Unstable

Chapter 9

B&E

Focus is key Gabriel's teacher's always used to tell him, over and over again. In all things, focus is key till it was a constant mantra in the dark recesses of his head. He was using that and many other mantras, lessons and exercises that he'd had drilled into him over the last 8 years as he 'roof-jumped' his way across Bayville.

Traversing the city in this way was always exhilarating for Gabe; he always tried to find the time, before he was incarcerated, to climb the tallest building he could find and take in the view.

He couldn't do that now; he was on a mission.

Gabriel ran the length of an apartment block roof and leapt across the street onto another, he revelled in the weightless feeling he got in the middle of the jump when gravity decided to reassert it's all-powerful control over him. He jumped the small gap of an alleyway onto the next roof and saw the curved architecture of the Bayville Mall. Gabriel jumped another two roofs and then he was at the nearest building to the mall and surveyed the large car park. It was empty except for three vehicles right by the entrance; they were too far away to tell their makes. Gabriel looked around the street for any witnesses to his passing, there were none. He took the final step off the roof and dropped nimbly to the pavement and ran across the road and double-timed it across the car park to the three vehicles. Up close the cars were basic 'yuppie' fare: two convertibles and an SUV all high-end by the look of the trim. And warm by the feel of the bonnet; they had only been here for about an hour and it had taken Gabriel half that to make it across town so Fury and his damn phone call had been quick. The call had annoyed an already irate Gabriel, effectively firing him then ordering him around:

I need a favour Gabriel.

We picked up a call over the police band and the police are refusing to take it.

There's trouble at the Bayville Mall, stop it.

Three simple sentences had made Gabriel into Patch's lapdog and he'd obeyed without even thinking.

Focus is key.

Gabriel snuck around the SUV and straight towards the glass doors. He pushed against the nearest door; it moved but stopped dead against a deadbolt, not the point of entry. Gabriel was about to move to the next door when he heard the slightest of sounds, like some one sneaking up on him. Gabriel slowly moved his right hand to his boot where he kept a spare throwing knife.

"Take your hand off of the knife." Logan barked, Gabriel relaxed and turned around.

"What're you doing here?" Gabriel asked him as he crept to the next door and tested the lock, again, no luck. He leaned against the brick wall and looked up at the mutant. "I left you all the way across town." Logan thumbed towards a shaded area of the parking lot where his bike was parked beneath a heavily foliaged tree where Gabriel couldn't see it from the rooftop.

"I haven't been here long, bub, but it seems everything's okay."

"Fury wouldn't send me on a wild goose chase." Gabriel went to the next set of double doors and again, they were locked. How'd they get in? He thought.

BANG!! Gabriel and Logan tensed at the gunshot.

"Told you so." Gabriel stood up and kicked the glass door in; Logan moved around him and entered the mall.

"They came in here and up the escalator, there's eight of them and they're chasing two others."

"Hardly seems fair." Gabriel mused. "Let's even it up." Logan nodded.

"You go left, I go right and we'll meet up in the middle." Gabriel stepped onto the elevator. "And Gabriel?" He turned around and waited for Logan to finish. "Make sure there are still ten hearts beatin' when this all over, would ya bub?" Gabriel kept his face impassive

"Is that including ours?" Logan gave him a cold hard stare and stepped onto the escalator, Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Spoil all my fun why don't you?" He reached the top and stole away at a half-run into the shadows. Logan watched him go then peeled off to the right, following the attackers' scents.

Gabriel kept low against the first floor storefronts, he hadn't seen anyone yet and it began to worry him, the mall was big but not huge; ten people couldn't just disappear.

As far as he could tell the mall was laid out in a large cross and he and Logan had covered one of the arms and were about to cover another two. He stopped at the corner and looked around it, nothing. Gabriel was about to sneak around the corner when a thought hit him: Wolverine knows where they are. Giving himself a mental slap, Gabriel ran to the first floor banister and jumped over.

Logan had easily tracked the scents of the hunted pair and followed it around to the southern arm of the mall; his entrance into the mall was on the western mall. He stopped every few moments to sniff the air and listen to the background quiet for any conspicuous sounds; he heard footfalls, running towards him. He backed into the dark shadow of a doorway and waited.

