Sons of Mutancy - Logs 4 & 5
Jul. 31st, 2021 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsBrand and her team go to Costa’s club to begin negotiations.
“Very fancy. Think we’ll need to tip the doorman to get in? Or do we need Jean to go first? We all know the doorman always lets the hot girl in first.” Kane joked as he knotted his tie. All of them were in what was jokingly referred to as ‘agency drab’ – nondescript black suits of mediocre quality. The team backing up Brand was wearing every bit of concealed surveillance device they could fit. Inside the utility truck, a bank of monitors was set up for Betsy and Sooraya to track the team as they went into the club.
Brand rolled her eyes and strode up to the doorman. "We're expected," she told him, imperiously. "Costa is waiting for us." The doorman raised his hand to his ear as he received instructions from his earpiece and nodded.
"Mr. Costa will see you now," he replied, stepping aside to let the group in.
Jean shook her head before following behind Brand. She had a cane to help with walking, which made her feel somewhat stylish. Glancing around the club, she arched a brow at decor. "Well, he certainly spares no expense," she said.
"Smoke, couple of kinds, but not much. Food, alcohol, nothing weird in the air." Kyle said just under his breath. "He's got some bitchin' air scrubbers. Soundproofing is wicked good, I can feel more music than I can hear. Decent crowd, mostly women. "
At first the row of monitors had seemed a lot to keep track of, but Betsy thought she was getting a hang of it, or could at least remember which one was which. While the cameras didn’t provide quite the same depth of experience as her teammates actually present there were getting, she was pretty certain this wasn’t the kind of place any of them would have chosen to spend their time in. “Not exactly what I’d call tasteful,” she commented to Sooraya.
"Far from it." Sooraya agreed easily. "I hate the word usually, but the only one that comes to mind is 'gaudy'." She scanned the row of monitors. "They seem to blend in fairly well though."
"Aw, is that your way of saying we dress up nice, Sooraya?" Kane said quietly into his mic. He was looking around the bar, pausing only as a woman came forward with a tray of what he could only assume were complimentary tequilas. Excellent complimentary tequilas. "OK Gabriel, you're the expert here. We looking at normal staff on the floor and behind the bars or security plants?"
"Mix of both," Gabriel said, picking up a tequila glass before the woman and her tray was out of his reach. "At least one bartender's strapped." He took a sip, figuring it was best to blend in. Surprisingly smooth for free hooch. "Don't turn to check 'em out, but there are a few guys hovering at the perimeter, acting like wallflowers. They look kind of out of place, which is pretty smart, actually. They'll hold onto the same soda with lime all night, pretending to look for someone to drink with. Nobody'll approach them."
Gabriel knew that they, too, looked out of place: They were a group in practically matching suits. "Here, hold this." He handed the glass to Brand before she could object, then loosened the tie from around his neck, removing it and popping open the top buttons on his shirt.
Brand opened her mouth to object, but Gabriel had already moved out of range for her to berate him without causing a scene. Instead, she placed the glass on another passing tray and straightened her suit jacket. "Grey, you're the telepath. What are you picking up? Are we about to be ambushed or is Costa sticking to the agreed meeting?"
Jean's eyes unfocused as she stared toward the wall ahead of them. Slowly tilting her head, after a moment or two she frowned. "I can't sense anything. It's like....there's nothing there."
"OK, good to know." Kane muttered and scratched his ear, the signal for Jean to implement the telepathic switchboard that was an essential on X-Men missions.
~So the club is definitely mobbed up and our meeting place is... compromised. Last chance to abort.~ There was no response. ~OK, let's see what happens. Brand, time to make this meeting happen.~
~Keep close and watch each other's backs.~ Brand's mental tone was short and clipped. ~Be prepared for anything.~ She caught the eye of one of the security goons. and beckoned him over imperiously. "We have a meeting with Mr. Costa - let him know Agent Brand of SWORD has arrived."
Out in the surveillance van, Sooraya and Betsy are alarmed when they lose contact.
AZTECA was a popular nightclub, known for a combination of celebrities from nearby Hollywood and a range of Spanish-American and Mexican pop stars, television actors and rappers who enjoyed the fully bilingual service and surprisingly excellent kitchen. The team, with Brand in front, had no trouble entering the club and had been left to wait by one of the four bars while waiting for Costa to be available. One of his men finally came forward, and through both the pin cameras and the hidden mics, they were able to see them get ready to follow.
"Show time." Sooraya leaned forward, running a final check on all the mics and the cameras. "I hope the music and lights are not gonna interfere too much with everything. That's the tricky part." She looked over to Betsy sitting next to her. "You catching anything otherwise?"
Betsy frowned at her monitors, then shook her head. “Nothing I wouldn’t expect. It’s a bit muffled and this camera here – “ she gestured at a screen displaying a close up of a black leather jacket – “keeps getting obscured by clothing but altogether I think we’ll be fine."
"Yeah, that is one of the downsides of working at this distance, though you are right that things will be fine. Mostly like at least." Sooraya easily agreed. "But with your powerset you don't have to rely on just the mics and cameras. Don't discount having that extra sense available to you. I've seen too often that it reveals something that would stay hidden otherwise.”
“I am listening in on that front too, although the club does produce some background noise there as well. Too many people, and too many of them high on different substances to think quietly.” Betsy gestured at the crowded dance floor. “It should get better once everyone gets in the back room though."
Sooraya clicked through various images, checking up on the surroundings. "I can imagine that. It's looking pretty crazy on the dance floor and I bet most of them are not thinking at all. Just letting themselves be carried away by everything." She leaned forward when her eyes caught a new face. "That's one that we didn't see during the briefing. Making a photo now.”
