Disclaimer I don't own nothin' that's written in here that was previously owned by Marvel, or anyone else with all the paperwork and legal jargon saying they own those characters. Richard Freyes, Nemesis, and other original characters belong to ME!!!!! *smiles* Thank you for your attention.
The Assassin
Chapter 1
The world summit was only 8 hours away, but security was tight. It took nearly two weeks of planning and waiting to get the equipment needed to get within the patrols to the Statue of Liberty, but it all paid off. Richard Freyes clung to the side of the cement ground of the Statue's island a few feet beneath the surface of the water waiting. He was already down there for 3 hours, he had to get there early because he had to be sure to be in position before the national gaurd began it's security sweeps with sonar through the water.
The torpedo he was launched in had long since sank well below scanning distance, if it hadn't hit bottom already. He thought about the sensation of it all and shuddered again. Richard was never going to be fond of underwater actions. The last light he saw was from the roof of the launch room in the sub he had to hire to shoot him within the security perimeter as the sea hand bolted the last steel plate over the hole he climbed in through. The fact that he was then bolted into a 12 foot long torpedo that was going to be fired at over 70 miles per hour without any form of directional control wasn't a comforting thought to him. The only way he was to get out was when the timing device triggered the charges along the seam of the steel skin blasting both halves in opposite directions leaving Richard continuing on his trip. The torpedo was already filled with water before the sub fired him and he couldn't help but fear that there would be a malefunction and he would never be found as he ran out of air from his scuba tank and drowned in a steel coffin he willingly climbed into, at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Needless to say, the muffled explosions and the disoriented sense of freedom that came from his release was a very welcome experience.
Then he swam, for almost an hour he kicked his way towards the statue. His goggles specially made to see long distances under water. It wasn't often that gadgets managed to make Richard feel like he was a kid with new toys, but when he was shown these goggles that emitted it's own sonar pulse to create an image for him to see, his own excitement surprised him. And now that he was field testing them, they worked better than he had hoped. Everything appeared in varying shades of blue, and he could see the concrete walls creeping closer with each kick.
So now he clung to the side of The Statue's island with hooks tipped with small drills to grip to the wall. It was essential he didn't move while the boat patrols continued their sonar sweeps. And it was here that he had to wait for 8 hours for his target. A large group of world leaders were gathering just on Ellis Island for a convention dealing with all sorts of politics and world matters, among them was mutant issues for the various nations. The important fact about the evening, however, had nothing to do with what was going to be discussed or decided, but it was the fact that this was the largest single gathering of world leaders in the history of, well, the world.
It was no small wonder that someone was going to take advantage of this fact and had some devious plan cooked up.
Richard didn't know who was employing him, nor did it matter to him. He had dealt with the man (although Richard didn't really know if it was a man, the closest he was ever allowed to get while communicating was a secure phone conversation scrambled to sound like some sort of robot alien from a Star Trek movie), who called himself Nemesis, twice before, and both times Nemesis paid his bills and so far as Richard could tell he hadn't been sold out to any other parties... yet. It was a pleasant surprise when Richard received an Email from Nemesis, the subject titled 'Blue light special at Zellers', that being their agreed code for 'I got another mutie for you to plaster'. Richard talked with him two days later and was given his current mission.
Nemesis had learned that an extremely powerful and influencial mutant calling himself Magneto, had built a machine that can transform normal humans into mutants and is planning on rigging it up to the Statue of Liberty on the night of the big fancy world conference. With this machine, which Nemesis called 'The Easter Egg', Magneto's planning on turning all of the world leaders present into newly converted mutants, forcing new sympathies to any mutant policies they would enact in the future. Richard's new mark was to be one of Magneto's henchmen, a very recognizeable mutant calling himself Toad. Richard only had a small window of opportunity to accomplish this task, and this 'Brotherhood of Mutants' was also going to be supported by 2 more individuals, neither of them had been successfully identified at this time (nor by the time Richard ended up leaving for the mission).
This was the most ambitious project Richard had embarked upon to date. And only the third mutant hit he had ever attempted. Before becoming acquanted with Nemesis, Richard was just a normal hitman, and like other hitmen refused to deal with mutants because of the unpredictability of their powers. There was only one other known mutant assasin, The Razor, and he was declared to have died under mysterious circumstances after his first successful hit. All Richard knew from his contacts was that during an autopsy, Razor's body was burnt to a crisp on the inside. His flesh looked just fine, but all his internal organs were so black that when prodded with the doctor's probe they crumbled to dust. The case was considered closed and filed under that little used category of 'Spontaneous Combustion'.
