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xp_logsPete encounters the team of X-men protecting Alphonso.
Pete set the binoculars down, and moved to take up the rifle, pivoting it on its bipod as he tracked Kylun walking the perimeter of the house. It hadn't been the location he'd been expecting, but it was on his list of possible back-ups, so it hadn't taken him long to get everything ready. He glanced at his watch again, then looked back to Kylun, muttering "Glad they put you outside, old son. Don't think I'd want to chance doing this any closer".
He counted slowly to ten, breathing out all the while, then pulled the trigger, just as there was a muted crack from a short distance away.
Then he broke cover and sprinted for the door Kylun has just passed as all the lights went out, counting steadily to thirty as he went. He was inside the house at the count of twenty five, and was moving steadily through the hallways when the interior lights came back on.
"Jetstream here. He's cut the external power lines. Cameras are down. Backup power should be on in thirty seconds. Kylun, are you seeing any movement?"
"Kylun?"
"Shit. The interior cameras aren't on the backup circuit. Not seeing any movement out there. He's inside, and I'm useless in the security room. Nightcrawler, Banshee, keep to your patrols – I'm going to check on Kylun."
Pete re-holstered the pistol as he heard the tread coming toward him. Had to be al-Rashid, and the tranqs weren't set for his body mass. He didn't have time to pull out his back-up before the other man was first standing in the doorway, then launching himself at him across the room.
That hurt. Pete rolled with it as best he could, then snapped off a series of blows in response, hoping to get the other man to back off a bit, buy him time to grab the taser. It didn't work, and he found himself grappling with the stronger man. Suddenly, he gave way, hoping to turn the movement into a throwing motion, to get clear, but al-Rashid spun with him, using the motion to land another solid blow to Pete's ribs.
Still, it gave him a hand free, and Pete stabbed for the other man's throat with his fingertips, forcing him to break the hold and back away just enough. Pete was reaching to the holster under his coat as Haroun jumped him again, and then both went sprawling on the floor, where Haroun could make use of his greater bodymass to trap Pete.
If he got the chance. Pete slammed the taser into Haroun's side and watched as the other man spasmed, artificial limbs going dead as the surge protectors kicked in, but the combination of the feedback and the taser shot was more than enough to leave him unconscious.
Pete sat up, wincing at the feeling in his ribs.
"Still, at least he didn't want to fucking talk about it."
"Nightcrawler checking in. All qui-"
The flashbang went off, and Pete rolled into the room a second later, ribs protesting as he did. Wagner was still reeling, unable to focus, much less see to teleport, and Pete wasted no time in hitting him with a tranquilliser. He didn't wait around to watch it take effect – the grenade would have given away his location even more precisely than Wagner collapsing mid report, and he didn't want any of them getting the drop on him.
"Kur-Nightcrawler are yeh there? Nightcrawler?"
"Dazzler, I'm falling back to you – sounds like it's just the pair've us left, we've got a better chance if-"
Pete was swallowing the painkillers he brought with him as Cassidy came running into the room. They'd take a while to act, and it weren't enough to make him loopy – what little he'd lose in reaction time, he'd more then pick up in ability to hold up. A variant on the old rugby stunt. But right now, he had to make sure they got time to take effect...
"Yeh bastard."
Pete just grinned at him.
"You've been waiting for this, haven't you, you self-righteous mick fuck?" He beckoned to the older man. "So let's see what you've got, old man."
Cassidy wasn't the quickest man around, but he was solid, and he clearly knew it. He ignored a could of shots that Pete'd been sure he'd feel he needed to try and block, just so he could land a couple of better blows on Pete. And from the feel of it, Pete knew it'd been a trade to Cassidy's advantage. He adjusted his tactics.
"What gives yeh the right-"
Pete gut him off with a shot to the gut that knocked the wind from him for a second.
"He took a shot at my fucking family. I'm sure you- " He rolled with the blow, used it to put a bit of space between them, but he was still shaking his head trying to clear it as Cassidy closed the gap, and tried to take him around the waist and carry him backward. Pete went with it, feeling the air rush out of him like he expected as he hit the wall, but bringing his head foreward as the same time, letting what little momentum Cassidy had left make the headbut all the worse, leaving the other man staggering back. He went for the shot to the knee even while his lungs were still trying to draw in the breath – it didn't kick the joint out like he'd hoped, but still, it had to hurt.
