"A So-Cal Cajun" by Shadow Master aka Ryley Breen
A Hero in the Making Saga (Part 1 of ?)
email: ryley [underscore breen [at hotmail [dot com
Disclaimer: This is to state that I do not own any of the copyrighted materials featured in this drabble/short. They are the property of their respective creators and associated companies. The idea for this came from a drabble/short written by Dragonhulk that was part of his 'Xander as Marvel Style' collection. It is a continuation of a drabble as well as adding my own personal spin on the situation. I am making no money off of this nor do I expect to in the future. This is written purely for the enjoyment of the readers who read it and myself who enjoyed writing it.
Note: In terms of where this would fit in which Marvel universe I've decided to make this take place in the X-Men Movie-verse rather than the comics or any of the animated cartoons. Mostly because in the comics the Morlock Massacre was a crucial event with three or so X-Men present during the carnage. Since this was not the case with Dragonhulk's version of things that removes the comic universe from the list of possibilities. Neither could it be a part of the cartoons centered on the X-Men since to my knowledge the Morlock Massacre never happened there nor was there a mention of it. That leaves the movie-verse and that will work nicely with what I have in mind. As for when in the movie-verse I'd put it about six or nine months after the events of Last Stand. So without further adieu let's start de show, neh?
A So-Cal Cajun Just Passing the Sunnydale City Limits, An Hour After Sundown An Hour Before Buffy Encounter's Sunday the Vampire Bitch"Home sweet Sunnyhell!" Xander said to himself as he drove past the 'welcome to Sunnydale' sign and into the town proper.
It had taken a little over a month and a half but he finally managed to get back across the country from New York to California without too much trouble. While he couldn't say that he'd had the time of his life traveling across the country, it was definitely par for the course as far as his life was concerned. It had all begun when, just past Oxnard, he had run into a male albino who apparently knew that Xander had special abilities and wished to offer an opportunity to enhance them further. Naturally the paranoia and knowledge of Mr. Murphy had him wary of any aid a stranger might offer, but after talking to the guy for a while he'd decided to give it a shot. After all, while his level of power at the time was decent enough, the prospect of becoming strong enough to be considered the next biggest gun after Buffy pretty much sealed the deal. He didn't really remember a whole lot of the procedures Mr. Essex used to enhance his abilities aside from brief flashes of pain and the lab it took place in. Still, he couldn't argue with the results though, since he could now control the detonation of whatever he charged to an impressive degree and the act of charging an item no longer tired him as quickly. As soon as he was safely out of the woods and back on his feet, though, he had immediately inquired as to what the bill for the enhancements he receive was.
He had been a little surprised at the answer.
Apparently Essex had labs all over the United States and the one located in New York had been overrun by demons in recent months. This lab apparently had several important records stored within them and so Essex asked him to contact some people for him and then accompany them to the lab's location to deal with the infestation. So as honor dictated, he used the information he'd been provided with to track down and contact his 'teammates' and what a weird bunch they turned out to be. Arclight, Blockbuster, Harpoon, Prism, Riptide, Sabretooth, Scalphunter, Scrambler and Vertigo were their codenames with each of them setting off his inner alarms during as well as after their initial meeting. It wasn't until the group actually managed to got down to the job of killing the 'demons' in the tunnels beneath New York City that they'd shown him just how big of an understatement his internal alarms had made concerning them. He had promised himself right then and there that the moment they got back to Essex to report a job well done, he would close the door on this part of his life and never look back. Sadly the Fates had chosen to interfere at that point in the struggle and inform him of the truth of what he had been helping the others do.
He hadn't been killing demons like Essex had told him.
He had been killing humans with special powers, 'mutants' he recalled hearing them called on TV, just like him.
He'd told the others in the hopes that, while a little too blood happy, they'd stop killing once they realized that they were killing other humans. It had been the response he got from Scalphunter, however, that had and still did chill him to the bone whenever he thought of the killers he'd assembled for Essex.
"The mission is to kill everyone here, it doesn't matter what they are."
