
"You," and it was unclear who he meant, "You both were at the prison."
He turned to Wanda, pleading, "That guy, not with the bag because seriously prison isn't that weird, did my medical exam."
It took a second, but the shocked expression then melted from Simon's face as he took in the larger, gun-filled, picture. He gulped and practically shrunk behind Wanda. His voice was suddenly small. "Apparently he talks like that all the time."
"Did he touch you in your special place?" Wade asked, expression flat.
Ugh, simple and crude. Were they truly the best test for a man of his genius? "Amora, you truly lost my masterpiece to such simpletons?"
Zemo sighed theatrically. Apparently it was true what they said; if you want something done right, do it yourself. "Men, I grow tired of these imbeciles. Do with them what you will."
X-Force does what they do best - but something goes sideways.
"Do with them what you will."
As it turned out, Marie-Ange could roll her eyes and throw up a half solid barrier of interlocking discs with a metallic sheen at the same time. It sagged a bit, and where the image met the floor, it was wet with ectoplasmic ooze, and it would barely provide cover, and might stop one - maybe two bullets, and hopefully it would give her time to get out of the line of fire. ~I hate him I hate him I hate him shoot him in the bag.~ She thought - loudly - and belatedly apologetically.
Wade slid forward, putting himself between Purple Bag Man and most of the others. "Let's talk about crude," he said, foregoing his handguns and leaving them buttoned in his holsters because there were too many friends who might get hit if the bad guys switched things up too much when they cast their vote for how things were gonna go in this fight. Waggling his eyebrows, he dodged a couple of the mercs as others moved to intercept them, popping up right in front of Zemo with a devil-may-care smile. "I'm good at crude. You're just kind of a Nazi asshole."
"I've met many kinds of asshole in my life," added Emma in a purr. "And Nazi assholes are always the worst. So much theatre, so little thinking." She moved with a shimmer of diamond and placed herself on Wade's left hand side. "And they so often assume that a lady won't punch first." Emma's fist glittered through the air and stopped short as a diamond-hard boot very firmly connected with Zemo's ankle. Emma danced backwards immediately, leaving Wade's arms clear for another shot if needed.
Hurentochter! Zemo actually felt that kick. So, it looked like they'd be doing this the hard way after all. That was fine with him. A proper gentleman was never above getting his hands dirty, after all.
Zemo moved, perfectly efficiently. He drew his sword in one hand, holding his pistol in the other even as he stepped towards the closest target not currently made out of diamond (he only had a limited number of high-penetration rounds; no point in wasting them just yet): the loud one with the crude mouth. He put his new shield between him and the others, blade across the stupid one's throat. With his other hand, he aimed the gun.
"Now, now," he said in the crude one's ear, his smile showing far too many teeth to really be considered friendly. "That was hardly polite."
Wade grinned. "Polite's not really my schick, douchecanoe." He raised his hands, faster than anyone save the speedster would have been able to manage, and knocked the sword away from him with his armored forearm. With his free hand, he batted Purple Bag Man's gun upward, toward the ceiling - and then he waggled his eyebrows even as he dropped to the floor to hook Zemo's legs right out from under him.
What was with all the kicks to the legs?! The indignity of it all was crushing. Still, Zemo thought as he used the momentum to roll towards the last member of the group, it wasn't all bad. He'd just have to make their inevitable deaths extra painful in response.
There wasn't any more time to waste talking, clearly. If they couldn't appreciate the genius he would bestow on them, then he would save his breath. Which is why, when he came out of the roll towards the last one, it was sword-first at full lunge, tip aimed right for the heart.
Marie-Ange slid sideways - fast and smooth, away from the sword, but not quite fast enough, not quite smooth enough. The tip of Zemo's sword caught her on the shoulder, cutting a sharp line down to her arm. She brought up a hand to catch it, one moment flesh and skin and cute bracelet, and in the next, wrapped in a steely gauntlet. It saved her from the sword coming back to slice through her chest - but left her open for Zemo to push forward and grab her around the neck.