Cassidy staggered back, and the pair of them just looked at each other, breathing hard for a second, before moving at the same time each doing their level best to drop the other man, to hit as hard as they could, punching and kicking, and then rolling and gouging at one another as savagely as they could. After a minute of two of this confused combat, Pete got clear again, and as they pulled themselves to their feet, he couldn't keep a slight smile off his face.
"Yeh can't-"
Pete caught him with a kick to his ribs. Cassidy tried to return the favour with a blow to the face, but Pete swept it aside, and used the opening for another gutshot.
"I can."
Cassidy tried to pull Pete in close, twist his arm behind him, but Pete spun with it, and kicked out, and this time, the knee gave way, and the older man dropped with a cry of pain. As he was dropping, before he had time to do anything other than grab his injured knee, Pete launched another kick, this time to his temple, and there was just enough time to see the knowledge of his defeat in Cassidy's eyes before he fell unconscious.
Having taken the protection team down one at a time, There's just Alison left. She's got a surprise for him.
The reports from the members of her team had started to fade out, one at a time. Pete's progress through the buildling had been clear, if not always regular, being slowed more or less depending on who he encountered. But each one had ended similarly, or so it seemed, eventually leaving Alison with nothing else but the silence in the room she was in, the door she was standing in front of and the door she was shielding. The sonic units embedded in her suit went untriggered and instead she waited as the silence stretched on.
Pete took a moment to lean against the wall and get his breath back. Just Blaire left, behind the doors at the other end of the hall. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and wasn't surpised to find blood there.
He moved off down the hall. No point in trying to be subtle - she'd have heard him already. Extending hotknives a couple of inches from his fingertips, he ripped the left hand side of the door off around the lock, just burning straight through the wood and metal, then shoved it open.
The door slammed open, the smell of smouldering wood and metal soon filling the room, causing Alison to smile grimly despite the situation - here someone else was making the grand entrance, as opposed to her. That kind of role reversal was damned inconsiderate. And it would have been a wonderful moment for one of those classic movie moments, where opponents stared at each other before the showdown, but Alison was in no way ready to bet that Pete would be about giving her the chance to get the drop on him. Not if he'd got this far, already.
"There is another way to do this," she said, as soon as the door finished rattling in the aftermath of being shoved open, readying herself for the first attack - not a hint of her power being used in sight. "A better way to get even."
Pete moved very fast, closing the gap between then, and launching a short flurry of blows desinged to force her onto the defensive, rather than to actaully connect. He'd seen the training tapes, but that wasn't the best way to gauge someone's style, after all.
"You think this is just about revenge? Settling a fucking score?"
He blocked Alison's repsonses and circled, looking for an opening. She was quick, he had to give her that.
"He's only just fucking starting, and you know it. Dad was just because he's a sick cunt. Romany's next. Then me, then Amanda. Not going to fucking happen. I'm not fucking letting him hide behind his scary friends this time."
He was tired and that was her advantage, what she could use to keep this going for as long as possible. There was a reason Alison had chosen this particular location, out of those which had been possible - mainly, the sound proofing. There was, quite simply, no way anyone in the safe room would be hearing what was going on outside. And though there had been vociferous protests at being cut out of things, Alison had pointed out the rest of the layout as the trade off for that one 'flaw' in the set-up.
That it had been a requirement of hers was only known by a single other person.
Flowing with the blows, knowing only too well he was taking a measure of what she could do in actual combat, Alison deflected a sharp punch, and ignored the feint that followed.
"I'm talking about the big picture, Pete." Her head was nearly taken off in the next moment and Alison was silent, until steady ground could be found once more, circling warily. "Or do you want his scary friends to decide even the small fry that he is can't get taken out by someone who isn't one of them? You know who I mean."
"I've spent the last two fucking years looking at the big picture. Playing fucking nice." Pete spat the word. "All it got me was my old man in a box."
He went to sweep her out from under her, then backpedaled as Alison evaded it, and launched an assault of her own.
"His mates'll get theirs one day. Right now, his fucking turn."