When the sentiment had been mimicked by those marauding murderers within hearing distance of him, Xander had no other conclusion to come to other than he had made the mother of all mistakes. All at once his mind had scrambled to figure out a way to undo the mistake he had made but in the end he had chosen to do something jock stupid. He'd used his newly enhanced powers to turn every scrap of potential energy within range into kinetic energy and the only thing that had been keeping the big BOOM at bay had been his will. Then, with more balls than brains, he'd dealt out an ultimatum to the killers around him: leave at once or be turned into dead bodies. Naturally no self-respecting psycho-killer wanted to die themselves, so one by one the team he'd assembled for Essex left, growling promises of telling Essex on him. From there it had been a strained request to the bone girl who'd enlightened him on the truth to check and make sure the murderers were gone before he, with great difficulty, undid what he'd done turning kinetic back into potential. After that things had gone dark on account of the fact that he'd pushed himself WAY past his limits and as a result passed out.
He awakened a few hours later to find himself tied securely with a thirty-something woman wearing an eye-patch waiting to interrogate him. Fortunately it only took a brief Q&A session to make it clear he had been tricked and so the Ellen Ripley wannabe declared that he would not be killed. However that did not mean he was completely free to go, since he had killed a few Morlocks (that's what the tunnel dwelling mutants called themselves), he would have to replace those lives somehow. No matter how long it took. Naturally thoughts of Sunnydale and the gang made an appearance right about then and he had told Callisto that he couldn't stick around due to his duties defending the Hellmouth. After all, while he didn't think that he was the reason the world was still spinning, he did believe that one person being in the right place at the right time could literally make the difference between winning and everyone going to hell. Naturally, Callisto pulled the whole 'I could just kill you now' line but it turned out to be a bluff and instead she allowed him to return home but not without two babysitters. The two Morlocks sent with him had been charged with ascertaining whether or not the situation in Sunnydale was as bad as he had claimed it was.
One would think that once he got back into his car and left the city everything would pretty much be smooth sailing, right?
WRONG!
Problems one and two took the form of his babysitters Feral and Thorn, both of whom took the role of 'catwomen' to whole new levels. With wild hairdos, feline physical features and a coating of fur covering them from head to toe, it was only made worse by the fact that they were both knockouts in his opinion. Oh, he knew that most men would steer clear of women that broke from the established norm but, given his track record, he'd long since given up on ever meeting a normal woman he could fall in love with. Both of them had treated him like an accomplice to murder and therefore any attempt he had made at conversation was met with a hissed reply, both figuratively as well as literally. Fortunately a third problem showed up later but this time it worked in his favor since it made sure that catwoman one and catwoman two at least behaved civil towards him.
Sarah had snuck out of the tunnels, located his car before he and his two babysitters had arrived, hopped into the trunk and had been hiding there ever since. It was only when one of his tires had blown that she was discovered and a decision was put forth to the three of them: Turn around and take the kid back to the tunnels or take her with them. In the end a combination of distance traveled and Sarah's own refusal to allow the three of them to go to Sunnydale without her decided things. As soon as they got to the next town, they sought out a payphone and, when a little past two in the morning came by, Feral put a call into a payphone in New York that the Morlocks used when necessary. They called Callisto and informed the leader of the underground band of mutants where Sarah was and what the three of them had decided. While the one-eyed woman was relieved to hear that Sarah was okay, she was less than enthusiastic about letting the newly teenage Morlock accompany the three to Sunnydale. Fortunately, using techniques only teenage girls had any skill in using, the pink haired kid managed to convince her leader (and surrogate mother, unless he missed his guess) to allow her to stay with the three of them.
From that point he had resumed his position of believing that everything would be smooth sailing, but given what happened next he seriously began to wonder if the phrases you do NOT say applied to the world as a whole rather than just Sunnydale.
It had happened when they were passing through New Orleans (he'd decided to take a more round about route back both to slip past anything Essex might have waiting for him and to make Sarah happy) that his White Knight complex got triggered by what he thought was a mugging. He was the one to do most of the hard work since he had ordered the three Morlocks to stay in the car, but in the end his years of fighting on the Hellmouth came through for him. Sadly it was then that Fate decided to give him an object lesson in how being a White Knight could land one in a heap of trouble. Just as he was helping the 'victim' out of the alleyway, sounds of a fierce battle tore through the night and motivated him to pick up the pace. He arrived just in time to see Feral down on the ground looking like a sci-fi babe waking up from cryo-sleep, Thornn squaring off against some kinda energy using mutant and Sarah getting out of the car to help Feral. Naturally his protective nature compelled him to join the fight but before he could get more than a few feet he was hit with something on the back of the head hard sending him to the deep dark la-la land of unconsciousness.