Betsy snorted. “I wish they weren’t thinking. Trust me, it’s not pretty out there.” Her brow wrinkled as she tried to zone in on the new person Sooraya had indicated. “He feels… weird. There’s this static. Might just be the noise.”
"I've sent the photo of... hopefully we'll get a quick ID." Sooraya's fingers rattled on the keyboard as she did so. "But I'm not liking the fact that you can't really pick him up... not at all. Can you let Marvel Girl know?”
“I’m sure she will have noticed it too, but I’ll ping her just in case..” She sent her teacher a mental highlight to draw her attention on the newcomer. "Looks like they’re getting ready to go in the back. All of this is recorded as well, I hope? I don’t want to miss anything important."
"Of course it is." Sooraya simply explained as she shifted her attention quickly between the various monitors. "They'll do analysis on it, maybe use if for evidence or something and in the worst case scenario it might be helpful to 'convince' people to cooperate or something." She frowned when suddenly a fine line of static crossed the screen, joined by a sharp hiss in their ears.
As the static grew, Betsy's face went pale and took on a slightly nauseated look. “I really hate this,” she whispered to herself, before continuing in a louder tone. “It’s not just the mics. I have been cut off from the team as well.” She pulled off her headset and closed her eyes to delay the onset of the migraine she expected would follow. “The last time this happened it was nanites, but I have no idea what is taking place here."
The screens had gone completely static as Sooraya pulled off her headphones and she turned to Betsy, her mind rapidly calculating her options. "You are fully cut off? Not even able to reach Marvel Girl?”
The telepath nodded. “I’m getting nothing from any of them. Everything else is normal, I can hear the crowd just as clearly as before but all of our people that just went into that room…” She waved her arm helplessly. “They are gone."
Sooraya considered her options as she made sure the final footage was transmitted. "I know you haven't been doing this very long. Be honest, how comfortable do you feel going out there to look for them? Can you handle yourself?"
Betsy chewed her lip helplessly. She did not want to be the reason her friends and teammates did not return home. On the other hand… “I could, but I don’t know if it would do any good. If they'd been knocked out or it was a physical block, I should still be able to at least tell they are in the building. I can't. I don’t think we can resolve this between just the two of us."
After checking that the footage had truly been transmitted Sooraya shut down the equipment and pushed open the door. "We are gonna get some distance from here in case goons come looking and call for backup. As soon as we've contact and a basic plan, I'll see about heading back to scout out the situation."
During their meeting with Frank Costa, he reveals he is more than just a nightclub owner as he uses magic to bring out the hidden desires of the mutants.
TW: NSFW explicit sex, non-con
The backroom at AZTECA was more than your typical VIP section of a club. Instead of just curtains separating the main floor from a few couches and an extra couple of hundred dollars per liquor bottle, they passed through a set of curtains, a set of double doors, and into an octagonal room. There was a sunken centre, ringed with leather couches and a fire table in the middle. The table, during a Californian summer, made it stiflingly hot. Around the room, mounted on the walls or placed in alcoves, were pieces of Mesoamerican stone art, most with imposing security standing next to them.
Frank Costa sat on one of the couches, drinking an amber liquid from a snifter. Several almost inhumanly attractive young men and women were arrayed around the couches, in outfits as short as they were sheer. He was wearing a white linen suit and a dark silk shirt, liberally accented with gold jewellery, bright against his dark skin. He looked every inch the Italian transplant to California, save for his eyes. They were unnaturally dark, almost black against the whites. He looked up with a smile full of capped teeth.
“Ah, Agent Brand. My staff was surprised to get your call. Especially so soon after the news about… highway trouble. I see you’ve brought an honour guard for this meeting.” He shooed a male companion leaning on his shoulder away and stood up. “So, tell me, what brings SWORD to my humble club?”
"A business proposition," replied Brand smoothly. She wasn't interested in bantering back and forth and went straight to the point. "An alternative option to your current arrangements."
Gabriel's eyes looked from Brand to Costa for just a moment, gauging their moods. But then, ever the consummate spy, he scanned the room. The security force was almost a caricature of itself: overly jacked, heavily armed, all in black, as if Costa had ordered them from a catalog. But nobody seemed particularly alert -- they had their eyes set on the X-Men, but it was as if they weren't really watching them. It reminded him, in some weird way, of being on poppers.
The perverse thought shook him. "SWORD would also take a Casamigos on the rocks," he added after a second, his eyes going to the man Costa had just shrugged off. "If that's an option."
Costa gave Gabe an amused glance and waved off an attendant to make his drink order from the sidebar.
“I suppose SWORD operates differently from the ATF. Bring back a bottle of Cristal for our interesting guests. Now, my verdant beauty, what kind of business arrangement are you suggesting? It’s rare that the US government queues up for my business.”
“We can get your weapons back, arrest the culprits… and then return your property to you, no questions asked.” Brand, all business, had noted the drugged-out state of Costa’s harem, but it wasn’t her problem. Magical weapons were. Besides, once they took Costa down, these people would be free to leave. “In return SWORD becomes your new buyer, instead of the cartel.”
“The cartels are not people who one simply breaks a contract with. They have demands and they’ll wonder why we suddenly can’t fill them. Have you considered that?”
“Of course.” Brand sounded like it had been so obvious it wasn’t worth mentioning. “A SWORD raid on your hijackers, the seizure of the weapons by a government agency… No criminal organisation with any caution would question that. Your clients would simply chalk it up as another lost resource and move on.”
“At an upgraded price, for my tastes.” Costa smiled. “Let’s say 20% over the normal rate for every shipment seized?”
“Let’s say 15. We are doubling your profit by returning weapons you’ve already sold, after all.” Brand gave Costa a slow smile.