"Damn it, Pete." She had to get through to him. "This isn't right. You're giving up and playing their game under their rules!" A flow and rhythm to things had been established but Alison broke it with that, moving faster, relying on what advantages she had to buy more time to try and reach him.
"You're the single best person to go in right now. You're alienated from the X-Men, you're on your own, connected to Emma." She took one hit to the side, trusting the armor to dampen the blow enough and kept going, not allowing herself to even consider stopping. Calculated risks notwithstanding, Alphoso de la Rocha was relying on her to keep him alive. And she was the only member of the team left to do so. "If anyone can infiltrate them right now, turn the entire Hellfire Club inside out and bring them down-"
Pete got a shot in, knocking the breath from her.
"Nice idea, but until he's dead, every fuck out there that I've pissed off is going to think my family are fair fucking game."
And another.
"Taking down his mates comes in dead fucking last against that one."
And another. He'd had the time he needed. This wasn't much of a fight any more. Too quick. Too vicious. Alison held up as best she could, but she just didn't have the years of practice. She never even saw the last shot coming.
Pete caught her as she started to drop, set her on the floor, then turned to the other door, and incinerated it with a single blast of hotknives.
There's no-one left but Alphonso and Pete.
Alphonso de la Rocha had time to get off a single, paniced shot that went a long way wide of its mark before Pete was on him, and a searing pain in his wrist forced him to drop the gun. He clawed desperately at Wisdom, trying in vain to hold him off, but his efforts did him no good.
Pete barely registered the attempts at resistance, as he landed blow after blow, then, as Alphonso fell to the ground, kick after kick.
Alphonso curled into a ball as best he could, attempting to shield himself from the worst of Pete's anger, but the other man just reached down and pulled him to his feet, one hand wrapped round Alphonso's neck, half choking him.
"If you kill-" Alphonso managed to get out, before Pete punched him in the face.
"What, you think you're going to fucking frightening me now, cunt?" Pete punched him again. "Just shut up. You're done. You and anyone else that comes near my family. You're just the one that gets to be the message to the rest of them."
He lifted Alphonso a little off the ground, making it even harder for him to breathe, and stared at the choking man for a long moment. The he raised his other hand, its fingertips glowing just slightly.
He held it there for a long moment, starting at Alphonso, lost in thought. There was a flash of red light.
The hotknives went wide.
"Fuck you. You're fucking nothing. A sad sack of shit, hiding behind his big and scary friends. Hiding behind good people."
Alponso made a choking noise, and Pete pulled him in closer, so that they were practically nose to nose.
"So you remember this: you don't fucking scare me. Your mates don't scare me. Any time I want, I can find you, and I can kill you."
Pete's lip quirked in what might have been a smile, and Alphonso turned redder, fighting for breath.
"And you've already given me all the excuse I could ever need. So don't think for a minute I've gone soft. Because you're never going to understand why, are you? You're never going to know what'd need to happen to make me change my mind, are you? So you go on and live the rest of your life on borrowed fucking time. Live fucking scared, you miserable little cunt."
Pete threw Alphonso further back into the room, turned, and walked away.
And now all that's left is picking up the pieces.
He hadn't done it. Even as footsteps clicked angrily out of the room Alphonso had been in, resonating across the area to Alison, it still didn't drown out the words she'd heard, or the feeling of vindication. She had been right. And Pete hadn't killed any of the X-Men, nor Alphonso. She took a shallow breath, wincing at ribs which already hated her quite vociferously, and looked up, to see Pete stride out of the room, cross the doorway - and Alphonso behind him, gun in hand.
Aiming. The creaking of metal on metal as the trigger was depressed held a sound not akin to thunder.
And light was proven to be faster than any simple gun, just then.
Pete threw himself to one side, a movement born of pure reflex.
"What the fuck are you--"
He cut off as he realised that he hadn't been the target, saw Alphonso's body lying there.
"Fuck."
He smiled widely, sprawled on the floor, clearly trying not to laugh.
"I don't fucking believe it-"
He pulled himself together, fought off the urge to laugh, as he got back up, and headed over to Alison.
"Christ. All that, and... Thanks for the save. You OK?"
Asking the question seemed to snap him back to reality, and his expression turned grave.
Still lying on her side, hands slowly wavering away from the original point she'd aimed at, Alison didn't say a word, staring ahead fixedly. Each breath she took was taken very slowly and deliberatly - and her hands were shaking, even as finally let her arms fall back to the ground. Still staring.
