Siege Perilous - Part 3 - Finding Illyana
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xp_logsSiege Perilous Day 9 - Felicia and Remy talk while preparing to go fetch Illyana from her safe house.
The hours before a potential conflict were almost worse than the conflict itself. In battle, you knew that you were in danger. You faced enemies directly and put your life on the line. But not knowing, heading out into the field when literally anything could happen? That made things uncertain, and uncertainty was the thing that professionals feared most. Remy had pulled on his trenchcoat, awkward with the age related damage Selene had caused years ago, settling it like armour on his body.
A pair of hands smoothed along his shoulders followed by a brisk snap of her wrists, aligning the seam of his coat sleeve exactly at the head of his shoulder. "Remind me again why it has to be you," Felicia said behind him, low. "I know I can't convince you to stay behind, and you already know I don't like this, so. Remind me again."
"My responsibility, chere. Right or wrong, Remy responsible for helping start all dis. My responsibility to help finish it, neh?" He gave her a crooked smile, as familiar as a childhood memory. "Sure dat everything be fine. Get de girl back here, figure out what Strange's endgame was, and finally get clear of all dis Hellfire merde."
"You already helped," Felicia couldn't help but point out, clenching her jaw to keep from continuing, and instead leaned to rest her head against him, eyes closing. "What are you going to do when it's done?"
"Back to New Orleans. Remy earned a little vacation down in de midst of guild machinations. Relaxing, neh?" He said."What 'bout you? Time to start dat round de world shopping trip?"
Felicia gave a quiet laugh, her temple rubbing against his coat as she shook her head at him. "Sure. That sounds nice," she replied automatically, then paused. "Honestly, I never really thought about it."
"You need to start thinking 'bout it. One way or another, dis fight is coming to a close sooner den later. Remy know dat you came here to support me, not because you wanted to be part of dis war. When it finishes, it going to be up to you to decide de path you take."
"There aren't a lot of people who would have done what you did for me. It wasn't a difficult choice, and I don't regret it," she said, knowing she should pull away but unwilling to do so. "I... don't want to be here," she admittedly, in the back of her mind realizing it was probably the first time she'd done so out loud. "But you, the team? This is what I have. Where else would I be?"
"You gon be where you always wanted to be, where ever dat is. Likely someplace dat Remy would hate, neh? Full of shoes and dose terribly trendy cocktails and de little chicken kebabs dat no one can eat wit'out looking like a caveman."
Felicia straightened, giving him a playfully unimpressed look, deadpan. “Your determination to continue with this bit where I’m a vapid narcissist is both inspiring and very insulting. I think I’m ready to let you go now. Be free old man.”
"Dat's de Felicia Remy know." He said, settling his jacket. "Seriously, you need to decide what comes next. You already done de parts wit' me dat I could help. Taught you what I know. Sat wit' you through you powers trying dere best to kill you until we figured out how to control dem. We worked for you to get to de point dat you carve out you own space in de world. No matter what happens, it's time for you to take dat next step. Wit'out me. One way or 'nother."
"I know. You can stop spelling it out for me, daron," Felicia said, giving his shoulder one last squeeze followed by a little shove. "Come on. Let's get this girl and send you off."
Siege Perilous Day 9 - It’s a simple job. Go to the location provided by the Cypher, talk to Illyana, take her with them to a safe house. Simple.
Illyana Rasputin. 19 years old. Born on the former Ust-Ordynski Collective Farm in Siberia. She sounded more like a victim of human trafficking than the crux of a magical crisis, which just figured. She'd been enrolled in university when she suddenly disappeared, tracked by X-Force as having moved secretly via the Russian underworld to Bulgaria, and then on a flight into Teterboro Airport, making use of the airport's overtaxed crews to bring her in via charter with only minimal oversight. This matched up with Ramsey's intel that placed the girl in a small AirBnB in the back of a converted warehouse condo in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens. He and their other sources had been clear; the HFC was getting closer but didn't have a name or a location yet. While Remy might have wanted to bring the full squad, he needed people hunting down the Darkhold connection and the disappearance of the Morlocks.
Too many holes in his operation these days, and each one had a name and a life before he'd led them into this fight. Remy rubbed his chin. He must really be getting old.
"Any activity dat we don't want around de target?"
