The Pirate Crew Pt. 3
Previously: Marrow cut loose in a battle with Somali rebels and earned the ire of Blind Faith. Havok and his team attacked a school turned into the HQ for a warlord. M runs telepathic interference, but is attacked by three members of Ahab's crew. And now she finds herself face to face with the captain himself….
"So it seems pretty lady that we have ourselves a bit of a problem," Ahab smiled from atop his hover cycle. "You're surrounded and vastly outnumbered. These men will blow you to pieces if I say so."
M returned the smile. It was as slick and cool as Ahab's had been. She pointed at Ahab and said, "Shoot her down now!"
The angry rebels leveled their weapons at Ahab and began to fire an erroneous cacophony of bullets at him. He bobbed and weaved through the hail managing to break around the corner of a pot marked building. Raising their weapons into the air and shouting threats of violence, the Somali rebels took off after Ahab.
Sometimes being a telepath has its benefits, M thought to herself as she turned to walk back to the school.
Before she could even turn her body fully, a large black fist struck her across the face and sent her crashing into a burnt out car and becoming enwrapped in it. Daggoo rubbed his knuckles with his other hand and said, "That was a dirty trick you played on the captain!"
Queequeg and Fedallah jumped out of the hole that M's body had previously created and they applauded their crewmate for a well-executed attack. Somehow managing to breathe despite his broken ribs, Queequeg said, "I doubt she's getting up from that one."
"Good. Now we need to go and help the captain," Fedallah said. "Those stupid Africans are going to eat him alive!"
Daggoo cut his eyes at the mustard-skinned Hound. "I'm African."
"You know what I mean! Let's just go!"
"Why leave so soon? We thought the party was just getting started," Havok said as he jumped out of the hole in the school with Shatterstar and two dozen Madrox dupes flanking him. They were all carrying Uzis in both of their hands. "Or did our invitations just have the wrong time Daggoo?"
Daggoo flashed eyes of hate at Havok. "How did you know my name?"
Cosmic energy began to surround Havok's fists. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Madrox!"
The dupes stepped forward and fired their weapons in the direction of the three men. Bullets roared through the air and streaked towards the Hounds. Havok wasn't too fond of the use of automatic weapons, but he would use whatever he had to if it meant getting the job done. This wasn't his brother's X-Men and sometimes accomplishing peaceful ends meant using violent means.
Stretching out his long spindly fingers, Fedallah's black fingernails turned white and he waved his hands in the air in one smooth motion. A sparkling force field surrounded the three men and the bullets of the dupes bounced off harmlessly. The Hound stuck out a long blue tongue and began to bounce back and forth like a child. "You gonna have to do better than that!"
Alex intended to oblige the request. He thrust both of his fists in front of him and two streams of glowing gold radiation rushed forward to slam into the Hound's force field. Summers power triumphed again because the force field was completely shattered and two powerful blasts hit Fedallah square in the chest. The Hound was flung back and flew over the car that M had been shunted into. He hit the ground with a thud and was out cold.
Daggoo and Queequeg had dodged the attack and were quickly moving to take out Havok. He was the man that their captain had called the hunt on and if he was removed from the picture then they could get out of Somali in one piece. Twirling both of his machetes, Queequeg reared one arm back and flung his weapon towards Havok.
Shatterstar ran forward and jumped in the path of the spinning weapon. He caught it mid-air and slung it into the dirt. Unsheathing one of his swords, Shatterstar said, "I'll only use one to be fair."
Queequeg came to a halt and gritted his teeth at Shatterstar's insult. "You'd be better off using both of your poking sticks. You're gonna need them."
=X=
Daggoo was still moving full speed at Havok. Alex was firing cosmic discharge after cosmic discharge at the Hound, but Daggoo was too fast. He was dodging all of them. In a moment he would be atop Havok and Alex knew he was done in close combat. Daggoo's bio-cybernetic suit made him incredibly strong and those blades protruding from his elbow would turn Alex into people sushi.
Havok took the only option available to him and began to run as fast he could from Daggoo. He would wait until The Hound got close enough and let off a full body blast. Alex knew that those could be dangerous and he still didn't have full control of them. A whole city block could be consumed if he wasn't careful, but it was either that or be skewered.
Figuring that Daggoo would be upon him any second, Havok turned and saw…nothing. Daggoo was on the ground and if Alex had to guess, Marrow was on top of The Hound.
"Didn't know you could book it like that Alex," Pipeline teased as he ran to Havok's side with a laser rifle holstered over his shoulder. Behind him was Blind Faith.