"Yeah, OK, that was a pretty bloody stupid question, wasn't it?" Pete kept talking, eyes locked on Alison's face.
"Look, I haven't got any magic way to make what just happened alright. But right here, right now, we don't have to waste it, and we only have a few minutes to get this right so I need you to focus, Al."
He took a breath.
"You were right. About his mates, I mean. About me being able to get in with them."
The plan. She remembered that, clearly - and it was safer to focus on that than what she'd done. Pressing one hand to the floor, she carefully started to push herself up, wincing at the pain in her ribs, ignoring the momentary dizziness. He hadn't gone through with it. The knowledge of who had was still far too close for Alison to even begin to deal with it, and she forced herself to focus on Pete, and what he was saying.
"Talk to me."
Pete nodded.
"Your plan'll work. I can get in with the Hellfire Club - hell Emma'll probably suggest it herself if I give her the right opening. I owe her some favours, and she's been trying to find a White King for fucking ages anyway. What I can't work out is how you think I can keep it up long enough to do any good without Emma or one of the club's other telepaths cottoning on."
Finishing the process of pushing herself upright, Alison leaned on the wall, staring at Pete quietly. "Charles knows I was going to try and get enough time to talk to you. I told him about... my plan." She still hated having come up with it at all, in many ways. What Charles had finally said echoed in her mind, and she closed her eyes for a moment. "Soon as I get back to the mansion, I'm going to his office. Don't have a choice, with Nathan in the medlab and picking up every stray thought. Two types of shieldings - for both telepaths and empaths. He can make sure no one can pick up on anything." She opened her eyes, one fist clenched to her thigh to keep from shaking. "For both of us."
Taking another breath, she kept herself from looking beyond Pete, into the office. "They'll need to be reinforced every month or so though. Meets between you and I." It wasn't strictly necessary to be that way - unless you counted in the fact that it would be far less easy to detect if Charles worked through someone else to do so. Under shields he'd just strengthened himself.
And keeping contact with Pete would be important. Was growing more important to Alison with every passing moment.
"We don't know how long this could last, Pete." The whisper was almost inaudible in the room.
"Yeah." Pete nodded. "Which is why I'm going to do us both a favour, and not just say yes right now. I need to think about this, on my own, when I'm not racing a clock. You OK with that?"
"Yes." She'd still have to do see Charles, as soon as she arrived, should case Pete decided to go with this after giving it more thought. But then again, he'd been the one to bring it up... Involuntarily so, her eyes flickered from Pete to the prone form not so far away.
"Autopsy will show lasers did that."
Pete nodded, then crossed the room to look down at the body. He scowled, then sent several knives through the corpse's face, making sure to obliterate the original entry and exit wounds with ones made by his own powers, before returning to Alison.
"They'll probably still decide it was lasers at the coroners, but it'll look more like my MO at least to anyone else that might be paying attention." He shrugged. "Far as the world's concerned, I did it."
Pete paused before continuting. "There's a bar in Boston called The King William. I'll meet you and Charlie there, two weeks from tonight. If we're going to do this, we get it all ready then, and I'll have it set up so I can go on to Emma's place afterward."
She was going to be sick, Alison knew, though the nausea didn't win over completely just yet, how she had no clue. Maybe it was the numbness she was clinging to. "I'll see Charles first thing soon as we get back. Safest way, considering Jean and Nathan's conditions at the moment." Either could pick up something very much not for them to pick up, if they weren't careful. And there was Manuel at that, Alison slowly paled, the trembling slowly starting to win over. "Meet in two weeks. The King William, in Boston. Maybe you'd better knock me out again, now."
"Je-? Never mind. Tell me in two weeks. I need to get out of here before one of your lot wakes up." He drew back a fist, and held it for a second, his face unreadable.
"I'm getting too much practice at this. See you in a fortnight."
OOC note: yes, this gives away more than I had originally thought it would. There're a lot of reasons for that, but the single biggest one is that this way, everyone can see the plot for what it is, and can contribute to it if we can come up with ways for them to do so. I'll be putting a post up in xproj_players as soon as I'm done with this one for people to talk about it.