When he had woken up, he found that he, Feral, Thornn and Sarah were all chained up in some kind of basement. Normally this would not be a problem since his kinetic charging ability, properly tempered, could make short work of the chains and he bet that neither of the catwomen could be held by the metal work either. However when he tried to use said kinetic charging ability, he found it disturbingly absent and judging from the frantic chain shaking from the girls' direction, it was the same for them. It was then that their captor showed up in the form of a fat tub of lard named Tomage Vode, who was either a mutant or a demon based on his Smurf blue skin. Vode informed them that they were the latest catch of the day in some kind of slave ring for the rich and famous or just for people who wanted something exotic as well as illegal for their very own. The idiot actually had the stupidity to explain the process in full from the 'flesh sculpting' they would undergo to match the customer's order to the 'psi-burning' to mentally make them what the buyers wanted. While it was stupid, it was also disturbing that something like this would be going on right under the noses of the authorities. After all, deeply stupid or corrupt policemen couldn't be everywhere, right? In the end, though, it only increased the necessity of getting out of there as soon as possible.
Their chance came about three weeks later but by then most of the changes the 'buyers' requested had already been done physically and the groundwork mentally had been laid. There was some good and bad in this for everyone but it'd still be a cold day in hell before he'd actually admit it to anyone. For him, the changes meant the elimination of any excess body fat he had on him as well as significantly more muscle than he'd had on him when he went into the room. Oh, he wasn't an Arnold or one of the men from a Mr. Universe body building competitions, but rather a guy you expected to see on a billboard in nothing but his boxers with the name Calvin Klein on it. Aside from that there was only one major change to him but it was one that he didn't like one little bit. Thanks to the mutant responsible for the body sculpting, he could no longer change his eyes back to normal, they were now permanently red on black, with the only consolation being that he could turn his energy vision on and off. As for the mental side of things, apparently whoever had put in the order for him had a thing for charming Cajun master thieves because now he had the knowledge of a master thief, the moves of a consummate ladies man and unless he actually focused on what he was saying he'd start speakin' Cajun instead of normal English. All in all, he thought he got out of the situation remarkably unscathed but the same could not be said for Thornn or Feral and most definitely he could not say the same about Sarah.
For Feral and Thornn their physical appearances had been enhanced to emphasize their 'desirable' traits while minimizing their less appealing ones. That meant that both of them were now sporting chests dancing on the boarder of 'C and D cup' land, the rest of their bodies looked like they belonged in Playboy, their claws were shortened until they could be mistaken for Halloween press-on nails, their ears were now more Vulcan-y and their hair didn't look like it came from the Bride of Frankenstein or the eighties. All said, the only features that'd keep them from walking topside and blending in with the normal people was that they still had their tails as well as a light coating of body fur to deal with. Apparently the buyer that wanted them had a fetish for animal women.
Not that I can't see a measure of appeal but that still won't stop me from busting the guy's head if I ever run into him. He thought as familiar buildings came into view.
"Xander? I need to use the bathroom." Sarah said from her place in the back seat behind him.
"Que? Dammit! You just went an hour ago." He said, cursing himself for allowing his surprise over Sarah's request to let a little Cajun slip past his lips.
"I told you that you shouldn't have let her have two of those jumbo slushies!" Feral snapped looking a little annoyed at yet another bothersome stop.
"I thought she could hold it until we got to Giles' place." He shot back but this time managing to keep his voice English rather than Cajun despite his anger.
Spotting the Espresso Pump, he pulled over and stopped but kept the engine running since they'd need it if Sunnydale denial syndrome didn't work for mutants.
"Alright go do your business Sarah, but make sure you keep those bones in you the entire time." He said turning in his seat to look into the back seat, "Sunnydale might be blind to the existence of demons and the supernatural but I don't know how they'll react if they find out mutants are in town. Understand?"
"Yes, husband-mine!" Sarah said with a combination of humor and seriousness before she closed her eyes and began to concentrate.
