Secret Warriors
White House – 9:25 PM
Coulson, Daisy and May crept through the halls of the White House. The adjacent hallways were secure according to Fitz, who was able to give them several extra pairs of eyes, thanks to his fireflies – a group of very small covert surveillance drones. Coulson knew that X-Force was a, well, force to be reckoned with. They were every bit as formidable and commanded just as much respect as the X-Men. Maybe even more so on both accounts.
As they made their way through the darkened halls, he had a decision to make. When they encountered X-Force, he knew that they were going to shoot to kill. The occasional dead body they came across was evidence of that. However, he wasn't sure if he and his team should do the same. Obviously, their lives took precedent over any others in his mind, but the consequences of taking particular lives weighed heavily.
X-23 was Wolverine's clone and adopted daughter; Cable was Cyclops' son from the future/alternate dimension/something. Intimate connections to the team they so desperately needed to help shift the balance of power in the incoming war in their favor dictated that he find some other way to incapacitate them. He knew that there was no such dilemma for them.
"When we come across X-23 and Cable, shoot to incapacitate. Everyone else is fair game," he said in a low voice.
May hummed in compliance.
=Secret Warriors are inbound,= Hill chirped through the comm. =ETA is fifteen minutes.=
Coulson nodded. "We may have to stall until they get here." Fifteen minutes was a long time. A very long time against an elite mutant kill squad like X-Force.
The three SHIELD agents reached the end of the current hallway and paused just before the corner. If Coulson was correct, they were just a few feet away from the main foyer. He was just about to ask Fitz to scout ahead for them when, "Criminey, who knew the president had such a big rack?"
He stifled a groan. Of all the people they could have encountered, why did it have to be Deadpool?
"I'd love to see her oval office, know what I'm saying? Haha, you know what I'm saying."
"That doesn't even make any sense," a woman replied.
"What? I'm saying that I'd like to see the oval office. I'm sure that she, being a woman, has a very fine sense of decoration and I am eager to see it in person before I put a bullet in her skull."
"I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant, Wilson." The woman sounded patient, but it also sounded like that patience was slipping by the second.
"I'd also like to have sex with her."
"And there it is. Wait, before or after you kill her?"
"After, of course! What am I, a barbarian? Sheesh," he replied, almost sounded appalled.
Whether it was a distraction tactic or he was just insane, Wade Wilson did not shut up. Ever. In fact, Coulson was sure that he was physically incapable of being quiet. He was like a deadlier, more perverse Spider-Man.
He kneeled down and peeked around the corner. The woman Deadpool was talking to was Neena Thurman. The woman known as Domino had the ability to, in short, make good luck for herself and bad luck for everyone else. Kind of like Black Cat. Needless to say, she needed to be taken out as quickly as possible.
With that in mind, he nodded to May. She replaced her handgun with an ICER and dove out into the open. Immediately, she opened fire, hitting Deadpool twice in the side. He dropped like a ton of bricks.
Unfortunately, Domino heard her when she rolled across the floor and was already moving when she fired. That preemptive motion caused her mutant ability to flare. The natural movements of her body were timed and placed perfectly to allow her to just barely dodge each of the shots. In one smooth motion, she whipped out both of her handguns and returned fire.
May was hit in the arm before she could duck behind the nearest cover.
"Damn it!" Coulson drew her attention by firing several rounds in her direction. Again, they all missed. Once Domino saw that she was in trouble, she wasn't going to stop moving. Meaning their shots were going to be barely miss, which was more frustrating with the added foreknowledge that they were going to miss anyway. It also meant that her team was going to know she was in trouble and come back her up.
They were going to be quickly outnumbered and outmatched, with backup still at least ten minutes away.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Daisy hanging back. While an area-of-effect style quake would have done wonders for their current problem, he was positive that no one actually wanted to the White House to be reduced to rubble. Not to question Daisy's level of control, but he didn't want to take any chances. Not when Domino wasn't going to be hit if she knew it was coming. Any and everything that happened was on his head and his alone.