Cut tags from "Death" by W.B Yeats.
Pete set the binoculars down, and moved to take up the rifle, pivoting it on its bipod as he tracked Kylun walking the perimeter of the house. It hadn't been the location he'd been expecting, but it was on his list of possible back-ups, so it hadn't taken him long to get everything ready. He glanced at his watch again, then looked back to Kylun, muttering "Glad they put you outside, old son. Don't think I'd want to chance doing this any closer".
He counted slowly to ten, breathing out all the while, then pulled the trigger, just as there was a muted crack from a short distance away.
Then he broke cover and sprinted for the door Kylun has just passed as all the lights went out, counting steadily to thirty as he went. He was inside the house at the count of twenty five, and was moving steadily through the hallways when the interior lights came back on.
"Jetstream here. He's cut the external power lines. Cameras are down. Backup power should be on in thirty seconds. Kylun, are you seeing any movement?"
"Kylun?"
"Shit. The interior cameras aren't on the backup circuit. Not seeing any movement out there. He's inside, and I'm useless in the security room. Nightcrawler, Banshee, keep to your patrols – I'm going to check on Kylun."
Pete re-holstered the pistol as he heard the tread coming toward him. Had to be al-Rashid, and the tranqs weren't set for his body mass. He didn't have time to pull out his back-up before the other man was first standing in the doorway, then launching himself at him across the room.
That hurt. Pete rolled with it as best he could, then snapped off a series of blows in response, hoping to get the other man to back off a bit, buy him time to grab the taser. It didn't work, and he found himself grappling with the stronger man. Suddenly, he gave way, hoping to turn the movement into a throwing motion, to get clear, but al-Rashid spun with him, using the motion to land another solid blow to Pete's ribs.
Still, it gave him a hand free, and Pete stabbed for the other man's throat with his fingertips, forcing him to break the hold and back away just enough. Pete was reaching to the holster under his coat as Haroun jumped him again, and then both went sprawling on the floor, where Haroun could make use of his greater bodymass to trap Pete.
If he got the chance. Pete slammed the taser into Haroun's side and watched as the other man spasmed, artificial limbs going dead as the surge protectors kicked in, but the combination of the feedback and the taser shot was more than enough to leave him unconscious.
Pete sat up, wincing at the feeling in his ribs.
"Still, at least he didn't want to fucking talk about it."
"Nightcrawler checking in. All qui-"
The flashbang went off, and Pete rolled into the room a second later, ribs protesting as he did. Wagner was still reeling, unable to focus, much less see to teleport, and Pete wasted no time in hitting him with a tranquilliser. He didn't wait around to watch it take effect – the grenade would have given away his location even more precisely than Wagner collapsing mid report, and he didn't want any of them getting the drop on him.
"Kur-Nightcrawler are yeh there? Nightcrawler?"
"Dazzler, I'm falling back to you – sounds like it's just the pair've us left, we've got a better chance if-"
Pete was swallowing the painkillers he brought with him as Cassidy came running into the room. They'd take a while to act, and it weren't enough to make him loopy – what little he'd lose in reaction time, he'd more then pick up in ability to hold up. A variant on the old rugby stunt. But right now, he had to make sure they got time to take effect...
"Yeh bastard."
Pete just grinned at him.
"You've been waiting for this, haven't you, you self-righteous mick fuck?" He beckoned to the older man. "So let's see what you've got, old man."
Cassidy wasn't the quickest man around, but he was solid, and he clearly knew it. He ignored a could of shots that Pete'd been sure he'd feel he needed to try and block, just so he could land a couple of better blows on Pete. And from the feel of it, Pete knew it'd been a trade to Cassidy's advantage. He adjusted his tactics.
"What gives yeh the right-"
Pete gut him off with a shot to the gut that knocked the wind from him for a second.
"He took a shot at my fucking family. I'm sure you- " He rolled with the blow, used it to put a bit of space between them, but he was still shaking his head trying to clear it as Cassidy closed the gap, and tried to take him around the waist and carry him backward. Pete went with it, feeling the air rush out of him like he expected as he hit the wall, but bringing his head foreward as the same time, letting what little momentum Cassidy had left make the headbut all the worse, leaving the other man staggering back. He went for the shot to the knee even while his lungs were still trying to draw in the breath – it didn't kick the joint out like he'd hoped, but still, it had to hurt.