When Richard was first approached by Nemesis with his first mutie target, Richard wasn't going to wait to turn the mission down. And in the process Richard intended to make it clear how insane anyone had to be to accept a mutant target with more than one colorful metaphor. However, before he could even begin to talk, he saw the number of zero's on the payment, all in advance. It was enough money that he could retire quite happily on some island down near the equator if he wanted. Before he knew what he was saying, Richard had accepted and was stuck. He had heard of Nemesis before. Nemesis only contacted those who he feels are the best in their fields, and all those who had failed had met with unfortunate accidents (That's what the authorities labelled Jimmy's car bomb, an unfortunate premature excessive gasoline combustion.). On the flip side, those who worked well were paid twice as much as the highest paying standard assasination. No one knew why Nemesis was always taking out bounties on mutants, but when that much money was involved, no one who worked for him really cared.
So now here was Richard, clinging to the side of the Liberty island waiting to get his crosshairs between Toad's ugly eyes to splatter his genetically defective brains all over Lady Liberty's gown. The first mutant mark had Richard hooked; once tasted, the thrill and challenge of taking down a mutant was too much to turn away from. It required a whole new way of thinking. A whole new feeling of power. Ever since Richard was a young boy and the first mutant information became public, he had always felt it unfair that they got such powerful abilities giving them a natural advantage over normals. But now, Richard was more than making up for that lack of natural prowess. With technology, fancy water seeing toys, Richard was turning the table back in his favour. And he only has 3 more hours to wait til Magneto is supposed to show up with his crew.
All those normals were probably already gathered for their little meeting on shore. They didn't matter. Richard closed his eyes and focused his mind. Killing mutants was a whole new ball park, and Richard intended to forge the path in his field. That meant he couldn't make any mistakes, that he couldn't let anything that didn't relate to the mission get in the way or cloud anything that might end up being critical to the success of the mission, and probably his chances of getting away alive, even though if he managed to get away alive without killing his target, he wouldn't be around to appreciate that fact for very long, Nemesis would make sure of that. Richard focused on his target, mentally examined the pictures and video clips he'd seen that had Toad in them. His brain examined every known power Toad possessed, a wall climbing ability, extroadinary jumping ability, an extremely agile tongue that Toad used for all sorts of functions. Toad also had exceptionaly strength for a man? his size. But so far as Richard knew, Toad didn't possess any mental powers or steel skin, or anything that might prevent a bullet from scrambling up his head. And all Richard needed was one second to draw a bead and take his shot.
Checking the time on his goggle readout, Richard saw that Magneto should only be minutes away. Checking over his shoulder, he saw a patrol boat headed straight for the island. But that isn't part of the gaurds patrol route. A muffled splash startled him, and looking over to his right, Richard could see the body of a police officer sinking into the water, a dark ink floating away from his back like gas as his blood mixed with the frigid waters. Okay, so Magneto must be on that boat. Probably killed the crew and disguised someone to be the boats pilot. That's good, he knew how they'd get up to the top of the statue then. The boat sided up with the island, and Richard saw a large figure wrapped in thick furs step on board. A few minutes later he saw Magneto float onto the island, and the large, bear of a man cross back with a young girl bound and gagged slung over his shoulder. The funny thing about that was that on both the girls hands were thick winter mittens, and a ski mask over her face. A naked woman stepped across last, and Richard let a brief thought slip through his mind, "I wish I could get above the surface just so I could see the color of her skin and the details of her pub's.". He quickly refocussed himself again and watched in silent intimidation as the Easter Egg floated across the small window Richard had between the ship and the island. So far as he could tell, it really was just an over sized egg, big enough to hold a few men if need be. His first impulse was that it was a bomb, maybe Magneto had changed his plan and just intended on blowing up New York with a Nuclear warhead mounted in the Statue of Liberty. Richard had to admit the idea had a rather nice, even if rather morbid, poetic irony.
The ship the Brotherhood cruised in on began to split down the middle of it's hull, as if it were being pulled apart, but Richard could see nothing that might be doing that. The ship seemed to just pull itself in two and sink. But Toad never disembarked. Of course, he was on the island waiting with the big man. Richard looked around and saw no other ships within his sight. Just to be safe, he would wait another ten minutes. The Egg couldn't possibly be attached within ten minutes and powered up. Richard had at least half an hour, if not more, before Magneto activated the egg. That meant that he had at least twenty minutes to take out Toad and start his retreat. Richard didn't intend to be around to get caught in the effect of the Easter Egg, and had a personal underwater propulsion system hidden at Liberty Island long before he showed up.