But, then again, they didn't need her. He pulled his gold pen from his suit jacket pocket and dove out into the open. "May!"
She saw the pen and ducked down.
Coulson tossed the pen toward Domino. Predictably, she dodged it, thinking it was a knife. When it hit the wall, it clicked open, unleashing its hidden flash bang.
Domino screamed and clutched at her eyes.
May took that opportunity to hit her three times with the ICER, dropping her like a stone in the water. "That's two."
No sooner had the words passed through her lips, Deadpool suddenly sat up. "Hot damn that hurt like a sumbitch!" He glanced at May, then did a double take before he kicked up to his feet. "Holy shit, I was shot by Mulan."
May snarled and emptied her fresh clip in his direction.
Deadpool's arm blurred as he drew one of the swords on his back and deflected each of the bullets away. "Don't be upset because you had to dress in drag just to join the army. I bet the fanboy over there loves seeing you in drag, amirite?"
Coulson joined in shooting at Deadpool. Every shot was either deflected or dodged.
"Does Mulan wear a nice blonde comb-over wig, a tight, spangled uniform and chiseled prosthetic chin when she pegs you atop an American flag while 'God Bless America' plays softly in the background?"
"Will someone please shut this asshole up?!"
"I'll take that as a yes! Just wait until my Tumblr followers hear about this!"
There was nothing, nothing, more annoying that Deadpool when he opened his mouth. Coulson would gladly be tortured for five days by Viper, rather than listening to this man's insane ramblings for five minutes. Him talking while casually avoiding their attacks only made him more frustrating.
And he wasn't sure if he even knew how aggravating he was, which only made the entire thing that much more infuriating.
"We got company," Daisy informed.
Cable and Warpath came sprinting into the area.
"Honeybun! The mean drag queen and her bottom bitch are trying kill me!"
Not even a minute in and Coulson was already at his wit's end. He would gladly put up any amount of money necessary to end this loudmouth's life once and for all.
"SHIELD," Cable rumbled thoughtfully. "Do you understand why we're here?"
"To kill the President," he answered, thankful to have someone sane to speak to. "We obviously can't let you go through with that."
"And I can't let you stop us," he replied. "Simpson doesn't plan on deactivating the Sentinel program, so we're here to give the government some incentive. And besides, it's in our best interest to have someone in here who actually cares about mutants." As he spoke, he removed the insanely, ridiculously large laser rifle that was strapped to his back and powered it up. Its low hum echoed dangerously.
"There's a better way than this, Cable," Daisy insisted.
"No, there's not," Deadpool said. "We have to fight."
"Why?"
"Because this is an action chapter. We need action!" He opened fire on Daisy, who dove for cover beside May.
She retaliated by unleashing a shockwave that sent Deadpool flying and crashing into the wall behind him. "Cable, think! How will the government and military react if you kill the President? How will the public react? They already hate us for no reason; don't give them a legitimate reason to be afraid of us."
Cable's laser rifle spat out a large yellow beam that not only reduced the overturned table the two agents were using as cover to splinters, but also sent them flying into the next hallway. "Us?"
Daisy let out a pained groan as she rose to her feet. She rolled to her left to avoid a lunging Warpath and fired a shockwave to keep him away from May. "I'm a mutant just like you guys." She fired off another shockwave to keep Deadpool on the floor. "And I'm willing to work with humans because I know there are more good ones that bad ones. SHIELD, despite the bad rap we've gotten, wants to help people like us. We can't do that if you don't let us."
Cable was the most sensible member of the team, by far. Trying to reach out to him was the best possible course. And Daisy had an automatic connection with him through genetics. Coulson stood back and let her handle it.
"That's true," Cable admitted. "But the humans who don't want to help us, the ones that want to kill us, are far more influential. Simpson is one of those."
"You don't know that." A brief, but powerful rumble through the House and sent Cable stumbling off his feet. "You don't know that she doesn't want to help us."
