Chapter X
Soon the away teams were settled into their safe houses, while the rest of X-Men stayed at the mansion. They needed to be near cerebra, and the jets in case of another big emergency. They also were anticipating another attack on the mansion. No one but the X-Men knew of the children being moved. They were also preparing a team to go hunt down the Hand's hideout for Mind-freak.
Wire was leading that team with Wail. They were only sending the best trackers, and fighters. Wire went through the roster of people who stayed at the mansion. She went over them with a fine toothed comb to find out who would be best to take with her. She had gotten Wolverine to give her all the info on the Hand that he had or could get. That, unfortunately, ended up being almost nothing. The person she needed to talk to was Elektra, but she was out of the country on a job. Laura was her first choice. She thought about taking Sooraya but didn't want her to have to do anything she would regret. So she decided to keep her at the mansion. Ghost would go, and so would Demon. That would complete her team. She wanted to leave the rest to protect the mansion. They had so much here. If Cerebra were to fall in to the wrong hands, that alone could decimate the rest of the mutants. Not to mention the black file that Xavier had created on strategies that were for wining at all costs. It also included weaknesses for various dangerous mutants if they ever became difficult. She wasn't supposed to know this but the Cuckoos had stumbled upon the file and told Ghost about it.
Wire left to gather her team. They all met in the hanger. Emma, Scott and Logan also showed up. Logan pulled Laura to the side.
"You keep them safe, Laura. I want you to come back with everyone that leaves you hear me. And don't you die either; hell, you're one of my last blood relatives".
"Understood. Although it would be more effective to bring the healer Foley with us if you wish for everyone to come back as they left" Laura said. She was cold and calculating as ever.
Emma was giving Ghost a couple of tips on his combative telepathy. He generally liked to fall back on his telekinesis but this needed to be an in and out job. She told him how to sever all motor functions from the brain. She also told him that he shouldn't be afraid of hurting them because they would have no problem hurting him. Pixie had given him a few spells to use as well. One of which was a fun one. It would take all five senses from everyone in the intended area. He just had to make sure that he wasn't focusing on any teammates at the time. The spell would last twelve hours. The other two were simple ones. One was a fireball spell and the other was a spontaneous combustion spell.
"Pixie I think you may have a problem with Charmed. You may be addicted" Ghost told her.
"Nah I have it under control. I just get ideas from it" she replied.
Wire's team said their goodbyes and left in the X-Wing. It was a modified b-2 spirit bomber, and was made for stealth missions, Beast had also upgraded it with Shi'ar technology. X took her normal place in the pilots chair, her second was Wire. Ghost was in the back using the onboard Cerebrix that Beast and Emma had installed yesterday. Caleb was asleep, conserving his energy. Yeah he was the strong man on the team, and the so called tank but he didn't have unlimited resources, he wasn't the Hulk. So long as the baddies weren't using .50 cal ammo or vibranium and adamantium he would be fine. If they were, then he was gonna have to turn up the heat. He could turn on his demonic form powers and make the air around him hot enough to cook a human body like a skewered pig. But that would be a last resort. While Ms. Frost had told them to use lethal force, he didn't relish in taking a life, even if it was from someone who wanted nothing more then to wipe Caleb and the rest of his kind off the face of the world. Wail also was conserving his strength for the oncoming battle. He didn't have any powers but he was trained in enough martial arts that he could hold his own against Iron Fist, and he was carrying enough weapons and ammo that he could take down a few hundred targets with ease. He also had military training. Mind-Freak had paid a bundle for him to be trained but the german GSG 9. They had put him through his paces while wearing a power dampening collar. So he didn't really need to worry about not being prepared.
Ghost had locked on to the HAND operative that Wail had been interrogating in the ally behind a bar with Cerebrix. The man was going back to a warehouse were rookies were trained. Ghost centered on the warehouse and found that there was a head of the clan there. So if they could get in and get out without letting the rest of the baddies send out an sos they should be able to find Mind-Freak.