Just as Richard was about to climb up and breach the water, he saw ripples beneath the water. Some sort of flying machine was causing a water displacement, and it was approaching the island quickly. Looking up, Richard saw that a thick fog had moved in and now some sort of hover ship was flying in under the cover. The ship came to a hover right above Richard and lowered itself to about two feet off the water, then dropped the remaining distance. The shock almost caused Richard to lose his grip on his hooks, but he managed to keep ahold and watched with fascination at this new developement. Because sonar doesn't project anything flat, like paint, Richard didn't see the symbol of the X Men on the bottom of the ship which he would have recognized instantly. Instead he tried desperately to recognize the four people who climbed up onto the island. Two women and two men, one of them wearing some sort of eye apparatus, probably night vision, or infra-red. A disturbing realization crept up on Richard then, he didn't actually 'see' the ship until it was less than three feet above the water directly above him, when the sonar created a vague shape which defined itself very fast as it thudded down onto the water. That meant the ship couldn't be seen by sonar until it's less than ten feet away? And it isn't like Richard was using a normal type of sonar. The goggles would project even through the sound damping fields created by the new anti sonar defences of the American Navy. Could that mean that these new comers have technology beyond the best that America has for it's nuclear submarines?
Richard waited ten minutes before he broke the surface of the water and peered above the lip of the island. He looked just in time to see the last two of these people enter the statue through it's main doors. He lifted the goggles from his eyes and looked back at the ship and almost slipped back into the water when he stared straight into the dark blue X painted in a circle on the side of the ship. This was huge, the X Men had shown up to fight The Brotherhood. This definately changed the playing field. Richard decided to just wait and see how it played out. With their escape ship sunk, Toad, nor the other two could get off the island without going to the patrol boat docked off the other side of the island. If worst came to worst, Richard could get them there. Richard began the painstakingly slow crawl across the side of the island towards the boats docked off the other side. He wouldn't dare try to go across the surface, even if the X Men disregarded him as a civilian, there was no telling if the Brotherhood would let him get across or kill him just for the pleasure of it. Toad's history showed that he'd done it before.
The next forty-seven minutes were quite uneventful from Richard's point of view. He got to the other side of the island in a little over thirty minutes and dared to climb above water just long enough to assemble his rifle. Once built he clung to the side of the wall, with his rifle nailed just above the water in the shadow of the boat, and watched hoping to catch a glimpse of the action that must be going on inside.
It wasn't long after that his wish was granted. Off one of the balconies just a few stories up Richard saw something come flying off, as if blown by a gust of wind. That something was followed by a larger something and lots of little somethings. Then a man came flying off the balcony and he shot his tongue and caught a rail to keep from sailing off into the water. It was Toad. Richard began to scramble over to his rifle, this was probably the best shot he'd ever get, but he stopped when he looked back up and saw the sky.
The previously clear evening had filled itself with thick storm clouds, and lightning was starting to flash. Then a bolt streaked down and seemed to aim itself to where Toad was joined to the rail as his tongue remained his only contact with land while he struggled against some gale wind. Toad's entire body glowed for a second then with a faint scream the mutant's tongue let go of the rail and flew away from the statue as electricity blasted him off the rail, probably having blasted the tip of Toad's tongue into a million pieces. Richard was almost ready to panic that he would never find Toad and the fucker would swim away and live, when his reasonable mind took hold. If the lightning didn't kill him, then he's at least be hurting. And even if he did live and was swimming away, Richard's personal water jet was right underneath him, it was hidden under the boat.
Richard took apart his rifle and stowed it away and climbed down and grabbed something that didn't look too dissimilar to the torpedo he was launched in only 9 hours earlier. It was open on both ends and throughout the hollow center were numerous propellor's and a stabilizing fin on either side to keep it level. He grabbed the hand holds and pushed the ignition button. The engine started with a quiet purr and Richard darted through the water as fast as he dared to get to where Toad had crashed into the water.
There wasn't much difficulty in finding the body. When Richard found Toad, the mutant was cooked well enough to have been served as Thanksgiving dinner. Richard drew his knife instinctively and prepared to slit the dead throat before him, just to be sure, when he realized this was perfect. Toad was obviously dead, and purely by circumstance. There was no way he was going to escape Liberty Island that night, but as chance had it Toad was killed by a freak bolt of lightning. It was probably caused by one of the X Men, but that didn't matter. There is absolutely nothing to point a finger at foul play, especially foul play by a normal. Richard laughed out loud in his wet suit and turned himself around. He didn't bother to look back at the body or the statue, he didn't want to jinx his luck by pressing it. So he just left.
Chapter 2
It was the next day that Richard found out how the rest of that night progressed when he caught the cover story in the paper. It turned out that the machine was destroyed by unknown forces and 7 men, police officers and ship hands, died in what is believed to be a conflict involving two mutant factions. One police officer was found alive in critical condition, and one mutant, who the police would not identify, was taken into custody. The fact that 7 men were killed by mutants was more important than any other factor in the story. There was no real attempt to explain what the point of the machine's electrical discharge was, and consequently no credit was given to the unknown band of mutants who destroyed the machine before it's purpose was fulfilled. None of this surprised Richard.