"And you don't know that she isn't. If she was, then the sentinels wouldn't still be harassing us. People like Osborn wouldn't still be walking the streets as a free man after experimenting on mutants. Trask would have been locked up in prison for all the crap he's been pulling behind the scenes. The MRD wouldn't be able to openly kidnap mutants and ship them off to sentinel factories to die. Mutant corpses wouldn't be used as fodder for their bio-sentinel army. If Simpson, as you say, cared about us, then she would have put a stop to all of this months ago. But she didn't; she's allowed this to continue in the shadows, so she needs to go and be replaced with someone who will stand up to the inhuman abuse of her own citizens."
He rose to his feet slowly. Suddenly, he thrust his hand out toward Daisy. An unseen force sent her flying into a wall hard enough to leave a dent.
Again, Daisy rose to her feet. She coughed, expelling a glob of blood that splattered over her hand. She looked like she wanted to argue, but she couldn't.
"Not to mention the MRD is still operational, despite being unnecessary with the Avengers and X-Men around," Warpath added from behind her. The massive Native American drew a pair of vibranium knives. "Face it agent, there's nothing you can say or do to stop us. You don't have that moral high ground you like to wave around. Not here." He dashed forward, knife pointed outward.
Daisy just barely managed to duck out of the way, but still suffered a deep cut across her ribcage. She could feel the warm blood bubbling out of the wound. A harsh hiss leaked out from between her clenched teeth.
By that point, Cable had his wits back about him and was closing in on her. A simple flick of his wrist had Coulson flying through a door leading to another room. With May still down from Cable's initial attack, Daisy was all alone.
She knew how dangerous the two mutants closing in on her were, so she forced herself to disregard the burning pain in her side. "I… won't let you… go through with this," she gritted out in between labored breaths.
"You don't have a choice in the matter, traitor." Warpath threw one of his knives at her at blinding speed.
Out of instinct alone, she generated a shockwave to block the knife. The weapon landed on the ground with a loud clatter. "I'm not a traitor."
Cable fired several more blasts. Daisy kept nimbly dodging, despite the pain in her side flaring violently with every twisting movement. "You are, because you would fight for them rather than us, your own kind."
Her teeth remained gritted. "I don't just fight for humans. I fight for everyone who can't fight for themselves." She barely noticed Warpath surging toward her and managed to duck under his slash. Doing so, however, left her wide open to Cable, who didn't let the chance slip away.
The ensuing blast sent her flying and slamming into the same wall as before. "Ow…"
Cable calmly approached her and pressed the barrel of his rifle against her back of her head. "You can't win against the both of us. Not by yourself."
Daisy grunted and managed to rise to her hands and knees, despite the heavy rifle weighing her head down. "You're right," she admitted, easily.
At that, they looked confused. "Then why are you wasting our time? Stand down and let us handle our business. I don't want to kill you if I can help it."
"She was stalling for time," came a reply from behind them. Before they could react, a powerful arc of electricity washed over them. They screamed out, then collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain. The stream continued until they were both unconscious.
"'Bout time you guys got here," Daisy said with a pained grin.
The Secret Warriors, SHIELD's response team for any and all Gifted threats. J.T. James, aka Hellfire; a short, auburn-haired young man with the ability to channel hellfire through his enchanted chain. He also sported a stylish goatee. Lincoln Campbell, codename pending; a tall, blonde electrokinetic. He was also an Inhuman, the very first such SHIELD agent. Yo-yo Rodriguez, aka Slingshot; a Puerto Rican woman with a unique version of super speed. She was the daughter of supervillain Griffin. Jerry Sledge, aka Stonewall; a massive, hulking man with no hair. He had the ability to mimic any surface he touched, transferred to him somehow from his father, Absorbing Man. Alex Aaron, aka Phobos; the reincarnation of the Greek God of Fear and the demigod son of Ares, Greek God of War. They were all dressed in some variation of SHIELD's traditional blue jumpsuit/white gloves and boots uniforms.
Lincoln hurried over to her and helped her to her feet. "Are you okay?"
Much to her consternation, the adrenaline from the battle faded quickly, unleashing the full, unyielding pain from her collective injuries. As soon as it hit, she nearly collapsed, and would have had Lincoln not been holding her. "I…I've definitely seen better days. Sure took your sweet time getting here."