“It’s an interesting offer. Although, I’m never trusting of sudden deliverance. It is something about man’s true nature, to seek influence through adversity, and when needed, the first way to engineer influence is to engineer influence.” He walked over to the fire table and raised his hand over it. The lights in the room began to dim, and a small stone mask, lost amidst the coals before now began to rise of its own accord.
“My father was a very traditional man, you know. A proud Sicilian. He taught me many things about men; how to control them, how to manipulate them, how to dominate them. But my mother… my mother taught me how to make them fear me.” The mask, now head high, started to slowly rotate in the air. “She was a bruja; a nearly pure blooded Azteca woman from a tiny enclave in Mexico. She came following a prophecy that she’d bear a great leader.” He smiled and winked at them. “You know how mothers are. But she taught me something very important. 'Hijo', she said, 'find a person’s truth. If you know that, you know the key to controlling them'.”
A red flare emanated from the mask as it fitted to his face, crawling over it like lines of electricity. There didn’t seem to be any damage caused, although Costa looked different following the flare; more imposing, more important.
“That’s why when such a delightfully perfect offer reaches me, I like to do my due diligence by discovering your truths and making sure that I’ll hold them.” He was walking amidst them, weaving in and out between the mutants disguised as SWORD agents.
“Like you. A beautiful injured redbird.” He touched Jean’s bare hand for a moment.
Jean's pupils dilated and her lip quivered, the feeling of his skin against hers arching through her body. "I've touched the darkness so many times when I was taken over. Felt it flow through me. And I," she licked her lips, letting out a quiet laugh. "I like it. The freedom. No burden of friends, or family, or dead women with my face or a fucked up universe. Just me," she said. The moment the words left her lips she let out a gasp, her eyes fluttering as a tear fell down one cheek.
“Or this breath of the wild.” He rubbed a lock of Kyle’s hair between his fingers, brushing Kyle’s ear.
"God, you know, sometimes I just want it to be easier." Kyle's face went slack as he leaned into the touch. "Just let someone else make the decisions, get rid of all of this." His hand shifted languidly, waving at his jacket, his dark pants, his shoes as his claws slipped out. "I don't get to be wild, you know. I'm the only one like me who doesn't get to just cut loose, and I just want someone to tell me I can, like, just let it out. Being a person all the time is fuckin' exhausting, man."
“Or this young treasure. Oh, I should have you behind my bar.” His thumb brushed Gabe’s cheek.
"Papi," Gabriel whimpered, his eyes following the thumb's path. He was seized by a mixture of desire and fear and self-loathing and anger and maybe something else, something more primal that he was having trouble processing and couldn't even vocalize. "Papi," he said again, all lust and shame. "I'm so sinful," he said, sounding both sensual and frightened at the same time. "I need to be punished. Make me good."
“Or this dangerous looking brute. Oh, I can see you have your uses for him.” He ran his finger across the nape of Kane’s neck as he walked past, laughing as Kane shrugged him off.
"I should have killed Xavier." He said it before he knew he was speaking. "After Xorn he was there, sick and unconscious. I had plenty of time alone. He would have just... died in his sleep. And then we would have had a chance to try and make something new. Something that didn't repeat the same failed patterns because he refused to change. To accept that his way didn't work. It just created a three-sided war where we fight against everyone with the delusion that we can possibly win alone." His eyes were wide as he stopped, stunned.
“And finally you. A faithless woman of ambition. You I’ve known many times before. It’s just the details that change.” He said, taking Brand’s hands. “Now tell me your truth.”
"It's never enough." Brand's voice was distant, almost reluctant. "Everything I achieve, everything I take... it's not enough to fill the hole inside. No-one, not even my own family, ever wanted me, loved me. I've always been and always will be alone."
“Ah my mother’s ways never fail.” Costa’s smile was luminous as the lights continued to dim. He stripped off his jacket and passed it to one of his attendants. “You see, this room is… what’s the term, wired for sound. Well, more than sound. More like full 4K media. Your truths are mine now. A guarantee against any… betrayal. A first guarantee, actually. I am a man who likes to have multiple fail safes, especially when they involve such an attractive group.”
One of his attendants nimbly unbuttoned Costa’s shirt and peeled it off, as the others were stripping off their own minimal outfits.
"I — what?" Gabriel almost dropped his drink. But he was mostly surprised that he seemed surprised. "I don't... what the hell are they doing?" Not that he minded — well, he did mind, so many parts of him were screaming at him to run, to move. But Costa was certainly easy on the eyes, and whatever strange desire had just been awakened in him would not be easily quieted, apparently. He couldn't take his eyes off the man being stripped, and the obedience in the people doing it. "And how is your dick a failsafe?"
"What, uh, Gabe said." Kyle said - snarled, really. He cracked his neck, and knuckles, almost as if he was readying himself for a fight. "What the hell?" He glanced at his teammates, watched Gabriel watch Costa, and then looked over to Jean and Kane, unaware of the low bass growl coming from his chest.
“Confusing, isn’t it? The emotions bubbling up? The need tingling in every particle?” Costa laughed as he faced their confused, conflicted looks. “The fact that no of you would ever consider this and yet, you can’t seem to resist it?”
“This is-” Kane started but was choked up as the wave of emotion almost doubled him over. Two men pulled his jacket and shirt off with one easy motion, and he found himself automatically helping them out of the rest of his clothes without realizing it.
The heat of the room had caused Jean's skin to glisten with sweat. It felt as if a thick haze had settled upon her body and mind. It was a feeling she knew before, at the hand of the Shadow King, and below the deep sea. A spark of fear and anger flickered across her eyes as her breath quickened and her hands began to shake. But before she could do anything she felt the haze overtake her, devouring her as her body went slack.