Richard had already sent Nemesis the Email telling him that the party for next Christmas was already planned (which, of course, meant that the target was wasted). The fee for the job was paid in advance so that meant that Richard didn't expect to hear from Nemesis again until he was to be told of his next target. Once you accepted your first mission from Nemesis and stayed in the working field, you were expected to accept any other mission Nemesis had for you, so he didn't bother with the pleasantry of waiting for you to accept before he sent the particulars. Most mercenaries wouldn't put up with shit like that from their employers, but the amount of money that Nemesis was putting up and his obviously great influence gave him special priviledges beyond most employers. This didn't bother Richard very much, he had a goal before he retired, and the massive sums that Nemesis offered would shorten the time it took to raise the money he wanted by more than half.
He stopped in a coffee shop for lunch and while he waited for the waitress to get a new sheet of muffins from the back he caught a glimpse at the TV news.
"A remarkable turn of events at the World Leader Conference at Liberty Island last night. A mutant faction calling themselves 'The Brotherhood of Mutants' attempted to sabotage the meeting with an electrical pulse originating from a machine attached to the Statue of Liberty that was intended to kill everyone present."
Richard then saw a grainy news camera image zoomed as close as possible watching the pin prick of white light at the torch on the Statue. The woman continued speaking as the light grew into an undulating radius of electricity. It made Richard think of a big jellyfish as the light grew.
"The Brotherhood was opposed by another mutant faction known by most as the X Men, who defeated the Brotherhood, and destroyed the machine that was intended for the world leaders on Ellis Island, less than one mile off the coast of Manhaton."
The electrical jellyfish had grown so big that it filled most of the camera which had scaled back it's image and showed the light almost reaching the shore. Then the light dissapeared and zooming back on the statue where it showed that the flame at the top of the Statue's torch was missing. It then cut back to the face of the woman telling the story to America.
"When authorities got to the island only the leader of the Brotherhood, the mutant Eric Lensherr, was found and taken into custody pending charges. Seven men were found dead around the grass surrounding the statue, and one police officer was found in critical condition inside the lobby with severe stab wounds. Police would not comment on the cause of the deaths or whether Eric Lensherr or any other mutants are suspected to be related to the deaths or to the unidentified police officer found in the lobby. The police officer is expected to recover."
"Sir? Your muffin?"
Richard was startled out of his trance and saw the young girl looking with what was either concern, or exasperation at his lack of focus. He thanked her and took his muffin and coffee to a table and watched the rest of the report.
It now showed the top of the statue again as the camera tried to focus on three individuals walking around the rim of the torch. The image was grainy from the distance and the reporter could only speculate on the identities of the people, but Richard knew it was the X Men, well, one of them was alot shorter than he remembered any of the X Men being, so he speculated that one of them must have been the girl he saw the big man carrying. Maybe two of them died in the battle with Magneto's mutants.
"Here we see three unidentified individuals, who are assumed to be responsible for the destruction of the device and the aprehension of Eric Lensherr, and a fourth, probably wounded when the device was destroyed."
Richard watched in amazement as they stepped off the rim of the torch onto nothing and floating in the air, walk into a hatchway removing them from site entirely. Even more amazing was that the wounded X Man floated just behind one of them into oblivion. The newscaster had absolutely no explaination siting this to the greatly varied and unpredictable powers held by more powerful mutants. But it suddenly clicked to Richard, the hover ship. The one that couldn't be seen on his sonar goggles til it was literally right on top of him couldn't be seen by camera's either. The missing X Man was probably flying that ship and the others just stepped onto it's wing and climbed aboard leaving Magneto for the cops to pick up.
The rest of the report just wound down as they had interviews with the police officer in charge of those who found Eric, laying unconcious by the rubble of his destroyed machine. There was nothing else on any of the other's Richard saw with Magneto when he got off his boat, and Toad's body never turned up. The big man and the naked woman must've escaped after the X Men killed Toad, or else the X Men just disposed of the bodies much like Razor's spontaneous combustion.
The coffee was still hot, and it tasted marvelous after the late night Richard just had. The muffin and coffee went down quickly and Richard left to take care of some groceries and a few other errands. When he stepped out of the coffee shop Richard saw a hopscotch grid drawn in colored chalk on the sidewalk. A little star and moon was sketched in beside it. Richard smiled and took a deep breath and walked down the street whistling. He was just a normal Joe going to pick up some bread and milk and the day was beautiful.
Richard got home that evening shortly after sunset. He started up his laptop and began putting away groceries. Once it finished it's screech signalling it was connected to the net, Richard forgot about the computer and began boiling some water for soup.
