Operation: Mutant of the Seas 19

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Domino and Wanda take on roving security



They had been painstakingly tracking the patterns of the mutate patrols through the ships, easy to identify regardless of the wigs and normal clothes. The mutates were used for extended sweeps, twice a day each. The only time that they were in the same area was in the switch over of the evening shift across the ship’s personnel when there was a brief meeting in an outer security station on the first accessible deck. The station was an emergency centre, capable of starting the protocols for any number of disasters. It was also the only place outside of the secured decks and the bridge that you could access the entire system.

The two former magistrates met at the counter, passing information back and forth, talking idly while their mutates waited, like dogs at heel.

"Hokay. Hooookay." It wasn't that Dom hadn't done this type of op before - disabling security was a pretty common task no matter who was paying your bills - but it was pretty intimidating to knowingly walk into a situation where at least half your opponents had special powers they could use to potentially explode your head or shred your flesh off your bones. She bounced up and down on the soles of her feet, checking her weapons one last time before giving Wanda a nod. "Okay. Let's do this."

Wanda nodded and stood smoothly from her crouch, They were still hidden but it gave her a better view of the chaos strings overhead. She watched them carefully until she spotted the ones she needed. "On three," she breathed, watching Dom out of the corner of her eye. They had the plan loosely worked out, with the wry knowledge that it could go sideways at any point. Wanda was tasked to provide a distraction that was local to them, not the ship as a whole, and then they'd go in and bust some heads.

Carefully, so as not to mess anywhere else up, Wanda pulled the string and, for a moment, their section went dark.

Dom threw herself forward - always impulsive, she had become even moreso since the discovery of her powers, trusting that the ephemeral quirk of her genetics would carry her through any sticky situation. She knew more or less where the magistrates were, over at the counter, and so she aimed her steps in that direction. A few seconds later she barrelled into someone, using the element of surprise and her momentum to carry them forward until she could ram them into the wall.

The lights came flickering back on not long after Dom had exploded into action. Wanda simply couldn't keep them off for much longer without damaging other, more vital systems. Besides, without knowing what the mutates could do exactly, she couldn't afford to waste time on something that might not even level the playing field.

Moving forward, she lashed out with a sharply aimed hex bolt, keeping their attention from Dom and on her.

It was only a few moments before the impact, but Miriam's mutate was sure she smelt something different. After all - her job was to patrol and sense if there was anything unusual afoot. If she hadn't spent so much time cursing her handler, she might have noticed sooner. She suddenly felt pain and growled heavily. Her claws were up and primed before she even realized she'd launched herself at Dom, her only goal to scratch out the woman's eyes.

Well, that wasn't exactly ideal. Dom knocked the mutate's wrists aside with a sharp chop of her arm, though it left her own forearm feeling bruised from the impact. She longed for her gun even as she ducked down and drove her shoulder into the mutate's solar plexus, hoping to knock the breath out of her at least temporarily.

"Fuck!" Grey shouted, grabbing for his sidearm at the attack. The second mutate was still writhing from the impact of Wanda's hex bolt. "Don't bloody stand there, Miriam! Put them down!" He finally cleared his pistol, trying to line up a shot on Domino.

Chaos was exactly what Miriam loved. An excuse for violence of any sort. Paying absolutely no attention to her mutate, she reached for ‎her firearm and moved behind Grey. He could be a shield for her.

Taking aim at the fire extinguisher, she shot, filling the room with chemicals and smoke.

"Shit!" The cloud of chemicals immediately obscured Wanda's vision and she covered her mouth with the crook of her arm. While it certainly wasn't the most toxic thing on the planet, she wasn't keen on breathing any of it in. Her eyes were already stinging and she stifled the urge to retreat. They'd given her cover and she wasn't about to waste it.

With her free hand, she directed a hex bolt up into the ceiling. It hit the overhead lights and exploded, sending down a shower of glass, lights and a burst of fire.

And then she moved forward.