"Mmm, not really." Natasha scanned the various feeds displaying on her laptop. The police scanner was showing nothing out of the ordinary. Sat images had much the same. The rumor network they'd tapped into via contact of a contact hadn't turned anything up either. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Everything seemed fine, but why did her gut tell her they needed to be on their toes? She bit her lip and shook her head. "Just the usual. Some petty crime, loitering, kids skipping out from school, nothing that would draw undue attention or get in our way."
"My friend and I aren't sensing anything unusual, either, but we're still a good distance away," Wanda said, the red draining from her eyes as she stopped actively examining the chaos threads in the area. Exhaustion tinged her voice but it didn't show physically, pushed aside until the job was done.
Jean idly tapped her middle finger against her thumb. "I'll do a mental scan once we get closer to double-check," she said. If they could prevent what happened to Megan or herself from happening to this girl, at least it'd give her some amount of comfort, even without violence (though killing a few court members would also give her satisfaction).
"And you're positive she knows we're coming," Felicia said, idly clicking the tips of her claws against each other, a deadly kalimba. It wasn't posed as a question. "I'm putting my vote in for making this quick," she added, continuing to leave things unsaid, meeting Remy's look.
"Right, speed is de order of de day. Let's get her, get her in de car, and get somewhere safe." Remy said, pulling himself out of the car. "Somewhere safe like... Nawlins? Safe down dere, ma amis." He gave them a surprisingly gentle smile.
"Safe as we can make it," Natasha said as she closed her laptop, tucking it back into its bag. She dropped her sunglasses over her eyes and did a quick, instinctive patdown to ensure her weapons were safely secured and extra ammo was in her belt along with some additional surprises, as she slid out of the car after Remy. "Let's get this show rolling."
"Are you going to cause me any problems?" Wanda thought, following closely behind Nat but shifting away once she exited the van to present a larger target. Just in case.
"Who? Me? I'm insulted." Chthon chuckled darkly. "No, my dear, I am having the time of my life - or at least the time of my life as long as I've been with you."
"At least this one's happy for our help and we don't have to fight her to get her to where she needs to be," Jean said. There were far too many missions in the past where someone thought they knew better and quickly discovered they were wrong.
She glanced around, reaching her mind out. "Homeless guy around the corner has anger management problems but other than that everything seems alright so far."
"He's in good company, den. Let's move." Remy pulled himself out of the car, settling his cane on the pavement. Something didn't quite fit, but he couldn't see any signs of ambush. Perhaps it was the girl? From what he'd been told, Illyana could be any number of things, powers unknown and the possibilities endless. Figures that Strange would get himself killed now and leave him to try and figure out this magic nonsense. Remy shook his head as they approached the rented room, wanting to be in and out in minutes if he could.
Moving around in a big group like this still made Natasha twitchy. Big, conspicuous, and bound to be noticed. Not her preferred style of working if she could avoid it. Her eyes roved the parking lot, the pathways to the other rooms, and everywhere in between. They were empty. Middle of the day and no one around. Perfectly normal. She squared her shoulders, one hand casually tucked against her side within fingers' breadth of her gun or her knife. A mild expression with matching smile wove itself onto her face as she faced the door. Subconsciously she shifted her weight onto her back foot as she knocked on the door braced for whatever was to come.
The door opened a crack, revealing a suspicious blue eye and not much else. Apparently satisfied with what it saw, the door opened to reveal a tall girl with her hair pulled back in a messy bun and jeans and a plain t-shirt that looked like they'd been through a few things in their lifetime. She paused, then said, gesturing inward awkwardly, "I guess you can . . . come in, or whatever?"
Sound suddenly crackled in the ears of those X-Force members present, the base beat of ‘Jerusalema’ coming from nowhere before being turned off abruptly.
“Sorry folks, girl needs a few beats to work by and the noise cancelling on this thing sucks. Now, like, unless you all want to be very dead, you’ll wrap up the party because you’ve got an ambush incoming and I’ve got absolutely no party favors prepared. So, you know, get the fuck out of there.”
Siege Perilous Day 9 -There’s a loose end that needs addressing back at XF headquarters. It falls to Doug to deal with it.
TW: character death
The office would be empty. Well, almost empty. There was one person in X-Force's office that didn't go out with the mutant set, but was left behind to hold down the homefront. ~And while the cat's away, the mice will...tie up loose ends.~ Doug checked the gear on his vest a final time as he exited the stairwell near the 'Elizabeth Braddock Memorial Centre' offices. He'd have preferred not to be solo on this, but keeping a low profile was his priority. And while he'd built himself a fair network of hackers and grifters, they were light on the hitting end of things. So needs must and all that.