Usually Richard would wait for more than a month before hearing from Nemesis again, and he didn't dare accept from anyone else on the off chance that Nemesis might want him at the same time. So he'd just lay low in a rather poor lifestyle (not that he didn't have the money to live better, he currently had more than ten million american dollars in various banks) until he got his next target. It surprised Richard to no end when he saw the flashing icon at the bottom corner of his computer screen signalling that an Email was waiting for him. The subject line read,
'Blue light special at Zellers'
The Assassin
Chapter 1
The world summit was only 8 hours away, but security was tight. It took nearly two weeks of planning and waiting to get the equipment needed to get within the patrols to the Statue of Liberty, but it all paid off. Richard Freyes clung to the side of the cement ground of the Statue's island a few feet beneath the surface of the water waiting. He was already down there for 3 hours, he had to get there early because he had to be sure to be in position before the national gaurd began it's security sweeps with sonar through the water.
The torpedo he was launched in had long since sank well below scanning distance, if it hadn't hit bottom already. He thought about the sensation of it all and shuddered again. Richard was never going to be fond of underwater actions. The last light he saw was from the roof of the launch room in the sub he had to hire to shoot him within the security perimeter as the sea hand bolted the last steel plate over the hole he climbed in through. The fact that he was then bolted into a 12 foot long torpedo that was going to be fired at over 70 miles per hour without any form of directional control wasn't a comforting thought to him. The only way he was to get out was when the timing device triggered the charges along the seam of the steel skin blasting both halves in opposite directions leaving Richard continuing on his trip. The torpedo was already filled with water before the sub fired him and he couldn't help but fear that there would be a malefunction and he would never be found as he ran out of air from his scuba tank and drowned in a steel coffin he willingly climbed into, at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Needless to say, the muffled explosions and the disoriented sense of freedom that came from his release was a very welcome experience.
Then he swam, for almost an hour he kicked his way towards the statue. His goggles specially made to see long distances under water. It wasn't often that gadgets managed to make Richard feel like he was a kid with new toys, but when he was shown these goggles that emitted it's own sonar pulse to create an image for him to see, his own excitement surprised him. And now that he was field testing them, they worked better than he had hoped. Everything appeared in varying shades of blue, and he could see the concrete walls creeping closer with each kick.
So now he clung to the side of The Statue's island with hooks tipped with small drills to grip to the wall. It was essential he didn't move while the boat patrols continued their sonar sweeps. And it was here that he had to wait for 8 hours for his target. A large group of world leaders were gathering just on Ellis Island for a convention dealing with all sorts of politics and world matters, among them was mutant issues for the various nations. The important fact about the evening, however, had nothing to do with what was going to be discussed or decided, but it was the fact that this was the largest single gathering of world leaders in the history of, well, the world.
It was no small wonder that someone was going to take advantage of this fact and had some devious plan cooked up.
Richard didn't know who was employing him, nor did it matter to him. He had dealt with the man (although Richard didn't really know if it was a man, the closest he was ever allowed to get while communicating was a secure phone conversation scrambled to sound like some sort of robot alien from a Star Trek movie), who called himself Nemesis, twice before, and both times Nemesis paid his bills and so far as Richard could tell he hadn't been sold out to any other parties... yet. It was a pleasant surprise when Richard received an Email from Nemesis, the subject titled 'Blue light special at Zellers', that being their agreed code for 'I got another mutie for you to plaster'. Richard talked with him two days later and was given his current mission.
Nemesis had learned that an extremely powerful and influencial mutant calling himself Magneto, had built a machine that can transform normal humans into mutants and is planning on rigging it up to the Statue of Liberty on the night of the big fancy world conference. With this machine, which Nemesis called 'The Easter Egg', Magneto's planning on turning all of the world leaders present into newly converted mutants, forcing new sympathies to any mutant policies they would enact in the future. Richard's new mark was to be one of Magneto's henchmen, a very recognizeable mutant calling himself Toad. Richard only had a small window of opportunity to accomplish this task, and this 'Brotherhood of Mutants' was also going to be supported by 2 more individuals, neither of them had been successfully identified at this time (nor by the time Richard ended up leaving for the mission).
This was the most ambitious project Richard had embarked upon to date. And only the third mutant hit he had ever attempted. Before becoming acquanted with Nemesis, Richard was just a normal hitman, and like other hitmen refused to deal with mutants because of the unpredictability of their powers. There was only one other known mutant assasin, The Razor, and he was declared to have died under mysterious circumstances after his first successful hit. All Richard knew from his contacts was that during an autopsy, Razor's body was burnt to a crisp on the inside. His flesh looked just fine, but all his internal organs were so black that when prodded with the doctor's probe they crumbled to dust. The case was considered closed and filed under that little used category of 'Spontaneous Combustion'.