Cassidy staggered back, and the pair of them just looked at each other, breathing hard for a second, before moving at the same time each doing their level best to drop the other man, to hit as hard as they could, punching and kicking, and then rolling and gouging at one another as savagely as they could. After a minute of two of this confused combat, Pete got clear again, and as they pulled themselves to their feet, he couldn't keep a slight smile off his face.
"Yeh can't-"
Pete caught him with a kick to his ribs. Cassidy tried to return the favour with a blow to the face, but Pete swept it aside, and used the opening for another gutshot.
"I can."
Cassidy tried to pull Pete in close, twist his arm behind him, but Pete spun with it, and kicked out, and this time, the knee gave way, and the older man dropped with a cry of pain. As he was dropping, before he had time to do anything other than grab his injured knee, Pete launched another kick, this time to his temple, and there was just enough time to see the knowledge of his defeat in Cassidy's eyes before he fell unconscious.
Having taken the protection team down one at a time, There's just Alison left. She's got a surprise for him.
The reports from the members of her team had started to fade out, one at a time. Pete's progress through the buildling had been clear, if not always regular, being slowed more or less depending on who he encountered. But each one had ended similarly, or so it seemed, eventually leaving Alison with nothing else but the silence in the room she was in, the door she was standing in front of and the door she was shielding. The sonic units embedded in her suit went untriggered and instead she waited as the silence stretched on.
Pete took a moment to lean against the wall and get his breath back. Just Blaire left, behind the doors at the other end of the hall. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and wasn't surpised to find blood there.
He moved off down the hall. No point in trying to be subtle - she'd have heard him already. Extending hotknives a couple of inches from his fingertips, he ripped the left hand side of the door off around the lock, just burning straight through the wood and metal, then shoved it open.
The door slammed open, the smell of smouldering wood and metal soon filling the room, causing Alison to smile grimly despite the situation - here someone else was making the grand entrance, as opposed to her. That kind of role reversal was damned inconsiderate. And it would have been a wonderful moment for one of those classic movie moments, where opponents stared at each other before the showdown, but Alison was in no way ready to bet that Pete would be about giving her the chance to get the drop on him. Not if he'd got this far, already.
"There is another way to do this," she said, as soon as the door finished rattling in the aftermath of being shoved open, readying herself for the first attack - not a hint of her power being used in sight. "A better way to get even."
Pete moved very fast, closing the gap between then, and launching a short flurry of blows desinged to force her onto the defensive, rather than to actaully connect. He'd seen the training tapes, but that wasn't the best way to gauge someone's style, after all.
"You think this is just about revenge? Settling a fucking score?"
He blocked Alison's repsonses and circled, looking for an opening. She was quick, he had to give her that.
"He's only just fucking starting, and you know it. Dad was just because he's a sick cunt. Romany's next. Then me, then Amanda. Not going to fucking happen. I'm not fucking letting him hide behind his scary friends this time."
He was tired and that was her advantage, what she could use to keep this going for as long as possible. There was a reason Alison had chosen this particular location, out of those which had been possible - mainly, the sound proofing. There was, quite simply, no way anyone in the safe room would be hearing what was going on outside. And though there had been vociferous protests at being cut out of things, Alison had pointed out the rest of the layout as the trade off for that one 'flaw' in the set-up.
That it had been a requirement of hers was only known by a single other person.
Flowing with the blows, knowing only too well he was taking a measure of what she could do in actual combat, Alison deflected a sharp punch, and ignored the feint that followed.
"I'm talking about the big picture, Pete." Her head was nearly taken off in the next moment and Alison was silent, until steady ground could be found once more, circling warily. "Or do you want his scary friends to decide even the small fry that he is can't get taken out by someone who isn't one of them? You know who I mean."
"I've spent the last two fucking years looking at the big picture. Playing fucking nice." Pete spat the word. "All it got me was my old man in a box."
He went to sweep her out from under her, then backpedaled as Alison evaded it, and launched an assault of her own.
"His mates'll get theirs one day. Right now, his fucking turn."
"Damn it, Pete." She had to get through to him. "This isn't right. You're giving up and playing their game under their rules!" A flow and rhythm to things had been established but Alison broke it with that, moving faster, relying on what advantages she had to buy more time to try and reach him.