"Hey Wail Your informant is going back home. He's headed toward a warehouse over in Jersey. As if we didn't have enough problems already, Jersey sucks" Ghost said over his shoulder.
"Good, now we can get the head guy there. Ghost you are going to stay with the plane when we get there..."
"Uh no I am not, this is the frigging hand, I am not letting my friends go in there alone, and no you don't count, you're a stranger and I don't trust you" Ghost.
"News flash casper you're a psychic, they are protected from you. The boss most likely has his on psions there, just for that reason. Pixie gave you a spell that could cripple them for a few hours, you will be protecting your friends. Besides Wire trusts me that should mean something" Wail.
"Wail I trust you to use the chloroform gas grenade on us once you know his location, otherwise no I don't trust you" Wire said grimly. She knew he had been planning that one all along.
"I will put it this way CHILDREN you will go by my command until this mission is done or I can use the gas now, and let Ghost try to save all of you. Wire you know how badly I would hate to do that, but I will to get Mind-Freak back" Wail.
"People we are coming up on the docks, I will start the landing, you need to buckle up, and we will work under Wail's and my leadership, we know more on the hand then the rest of you, and we have been trained for this" X-23.
Ghost sat back and put on his seat belt. He felt the shock of touching down and took the seat belt back off and walked to the back of the plane with everyone else. X and Wail were check the guns and ammunitions and loading up, while Wire was turning into her metal form. Demon however had yet to change. This being a very dangerous mission, Ghost thought that Caleb would have fought full power but Caleb wasn't changing.
"Caleb, don't you think that you should let out your full demon?" Ghost asked.
"N….…" BooooMMMMMM. The front of the X-Wing exploded inward with flames. Demon felt his large black leathery wings rip through the flesh of his back and cover him. He felt shrapnel and flames rush past him and at his friends. He willed the flames back, but felt something pushing the flames even closer. "Ghost get a shield up around Wail and X, so that they can get out." Caleb yelled over the fire.
"Been there did that, they're gone." Ghost yelled back. He looked at the fire and saw a something walking through it. It was a woman! She had scarlet hair, and half of her face was whited out. She wore only a leather jacket wit two belts crossing her chest, on top. The left pant leg was torn to reveal ripped fishnet stockings. She had tattoos in many places, most of Japanese characters. As she walked through the fire, it flared away from her. Ghost felt something tickling at his mind. Then he saw a knife fly at his head. It hit the shield and stuck.
"Hello boys, how are you doing today? Anything I can get you, how about your corpses roasted with this plane shoved up your asses." She said.
"Who the hell are you." Demon demanded.
"Get the *#$ out of dodge you dumb-asses." Wail yelled up from the ground.
"Wail, honey bunch o' love, is that you" She asked seductively.
"Mary leave them alone and come face me, I know that is what you really want, isn't it." Wail said. Wail felt a hand on his shoulder on saw X standing beside him.
"You and Ghost deal with her, I will take the others and we will get to the target, unless you have other options" X said.
"No, I need to go, in I am not letting you go in there being the only protection those kids have. Ghost and Wire can handle her. She isn't that bad." Wail.
"Okay…. We can do that but hurry the hell up" Ghost said teleporting himself and Demon out into the field. Wail, X, and Demon ran to the building. Wail turned mid step and shouted at Ghost, but he couldn't hear it and his telepathy was out. Why was his telepathy out, Ghost thought?
Wire ran back toward the plane but was knocked away by one of the struts of the landing gear. Typhoid Mary now floated above the broken and burned jet. She was laughing maniacally like most mental patients. She ripped a panel of metal off the wing and hurled it at Ghost and Wire. Ghost stopped it a few feet in front of his shield and threw it back. Typhoid just flung it in another direction. Mary's eyes glowed orange and Ghost felt his body set aflame. Ghost let his soul fall out of the body and watched as the body burned to a crisp.
…...