When Richard was first approached by Nemesis with his first mutie target, Richard wasn't going to wait to turn the mission down. And in the process Richard intended to make it clear how insane anyone had to be to accept a mutant target with more than one colorful metaphor. However, before he could even begin to talk, he saw the number of zero's on the payment, all in advance. It was enough money that he could retire quite happily on some island down near the equator if he wanted. Before he knew what he was saying, Richard had accepted and was stuck. He had heard of Nemesis before. Nemesis only contacted those who he feels are the best in their fields, and all those who had failed had met with unfortunate accidents (That's what the authorities labelled Jimmy's car bomb, an unfortunate premature excessive gasoline combustion.). On the flip side, those who worked well were paid twice as much as the highest paying standard assasination. No one knew why Nemesis was always taking out bounties on mutants, but when that much money was involved, no one who worked for him really cared.
So now here was Richard, clinging to the side of the Liberty island waiting to get his crosshairs between Toad's ugly eyes to splatter his genetically defective brains all over Lady Liberty's gown. The first mutant mark had Richard hooked; once tasted, the thrill and challenge of taking down a mutant was too much to turn away from. It required a whole new way of thinking. A whole new feeling of power. Ever since Richard was a young boy and the first mutant information became public, he had always felt it unfair that they got such powerful abilities giving them a natural advantage over normals. But now, Richard was more than making up for that lack of natural prowess. With technology, fancy water seeing toys, Richard was turning the table back in his favour. And he only has 3 more hours to wait til Magneto is supposed to show up with his crew.
All those normals were probably already gathered for their little meeting on shore. They didn't matter. Richard closed his eyes and focused his mind. Killing mutants was a whole new ball park, and Richard intended to forge the path in his field. That meant he couldn't make any mistakes, that he couldn't let anything that didn't relate to the mission get in the way or cloud anything that might end up being critical to the success of the mission, and probably his chances of getting away alive, even though if he managed to get away alive without killing his target, he wouldn't be around to appreciate that fact for very long, Nemesis would make sure of that. Richard focused on his target, mentally examined the pictures and video clips he'd seen that had Toad in them. His brain examined every known power Toad possessed, a wall climbing ability, extroadinary jumping ability, an extremely agile tongue that Toad used for all sorts of functions. Toad also had exceptionaly strength for a man? his size. But so far as Richard knew, Toad didn't possess any mental powers or steel skin, or anything that might prevent a bullet from scrambling up his head. And all Richard needed was one second to draw a bead and take his shot.
Checking the time on his goggle readout, Richard saw that Magneto should only be minutes away. Checking over his shoulder, he saw a patrol boat headed straight for the island. But that isn't part of the gaurds patrol route. A muffled splash startled him, and looking over to his right, Richard could see the body of a police officer sinking into the water, a dark ink floating away from his back like gas as his blood mixed with the frigid waters. Okay, so Magneto must be on that boat. Probably killed the crew and disguised someone to be the boats pilot. That's good, he knew how they'd get up to the top of the statue then. The boat sided up with the island, and Richard saw a large figure wrapped in thick furs step on board. A few minutes later he saw Magneto float onto the island, and the large, bear of a man cross back with a young girl bound and gagged slung over his shoulder. The funny thing about that was that on both the girls hands were thick winter mittens, and a ski mask over her face. A naked woman stepped across last, and Richard let a brief thought slip through his mind, "I wish I could get above the surface just so I could see the color of her skin and the details of her pub's.". He quickly refocussed himself again and watched in silent intimidation as the Easter Egg floated across the small window Richard had between the ship and the island. So far as he could tell, it really was just an over sized egg, big enough to hold a few men if need be. His first impulse was that it was a bomb, maybe Magneto had changed his plan and just intended on blowing up New York with a Nuclear warhead mounted in the Statue of Liberty. Richard had to admit the idea had a rather nice, even if rather morbid, poetic irony.
The ship the Brotherhood cruised in on began to split down the middle of it's hull, as if it were being pulled apart, but Richard could see nothing that might be doing that. The ship seemed to just pull itself in two and sink. But Toad never disembarked. Of course, he was on the island waiting with the big man. Richard looked around and saw no other ships within his sight. Just to be safe, he would wait another ten minutes. The Egg couldn't possibly be attached within ten minutes and powered up. Richard had at least half an hour, if not more, before Magneto activated the egg. That meant that he had at least twenty minutes to take out Toad and start his retreat. Richard didn't intend to be around to get caught in the effect of the Easter Egg, and had a personal underwater propulsion system hidden at Liberty Island long before he showed up.
Just as Richard was about to climb up and breach the water, he saw ripples beneath the water. Some sort of flying machine was causing a water displacement, and it was approaching the island quickly. Looking up, Richard saw that a thick fog had moved in and now some sort of hover ship was flying in under the cover. The ship came to a hover right above Richard and lowered itself to about two feet off the water, then dropped the remaining distance. The shock almost caused Richard to lose his grip on his hooks, but he managed to keep ahold and watched with fascination at this new developement. Because sonar doesn't project anything flat, like paint, Richard didn't see the symbol of the X Men on the bottom of the ship which he would have recognized instantly. Instead he tried desperately to recognize the four people who climbed up onto the island. Two women and two men, one of them wearing some sort of eye apparatus, probably night vision, or infra-red. A disturbing realization crept up on Richard then, he didn't actually 'see' the ship until it was less than three feet above the water directly above him, when the sonar created a vague shape which defined itself very fast as it thudded down onto the water. That meant the ship couldn't be seen by sonar until it's less than ten feet away? And it isn't like Richard was using a normal type of sonar. The goggles would project even through the sound damping fields created by the new anti sonar defences of the American Navy. Could that mean that these new comers have technology beyond the best that America has for it's nuclear submarines?