Like seeing the growth of a flower in reverse he watched as Sarah willed the bones sticking out of her skin to recede until they were gone leaving only a newly teenage girl with pink hair to be seen by anyone who looked. This was one of the big things that Sarah had gotten thanks to the body sculptor of Tomage Vode but it hadn't been anywhere near as painless as the changes had been for the rest of them. He hadn't been able to get the entire story out of Sarah but apparently the mutant body sculptor was not exactly a handsome guy. Hell! She likened him to the hunchback of Notre Dame except worse! Apparently while this guy could alter the physical appearances of others like an artist sculpting with clay, he was incapable of affecting any lasting changes on himself. When he learned of Sarah's uncontrollable bone growths, the sculptor decided to use her as a test subject for his latest attempt to gain complete control over his physical features and proportions. The process had taken the entire final week of their imprisonment and each time Sarah had been returned to the rest of them in their cell, it looked like the kid had undergone severe electro-shock therapy. It was nothing short of a miracle that the kid had come out of the entire experience as well as she had, but there were still scars if one knew where to look. Still, it allowed her to pass for normal from time to time so long as she could maintain a certain level of concentration but this was often taxing on the young girl so she didn't use this ability very often or rely upon it too much. Watching her get out of the car and run to the ladies room, he looked back to the other occupant of the back seat and thanked whatever higher being had sent this snow haired mocha girl their way.
"You need to go too, Stormy?" He asked, wanting to make sure that they didn't wind up having to stop again three minutes after Sarah got back.
"No, I am good," replied the girl who was about the same age as Sarah was with a reassuring smile.
"Good, because the sooner we get done having a look in this town the better." Thornn said as she tensed for a moment after sniffing the air for a moment, "Something about this place is wrong."
"I feel it too. The air feels wrong here." Stormy said with a distasteful scowl as she looked out the car window.
It had been during the first phase of his mind sculpting procedure, just after they'd finished shoving in the Cajun Master Thief things into his head, that the door had banged open and Stormy had rushed in, obviously running from someone. Her unexpected arrival shocked the mind sculptor stiff and right then he had known an opportunity for escape had just landed in his lap. He immediately asked the girl to free him and, when she complied, it was his turn to be shocked, both figuratively as well as literally, when she somehow generated two bolts of lightning that cut through the straps holding him down. Fortunately when he saw the mind sculptor recover, he got back into the swing of things as well and before the asshole could do anything the metal pole of the saline drip met the backside of the prick's head. When he looked back at Stormy though he learned that apparently while she was a mutant she was too young to pull off something like two lightning bolts and not feel a drain afterwards. She had been so wobbly on her feet that he had been forced to carry her in order for them to make good on their escape and so they left the 'operating room' to rescue Thornn, Feral and Sarah.
Not before he picked up some ammunition he had spotted on a table near the door, of course.
The entire building was in something of an uproar thanks to Stormy getting a little out of hand, but a few charged razor blades quickly discouraged anyone from getting too close. Feral and Thornn, thankfully, had still been in the cell where they through him when they were done with their modifications but Sarah had been a little harder to find. Fortunately a few threatening moves made by two she-cats and a charged razor blade held near the family jewels of one of Tomage Vode's employees had worked wonders. What they had found in the room they had been told Sarah had been taken shook them all. Tied to a bed with tubes stuck in her transferring some unknown type of liquid into her was Sarah with the body sculptor standing next to her. Before he had even time to comprehend it, the man's insides were now on the outside thanks to a charged razor blade to the chest. Taking the tubes out of Sarah, patching up her wounds and procuring a sample of the liquid for a closer look later, they then made their escape in an expensive looking BMW that had been in the parking lot. That pretty much brought things to where they were now since thankfully things had been pretty quiet the rest of the trip.
Now that they were in Sunnydale, it was his plan to head by Giles' place and have him give Thornn and Feral the whole 'world is older than you know' speech as well as a few other tidbits. Then he'd take them out on patrol so they could see the demon's first hand and listen to his stories of what the Scooby gang had faced in the past three years. While it'd be kinda nice if one of those end-of-the-school-year apocalypses happened so he could tie it directly to the Hellmouth, thus showing the two Morlock women why someone needed to keep an eye on the place he wasn't about to tempt fate by saying such things out loud. Still, he was worried that unless something big happened during the two cat-ladies' stay in Sunnydale, they would just report that while not a good place to visit, there wasn't anywhere near the danger he'd told Callisto about at the start of all this. That would lead to trouble since he did kinda owe the Morlocks for his part in Essex's attack and he didn't know just how seriously they took his 'replace the numbers you took' role. If it was important to him as Twinkies were then it could mean serious and painful problems for the Scoobies if he tried to stay rather than own up to Callisto's idea of his obligations to them.