“Ah, you see, that’s another element of my mother’s magic. A need. A hunger. It doesn’t care about gender or inhibitions or attractions. Simply desperation to slake a controlling need. You will be mine, and each others', and once we’re done, our entertainment will be safely recorded for my protection.” Costa was now naked, like the others, who had moved from him to the mutants, starting to slip off suit jackets and remove ties with no resistance.
Brand had little qualms about using her body as a means of getting her way. But on her own terms... and certainly without being recorded for someone else to use against her. But she found herself unbuttoning her shirt with eager fingers, all concerns gone, filled with a rising desire she'd only felt once before in Aikens when she'd been influenced by the Enchantress' magic. Her bra followed the shirt and then she was seizing the face of the girl who had been helping to undress her, thrusting her tongue into the girl's mouth in a greedy kiss, her hands roaming over the smooth, naked skin.
Jean's eyes were unfocused and glassy, a casual voyeur to what was going on as a woman set to unzipping her pants and taking off her panties. Another set to removing her blouse and bra to reveal her creamy breasts. With a final touch, her hair was pulled free from its ponytail, causing red curls to tumble down her back. She stood nude for the others to see, but she didn't seem to mind. The world was a million miles away, and all she wanted was to be in this room.
Kyle's hand shot out to twist the wrist of the man unbuttoning his shirt. His claws were already out, leaving little half moons of red as he pulled the man's hand down to his groin. "I got my own hands." He said, low and deep, and undid his own shirt, pulling it off over his head before it was half unbuttoned.
As he watched Kyle undress, as he salivated, unable to help himself, as he looked at Costa, a part of Gabriel's brain was screaming. This was familiar, and the things he recognized were trouble and pain. But he did not run, because another part of him was hungry and horny and hardening, and there were gorgeous men and women undressing him, and he could tell that Costa wanted him, and Gabriel liked to be desired.
He knew this would happen, one way or another, whether all of him wanted it or not. So he might as well try to enjoy it.
Costa moved between them all like an art admirer looking through a gallery of new works, even as his attendants kissed and stroked and licked alone or in pairs with each of the victims, almost frozen in place from the waves of unexplained desire and need that had swamped their senses.
The lights dimmed, leaving them bathed in the light from the flames in the fire table, shadows flickering and dancing across their naked bodies. The stunned tableau suddenly thawed, and the bodies suddenly intertwined, like the cresting of a building wave, and they crashed into each other. The corruption consumed them as surely as the flames that framed them would any fuel.
***
Gabriel had kissed more than a few women, but he'd never felt the passion he felt when his lips touched Jean's. They were tender, and her skin was soft, and Gabriel enjoyed how electric and forbidden it felt to run his hands through Jean's red tresses and feel the heat of her body pressing against his.
Waves of pleasure arched across Jean with each touch, and she let out a moan, hungrily returning Gabriel's kiss, parting his lips with her tongue. Her hands danced across his back and along his shoulder blades. She could feel the thirst for more growing as her wanting, heavy-lidded gaze flickered up to Garrison from over Gabriel's shoulder. She reached out to him.
Kane pivoted, letting her melt into Gabe as he took her from behind, his hands molding her body next to his. With a single thrust, he was inside her, holding her up as he plunged into her pussy. She arched against him, as he looked at Gabe, exposing her to his touch.
***
He was absolutely ruining a probably really expensive sofa, Kyle thought, in an all too brief moment of clarity. The leather was shredding under his claws as he gave into the forceful hand of the man pushing him down into the cushions. The moment passed, clear thought swept away in the feeling of a hand gripping his thigh.
Costa was proving to be a brutal man. His thrusts into Kyle were forced, barely lubricated and forced the younger man into the shredded stuffing with each stroke. The grip kept tightening, fingers digging in on either side of his throat, punctuated with the older man’s grunts of pleasure.
Even in the moment, the depth of Gabriel's need surprised him. He craved, he yearned, he lusted. From behind Costa, he kissed the man's neck, trailing up until he could greedily pressed his lips against the other man's, desperate to break his focus on Kyle. He moaned as their tongues met. "Yeah, daddy," he said, murmuring in Costa's ears dazed by the force of his lust. "Give to him good."
“No.” Costa said, slipping out of Kyle and fisting his hand into Gabe’s hair before forcing the younger man down and into the space he’d just vacated, pressing his face into Kyle’s ass. “Make him scream.”
***
Her hair matted with sweat, skin glowing in the firelight, Jean cupped Brand's breast, kissing along her neck. Her lustful desire was in full force as she took in the other woman's beauty through touch. Going down, downward, her fingers travelled the length of her skin, moving to forbidden places.
In response, Brand wound her hand into Jean’s hair, gripping it tightly and pulling Jean’s head back to inflict an almost savage kiss/bite to the white skin of her throat, leaving a livid mark. “You’re mine,” she rasped huskily, before yanking Jean down by the grip on her hair and pushing down on her shoulder, putting the telepath on her knees. “Now do what I want.”
***
“Tell me you want me, Boy Scout,” Brand growled through gritted teeth. “You know you want to.” She pushed back against him, urging him to go harder.
“Fuck you, you evil whore.” Kane hissed, pressed up against her while they were on their side. The skin around her knee, where he held her leg up against her chest as he roughly plunged in and out of her ass. The rough handling, the near violence were uncharacteristic of the normally carefully controlled Canadian. He shifted his leg up, to give Kyle more access as the man positioned himself behind Kane.
The low and steady rumble that came from Kyle broke into a hiss, as he slowly pushed himself into Kane. His hand tightened around the older man's arm, and he let out a grunt. "Lucky you've got the omniskin or I'd be slicing up your arm."
***
For an hour Costa dominated their minds and bodies with his power. There was no secret intent or hidden revelations; simply an unexplainable all consuming need as they spent themselves on Costa, each other and his servants for his amusement. Only when he’d wrung out every last bit of need did he release them, sending them out, lost and confused, back into the world to assess the cost of the deal they had struck.