X-23 ran down a corridor and found a small army waiting for her. Before her claws were even fully out of their sheaths, shuriken and kunai knives were flying toward her at an alarming speed. X jumped up and rammed her right hand claws into the ceiling while raising herself up out the weapons' path. The ninja started their assault but it was X who drew first blood. She dropped down, letting gravity give her enough strength to cleave the first ninja's head in half. And from him to the next and next it came easy. It was something she new how to do, something that she was very good at. X made it to the back of the hall where the stairs where and planted the claw in her foot, into the soft tissue under a jaw of another nameless, faceless body. He was dead in an instant. X looked back to see Wail and Demon coming after her. "I will take these stairs, there is another set three halls over, you two take those. We meet up on the third floor." X said. She ran up the flight of stairs, not waiting for a reply.
Wail and Demon ran to the other set in silence. They met little resistance. There was only one guard at the door to the stairs. Wail shot the man and opened the door. He found about thirty ninja waiting behind the door. Wail immediately closed the door and moved behind Demon. "Okay boy your turn. Keep me alive and I will make sure your compensated for it." Wail said, pulling his shotgun around to his front.
"I didn't intend to leave you behind, if that is what you're implying. Don't worry, as long as you don't pull some psycho-homicidal-suicidal shit like Wolverine we're good." Demon said, he let his wings slip out of his skin and felt the bone in the tip of his tail grow out of the skin and shape into a serrated arrow head. Demon ripped the door of its hinges and let out a hellish roar form it deepest core. Fire streamed from his mouth, his eyes turned to black glass, and the skin of his right arm split open letting fire and magma flow out. Most of the Hand ninja readied their weapons and while a few bowed to the floor, thinking Demon to be their god, The Beast. Demon ran through the group, slamming into blades of steel that bounced off of his skin. Any of them left standing Wail took care of with the buckshot in his shotgun.
Wail and Demon made it to the third floor without any other incidents. They turned left down another corridor and found X. She was in the middle of running her left claws from the groin up to the sternum of a guard. The man's entrails fell on the floor along with him. X turned and waved them over to her. "The target is behind the next set of doors. They will use magic against us. I can feel a change in the air beginning. They are planning something big. Demon, you are resistant to magic. So you are our first line of defense. Use every bit of power you have, do not hold back, if we are to survive this, then we need all of the strength we can get." X said moving to the big red double doors.
Demon let all of his "inner demon" come out. His wings extended to their full 18 Ft from tip to tip. The hardened boney arrow head on the tip of his tail started to glow from the inside. The skin on his left arm was completely consumed in fire, the flames crawling over his left pec, the skin of his right pec starting to crack open. "All right get ready, I'm going in." Demon said. He summoned a fire ball into his hand and blew the doors in with it. Demon ran in and flapped his wings at the twelve guards and the target behind them. The gust was strong enough to blow them to the floor, and the heat of the wind singed their skin. X leapt over demon and began hacking her way toward the old man. He was still sitting in lotus on the floor. While his skin was sizzling he only chanted. Wail came in and knocked the old man unconscious and threw him over his shoulder.
…...
"Great now I only have a few hours till a reaper shows up." Ghost whispered looking at his burned body on the ground. Wire sent her barbed cables up at the woman but to no avail. She had a telekinetic shield blocking any physical attacks.
"Ghost I can't get through, you got any ideas, damn skanky hoe" Wire yelled. She pushed off the ground, with all of the combined strength in her metal legs and her cables. She was hurtling at the shield at what had to be about 79 to 85 mph. When she hit, she felt it crack. Wire saw the crack spider out from her point of impact. Typhoid didn't look all that tough anymore.
"Wire keep hitting her like that and we can get through. I don't know how she still has her powers, but I intend to find out. I'm gonna see if one of the spells that Pixie gave will work on her." Ghost yelled back. Wire landed on the ground a mere twenty feet from Ghost and pounced again. This time going above the shield and coming down on top of it. The impact force the bubble down to the ground making a crater. Ghost, meanwhile, chanted under his breath the spell for making someone lose all five senses.