Smoke, fire, glass, claws. Domino felt she had been thrown head-first into a blender, and the blender was on fire. And then a gunshot sounded; someone had added bullets into the mix and really, she had had enough. With a muttered curse she threw her arm around the mutate's neck and squeezed, counting down the seconds until the lack of bloodflow would bring the number of their opponents down from four to three.

The mutate struggled but finally went limp in her grip. The now flicking lights, sparking wires and fog in the air had turned the deck area into chaos. A bullet skipped off the bulkhead near her as Grey emerged from the extinguisher mist, drawing a bead on Domino.

"Got you now, you doozy cunt."

Fingers gripped the back of his head, digging in tightly as Wanda emerged from the smoke and fire behind him. "Language," she snarled, kicking out the back of his knees. As he stumbled, she kept a tight hold on his hair. When she triggered her powers, she went for power, not finesse. The bolt of entropy exploded from the palm of her hand and blew through the man's skull.

He dropped the rest of the way without a sound.

Or a face.

No one could say that Miriam was a coward, but she knew when she was outnumbered. ‎With a faked sigh of relief, she instantly put up her hands. "Oh thank god! He would've killed me if I hadn't fought back!" She squeezed out a few tears, and slowly started moving towards Grey's prone body. She knew she should have kept the grenades on her. "I can help you! I know all the guard details."

Thump.

Two down, two to go.

Dom deposited the body of her mutate to the ground and spun to face Miriam, her firearm out and at the ready in moments. "Okay, first thing you can do to help is to hold the fuck still while my friend here checks you out." She flicked Wanda a split-second look before returning her attention to the handler, not trusting her any farther than she could throw her. "Keep your hands up and maybe you'll get to keep your face, unlike your buddy here."

"Just a friendly frisk between strangers," Wanda said, watching the woman like a hawk as she slowly approached, edging around the man's body and the pool of blood at her feet. The expression on Miriam's face continued to look relieved and frightened but something was off. Wanda's instincts were blazing that the situation wasn't right but if the other woman truly had been coerced ...

They locked eyes at the exact moment Miriam's slow moving hand darted out and into the pocket of the dead man. Wanda blinked and spotted the grenade. "Dom! Grenade!" she screamed, hands blazing red as she lunged, a bolt slamming into Miriam's arm - causing the woman to scream horribly and drop it, sending it careening in Domino's direction.

There was no time to pause for thought, and that was probably for the best since the only thoughts that would've been possible would've been filled with expletives and a whole lot of 'what the hell do I do with this?'. Instead, Domino reacted. The small cannister came spinning across the floor at her; when it came within reach she stooped and picked it up and then turned in one smooth motion to lob it across the room. Time seemed to slow down; it spun tail-over-end in a beautiful arc, and then, miraculously, sailed right out of the open window and over the railing.

The detonation was a distant sound.

The sad look instantly flashed to anger as Miriam rolled to the ground and picked up her gun, shooting at Dom and Wanda. This was the act of a desperate woman, and her aim was not up to par.

"Oh for the love of..." Dom didn't have any fancy red lights or magic, but luckily they weren't the only thing that could stop a foe from breathing. Whipping out her firearm, she put several slugs in the handler's chest, watching with grim satisfaction as she fell to the floor. She holstered the guns as soon as she was sure the dead woman really was that and turned to the remaining mutate. "Right. So, this might be hard to believe, but hear me out: We're here to help you."

The mutate cowered, overwhelmed by the loss of its handler. It made whimpering sounds, clutching at it's head.

Wanda's face softened. This was no act to buy the time to kill or escape - this was a person well and truly broken. "Slight alteration to our plan," she said suddenly. "I saw a room, probably a closet, down in the hall. If you watch my back while I take our friend down there, it will put her somewhere safe and keep her out from under our feet. A win-win."

"I'm all in favor of those," Dom said with a nod. "Let's do it, then I'll give the all-clear. I don't want to stick around here any longer than I have to."