May shot Warpath and Cable with the ICER for good measure. She went to do the same to Deadpool, but saw that he was gone. "Damn it. There are two more here somewhere. X-23 and Deadpool. Find them and take them down; the latter with extreme prejudice. Coulson and I will find the President and get her out of here."
Daisy nodded and led her team down the hallway that began on the other side of the foyer. "Stay sharp. Kinney has all of Wolverine's abilities."
"But not his adamantium skeleton, right?" Yo-yo asked. She was a several feet ahead of everyone when she turned the corner leading to an especially darkened corridor.
"Right. But, she's still just as dangerous and just as deadly. If not more so. Stay sharp. Give us some light, Lincoln. Fitz, anything up ahead?"
Lincoln snapped his fingers, producing a ball of ambient electricity that powered the lights as they walked. When they passed by a light, the electricity would then jump to the next light source to power it. The illumination revealed streaks of blood splattered across the wall, floor and a little on the ceiling.
"Christ. This kid doesn't care," Stonewall whispered.
X-23 – or technically Talon, as that was her official codename for the New X-Men – was bred in a facility whose goal was to recreate the Weapon X experiments. Namely, Wolverine. They failed 22 times, then finally succeeded with her. She was bred to be a weapon, nothing more. She was a killer for hire, loaned out to clientele for a hefty price to kill a wide range of high-profile targets. It wasn't until her surrogate mother, Sarah Kinney, fled with her from the facility that she, Laura, had a chance at a real life. Her genetic progenitor, Wolverine, made sure of that.
How that translated to her being on a kill squad was anyone's guess. But since he was a member as well, they could only assume she insisted.
=No sign of Simpson or Talon,= Fitz reported.
That was both a relief and a bad sign. Talon was an exceptional hunter, and none of the Secret Warriors had any kind of senses to alert them that they were being followed.
=Wait—=
"NO!" a woman screamed from further down the hall. "STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY BACK, YOU MONSTER!"
It sounded like Simpson. Daisy and the team sprinted down the hall as fast as they could. As they got closer to where the yelling originated from, they could hear panting, grunting and what sounded like several swords being pulled from their scabbards.
"AAAAAGGGGHH!" screamed a man.
Slingshot was first to reach the noise. She saw President Simpson huddled in the very far corner of a small room. There were three dead Secret Service members piled up just in front of the opening to the room she was in.
A young girl, no older than sixteen, was stalking toward the president, two pairs of razor sharp adamantium claws extended from the backs of her hands. Light from the full moon outside filtered into the room, reflecting off the blood dripping from them to give them an eerie glint.
"STAY BACK!"
In a heartbeat, Slingshot dashed forward and knocked Talon to the ground as hard as she could. She had super speed, but it wasn't conventional super speed. She could only go as far as was possible in a single heartbeat, then she would rebound, as it were, back to her original starting point. This couldn't change. During her SHIELD training, however, she improved how many things she could do in a single heartbeat.
After rebounding, she dashed forward again, grabbed the president and rebounded back outside the room. "Find somewhere to hide! Go!"
She nodded shakily and ran into the darkness to a nearby closet.
When Slingshot saw that she ran inside it, she turned just in time to dodge out of the way of a pair of claws dangerously close to gutting her. Her fist blurred and impacted Talon's jaw, whipping her head around. She didn't waste a moment and tackled her through a table. "Stay down," she gritted out. They wrestled on the floor, and she managed to pin her arms above her head.
Talon struggled to gain just a little bit of leverage. A little bit was all she needed. "No!" She kicked Slingshot off of her and rolled to her feet. The next instant, she was propelling herself through the air, claws first. They missed and sunk into the floor where she had been laying just a second earlier.
Slingshot rebounded and landed a hard right hook.
The punch sent Talon spinning, but she used the momentum to launch a roundhouse kick. It was dodged, barely. As her foot passed by Slingshot's face, a claw popped out and deeply cut her right above the eye.