“Very fancy. Think we’ll need to tip the doorman to get in? Or do we need Jean to go first? We all know the doorman always lets the hot girl in first.” Kane joked as he knotted his tie. All of them were in what was jokingly referred to as ‘agency drab’ – nondescript black suits of mediocre quality. The team backing up Brand was wearing every bit of concealed surveillance device they could fit. Inside the utility truck, a bank of monitors was set up for Betsy and Sooraya to track the team as they went into the club.
Brand rolled her eyes and strode up to the doorman. "We're expected," she told him, imperiously. "Costa is waiting for us." The doorman raised his hand to his ear as he received instructions from his earpiece and nodded.
"Mr. Costa will see you now," he replied, stepping aside to let the group in.
Jean shook her head before following behind Brand. She had a cane to help with walking, which made her feel somewhat stylish. Glancing around the club, she arched a brow at decor. "Well, he certainly spares no expense," she said.
"Smoke, couple of kinds, but not much. Food, alcohol, nothing weird in the air." Kyle said just under his breath. "He's got some bitchin' air scrubbers. Soundproofing is wicked good, I can feel more music than I can hear. Decent crowd, mostly women. "
At first the row of monitors had seemed a lot to keep track of, but Betsy thought she was getting a hang of it, or could at least remember which one was which. While the cameras didn’t provide quite the same depth of experience as her teammates actually present there were getting, she was pretty certain this wasn’t the kind of place any of them would have chosen to spend their time in. “Not exactly what I’d call tasteful,” she commented to Sooraya.
"Far from it." Sooraya agreed easily. "I hate the word usually, but the only one that comes to mind is 'gaudy'." She scanned the row of monitors. "They seem to blend in fairly well though."
"Aw, is that your way of saying we dress up nice, Sooraya?" Kane said quietly into his mic. He was looking around the bar, pausing only as a woman came forward with a tray of what he could only assume were complimentary tequilas. Excellent complimentary tequilas. "OK Gabriel, you're the expert here. We looking at normal staff on the floor and behind the bars or security plants?"
"Mix of both," Gabriel said, picking up a tequila glass before the woman and her tray was out of his reach. "At least one bartender's strapped." He took a sip, figuring it was best to blend in. Surprisingly smooth for free hooch. "Don't turn to check 'em out, but there are a few guys hovering at the perimeter, acting like wallflowers. They look kind of out of place, which is pretty smart, actually. They'll hold onto the same soda with lime all night, pretending to look for someone to drink with. Nobody'll approach them."
Gabriel knew that they, too, looked out of place: They were a group in practically matching suits. "Here, hold this." He handed the glass to Brand before she could object, then loosened the tie from around his neck, removing it and popping open the top buttons on his shirt.
Brand opened her mouth to object, but Gabriel had already moved out of range for her to berate him without causing a scene. Instead, she placed the glass on another passing tray and straightened her suit jacket. "Grey, you're the telepath. What are you picking up? Are we about to be ambushed or is Costa sticking to the agreed meeting?"
Jean's eyes unfocused as she stared toward the wall ahead of them. Slowly tilting her head, after a moment or two she frowned. "I can't sense anything. It's like....there's nothing there."
"OK, good to know." Kane muttered and scratched his ear, the signal for Jean to implement the telepathic switchboard that was an essential on X-Men missions.
~So the club is definitely mobbed up and our meeting place is... compromised. Last chance to abort.~ There was no response. ~OK, let's see what happens. Brand, time to make this meeting happen.~
~Keep close and watch each other's backs.~ Brand's mental tone was short and clipped. ~Be prepared for anything.~ She caught the eye of one of the security goons. and beckoned him over imperiously. "We have a meeting with Mr. Costa - let him know Agent Brand of SWORD has arrived."
Out in the surveillance van, Sooraya and Betsy are alarmed when they lose contact.
AZTECA was a popular nightclub, known for a combination of celebrities from nearby Hollywood and a range of Spanish-American and Mexican pop stars, television actors and rappers who enjoyed the fully bilingual service and surprisingly excellent kitchen. The team, with Brand in front, had no trouble entering the club and had been left to wait by one of the four bars while waiting for Costa to be available. One of his men finally came forward, and through both the pin cameras and the hidden mics, they were able to see them get ready to follow.
"Show time." Sooraya leaned forward, running a final check on all the mics and the cameras. "I hope the music and lights are not gonna interfere too much with everything. That's the tricky part." She looked over to Betsy sitting next to her. "You catching anything otherwise?"
Betsy frowned at her monitors, then shook her head. “Nothing I wouldn’t expect. It’s a bit muffled and this camera here – “ she gestured at a screen displaying a close up of a black leather jacket – “keeps getting obscured by clothing but altogether I think we’ll be fine."
"Yeah, that is one of the downsides of working at this distance, though you are right that things will be fine. Mostly like at least." Sooraya easily agreed. "But with your powerset you don't have to rely on just the mics and cameras. Don't discount having that extra sense available to you. I've seen too often that it reveals something that would stay hidden otherwise.”
“I am listening in on that front too, although the club does produce some background noise there as well. Too many people, and too many of them high on different substances to think quietly.” Betsy gestured at the crowded dance floor. “It should get better once everyone gets in the back room though."
Sooraya clicked through various images, checking up on the surroundings. "I can imagine that. It's looking pretty crazy on the dance floor and I bet most of them are not thinking at all. Just letting themselves be carried away by everything." She leaned forward when her eyes caught a new face. "That's one that we didn't see during the briefing. Making a photo now.”
Betsy snorted. “I wish they weren’t thinking. Trust me, it’s not pretty out there.” Her brow wrinkled as she tried to zone in on the new person Sooraya had indicated. “He feels… weird. There’s this static. Might just be the noise.”