As the footfall sounds came closer, Logan could pick out more information, for one, they were two people heading his way, and they were young.

Logan waited until the pair was on him to leap out of the doorway, grab them and pull them into the darkness.

"Ah-!" Logan quickly clamped over the kids mouths' to stop them crying out.

"I'm going to remove my hands, and your going to be quiet, got it?" He felt the kids nod; he put the kids down and turned them around. "Who's chasing you? Why are they chasing you?" The two kids, on male, one female, both Hispanic, possibly siblings, gave him a look that reminded him of Kitty's puppy dog look. Ugh!

"We don't know, they just chased us." The young boy started.

"Uh-huh, we've been running all night and I'm tired." The girl finished. After a moments thought, Logan shouldered the stores door open and placed the kids inside.

"Hide in here, I'll come back for you soon." The children nodded silently and watched him leave. They waited a few seconds before speaking again.

"He's a lot hairier than I thought." The boy said.

"And older too." The girl added.

Gabriel had, on a whim, decided against following Logan's exact trail and had taken a perpendicular course; cutting across the main area and then on the opposite side of the arm Gabriel figured Logan was on, he never saw the two kids.

It was probably a decision that saved his life.

Logan was close to the eight attackers, what he couldn't figure out was why their scents led back outside.

Ten Minutes Ago...

Seven of the attackers waited by their van, the eighth was on a nearby roof waiting for the right time to strike. All of them wore dark colours, mainly greens and greys to help them become indistinguishable in the darkness.

"Have they called in yet?" An English female voice, asked the person next to her, her voice had a hard edge of authority, used to being obeyed.

"Not yet commander." Another female voice, a slight oriental accent this time.

"We'll give them ten minutes then see what the problem is."

"Target: Esus had entered the playing field." A male, English voice echoed over a radio one of the group were carrying "He's now obscured by the building." It added after a second.

"Weapons free." The first voice ordered. A myriad of clicks and the sliding of metal-on-oiled-metal sounds accompanied the groups immediate arming with an exotic array of firearms. The first woman held up a small device in her gloved hand and pressed a small red button on top.

Inside the mall a small machine clicked then a gunpowder charge fired off a blank cartridge, imitating a gunshot.

Up on the roof the sniper, designated Aleph-2, shifted his weight slightly to get comfortable and waited. He rested his eye into the scope of his rifle and concentrated on the large upper floor window three hundred metres away where Target: Esus' head would appear in due time. In the confines of the scope everything was a washed out blue. The scope was a powerful Fluoroscopic-sniper scope; it would see a toe bone at eight hundred metres. It was a custom scope made by the team's super-technician and all round quartermaster.

He waited for five minutes without moving, ten. Then his target came into view; a brilliant white skeletal structure in a field of blue. Easy to see, easy to shoot.

Aleph-2 rested the crosshairs over the target's skull just behind where the ear would be and slowly squeezed the trigger. The rifle jumped back into his shoulder, not enough to hurt but enough to jump the scope off target, he didn't see the target go down but he did see the target lying on the mall floor, having plummeted from the upper floor in a hail of glass.

"Aleph-2 to all points, Esus is down."

"Aleph-2, Beta-1, withdraw to the CP, we'll deal with the clean up." It was the English woman. "Do you copy?" Aleph-2 hesitated for a moment; he wanted to be there when they got rid of the body, as a sort of closure. "Aleph-2?"

"I copy, Beta-1." He said finally "Withdrawing now." He flipped the lens covers back over the ends of the scope, flicked the safety on and, cradling the rifle in his arm, crawled backwards towards the fire escape.

Gabriel had quickly caught up with Logan, he could see him on the landing above an across from him. He was about to shout up to the X-man when the glass around Logan had disintegrated and he had jerked away from it and fallen. Gabriel kept back, not wanting to get within the sniper's crosshairs. Keeping his back to the wall, Gabriel edged his way to the glass doors and looked out, coming straight at him were seven heavily-armed-dark-clad people. Behind him he could hear the tinkling sound of shifting glass as Logan stirred.