According to what intel he'd managed to gather, his target would either be at the front desk, in the kitchenette, or possibly the conference room.
Normally, security would be in force. But Doug wasn't unknown, and Charlie only glanced at the exterior camera before buzzing Doug in. The researcher was sitting at the front, a stack of books crowding the reception area, making notes furiously on a pad of legal paper. At least a dozen sheets were folded over the top, covered in his small but precise writing.
"Didn't expect you, Doug. If you had an appointment, consider it rescheduled. Everyone is out of the shop right now."
"I was actually looking for you." To be honest, Doug felt sorry for Charlie. He wasn't a bad sort. But a deal was a deal.
He needed to get closer, though. He was a good shot, but not perfect, and the desk would almost certainly be reinforced against small-arms fire. Institutional paranoia and such. "Just checking in." Keep talking, get in close.
"Yeah, I actually meant to e-mail you." Charlie picked up his phone, which had the information that Doug had transferred to them. "I noticed in your reference history you sent tracking her that you referenced the Soulsword in this chain." He tapped the screen a couple of times. "But the time stamps don't make sense. We didn't have that in the packet that we sent you."
"Because I didn't get it from you." The referring to sound suppressors as 'silencers' resulted in a lot of mistaken expectations from people who watched too many Hollywood films. Instead of the imperceptible 'pfft' that happened in movies, the reality was more like turning the sharp report of a gunshot into more like the 'thwap' of a bamboo switch hitting a wall. Quiet enough to not draw attention anywhere else in the building, but certainly not silent.
The suppressor dragged the front of the pistol down, so Doug's planned 'one to the chest' resulted in 'two to the lower abdomen' and he hissed in frustration.
Charlie went down in a heap, trying to process what just happened. The pain blossomed across his body, radiating out from the impact points in his body. He tried to catch his breath, but the blood bubbling up in his mouth stopped him. He fixated on Doug; a former friend; an ally; someone who had trust. Instead. he could feel his life slipping away from him. His eyes locked on Doug's and slowly, painfully, pulled his arm up and with the last seconds of his life, blood running over his chin, smiled, and gave his killer the finger.
Doug stayed until the light was gone from the other man's eyes. Least he could do, bear witness and all that. It certainly didn't feel good, but he wasn't in a business that made you feel good all that often.
The hours before a potential conflict were almost worse than the conflict itself. In battle, you knew that you were in danger. You faced enemies directly and put your life on the line. But not knowing, heading out into the field when literally anything could happen? That made things uncertain, and uncertainty was the thing that professionals feared most. Remy had pulled on his trenchcoat, awkward with the age related damage Selene had caused years ago, settling it like armour on his body.
A pair of hands smoothed along his shoulders followed by a brisk snap of her wrists, aligning the seam of his coat sleeve exactly at the head of his shoulder. "Remind me again why it has to be you," Felicia said behind him, low. "I know I can't convince you to stay behind, and you already know I don't like this, so. Remind me again."
"My responsibility, chere. Right or wrong, Remy responsible for helping start all dis. My responsibility to help finish it, neh?" He gave her a crooked smile, as familiar as a childhood memory. "Sure dat everything be fine. Get de girl back here, figure out what Strange's endgame was, and finally get clear of all dis Hellfire merde."
"You already helped," Felicia couldn't help but point out, clenching her jaw to keep from continuing, and instead leaned to rest her head against him, eyes closing. "What are you going to do when it's done?"
"Back to New Orleans. Remy earned a little vacation down in de midst of guild machinations. Relaxing, neh?" He said."What 'bout you? Time to start dat round de world shopping trip?"
Felicia gave a quiet laugh, her temple rubbing against his coat as she shook her head at him. "Sure. That sounds nice," she replied automatically, then paused. "Honestly, I never really thought about it."
"You need to start thinking 'bout it. One way or another, dis fight is coming to a close sooner den later. Remy know dat you came here to support me, not because you wanted to be part of dis war. When it finishes, it going to be up to you to decide de path you take."
"There aren't a lot of people who would have done what you did for me. It wasn't a difficult choice, and I don't regret it," she said, knowing she should pull away but unwilling to do so. "I... don't want to be here," she admittedly, in the back of her mind realizing it was probably the first time she'd done so out loud. "But you, the team? This is what I have. Where else would I be?"
"You gon be where you always wanted to be, where ever dat is. Likely someplace dat Remy would hate, neh? Full of shoes and dose terribly trendy cocktails and de little chicken kebabs dat no one can eat wit'out looking like a caveman."