"I've sent the photo of... hopefully we'll get a quick ID." Sooraya's fingers rattled on the keyboard as she did so. "But I'm not liking the fact that you can't really pick him up... not at all. Can you let Marvel Girl know?”
“I’m sure she will have noticed it too, but I’ll ping her just in case..” She sent her teacher a mental highlight to draw her attention on the newcomer. "Looks like they’re getting ready to go in the back. All of this is recorded as well, I hope? I don’t want to miss anything important."
"Of course it is." Sooraya simply explained as she shifted her attention quickly between the various monitors. "They'll do analysis on it, maybe use if for evidence or something and in the worst case scenario it might be helpful to 'convince' people to cooperate or something." She frowned when suddenly a fine line of static crossed the screen, joined by a sharp hiss in their ears.
As the static grew, Betsy's face went pale and took on a slightly nauseated look. “I really hate this,” she whispered to herself, before continuing in a louder tone. “It’s not just the mics. I have been cut off from the team as well.” She pulled off her headset and closed her eyes to delay the onset of the migraine she expected would follow. “The last time this happened it was nanites, but I have no idea what is taking place here."
The screens had gone completely static as Sooraya pulled off her headphones and she turned to Betsy, her mind rapidly calculating her options. "You are fully cut off? Not even able to reach Marvel Girl?”
The telepath nodded. “I’m getting nothing from any of them. Everything else is normal, I can hear the crowd just as clearly as before but all of our people that just went into that room…” She waved her arm helplessly. “They are gone."
Sooraya considered her options as she made sure the final footage was transmitted. "I know you haven't been doing this very long. Be honest, how comfortable do you feel going out there to look for them? Can you handle yourself?"
Betsy chewed her lip helplessly. She did not want to be the reason her friends and teammates did not return home. On the other hand… “I could, but I don’t know if it would do any good. If they'd been knocked out or it was a physical block, I should still be able to at least tell they are in the building. I can't. I don’t think we can resolve this between just the two of us."
After checking that the footage had truly been transmitted Sooraya shut down the equipment and pushed open the door. "We are gonna get some distance from here in case goons come looking and call for backup. As soon as we've contact and a basic plan, I'll see about heading back to scout out the situation."
During their meeting with Frank Costa, he reveals he is more than just a nightclub owner as he uses magic to bring out the hidden desires of the mutants.
TW: NSFW explicit sex, non-con
The backroom at AZTECA was more than your typical VIP section of a club. Instead of just curtains separating the main floor from a few couches and an extra couple of hundred dollars per liquor bottle, they passed through a set of curtains, a set of double doors, and into an octagonal room. There was a sunken centre, ringed with leather couches and a fire table in the middle. The table, during a Californian summer, made it stiflingly hot. Around the room, mounted on the walls or placed in alcoves, were pieces of Mesoamerican stone art, most with imposing security standing next to them.
Frank Costa sat on one of the couches, drinking an amber liquid from a snifter. Several almost inhumanly attractive young men and women were arrayed around the couches, in outfits as short as they were sheer. He was wearing a white linen suit and a dark silk shirt, liberally accented with gold jewellery, bright against his dark skin. He looked every inch the Italian transplant to California, save for his eyes. They were unnaturally dark, almost black against the whites. He looked up with a smile full of capped teeth.
“Ah, Agent Brand. My staff was surprised to get your call. Especially so soon after the news about… highway trouble. I see you’ve brought an honour guard for this meeting.” He shooed a male companion leaning on his shoulder away and stood up. “So, tell me, what brings SWORD to my humble club?”
"A business proposition," replied Brand smoothly. She wasn't interested in bantering back and forth and went straight to the point. "An alternative option to your current arrangements."
Gabriel's eyes looked from Brand to Costa for just a moment, gauging their moods. But then, ever the consummate spy, he scanned the room. The security force was almost a caricature of itself: overly jacked, heavily armed, all in black, as if Costa had ordered them from a catalog. But nobody seemed particularly alert -- they had their eyes set on the X-Men, but it was as if they weren't really watching them. It reminded him, in some weird way, of being on poppers.
The perverse thought shook him. "SWORD would also take a Casamigos on the rocks," he added after a second, his eyes going to the man Costa had just shrugged off. "If that's an option."
Costa gave Gabe an amused glance and waved off an attendant to make his drink order from the sidebar.
“I suppose SWORD operates differently from the ATF. Bring back a bottle of Cristal for our interesting guests. Now, my verdant beauty, what kind of business arrangement are you suggesting? It’s rare that the US government queues up for my business.”
“We can get your weapons back, arrest the culprits… and then return your property to you, no questions asked.” Brand, all business, had noted the drugged-out state of Costa’s harem, but it wasn’t her problem. Magical weapons were. Besides, once they took Costa down, these people would be free to leave. “In return SWORD becomes your new buyer, instead of the cartel.”
“The cartels are not people who one simply breaks a contract with. They have demands and they’ll wonder why we suddenly can’t fill them. Have you considered that?”
“Of course.” Brand sounded like it had been so obvious it wasn’t worth mentioning. “A SWORD raid on your hijackers, the seizure of the weapons by a government agency… No criminal organisation with any caution would question that. Your clients would simply chalk it up as another lost resource and move on.”
“At an upgraded price, for my tastes.” Costa smiled. “Let’s say 20% over the normal rate for every shipment seized?”
“Let’s say 15. We are doubling your profit by returning weapons you’ve already sold, after all.” Brand gave Costa a slow smile.
“It’s an interesting offer. Although, I’m never trusting of sudden deliverance. It is something about man’s true nature, to seek influence through adversity, and when needed, the first way to engineer influence is to engineer influence.” He walked over to the fire table and raised his hand over it. The lights in the room began to dim, and a small stone mask, lost amidst the coals before now began to rise of its own accord.