"AAAAH! Dammit!" Blood dripped from the cut like a faucet, making her instinctively take a moment to wipe the blood away before it got into her eye.
Talon didn't waste any time and was lunging again, claws first. This time, though, a shockwave from Daisy had her crashing into a wall.
"Stand down," Daisy ordered.
Talon slowly rose to her feet, eyes narrowed as she surveyed the situation. The team had her outnumbered five to one. They had three different people with ranged attacks, of which she had none. One was too durable for her to harm, and another was too fast to injure without luck. There was only one, Phobos, but given his name, she was wary.
The only light available was Lincoln. If he went down, things would get interesting.
Suddenly, something rolled on the floor. "Flash—" The tremendous burst of light cut the warning off. Everyone, including Talon, was blinded.
"I'm here, Junior," Deadpool called out. He, as the only one actually able to see, pulled out both automatic handguns and opened fire of the blinded agents. He hit Hellfire twice in the chest, and Lincoln in the shoulder and neck. They both went down in bloodied heaps. "I'm going for the high score!"
"Goddamn it!" Daisy blindly fired off shockwave after shockwave. She could only hear the sound of plywood being reduced to splinters, but never hit anyone of import.
"The AI in this game is godawful. Was it made by EA?" He chuckled and ducked behind her to slice through both her hamstrings.
Daisy screamed and collapsed to the floor.
The only three left standing were still feeling the effects of the flash bang. Talon quickly stabbed Slingshot in the stomach, and tried to do the same to Stonewall.
He was far too durable for her claws to penetrate deeply. He blindly grabbed the claws that were barely stabbed into his chest. His abilities absorbed and then mimicked the adamantium's properties.
"Well, shit," Deadpool remarked as he watched his skin turned silver, turning him into a living adamantium statue.
"You won't stop us," Talon stated.
"I would disagree," Phobos said. His hardened gaze matched her. Her feral eyes were unwavering for all of a few seconds before dilating. She backed away, limbs shaking like a newborn doe. "For all your ferocity and savagery, you're still just a kid, like me." He stepped toward her, his eyes never leaving hers.
Talon stammered out a soft reply, so quietly that no one heard what she said. As he approached her, she kept backing away, quickly until the corner she ran into prevented her from backing away any further. She sunk down and covered her head. "No, stay away," she pleaded desperately.
"Hey, what gives?" Deadpool tried to shoot Phobos from behind, but Stonewall jump in his line of fire. The bullets pinged harmlessly off his chest. "Hey, wait your turn, Colossus!"
"As for you." Phobos retreated from a practically comatose Talon and turned his attention to Deadpool.
"Ooh, is it my turn?" He dashed forward and slid under Stonewall to get to Phobos. "All aboard the pain train, Kiddo." He raised his handgun faster than either agent could react. Before he could fire, however, he made the mistake of looking into Phobos' eyes.
In a world without chimichangas…
A quake of fear shivered through Deadpool's entire body, causing him to drop his handgun. The gun landed on the floor with a clatter. "No," he whispered.
...and where Ryan Reynolds was never born.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The president was saved. X-Force was loaded onto SHIELD transport vehicles equipped with power dampeners, and taken to the Raft. The Secret Warriors were luckily all alive, though some were severally injured. Even with SHIELD's advanced medically technology, they were going to be on the shelf for a while. Predictably, President Simpson was seething once the assassination attempt was thwarted. "If it's a war they want, it's a war they've got," she hissed at Coulson, looking him dead in the eyes. He could see the anger and almost burgeoning hatred seeping out of every visible pore.
He couldn't blame her. He himself was beside himself that four capable agents were injured due to X-Force's presence. Almost killed for what? A political statement? While he could see the need to make their presence known to the world, this wasn't the right way to go about it.
Instead of doing all she could to avert war, as was likely to be the case after their meeting, Simpson was likely going to dig her heels in and push back. It was simply the way humans operated. Get pushed, push back just as hard, if not harder. That was doubly the case for the United States of America. They wouldn't and shouldn't let something like this go unanswered.
Magneto had been doing all the pushing so far; humanity was about to push back.