Hearing the pitter-patter of new-teen feet, he looked up to see Sarah heading towards them from the ladies room, no longer looking like she was trying to walk with a rubber ball between her legs. Hopefully this meant that those slushies were out of her system, otherwise he was probably going to get more than a sentence or two out of Feral for his tendency to cave under Sarah's puppy dog eyes. He just couldn't help it when she did that! He might still be looking for a way out of the 'claimed by Sarah' situation but he'd still grown fond of the little lady over the past few weeks. Much like Willow, she'd slipped past his guards and fallen into little sister country and that would make it all the harder to say goodbye should he manage to convince Feral and Thorn of the necessity of him staying here. He knew there was a possibility of her deciding to stay with him, but that would make things more painful for her since it'd mean no seeing her Morlock family for months, assuming he managed to get enough money for the occasional trip to New York each time.
Den again dere be more dan one way to make money, neh? Xander thought for a moment as his mind began to make a list of some choice places to steal from.
Fortunately he caught his Cajun self before things went too far and mentally did his best to remind that part of him that stealing from wealthy people in this town was liable to get him cursed or killed, depending on who lived where. Besides which, even if he could arrange for more frequent visits to New York, he'd probably have to restrict them to the summer time, since that was when demonic and supernatural activity in Sunnyhell tone down for the most part. In the end, though, it wouldn't have been right to keep her here away from her family just so he could stick close to his surrogate family, so all he could do in the end was hope that he managed to make one helluva presentation to the two catwomen or else he'd be honor bound to head back to the New York tunnels with them.
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Three Hours Later, Lopher CemeteryDis be definitely not goin' de way I'd hoped! He thought no longer particularly caring if he was thinking in Cajun seeing as how he had more pressing concerns at the moment.
They'd been to Giles' place and after some quick explanations and a few 'why did you not tell us' moments, the G-man began his speech on the truth of existence of demonkind. It started with the canned 'the world is older than you know' speech, continued through a retelling of some of the adventures of the Scooby gang and then concluding with the current state of things atop the Hellmouth. Naturally all four non-Scoobies present found it all a bit hard to swallow, so he then took them on a patrol of the cemeteries with instructions to Stormy and Sarah to stick close to him. This little trip turned out to be more effective than Giles' speechifying since both Feral and Thorn got to see up close and personal what a vampire was as well as a Fyarl demon and a hellhound. While this did convince them of the existence of demons, it did little to convince them of the necessity of his permanent presence in Sunnyhell. That was why he'd decided on this little trip through the cemetery in the hopes that they'd run across some kind of serious demonic evil or something. Nothing end-of-the-worldish, of course, but definitely something that would satisfy their quota of evidence so he could stay in Sunnydale.
It was as they were passing the Cromwell mausoleum that he got his wish for something bigger than your average vampire or brutish demon. He didn't quite know what to make of what he was seeing, but in his eyes they looked like four rejects from some end of the world movie. One had a serious skull motif working with his get up and was paler than any vamp could ever hope to be. Another was a walking arsenal with blades, blasters and bombs hanging from every strap of leather he had wrapped around one limb or another. Next up was a woman who definitely took anorexia to an ugly extreme but at the same time didn't seem to be having any difficulty moving around at all. The last looked like someone took all the scabs, pus and snot in the entire United States of America and formed it into a loose male shape. The grossest thing though was that each time pus-man moved, a piece of him fell off and, oddly enough, the piece killed everything within a one foot radius when it hit the ground. All in all, it was the oddest quartet he'd ever seen in his life and considering the number of demons he'd fought, as well as the mutants he'd met, that was saying something. However the whole looting of an anonymous crypt in the middle of the night was something he was all too familiar with as well as the likely consequences of letting these four had their way tonight.
"You four looking for something? Maybe me and my friends here can help you out?" Xander said loudly enough to get their attention while at the same time reaching into one of his duster pockets for his weapon of choice.
The four demons looked at him, Feral and Thorn for a moment as if getting their measure but then turned back to their work on the Cromwell mausoleum. From what he could tell, they were looking for something but judging by their intense looks of scrutiny, he didn't think that it was something easily seen or recovered. That possibility was enough to get him to up the level of hostility towards these four since anything hidden in a mausoleum, in Sunnydale, and that rested atop a Hellmouth was definitely not something that should fall into the wrong hands, so Xander decided it was time to let the four demons know that ignoring him was not wise, especially when they were up to no good. Pulling out a four of clubs card, he used his mutant power to give it a charge equal to a flash/bang grenade and threw it so that it would hit the mausoleum then explode right in their faces. With aim that had only gotten better after he had the skills and knowledge of a Master Thief shoved into his head, the playing card hit its target and, like he'd planned, it blew up right in the four demons' faces. When the small cloud of smoke cleared, he could see that he had most definitely gotten the attention of the grave robbers but when he looked into their eyes, he had to wonder if that was the good thing he had thought it was five seconds ago.