"You're the single best person to go in right now. You're alienated from the X-Men, you're on your own, connected to Emma." She took one hit to the side, trusting the armor to dampen the blow enough and kept going, not allowing herself to even consider stopping. Calculated risks notwithstanding, Alphoso de la Rocha was relying on her to keep him alive. And she was the only member of the team left to do so. "If anyone can infiltrate them right now, turn the entire Hellfire Club inside out and bring them down-"
Pete got a shot in, knocking the breath from her.
"Nice idea, but until he's dead, every fuck out there that I've pissed off is going to think my family are fair fucking game."
And another.
"Taking down his mates comes in dead fucking last against that one."
And another. He'd had the time he needed. This wasn't much of a fight any more. Too quick. Too vicious. Alison held up as best she could, but she just didn't have the years of practice. She never even saw the last shot coming.
Pete caught her as she started to drop, set her on the floor, then turned to the other door, and incinerated it with a single blast of hotknives.
There's no-one left but Alphonso and Pete.
Alphonso de la Rocha had time to get off a single, paniced shot that went a long way wide of its mark before Pete was on him, and a searing pain in his wrist forced him to drop the gun. He clawed desperately at Wisdom, trying in vain to hold him off, but his efforts did him no good.
Pete barely registered the attempts at resistance, as he landed blow after blow, then, as Alphonso fell to the ground, kick after kick.
Alphonso curled into a ball as best he could, attempting to shield himself from the worst of Pete's anger, but the other man just reached down and pulled him to his feet, one hand wrapped round Alphonso's neck, half choking him.
"If you kill-" Alphonso managed to get out, before Pete punched him in the face.
"What, you think you're going to fucking frightening me now, cunt?" Pete punched him again. "Just shut up. You're done. You and anyone else that comes near my family. You're just the one that gets to be the message to the rest of them."
He lifted Alphonso a little off the ground, making it even harder for him to breathe, and stared at the choking man for a long moment. The he raised his other hand, its fingertips glowing just slightly.
He held it there for a long moment, starting at Alphonso, lost in thought. There was a flash of red light.
The hotknives went wide.
"Fuck you. You're fucking nothing. A sad sack of shit, hiding behind his big and scary friends. Hiding behind good people."
Alponso made a choking noise, and Pete pulled him in closer, so that they were practically nose to nose.
"So you remember this: you don't fucking scare me. Your mates don't scare me. Any time I want, I can find you, and I can kill you."
Pete's lip quirked in what might have been a smile, and Alphonso turned redder, fighting for breath.
"And you've already given me all the excuse I could ever need. So don't think for a minute I've gone soft. Because you're never going to understand why, are you? You're never going to know what'd need to happen to make me change my mind, are you? So you go on and live the rest of your life on borrowed fucking time. Live fucking scared, you miserable little cunt."
Pete threw Alphonso further back into the room, turned, and walked away.
And now all that's left is picking up the pieces.
He hadn't done it. Even as footsteps clicked angrily out of the room Alphonso had been in, resonating across the area to Alison, it still didn't drown out the words she'd heard, or the feeling of vindication. She had been right. And Pete hadn't killed any of the X-Men, nor Alphonso. She took a shallow breath, wincing at ribs which already hated her quite vociferously, and looked up, to see Pete stride out of the room, cross the doorway - and Alphonso behind him, gun in hand.
Aiming. The creaking of metal on metal as the trigger was depressed held a sound not akin to thunder.
And light was proven to be faster than any simple gun, just then.
Pete threw himself to one side, a movement born of pure reflex.
"What the fuck are you--"
He cut off as he realised that he hadn't been the target, saw Alphonso's body lying there.
"Fuck."
He smiled widely, sprawled on the floor, clearly trying not to laugh.
"I don't fucking believe it-"
He pulled himself together, fought off the urge to laugh, as he got back up, and headed over to Alison.
"Christ. All that, and... Thanks for the save. You OK?"
Asking the question seemed to snap him back to reality, and his expression turned grave.
Still lying on her side, hands slowly wavering away from the original point she'd aimed at, Alison didn't say a word, staring ahead fixedly. Each breath she took was taken very slowly and deliberatly - and her hands were shaking, even as finally let her arms fall back to the ground. Still staring.