"Play dead for a moment Wolverine, the perps are coming this way." Gabriel jumped up to the top level and hugged the wall, he peeked out around the edge of the window and watched the team approach the mall, they were all clad in dark clothes and wearing bulky head socks, he could tell by the way they moved that they were professionals, and they seemed familiar to him too. Must've seen them in the Bayville SHIELD office, it's the only place I've really been. Gabe wondered why Fury would bring him here just to get rid of him; he had plenty of opportunity in the three days previous.

Gabriel leaned out through the ragged hole in the window and watched the team enter, two by two by three. He shook his head, something definitely stunk about this, just what, Gabriel didn't know.

Gabriel walked back to the opposite side of the gantry and climbed over the edge backwards so he was facing the window and, hooking his legs around the handrail, leaned back.

Now that he was upside down, he could easily reach down and grab one of the operatives while still remaining hidden in the shadows. He watched them trail under him, weapons up and aimed in Logan's direction. Gabriel waited until the last one, also the smallest, was under him and then struck. He grabbed the operative by the jaw and left arm, its trigger arm, and lifted the operative up quickly and, more importantly, quietly. He dragged his struggling captive up onto the gantry and pulled away her, now Gabriel had the woman up close he could tell, weapon. He pulled her into a corner and shoved her into it; he poked her in the stomach with her rifle.

"Stay there and be quiet." He told her, backing off and levelling the rifle at her stomach. "Now, I'm going to ask you a simple question; what are you doing here?" he whispered harshly. He pulled off the head sock to reveal an Asian woman in her mid twenties. She shot Gabriel a dark look and spat her answer.

"We are here to hunt a fugitive." Gabriel took a step back and was illuminated by the streetlight outside the window. He caught her look of surprise. "How did you..?" she half-asked, a moment went by and the conversation below echoed up to them.

Is it me, or is there very little blood and grey matter for a headshot? Moments went by as the Asian woman seemed to wrangle a difficult decision, Gabriel could guess what it was: call out to her team-mates and risk getting shot or stay quiet and let their prey get the drop on them.

Wait. Is that metal? The operative made up her mind, she took a deep breath to shout, her biggest mistake, Gabriel kicked her as hard as he could in her stomach then smashed the butt of the rifle into her neck, knocking her out cold. He caught a flash of the shoulder insignia as she doubled over, the SHIELD eagle on a black background, ringed by a silver crosshair. Underneath it were two words: SHIELD and STRIKE.

Metal?! Out of the way, let me look. Gabriel quietly ran along the gantry, towards the intersecting point, the centre of the mall. Halfway down he vaulted over the rail and, doubling back, slid down the banister of an escalator.

This isn't who I think it is, is it? Gabriel reached the bottom and ducked under a boulder that was part of some decorative piece. Listening to the conversation up ahead the operatives had hit a snag, as well as hitting a semi-immortal Canadian. They were panicking.

Uh… Gabriel took a close look at the rifle he had taken off of the woman; it was an H&K G-36; the German 5.56 NATO standard rifle. It wasn't as efficient as H&K's more famous machineguns but it was still fairly reliable.

What do you mean 'uh…'? Normally Gabriel would strip the weapon to check it was working but he didn't have the time or the light to do it in. He looped the shoulder strap over his shoulder and brought the G36 to his shoulder. He raised himself onto his haunches and crept around the rock to another in the planter; there were several rocks, all but two were upstanding, they were laid down like slabs in the dirt. Gabriel had a good view of the team all looking at the body of Logan lying still. Gabe could just about see Logan's face; he wasn't happy about the situation.

This is Weapon X! Why is he fuckin' here? Gabriel rested the elbow of his left arm on the boulder and looked down the optical sight, resting it over the person he figured was in charge.

And if Aleph-2 shot Weapon X, then where's Esus? Gabriel flicked the fire selector by his right thumb to burst-fire and tightened his finger on the trigger. He took a deep breath.

"Logan! Now!" he pulled the trigger, a hundred yards away his target was thrown back by three bullets making contact with her chest.