"Well, that can't be allowed," muttered Emma. She'd been staying back from the fight, keeping a telepathic overview across everything that was going on, but also using her power to fade out of sight and memory. Thus her sudden re-appearance, telepathic cloak dropping away as she turned herself into diamond, was enough to give her the element of surprise. That, combined with the extra force she could exert in diamond form, meant her focused punch into the inside of Zemo's elbow actually broke his grip and sent all three participants spinning apart from each other, momentum redirected and turned outwards into the kind of chaos Wanda would be proud of.
Zemo righted himself first. This was unacceptable. He would not be made a fool of! Instinct honed by years of practice guided his hand as it snapped up and at the ready. The bangs were almost lost in the noise and confusion. Four shots rang out at the first target that crossed Zemo's field of view. There wasn't any thinking or planning involved; just the pure, overwhelming desire to see someone dead.
Four bullets flew directly at the stupid one with the crude mouth. And it was satisfying.
The shock of impact was, as always, just enough to jolt Wade backward a bit. Adrenalin hit a moment later as he paused a moment to evaluate the injuries, the chaos swirling around him. Two to the hip, obviously fired as the gun rose, two more to his shoulder on the same side. Minimal damage, all things considered. Laughing, Wade allowed himself to stumble back another step, though he remained on his feet. It was gonna hurt like a bitch later, but for now, he'd handle the pain like he always did. "Gotta do better than that, bagface."
Marie-Ange rolled to the floor, and scrabbled across the carpet until her hands reached the smooth floor of the little kitchenette. She flattened herself down, not able to get entirely out of sight but at least presenting a smaller target and pulled card after card from her pockets. Statues. Cups. Spears. Nothing useful. Nothing helpful. The same cards over and over. The sun. The wheel of fortune. The lovers.
This was taking too long, Zemo decided. It was time to be done with it all. Conveniently, the opportunity had presented itself for one final teachable moment. They didn't want to listen, so he'd just teach by doing.
Never take your eyes off a battle.
Zemo slid to the side, around some broken piece of furniture his men had wrecked (and he would definitely have to talk to them about that, should any of them have survived), and fired three shots at the woman's unprotected back.
Diamond skin. Telepathy. Neither of them the slightest use against the bullets that shredded through Marie-Ange's back. Emma, who was flesh now, felt the black whirl, the telepathic vortex that was a team mate dying, reaching out for safety, a mind to cling to to stop it falling into darkness. But Marie-Ange was a precog and the darkness surged outwards as she fell, threatening to tear Emma's mind apart as it scrabbled for a hold.
Diamond skin. Marie-Ange's dying telepathic howl cut off abruptly and was replaced with Emma's own scream as she ran forwards, diamond fists curling in rage and swinging hard, every ounce of rage and force concentrated on Zemo's head. He was turning back towards Emma, towards the scream, but he only made it halfway before Emma's fists swung at speed and connected with a sickening noise. For a second, momentum continued to turn his body, blood leaking from the holes and tears in the purple bag and then Zemo dropped like a stone.
Emma dropped her diamond form as she reached out with her mind, ready to catch Wade in telepathic arms. She reached out and the black hole that was Marie-Ange's dying mind caught Emma instead, black and red and not Marie-Ange's mind, something else instead that swallowed up Emma's mind and Emma and all of them and drew them down into the darkness.
Reset.
-
"Do with them what you will."
Doug was already moving upon seeing the dismissal in Zemo's body language - if the posturing was over, that meant things were about to go pear-shaped. He vaulted over a large chair, taking cover behind it and producing a pistol. He snapped his fingers at Artie, his brain still processing where Zemo's goons had fanned out to in the room. ~Cover us,~ he signed choppily around the handle of the pistol, before calling out at Gabriel. "Velocidad, take the far ones and I'll take the closer ones," he said in Spanish.