"I bind thy senses Mary, so you may do no harm to others and to thine self." Ghost repeated this three times, and saw that it wasn't working. As Wire continued her assault on the shield, Ghost teleported to Wail.
"Dude I tried the no sense spell but it isn't working. What the hell?" Ghost.
"If you are having to say her name then…" Wail blocked a punch from a ninja mid sentence and put the man down with a double tap from his silenced sig sauer. "Then you need to know which personality you are dealing with. Now tell me how she is reacting to things. Is she still trying to be seductive?"
"No. She has gone on the offensive. She just keeps building up layers onto her shield, and throwing shrapnel from the jet at us. She already killed my body. Wire has come close to getting through a couple of times, but that just seemed to piss her off." Ghost.
"Then you're dealing with Typhoid Mary. Be glad it isn't Bloody Mary. Try your spell with that name instead. Mary is just the mid personality. Hurry, if she turns into Bloody Mary then I may have to explain to Emma why I didn't bring you back with me." Wail.
"Got it." Ghost teleported back and redid the spell but with the new name and while imagining tying a ribbon around a photo of Typhoid Mary. After three repeats of the incantation, it worked. Mary fell to the ground screaming. Her shield got bigger, but she was no longer a threat. Ghost looked over at what was left of his body. It wasn't on fire anymore, just smoldering, black, extra crispy. At least that would have been how Santo had put it. Ghost started to worry. He couldn't hang around much longer, not with all of the death going on inside. A reaper was sure to show up soon, or worse. Wraiths could already be near, and they would just eat him. No after life, just darkness.
"Ghost if you need to go back to the mansion then go, we can hold out till they send us a new transport. That would be better, you can go grab Pixie and get us the hell out of here." Wire said running toward the building. She rammed through the front door and kept going, not leaving Ghost any other choice. But then Ghost got an idea. Ghost flew into the building looking for an unconscious body. If the body was asleep then it would be fairly easy for Ghost to possess it. He flew past about 40 dead bodies until he found one still breathing. The body was of a grunt ninja, and it had only been shot in the knee. Ghost jumped into the body. He felt the young man struggle against him but he was no match. Ghost suppressed the teen and used his t.k. to hover the floor. Ghost went up to the second floor and found Wail carrying the boss over his shoulder. The man was out cold and the others weren't far behind him. Demon stopped to pick up a battle ax and chunk it at the legion of ninja chasing them down the corridors. The ax went over their heads by half an inch, but close enough to make them hit the floor. X-23 turned and opened fire on them with her automatic riffle.
Wail was the first to see the ninja standing in their way. Wail pulled out his gun and pointed but the ninja disappeared in a puff of fog. He continued on down the stairs and saw the same man standing by the exit, Wails only exit. He pulled his trigger and dropped the ninja where he stood. What Wail saw next surprised him and everyone else following. Ghost floated up out of the body, pulling another spirit with him. The other spirit dissipated once Ghost let go of him.
"Dammit, what the hell dude, I body jacked that guy for a reason you know. I would have thought you knew it was me when I didn't attack." Ghost said rubbing his forehead with his index finger, the same spot the bullet went through.
"I didn't know it was you. Teleport back to the mansion and get Pixie. We need to get gone like now!" Wail said running past Ghost and outside. The group kept running until they came to the wreckage of the X-Wing.
"Demon grab Mary, she's coming with us." Wail yelled back as he passed Mary. She was lying on the ground in the fetal position, weeping silently. Ghost and Wire had succeeded in bring her down before she became Bloody Mary. If there was one thing he knew about his ex, it was that her last personality was the most sadistic, evil bitch on this earth, with the exception of Mind-Freak. Wail looked back and saw Demon pick Mary up and carry her in his arms. X and Wire bringing up the rear. Ghost teleported back to the mansion to get Pixie.