“My father was a very traditional man, you know. A proud Sicilian. He taught me many things about men; how to control them, how to manipulate them, how to dominate them. But my mother… my mother taught me how to make them fear me.” The mask, now head high, started to slowly rotate in the air. “She was a bruja; a nearly pure blooded Azteca woman from a tiny enclave in Mexico. She came following a prophecy that she’d bear a great leader.” He smiled and winked at them. “You know how mothers are. But she taught me something very important. 'Hijo', she said, 'find a person’s truth. If you know that, you know the key to controlling them'.”
A red flare emanated from the mask as it fitted to his face, crawling over it like lines of electricity. There didn’t seem to be any damage caused, although Costa looked different following the flare; more imposing, more important.
“That’s why when such a delightfully perfect offer reaches me, I like to do my due diligence by discovering your truths and making sure that I’ll hold them.” He was walking amidst them, weaving in and out between the mutants disguised as SWORD agents.
“Like you. A beautiful injured redbird.” He touched Jean’s bare hand for a moment.
Jean's pupils dilated and her lip quivered, the feeling of his skin against hers arching through her body. "I've touched the darkness so many times when I was taken over. Felt it flow through me. And I," she licked her lips, letting out a quiet laugh. "I like it. The freedom. No burden of friends, or family, or dead women with my face or a fucked up universe. Just me," she said. The moment the words left her lips she let out a gasp, her eyes fluttering as a tear fell down one cheek.
“Or this breath of the wild.” He rubbed a lock of Kyle’s hair between his fingers, brushing Kyle’s ear.
"God, you know, sometimes I just want it to be easier." Kyle's face went slack as he leaned into the touch. "Just let someone else make the decisions, get rid of all of this." His hand shifted languidly, waving at his jacket, his dark pants, his shoes as his claws slipped out. "I don't get to be wild, you know. I'm the only one like me who doesn't get to just cut loose, and I just want someone to tell me I can, like, just let it out. Being a person all the time is fuckin' exhausting, man."
“Or this young treasure. Oh, I should have you behind my bar.” His thumb brushed Gabe’s cheek.
"Papi," Gabriel whimpered, his eyes following the thumb's path. He was seized by a mixture of desire and fear and self-loathing and anger and maybe something else, something more primal that he was having trouble processing and couldn't even vocalize. "Papi," he said again, all lust and shame. "I'm so sinful," he said, sounding both sensual and frightened at the same time. "I need to be punished. Make me good."
“Or this dangerous looking brute. Oh, I can see you have your uses for him.” He ran his finger across the nape of Kane’s neck as he walked past, laughing as Kane shrugged him off.
"I should have killed Xavier." He said it before he knew he was speaking. "After Xorn he was there, sick and unconscious. I had plenty of time alone. He would have just... died in his sleep. And then we would have had a chance to try and make something new. Something that didn't repeat the same failed patterns because he refused to change. To accept that his way didn't work. It just created a three-sided war where we fight against everyone with the delusion that we can possibly win alone." His eyes were wide as he stopped, stunned.
“And finally you. A faithless woman of ambition. You I’ve known many times before. It’s just the details that change.” He said, taking Brand’s hands. “Now tell me your truth.”
"It's never enough." Brand's voice was distant, almost reluctant. "Everything I achieve, everything I take... it's not enough to fill the hole inside. No-one, not even my own family, ever wanted me, loved me. I've always been and always will be alone."
“Ah my mother’s ways never fail.” Costa’s smile was luminous as the lights continued to dim. He stripped off his jacket and passed it to one of his attendants. “You see, this room is… what’s the term, wired for sound. Well, more than sound. More like full 4K media. Your truths are mine now. A guarantee against any… betrayal. A first guarantee, actually. I am a man who likes to have multiple fail safes, especially when they involve such an attractive group.”
One of his attendants nimbly unbuttoned Costa’s shirt and peeled it off, as the others were stripping off their own minimal outfits.
"I — what?" Gabriel almost dropped his drink. But he was mostly surprised that he seemed surprised. "I don't... what the hell are they doing?" Not that he minded — well, he did mind, so many parts of him were screaming at him to run, to move. But Costa was certainly easy on the eyes, and whatever strange desire had just been awakened in him would not be easily quieted, apparently. He couldn't take his eyes off the man being stripped, and the obedience in the people doing it. "And how is your dick a failsafe?"
"What, uh, Gabe said." Kyle said - snarled, really. He cracked his neck, and knuckles, almost as if he was readying himself for a fight. "What the hell?" He glanced at his teammates, watched Gabriel watch Costa, and then looked over to Jean and Kane, unaware of the low bass growl coming from his chest.
“Confusing, isn’t it? The emotions bubbling up? The need tingling in every particle?” Costa laughed as he faced their confused, conflicted looks. “The fact that no of you would ever consider this and yet, you can’t seem to resist it?”
“This is-” Kane started but was choked up as the wave of emotion almost doubled him over. Two men pulled his jacket and shirt off with one easy motion, and he found himself automatically helping them out of the rest of his clothes without realizing it.
The heat of the room had caused Jean's skin to glisten with sweat. It felt as if a thick haze had settled upon her body and mind. It was a feeling she knew before, at the hand of the Shadow King, and below the deep sea. A spark of fear and anger flickered across her eyes as her breath quickened and her hands began to shake. But before she could do anything she felt the haze overtake her, devouring her as her body went slack.
“Ah, you see, that’s another element of my mother’s magic. A need. A hunger. It doesn’t care about gender or inhibitions or attractions. Simply desperation to slake a controlling need. You will be mine, and each others', and once we’re done, our entertainment will be safely recorded for my protection.” Costa was now naked, like the others, who had moved from him to the mutants, starting to slip off suit jackets and remove ties with no resistance.