Well, the young man's first official job with X-Force, and it was to be a trial by fire.
Artie had dropped behind the other chair, everything that wasn't relevant to here and now pushed aside in a box for later. He didn't have a good line of sight so he set a second set of figures at the door, nothing too real but visible, distracting as they ran in while strobe lights flickered in the corner of Zemo's men's eyes.
"Velocidad?" Gabriel muttered after a snort. He darted behind a lamp, looking from around it to take stock of the goons' position. "Here's hoping that doesn't stick." Pushing the lamp to the ground, he tried to calculate the distance between his location and the farthest enemy. "I'm off," he called out. He sprinted out from behind the couch, moving toward the closest of the more distant group of gunmen.
"Well, I needed -something- to call you," Doug retorted, but Gabriel had already taken off. Taking advantage of the distraction in their ranks brought on by Artie's illusions, Doug rolled out from the opposite side, squeezing off a few rounds at the closest goon and using the man as cover from the rest. They were clearly wearing body armor, from the way two shots center mass didn't take his target down, so Doug closed in and pistol-whipped his opponent into unconsciousness, holding the slumping body as a shield and shooting the next one in the face, the bullet smashing through the bridge of his nose and sending him spinning down.
Right. Body armour. Artie shifted the gun to his off hand and shook out an extendable baton, blinding a man with a bubble of darkness around his eyes before swinging the baton from behind, hitting his neck and knees before sliding back as a blow from the side sent him sprawling, two hard kicks to his ribs following as Artie lay on the floor gasping.
The hired gun drew back for another kick, but a second later, he was flat on the ground, groaning in pain. As he dropped, Gabriel appeared behind him, a stern look on his face and the butt end of a handgun facing out from his right hand. "Oops." Gabriel glanced at the man, then gave him a kick on the ribs to match the two the thug had given to Artie. "My bad." He grabbed the guy's gun, then bolted back into the fray.
Just fucking focus, Gabriel. Artie wondered if he'd remember to mention that later. He dragged himself to his knees, still gasping and raised the gun, aimed, shot. Missed. He couldn't stand yet, so he went for more bubbles of darkness, wrapping them around the heads of the attackers, keeping them more or less in place though the faster they moved, the harder he had to work to keep their vision obscured.
Artie couldn't stand and shoot yet, but Doug could. And wherever the bubbles of darkness went, so went bullets from Doug's gun. He was aiming blind for the spots between body armor and head protection, but some of his shots found their marks, and several of the mercenaries dropped to the floor. Doug dropped back behind the chair as several men returned fire, calmly reloading and moving to another spot, keeping furniture between him and the bulk of the enemy.
The reloading was the cue Gabriel needed to take action. As one man switched his clip, the young speedster appeared suddenly in front of him, wrenching the gun out of his grip and quickly pistol-whipping the man in the face. The goon staggered back toward a wall of the safehouse and ended up falling into the arms of Gabriel, who'd darted around behind him so he could use most of his strength to hurl the man into a window.
Artie sucking shallow breaths in, still trying to breath, watching Gabriel take the man out through the window. The man landed and sprang back onto his feet, armour having cushioned the fall. Artie pulled himself together long enough to aim and shoot, bullet catching him in the throat, even as lifting his arms made his ribs burn like fire and he dropped again, gasping.
Doug scanned the room - between the three of them they'd made relatively quick work of the henchmen, and he turned to where his teammates were engaged with Zemo and Enchantress -
- just in time to see Wanda and Enchantress both raise their hands to attack, and a wave of red to spill out from them to fill the room.
And then nothing.
-
"Do with them what you will."
The room was exploding into chaos around them and Wanda hadn't even done anything yet. She watched as the various members of her team clashed with Zemo's men and then she turned, grabbed Simon by the shoulders and shoved him down under the table. "Stay down and behind me," she said calmly. "Trust me, darling, they'll need to go through me first if they want to get to you."