Felicia straightened, giving him a playfully unimpressed look, deadpan. “Your determination to continue with this bit where I’m a vapid narcissist is both inspiring and very insulting. I think I’m ready to let you go now. Be free old man.”
"Dat's de Felicia Remy know." He said, settling his jacket. "Seriously, you need to decide what comes next. You already done de parts wit' me dat I could help. Taught you what I know. Sat wit' you through you powers trying dere best to kill you until we figured out how to control dem. We worked for you to get to de point dat you carve out you own space in de world. No matter what happens, it's time for you to take dat next step. Wit'out me. One way or 'nother."
"I know. You can stop spelling it out for me, daron," Felicia said, giving his shoulder one last squeeze followed by a little shove. "Come on. Let's get this girl and send you off."
Siege Perilous Day 9 - It’s a simple job. Go to the location provided by the Cypher, talk to Illyana, take her with them to a safe house. Simple.
Illyana Rasputin. 19 years old. Born on the former Ust-Ordynski Collective Farm in Siberia. She sounded more like a victim of human trafficking than the crux of a magical crisis, which just figured. She'd been enrolled in university when she suddenly disappeared, tracked by X-Force as having moved secretly via the Russian underworld to Bulgaria, and then on a flight into Teterboro Airport, making use of the airport's overtaxed crews to bring her in via charter with only minimal oversight. This matched up with Ramsey's intel that placed the girl in a small AirBnB in the back of a converted warehouse condo in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens. He and their other sources had been clear; the HFC was getting closer but didn't have a name or a location yet. While Remy might have wanted to bring the full squad, he needed people hunting down the Darkhold connection and the disappearance of the Morlocks.
Too many holes in his operation these days, and each one had a name and a life before he'd led them into this fight. Remy rubbed his chin. He must really be getting old.
"Any activity dat we don't want around de target?"
"Mmm, not really." Natasha scanned the various feeds displaying on her laptop. The police scanner was showing nothing out of the ordinary. Sat images had much the same. The rumor network they'd tapped into via contact of a contact hadn't turned anything up either. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Everything seemed fine, but why did her gut tell her they needed to be on their toes? She bit her lip and shook her head. "Just the usual. Some petty crime, loitering, kids skipping out from school, nothing that would draw undue attention or get in our way."
"My friend and I aren't sensing anything unusual, either, but we're still a good distance away," Wanda said, the red draining from her eyes as she stopped actively examining the chaos threads in the area. Exhaustion tinged her voice but it didn't show physically, pushed aside until the job was done.
Jean idly tapped her middle finger against her thumb. "I'll do a mental scan once we get closer to double-check," she said. If they could prevent what happened to Megan or herself from happening to this girl, at least it'd give her some amount of comfort, even without violence (though killing a few court members would also give her satisfaction).
"And you're positive she knows we're coming," Felicia said, idly clicking the tips of her claws against each other, a deadly kalimba. It wasn't posed as a question. "I'm putting my vote in for making this quick," she added, continuing to leave things unsaid, meeting Remy's look.
"Right, speed is de order of de day. Let's get her, get her in de car, and get somewhere safe." Remy said, pulling himself out of the car. "Somewhere safe like... Nawlins? Safe down dere, ma amis." He gave them a surprisingly gentle smile.
"Safe as we can make it," Natasha said as she closed her laptop, tucking it back into its bag. She dropped her sunglasses over her eyes and did a quick, instinctive patdown to ensure her weapons were safely secured and extra ammo was in her belt along with some additional surprises, as she slid out of the car after Remy. "Let's get this show rolling."
"Are you going to cause me any problems?" Wanda thought, following closely behind Nat but shifting away once she exited the van to present a larger target. Just in case.
"Who? Me? I'm insulted." Chthon chuckled darkly. "No, my dear, I am having the time of my life - or at least the time of my life as long as I've been with you."
"At least this one's happy for our help and we don't have to fight her to get her to where she needs to be," Jean said. There were far too many missions in the past where someone thought they knew better and quickly discovered they were wrong.
She glanced around, reaching her mind out. "Homeless guy around the corner has anger management problems but other than that everything seems alright so far."