Richard waited ten minutes before he broke the surface of the water and peered above the lip of the island. He looked just in time to see the last two of these people enter the statue through it's main doors. He lifted the goggles from his eyes and looked back at the ship and almost slipped back into the water when he stared straight into the dark blue X painted in a circle on the side of the ship. This was huge, the X Men had shown up to fight The Brotherhood. This definately changed the playing field. Richard decided to just wait and see how it played out. With their escape ship sunk, Toad, nor the other two could get off the island without going to the patrol boat docked off the other side of the island. If worst came to worst, Richard could get them there. Richard began the painstakingly slow crawl across the side of the island towards the boats docked off the other side. He wouldn't dare try to go across the surface, even if the X Men disregarded him as a civilian, there was no telling if the Brotherhood would let him get across or kill him just for the pleasure of it. Toad's history showed that he'd done it before.
The next forty-seven minutes were quite uneventful from Richard's point of view. He got to the other side of the island in a little over thirty minutes and dared to climb above water just long enough to assemble his rifle. Once built he clung to the side of the wall, with his rifle nailed just above the water in the shadow of the boat, and watched hoping to catch a glimpse of the action that must be going on inside.
It wasn't long after that his wish was granted. Off one of the balconies just a few stories up Richard saw something come flying off, as if blown by a gust of wind. That something was followed by a larger something and lots of little somethings. Then a man came flying off the balcony and he shot his tongue and caught a rail to keep from sailing off into the water. It was Toad. Richard began to scramble over to his rifle, this was probably the best shot he'd ever get, but he stopped when he looked back up and saw the sky.
The previously clear evening had filled itself with thick storm clouds, and lightning was starting to flash. Then a bolt streaked down and seemed to aim itself to where Toad was joined to the rail as his tongue remained his only contact with land while he struggled against some gale wind. Toad's entire body glowed for a second then with a faint scream the mutant's tongue let go of the rail and flew away from the statue as electricity blasted him off the rail, probably having blasted the tip of Toad's tongue into a million pieces. Richard was almost ready to panic that he would never find Toad and the fucker would swim away and live, when his reasonable mind took hold. If the lightning didn't kill him, then he's at least be hurting. And even if he did live and was swimming away, Richard's personal water jet was right underneath him, it was hidden under the boat.
Richard took apart his rifle and stowed it away and climbed down and grabbed something that didn't look too dissimilar to the torpedo he was launched in only 9 hours earlier. It was open on both ends and throughout the hollow center were numerous propellor's and a stabilizing fin on either side to keep it level. He grabbed the hand holds and pushed the ignition button. The engine started with a quiet purr and Richard darted through the water as fast as he dared to get to where Toad had crashed into the water.
There wasn't much difficulty in finding the body. When Richard found Toad, the mutant was cooked well enough to have been served as Thanksgiving dinner. Richard drew his knife instinctively and prepared to slit the dead throat before him, just to be sure, when he realized this was perfect. Toad was obviously dead, and purely by circumstance. There was no way he was going to escape Liberty Island that night, but as chance had it Toad was killed by a freak bolt of lightning. It was probably caused by one of the X Men, but that didn't matter. There is absolutely nothing to point a finger at foul play, especially foul play by a normal. Richard laughed out loud in his wet suit and turned himself around. He didn't bother to look back at the body or the statue, he didn't want to jinx his luck by pressing it. So he just left.
Chapter 2
It was the next day that Richard found out how the rest of that night progressed when he caught the cover story in the paper. It turned out that the machine was destroyed by unknown forces and 7 men, police officers and ship hands, died in what is believed to be a conflict involving two mutant factions. One police officer was found alive in critical condition, and one mutant, who the police would not identify, was taken into custody. The fact that 7 men were killed by mutants was more important than any other factor in the story. There was no real attempt to explain what the point of the machine's electrical discharge was, and consequently no credit was given to the unknown band of mutants who destroyed the machine before it's purpose was fulfilled. None of this surprised Richard.