Brand had little qualms about using her body as a means of getting her way. But on her own terms... and certainly without being recorded for someone else to use against her. But she found herself unbuttoning her shirt with eager fingers, all concerns gone, filled with a rising desire she'd only felt once before in Aikens when she'd been influenced by the Enchantress' magic. Her bra followed the shirt and then she was seizing the face of the girl who had been helping to undress her, thrusting her tongue into the girl's mouth in a greedy kiss, her hands roaming over the smooth, naked skin.
Jean's eyes were unfocused and glassy, a casual voyeur to what was going on as a woman set to unzipping her pants and taking off her panties. Another set to removing her blouse and bra to reveal her creamy breasts. With a final touch, her hair was pulled free from its ponytail, causing red curls to tumble down her back. She stood nude for the others to see, but she didn't seem to mind. The world was a million miles away, and all she wanted was to be in this room.
Kyle's hand shot out to twist the wrist of the man unbuttoning his shirt. His claws were already out, leaving little half moons of red as he pulled the man's hand down to his groin. "I got my own hands." He said, low and deep, and undid his own shirt, pulling it off over his head before it was half unbuttoned.
As he watched Kyle undress, as he salivated, unable to help himself, as he looked at Costa, a part of Gabriel's brain was screaming. This was familiar, and the things he recognized were trouble and pain. But he did not run, because another part of him was hungry and horny and hardening, and there were gorgeous men and women undressing him, and he could tell that Costa wanted him, and Gabriel liked to be desired.
He knew this would happen, one way or another, whether all of him wanted it or not. So he might as well try to enjoy it.
Costa moved between them all like an art admirer looking through a gallery of new works, even as his attendants kissed and stroked and licked alone or in pairs with each of the victims, almost frozen in place from the waves of unexplained desire and need that had swamped their senses.
The lights dimmed, leaving them bathed in the light from the flames in the fire table, shadows flickering and dancing across their naked bodies. The stunned tableau suddenly thawed, and the bodies suddenly intertwined, like the cresting of a building wave, and they crashed into each other. The corruption consumed them as surely as the flames that framed them would any fuel.
***
Gabriel had kissed more than a few women, but he'd never felt the passion he felt when his lips touched Jean's. They were tender, and her skin was soft, and Gabriel enjoyed how electric and forbidden it felt to run his hands through Jean's red tresses and feel the heat of her body pressing against his.
Waves of pleasure arched across Jean with each touch, and she let out a moan, hungrily returning Gabriel's kiss, parting his lips with her tongue. Her hands danced across his back and along his shoulder blades. She could feel the thirst for more growing as her wanting, heavy-lidded gaze flickered up to Garrison from over Gabriel's shoulder. She reached out to him.
Kane pivoted, letting her melt into Gabe as he took her from behind, his hands molding her body next to his. With a single thrust, he was inside her, holding her up as he plunged into her pussy. She arched against him, as he looked at Gabe, exposing her to his touch.
***
He was absolutely ruining a probably really expensive sofa, Kyle thought, in an all too brief moment of clarity. The leather was shredding under his claws as he gave into the forceful hand of the man pushing him down into the cushions. The moment passed, clear thought swept away in the feeling of a hand gripping his thigh.
Costa was proving to be a brutal man. His thrusts into Kyle were forced, barely lubricated and forced the younger man into the shredded stuffing with each stroke. The grip kept tightening, fingers digging in on either side of his throat, punctuated with the older man’s grunts of pleasure.
Even in the moment, the depth of Gabriel's need surprised him. He craved, he yearned, he lusted. From behind Costa, he kissed the man's neck, trailing up until he could greedily pressed his lips against the other man's, desperate to break his focus on Kyle. He moaned as their tongues met. "Yeah, daddy," he said, murmuring in Costa's ears dazed by the force of his lust. "Give to him good."
“No.” Costa said, slipping out of Kyle and fisting his hand into Gabe’s hair before forcing the younger man down and into the space he’d just vacated, pressing his face into Kyle’s ass. “Make him scream.”
***
Her hair matted with sweat, skin glowing in the firelight, Jean cupped Brand's breast, kissing along her neck. Her lustful desire was in full force as she took in the other woman's beauty through touch. Going down, downward, her fingers travelled the length of her skin, moving to forbidden places.
In response, Brand wound her hand into Jean’s hair, gripping it tightly and pulling Jean’s head back to inflict an almost savage kiss/bite to the white skin of her throat, leaving a livid mark. “You’re mine,” she rasped huskily, before yanking Jean down by the grip on her hair and pushing down on her shoulder, putting the telepath on her knees. “Now do what I want.”
***
“Tell me you want me, Boy Scout,” Brand growled through gritted teeth. “You know you want to.” She pushed back against him, urging him to go harder.
“Fuck you, you evil whore.” Kane hissed, pressed up against her while they were on their side. The skin around her knee, where he held her leg up against her chest as he roughly plunged in and out of her ass. The rough handling, the near violence were uncharacteristic of the normally carefully controlled Canadian. He shifted his leg up, to give Kyle more access as the man positioned himself behind Kane.
The low and steady rumble that came from Kyle broke into a hiss, as he slowly pushed himself into Kane. His hand tightened around the older man's arm, and he let out a grunt. "Lucky you've got the omniskin or I'd be slicing up your arm."
***
For an hour Costa dominated their minds and bodies with his power. There was no secret intent or hidden revelations; simply an unexplainable all consuming need as they spent themselves on Costa, each other and his servants for his amusement. Only when he’d wrung out every last bit of need did he release them, sending them out, lost and confused, back into the world to assess the cost of the deal they had struck.