"How did Madrox manage to beat you guys here?" Havok asked. His voice had more anger in it than he wanted to portray, but he had nearly been a piece of meat on a cutting board. That wouldn't exactly lift someone's spirits.
Pipeline detected how his leader was feeling. He had spent enough time with Alex in Genosha to know when he was ticked. "I sent Madrox ahead of the rest of us. Alexi still had a few people he needed to try and pull some information from."
Trying to catch his breath, Havok said, "First, Madrox shouldn't have gone alone. Second, I hope you found out something worthwhile. Wvarista was a bust."
"We have the Genegineer's exact location," Blind Faith said. "And quite a few details about his operation."
"Good, once we get past—
"Get down!" Pipeline yelled as he shoved Havok to the dirt. Their bodies hit hard as Marrow flew over them.
The Morlock slammed into the school wall and bounced off of it after a bone-crushing crunch. After getting back to his feet, Havok immediately rushed over to Marrow and scooped her up in his arms. "Talk to me Marrow!"
Spitting up blood, Marrow said, "Don't yell…upworlder."
Havok looked up from Marrow and saw Daggoo charging again. This time, things would be different. "Blind Faith! Subdue him!"
Alexi zeroed his vision in on Daggoo and began to emit hypnotic waves from his eyes. Daggoo's charge wasn't being halted by the telepathic assault. Grimly, Alexi turned back to Havok and said, "He's resistant to telepathy!"
"Figures!" Pipeline said as he jumped in front of the Russian and fired off his laser rifle. With military precision, the blast struck Daggoo in the face and flipped him on his stomach.
"Good job Pipeline," Havok said with Marrow still in his arms. "We may need an extraction immediately."
"What about Genegineer?" Cormic asked.
"I refuse to put Marrow's life at risk."
Marrow pushed away from Havok and stood to her feet even though it was obvious she was in pain. "Only a few broken bones. They'll repair themselves. Spine already has."
By this time, Daggoo was already back on his feet and closer than ever to the mutants. His face was heavily burnt from Pipeline's laser fire, but it was quickly fixing itself. The flesh was knitting itself back together and growing new skin to replace what was burned beyond repair. Daggoo wasn't waiting until he was fully renewed. Only a few yards away from the mutants, Daggoo charged forward.
Pipeline shot off another blast that Daggoo dodged this time and it was too late to stop him. He uppercut Havok and knocked X-Force's leader into the air. Daggoo tried to slash Blind Faith across the chest with his elbow blade, but Pipeline pulled the priest back in time. Falling on top of Pipeline, Blind Faith said, "Thank you."
"Thank me by getting off," Pipeline replied.
Ignoring her own pain, Marrow jabbed a bone dagger into Daggoo's armpit and kicked him in the back of his knee. The Hound fell to his knees and cried out in pain. He had about enough of the pink skinned woman and her bones. Reaching around with the arm that didn't have a weapon jabbed into it, Daggoo began to choke The Morlock.
"You are a tiresome little rat!" Daggoo said as he began to squeeze.
"Oh you don't know the half of it!" M said to Daggoo's shock. In Monet's hands was the very same car that he had punched her into.
He didn't have any time to respond before M slammed the vehicle into him and sent him blowing straight into the school. The building buckled from the impact. It probably couldn't take too many more impacts like that. Dusting her hands off, M landed next to Marrow and asked, "Are you okay?"
Marrow snarled at Monet. "Rats get by just fine."
"Good," M said as she looked around her and noticed that two people were missing. "Where's Madrox and Abyss?"
"You're the TP. You should know," Marrow said as she stood to her feet a little easier than she had before.
M sucked her teeth and closed her eyes as she reached out to find Jamie's mind. "Oh no. They've gone after that creep alone."
=X=
Shatterstar blocked Queequeg's first attack and kicked the feet out from under The Hound. Queequeg hit the ground hard and kicked up dirt as he did so. Shatterstar sent his sword in a downward thrust to be quickly blocked by Queequeg's machete. The two's muscles bulged as they tried to make the other yield. At that moment Queequeg felt fortunate that he had been cybernetically enhanced to have greater than average strength. Finally, Queequeg rolled out of the way and Shatterstar's sword cut into the ground.
Queequeg rolled to where his other machete was and as he stood to his feet he grabbed his other weapon. Sweat shimmered off of his chest and rolled down his flesh and over the white circuitry that covered his upper body. "Now this should be an interesting!"
Pulling out his other sword, Shatterstar smiled. "Indeed it should be."