"He's in good company, den. Let's move." Remy pulled himself out of the car, settling his cane on the pavement. Something didn't quite fit, but he couldn't see any signs of ambush. Perhaps it was the girl? From what he'd been told, Illyana could be any number of things, powers unknown and the possibilities endless. Figures that Strange would get himself killed now and leave him to try and figure out this magic nonsense. Remy shook his head as they approached the rented room, wanting to be in and out in minutes if he could.
Moving around in a big group like this still made Natasha twitchy. Big, conspicuous, and bound to be noticed. Not her preferred style of working if she could avoid it. Her eyes roved the parking lot, the pathways to the other rooms, and everywhere in between. They were empty. Middle of the day and no one around. Perfectly normal. She squared her shoulders, one hand casually tucked against her side within fingers' breadth of her gun or her knife. A mild expression with matching smile wove itself onto her face as she faced the door. Subconsciously she shifted her weight onto her back foot as she knocked on the door braced for whatever was to come.
The door opened a crack, revealing a suspicious blue eye and not much else. Apparently satisfied with what it saw, the door opened to reveal a tall girl with her hair pulled back in a messy bun and jeans and a plain t-shirt that looked like they'd been through a few things in their lifetime. She paused, then said, gesturing inward awkwardly, "I guess you can . . . come in, or whatever?"
Sound suddenly crackled in the ears of those X-Force members present, the base beat of ‘Jerusalema’ coming from nowhere before being turned off abruptly.
“Sorry folks, girl needs a few beats to work by and the noise cancelling on this thing sucks. Now, like, unless you all want to be very dead, you’ll wrap up the party because you’ve got an ambush incoming and I’ve got absolutely no party favors prepared. So, you know, get the fuck out of there.”
Siege Perilous Day 9 -There’s a loose end that needs addressing back at XF headquarters. It falls to Doug to deal with it.
TW: character death
The office would be empty. Well, almost empty. There was one person in X-Force's office that didn't go out with the mutant set, but was left behind to hold down the homefront. ~And while the cat's away, the mice will...tie up loose ends.~ Doug checked the gear on his vest a final time as he exited the stairwell near the 'Elizabeth Braddock Memorial Centre' offices. He'd have preferred not to be solo on this, but keeping a low profile was his priority. And while he'd built himself a fair network of hackers and grifters, they were light on the hitting end of things. So needs must and all that.
According to what intel he'd managed to gather, his target would either be at the front desk, in the kitchenette, or possibly the conference room.
Normally, security would be in force. But Doug wasn't unknown, and Charlie only glanced at the exterior camera before buzzing Doug in. The researcher was sitting at the front, a stack of books crowding the reception area, making notes furiously on a pad of legal paper. At least a dozen sheets were folded over the top, covered in his small but precise writing.
"Didn't expect you, Doug. If you had an appointment, consider it rescheduled. Everyone is out of the shop right now."
"I was actually looking for you." To be honest, Doug felt sorry for Charlie. He wasn't a bad sort. But a deal was a deal.
He needed to get closer, though. He was a good shot, but not perfect, and the desk would almost certainly be reinforced against small-arms fire. Institutional paranoia and such. "Just checking in." Keep talking, get in close.
"Yeah, I actually meant to e-mail you." Charlie picked up his phone, which had the information that Doug had transferred to them. "I noticed in your reference history you sent tracking her that you referenced the Soulsword in this chain." He tapped the screen a couple of times. "But the time stamps don't make sense. We didn't have that in the packet that we sent you."
"Because I didn't get it from you." The referring to sound suppressors as 'silencers' resulted in a lot of mistaken expectations from people who watched too many Hollywood films. Instead of the imperceptible 'pfft' that happened in movies, the reality was more like turning the sharp report of a gunshot into more like the 'thwap' of a bamboo switch hitting a wall. Quiet enough to not draw attention anywhere else in the building, but certainly not silent.
The suppressor dragged the front of the pistol down, so Doug's planned 'one to the chest' resulted in 'two to the lower abdomen' and he hissed in frustration.
Charlie went down in a heap, trying to process what just happened. The pain blossomed across his body, radiating out from the impact points in his body. He tried to catch his breath, but the blood bubbling up in his mouth stopped him. He fixated on Doug; a former friend; an ally; someone who had trust. Instead. he could feel his life slipping away from him. His eyes locked on Doug's and slowly, painfully, pulled his arm up and with the last seconds of his life, blood running over his chin, smiled, and gave his killer the finger.
Doug stayed until the light was gone from the other man's eyes. Least he could do, bear witness and all that. It certainly didn't feel good, but he wasn't in a business that made you feel good all that often.