"Yeah, OK, that was a pretty bloody stupid question, wasn't it?" Pete kept talking, eyes locked on Alison's face.
"Look, I haven't got any magic way to make what just happened alright. But right here, right now, we don't have to waste it, and we only have a few minutes to get this right so I need you to focus, Al."
He took a breath.
"You were right. About his mates, I mean. About me being able to get in with them."
The plan. She remembered that, clearly - and it was safer to focus on that than what she'd done. Pressing one hand to the floor, she carefully started to push herself up, wincing at the pain in her ribs, ignoring the momentary dizziness. He hadn't gone through with it. The knowledge of who had was still far too close for Alison to even begin to deal with it, and she forced herself to focus on Pete, and what he was saying.
"Talk to me."
Pete nodded.
"Your plan'll work. I can get in with the Hellfire Club - hell Emma'll probably suggest it herself if I give her the right opening. I owe her some favours, and she's been trying to find a White King for fucking ages anyway. What I can't work out is how you think I can keep it up long enough to do any good without Emma or one of the club's other telepaths cottoning on."
Finishing the process of pushing herself upright, Alison leaned on the wall, staring at Pete quietly. "Charles knows I was going to try and get enough time to talk to you. I told him about... my plan." She still hated having come up with it at all, in many ways. What Charles had finally said echoed in her mind, and she closed her eyes for a moment. "Soon as I get back to the mansion, I'm going to his office. Don't have a choice, with Nathan in the medlab and picking up every stray thought. Two types of shieldings - for both telepaths and empaths. He can make sure no one can pick up on anything." She opened her eyes, one fist clenched to her thigh to keep from shaking. "For both of us."
Taking another breath, she kept herself from looking beyond Pete, into the office. "They'll need to be reinforced every month or so though. Meets between you and I." It wasn't strictly necessary to be that way - unless you counted in the fact that it would be far less easy to detect if Charles worked through someone else to do so. Under shields he'd just strengthened himself.
And keeping contact with Pete would be important. Was growing more important to Alison with every passing moment.
"We don't know how long this could last, Pete." The whisper was almost inaudible in the room.
"Yeah." Pete nodded. "Which is why I'm going to do us both a favour, and not just say yes right now. I need to think about this, on my own, when I'm not racing a clock. You OK with that?"
"Yes." She'd still have to do see Charles, as soon as she arrived, should case Pete decided to go with this after giving it more thought. But then again, he'd been the one to bring it up... Involuntarily so, her eyes flickered from Pete to the prone form not so far away.
"Autopsy will show lasers did that."
Pete nodded, then crossed the room to look down at the body. He scowled, then sent several knives through the corpse's face, making sure to obliterate the original entry and exit wounds with ones made by his own powers, before returning to Alison.
"They'll probably still decide it was lasers at the coroners, but it'll look more like my MO at least to anyone else that might be paying attention." He shrugged. "Far as the world's concerned, I did it."
Pete paused before continuting. "There's a bar in Boston called The King William. I'll meet you and Charlie there, two weeks from tonight. If we're going to do this, we get it all ready then, and I'll have it set up so I can go on to Emma's place afterward."
She was going to be sick, Alison knew, though the nausea didn't win over completely just yet, how she had no clue. Maybe it was the numbness she was clinging to. "I'll see Charles first thing soon as we get back. Safest way, considering Jean and Nathan's conditions at the moment." Either could pick up something very much not for them to pick up, if they weren't careful. And there was Manuel at that, Alison slowly paled, the trembling slowly starting to win over. "Meet in two weeks. The King William, in Boston. Maybe you'd better knock me out again, now."
"Je-? Never mind. Tell me in two weeks. I need to get out of here before one of your lot wakes up." He drew back a fist, and held it for a second, his face unreadable.
"I'm getting too much practice at this. See you in a fortnight."
OOC note: yes, this gives away more than I had originally thought it would. There're a lot of reasons for that, but the single biggest one is that this way, everyone can see the plot for what it is, and can contribute to it if we can come up with ways for them to do so. I'll be putting a post up in xproj_players as soon as I'm done with this one for people to talk about it.
Cut tags from "Death" by W.B Yeats.
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