Crouching low to the ground, Queequeg ran forward and tried to take out Shatterstar by the knees. His attack was unsuccessful as Shatterstar jumped into the air and planted his feet on The Hound's shoulders. Queequeg's body was thrust forward as Shatterstar flipped off of him. His face crashed into the ground and he dropped both of his machetes.
Shatterstar landed on his feet perfectly and ran back to Queequeg. He lifted both of his swords into the air and was about to remove both of The Hound's arms when an electric arc burst up from Queequeg's circuitry and struck Shatterstar head on. His hair stood on end and he cried out in pain as he collapsed to the ground. He was unable to let go of his swords, which made the electrical attack all the worse.
"You won't find me such easy prey," Queequeg said as he grabbed his machetes and stood to his feet.
Smoke emanated from Shatterstar's still form. The smell of burnt hair and flesh was heavy in the air. Queequeg gave no words as he reared one of his arms back for a quick thrust to the neck. It would end the fight and allow his opponent to die quickly. As his machete moved in for the kill, The Hound felt an acute pain in his chest. Looking down, he saw that Shatterstar's sword had stabbed him through his left pectoral and pierced his lung.
"Likewise," Shatterstar said as he gave his sword a quick twist.
"Stop playing already," M said as she floated down behind Queequeg and struck him across the back of his head knocking him out. She pulled his body off of Shatterstar's sword and tossed him to the side. "We need to get to Abyss and Madrox."
"Why?" Shatterstar asked as he got to his feet.
"Because they've decided to try and take on Ahab by themselves," Havok said as he approached with the rest of X-Force behind him. "And they really have no idea what they're walking into.
"Who is this Ahab?" Shatterstar asked.
"He's a mutant hunter from the future. The man was quite successful at his job."
Shatterstar knew what wasn't being said. "So which way?"
Havok looked to M and she said, "Around the block. We need to hurry."
=X=
"Move out the way boys! The real men are here!" Abyss said as his tendrils wrapped around man after man and flung to the side like rag dolls. He saw the person who had tried to entrap M cutting through the Somali rebels like they were nothing.
At least fifty Madrox dupes were mixed in with the rebels taking them out one by one. If a dupe was taken down, two more popped up to replace him. Nils felt completely confident with the numbers that Madrox provided. Still, he couldn't help but to be a little nervous when he saw Ahab for the first time. He had a harpoon in one hand and a handgun in the other.
Men were having their guts delivered right into their hands and their arms reduced to ash by Ahab's weaponry. Honestly, Abyss wasn't really even sure if he could call them men. Some of them looked like they couldn't be a day over seventeen so while he didn't agree with their actions they still didn't need to be cut down like sheep.
"All of you! Get out of here!" Abyss said as he began to use his tendrils to move the rebels out of harm's way and landed right in front of Ahab. He opened up his chest and let the gravitational pull of his proverbial black hole begin to pull the mutant hunter in.
Ahab threw his harpoon into the concrete and used it as an anchor to keep from getting pulled in. "Mutant, I have dealt with far worse weather!"
Clicking a button on the back of his handgun, Ahab fired the weapon at one of Abyss' tendrils. The pink discharge spread like a lightning bolt across the Genoshan's body and made him collapse to the ground unconscious. His body instinctively pulled itself back together and left him a prime target for Ahab's harpoon. Pulling it out of the ground, Ahab made a move to chunk right into Abyss' heart.
"Not a chance old man!" a Madrox dupe said as he picked up a baseball bat one of the rebels was carrying and struck Ahab across the face with it.
The bat broke across Ahab's face and the mutant hunter wasn't the least affected by the attack. He immediately struck the dupe across the head with his harpoon and knocked him to the ground. Ahab wasted no time stabbing the dupe right in the gut and twisting the weapon in his flesh even as he screamed. That sound gave Ahab the satisfaction of a job well done. All mutants needed to scream in such a manner. If they refused to be controlled then they needed to be killed.
He had been enjoying his hunt a bit too much for his own good because he never saw the beam of cosmic power that Havok had leveled at him. It him dead on and sent him flying right down the large alley and into a large dumpster.
Havok walked over to the suffering dupe and said, "Don't worry pal. You'll be back one day."
With that, he burned the dupe's head to crisp with his radiation and turned his attention back to Ahab. "Team we're going to go about this the right way!"
Unable to resist asking, M said, "Which is?"
"We're going to make Ahab a smear on the sidewalk."
Next Issue: X-Force vs. Ahab! And what about the rest of his crew? Is that Genegineer getting away…