Turning back, she locked eyes with Amora and red rings flickered into life around her hands. Her field of vision turned a familiar hue and she threw hex bolts at the Asgardian, knowing they were only the first volleys.
Amora raised a shimmering shield with a flick of her manicured hand, deflecting the bolts and only just refraining from yawning. "Come now," she purred, a warning blast of light sizzling over Wanda's shoulder, "you don't think you can keep him from me, do you? I will have my pet, one way or another."
Wanda wanted to roll her eyes at the speech but knew that Amora was not a two bit villain and she had to concentrate. The shield around her was powerful and thick but it didn't mean there weren't ways around it. Mentally she dove after the strings and followed them, studying them quickly as the bullets and mayhem around her got worse. "Jubilee, if you wouldn't mind!" Wanda shouted, knowing she'd go for the shield.
There. That's what she was looking for. As she pulled, the floor underneath Amora shuddered and started to break open.
"I would just like to put on record that fighting someone who thinks Xena: Warrior Princess is a good place to model your dialogue on was not how I pictured this going," Jubilee noted, seemingly to the universe in general before she followed Wanda's suggestion and attacked the gap in Amora's shield left by the destruction of the floor.
It lit said floor on fire rather spectacularly at that.
"You know, they just don't make floors like they used to."
"Some of us back here aren't fireproof, you know!" Simon was, for all intents and purposes, doing his right best to stay where Wanda had stuffed him despite the terror of fire on hardwood. "Less with the banter and more with the climax! Kick her ass!"
Amora gave a cry of rage as the floor and her shield crumbled under the double-barrelled attack. Fortunately for her the fire posed little threat; it licked at her skin harmlessly, singeing the edges of her clothes.
"You!" she snapped to the two thugs nearest her, "eliminate them!" Whether it was blind obedience or something more magically-induced, the result was the same. They turned their weapons on Wanda and Jubilee and opened fire.
Amora's goal was to keep Simon alive but that didn't mean that he couldn't die because some magically induced moron was shooting at him. Wanda dove behind the couch and winced, hoping it would absorb the brunt of the attack. She caught Simon's panicked look and gave him a tight smile. "Hold tight," she said.
She pushed herself off the ground and threw a ragged bolt towards the two men. Her plan was to scatter or kill them, it did not matter. All that mattered was that she was between Simon and the shooters and ...
Sharp pain exploded from her shoulder. Wanda staggered backwards until her hip hit the table and then she was on the ground, gripping her shoulder as blood ran through her fingers.
Jubilee threw plasma at the bullets, melting them before they could reach her, and then moving forward to start melting through the bodies of both gunmen in front of her.
She ignored their screams and turned to where she'd last seen Wanda and Simon.
Simon, for his part, had maneuvered to catch Wanda with one arm before she hit the floor. He had done very little since expect huddle like a trapped animal with Wanda in hand — his eyes, wide as saucers, painted just how in over his head the man was feeling. If his expression tightened any further his eyes might just pop out of their sockets.
Like a fox who had run her prey to ground Amora stalked forward then, her patience all but worn thin. Despite her anger she was still radiantly beautiful - but then, how could she not be, with her green eyes snapping and her golden hair lit beautifully from the still-flickering flames at the edges of the room. Queenlike, she paused where Simon cowered on the floor and then smiled as she saw the crimson puddle spreading out around them. "You look scared," she crooned to Simon, "so scared. Come with me and I promise you will never have anything to fear ever again."
"Oh shut the fuck up," Wanda snapped, trying to ignore how her vision was going grey around the edges. Pain seared through her entire body but she pressed herself against Simon, wondering how she could shield him from this.
Amora closed in, attention drawn away from Simon for the moment. The Asgardian was raising her hands to cast a spell and Wanda knew, without a doubt, that this would be the killing blow. She lashed out with her powers as the spell was released ...
And the whole room went red.
Then black.
Reset.
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