Richard had already sent Nemesis the Email telling him that the party for next Christmas was already planned (which, of course, meant that the target was wasted). The fee for the job was paid in advance so that meant that Richard didn't expect to hear from Nemesis again until he was to be told of his next target. Once you accepted your first mission from Nemesis and stayed in the working field, you were expected to accept any other mission Nemesis had for you, so he didn't bother with the pleasantry of waiting for you to accept before he sent the particulars. Most mercenaries wouldn't put up with shit like that from their employers, but the amount of money that Nemesis was putting up and his obviously great influence gave him special priviledges beyond most employers. This didn't bother Richard very much, he had a goal before he retired, and the massive sums that Nemesis offered would shorten the time it took to raise the money he wanted by more than half.
He stopped in a coffee shop for lunch and while he waited for the waitress to get a new sheet of muffins from the back he caught a glimpse at the TV news.
"A remarkable turn of events at the World Leader Conference at Liberty Island last night. A mutant faction calling themselves 'The Brotherhood of Mutants' attempted to sabotage the meeting with an electrical pulse originating from a machine attached to the Statue of Liberty that was intended to kill everyone present."
Richard then saw a grainy news camera image zoomed as close as possible watching the pin prick of white light at the torch on the Statue. The woman continued speaking as the light grew into an undulating radius of electricity. It made Richard think of a big jellyfish as the light grew.
"The Brotherhood was opposed by another mutant faction known by most as the X Men, who defeated the Brotherhood, and destroyed the machine that was intended for the world leaders on Ellis Island, less than one mile off the coast of Manhaton."
The electrical jellyfish had grown so big that it filled most of the camera which had scaled back it's image and showed the light almost reaching the shore. Then the light dissapeared and zooming back on the statue where it showed that the flame at the top of the Statue's torch was missing. It then cut back to the face of the woman telling the story to America.
"When authorities got to the island only the leader of the Brotherhood, the mutant Eric Lensherr, was found and taken into custody pending charges. Seven men were found dead around the grass surrounding the statue, and one police officer was found in critical condition inside the lobby with severe stab wounds. Police would not comment on the cause of the deaths or whether Eric Lensherr or any other mutants are suspected to be related to the deaths or to the unidentified police officer found in the lobby. The police officer is expected to recover."
"Sir? Your muffin?"
Richard was startled out of his trance and saw the young girl looking with what was either concern, or exasperation at his lack of focus. He thanked her and took his muffin and coffee to a table and watched the rest of the report.
It now showed the top of the statue again as the camera tried to focus on three individuals walking around the rim of the torch. The image was grainy from the distance and the reporter could only speculate on the identities of the people, but Richard knew it was the X Men, well, one of them was alot shorter than he remembered any of the X Men being, so he speculated that one of them must have been the girl he saw the big man carrying. Maybe two of them died in the battle with Magneto's mutants.
"Here we see three unidentified individuals, who are assumed to be responsible for the destruction of the device and the aprehension of Eric Lensherr, and a fourth, probably wounded when the device was destroyed."
Richard watched in amazement as they stepped off the rim of the torch onto nothing and floating in the air, walk into a hatchway removing them from site entirely. Even more amazing was that the wounded X Man floated just behind one of them into oblivion. The newscaster had absolutely no explaination siting this to the greatly varied and unpredictable powers held by more powerful mutants. But it suddenly clicked to Richard, the hover ship. The one that couldn't be seen on his sonar goggles til it was literally right on top of him couldn't be seen by camera's either. The missing X Man was probably flying that ship and the others just stepped onto it's wing and climbed aboard leaving Magneto for the cops to pick up.
The rest of the report just wound down as they had interviews with the police officer in charge of those who found Eric, laying unconcious by the rubble of his destroyed machine. There was nothing else on any of the other's Richard saw with Magneto when he got off his boat, and Toad's body never turned up. The big man and the naked woman must've escaped after the X Men killed Toad, or else the X Men just disposed of the bodies much like Razor's spontaneous combustion.
The coffee was still hot, and it tasted marvelous after the late night Richard just had. The muffin and coffee went down quickly and Richard left to take care of some groceries and a few other errands. When he stepped out of the coffee shop Richard saw a hopscotch grid drawn in colored chalk on the sidewalk. A little star and moon was sketched in beside it. Richard smiled and took a deep breath and walked down the street whistling. He was just a normal Joe going to pick up some bread and milk and the day was beautiful.
Richard got home that evening shortly after sunset. He started up his laptop and began putting away groceries. Once it finished it's screech signalling it was connected to the net, Richard forgot about the computer and began boiling some water for soup.
Usually Richard would wait for more than a month before hearing from Nemesis again, and he didn't dare accept from anyone else on the off chance that Nemesis might want him at the same time. So he'd just lay low in a rather poor lifestyle (not that he didn't have the money to live better, he currently had more than ten million american dollars in various banks) until he got his next target. It surprised Richard to no end when he saw the flashing icon at the bottom corner of his computer screen signalling that an Email was waiting for him. The subject line read,
'Blue light special at Zellers'