Logan struck fast, punching the first opponent he saw and ducked a salvo of fire that knocked over a third, then ran towards the spot he heard Gabriel shout and fire from. He covered the distance quickly and dive-rolled over the boulder, landing next to Gabriel.

"Who are they?" he asked the British operative as he forced the enemy into nearby shop doorways for cover.

"Hell knows, Logan." He pulled the trigger once more, hearing only a click-click-click of an empty chamber. "Aw hell." They looked at each other for a second "Run?" Gabe offered.

"Run." They bolted away from the boulder and round the rocks back towards where Gabriel had come. A couple of seconds went by, Logan and Gabriel barrelled around the corner of the intersection and straight for the glass doors, narrowly escaping a salvo of bullets. Regaining their balance they started the four hundred yard home stretch. They were running side by side, up until the team of operatives charged around the corner and fired at them, Logan's knees buckled as they were shot from under him, Gabriel got a couple of feet ahead when a searing, painful impact on his left shoulder pitched him forward. Gabriel forced himself to sit up, grimacing through the pain, as Logan pulled the bullets from his ruined leg.

Gabriel looked around at the approaching team; they had backed off and were slowly approaching them. "We ain't got much time, spook." Gabriel shot Logan a dark look as pulled Gabriel up to his feet.

"Well no shit, Sherlock." They took one last look at the approaching group before coming to a unanimous decision.

They smashed through the doors and, now that Logan's leg was healing they sprinted to Logan's bike and hopped on. Logan gunned the engine and they peeled out of the parking lot.

Several members of the operative team pushed through the doors in time to see the rising cloud of dust.

"Christ." Said one, known by the code sign 'Aleph-3'. The voice was deep, Spanish and male. The operative next to him nodded.

"Betsy's gonna be really pissed when she comes round." Said a familiar female American voice, designated Omega-1.

"How's Qi?" he caught his superiors look. "I mean, Beta-3."

"She's fine, Gabriel just knocked her out."

"Not the greatest start to her career."

"It's better than it should've been." Omega-1 said after a pause. "Gabriel doesn't usually let any opponent live if he can." She pulled off the head sock and combed a hand through her blonde hair. "The Gabriel I knew would have torn her apart."

Gabriel waited until they were at least a few miles from the mall before tapping Logan on the shoulder.

"Could we stop somewhere?" he shouted over the roar of the 'cycles engine, Logan nodded and pulled a hard right into a deserted alley. Gabriel got off and pulled his jacket off and then his shirt.

"What's wrong?" Logan asked him.

"I think the bullet's stuck in my shoulder". Gabriel pulled out his boot knife and offered it to Logan. "Could you?" he asked. Logan waved away the knife and popped a claw. Gabriel leaned against the alley wall and readied himself.

Logan dug his claw into the gunshot wound on Gabriel's left shoulder and felt around until he felt the claw scrap against the bullet.

"Got it, I'll have it out in a second." it took a little bit of tweaking but Logan soon had the bullet out and stuck on the end of the adamantium claw. Gabriel rolled his shoulder, grimacing through the pain, and looked at the bullet. He pulled the assault rifle from the bike, where he had jammed it in to stop it from dropping out, off of the back and pulled the magazine out and threw it into a nearby dumpster and began to strip the weapon; the barrel landed next to the magazine and the trigger mechanism and bolt soon followed, Gabriel stripped the firing mechanism down to it's barest components and bent the firing pin out of shape then tossed that with the chassis, job done he returned his attention to the rifle slug. He took it off of Logan and got back on the motorcycle. Logan got on and gunned the throttle. "So." He said "Is there any place I can drop ya off bub?" Gabriel was silent for a moment.

"Just drop me off by the diner, I'll make my own way from there."

"I've got a better idea, seeing how you have a group of gunmen after you why don't you lay low at Xavier's." Gabriel sighed; he knew, somehow, he would be going back there.

"Fine Logan, I'll take Xavier's offer." Logan gunned the throttle once more and drove down the alley and out the other side towards the mansion. "So what will I be teaching?" Gabriel asked loudly. Logan smiled wolfishly.

"Teaching? Who said anything about you teaching?"