Not even Deadboy had a look like this when he went soulless. He thought to himself as he reached for three cards inside of his duster jacket.
"Deal with these annoying pests, War. We must not keep Lord Apocalypse waiting," rasped the one with the death themed wardrobe.
"They will be dead in but a moment, Death." War said as he walked away from his comrades and drew a sword from a sheath that was strapped to his back, "For no mortal can endure longer than a moment against me."
War? Death? I think I'm gonna hate where things go from here on out! He thought as he watched the approaching walking armory closely for the first sign of an emerging attack.
Unfortunately for him, Feral made this a reality as her natural aggressiveness caused her to be the first one to go on the offensive by charging the man head on with claws ready for tearing and cutting. Not wanting War to get a chance to cut the catwoman open, he threw the three cards in his hand at the armed man with each containing enough power to dent metal. One went to the killer's head, another to the arm that was holding the sword and the last one went to the man's right leg in the hopes of breaking his stance. With a sound not unlike three grenades going off, his cards hit their targets and, for a moment, the man was obscured by smoke but that didn't keep Feral from getting her claws bloody. She lunged into clouds of smoke, delivering a vicious vertical slash to the man but the sound of claws against metal did not make Xander very optimistic as to the damage she'd managed to do. He was proven to be right for when the smoke from his explosions finally cleared War stood tall and, aside from some scorch marks on his weapons, was completely unharmed. He'd seen what Feral's claws could do while they were making their escape from Tomage Vode and did not doubt their effectiveness in cutting whatever the woman set her mind to carving up, however it seemed as though the man's weapons and armor were made of sterner stuff than what could be purchased commercially.
"Are you two finished?" War asked, implying that he'd let them make the first move rather than being surprised by Feral's attack, "Good. My turn."
If he'd had any lingering doubts as to the appropriateness of the man's name it was gone in three seconds as the man crossed the distance between himself and Feral in the blink of an eye. A vicious slash from the man almost cut the woman in half but thankfully her cat-like agility and reaction time allowed her to get by with only a light cut on her lower leg. As though taking that as a personal challenge, the man pressed onward, not giving Maria a moment's rest, with each of his attacks coming within a hair's breadth of seriously cutting her. Thorn moved into aid her sister but this only provided the man who fancied himself the personification of War with a second target, doing little to improve her sister's odds of survival. Still with two targets to focus on, the space between blows that each had to deal with was significantly greater than it had been mano y kitty, thus increasing their odds. Odds or no odds, though, he was now convinced that they might have bitten off a bit more than they could chew with these four. At the moment they had their hands full fighting one of the four and that meant that if so much as one more of the quartet decided to join the fight, they'd be dead inside of five minutes. Mind a racing on figuring out a way to pull his, Feral and Thorn's fannies out of the fire, he decided the best they could do was get the hell out of the cemetery and get back to Giles' place. They needed more info on just who these four were and who this Lord Apocalypse was before they tried taking them on again.
Time to see if these hommes know how to play fifty-two pick-up! He thought as he reached into the leather holster strapped to his waist and pulled out an entire deck full of cards.
"You like playin' for keeps, mon brave? Then HERE! Take a Card! Hell! Take dem all!" Xander yelled as he let loose a torrent of cards by bending the deck just the right way to send each card that became the bottom card flying.
Spraying them around in order to catch each of the four monsters, he hoped that by giving each card the explosive power of a bundle of TNT sticks it would be enough to knock them off balance for a minute or two. When the last of his charged cards left his hand, he ran over to where Feral and Thorn had leapt to when the explosive cards started flying.
"Time ta make out exits, ladies!" He said as he grabbed the less violent of the two sisters and began running for the entrance/exit to the cemetery.
"Coward! We can still take them! After your barrage I doubt they're half as strong as they were before!" Feral exclaimed looking like she was considering taking the four monsters on by herself if he and Thorn decided to make a run for it.
"Maybe your right. Maybe dey jus' need someone to put dem out of their misery." He said not even bothering to try and force his voice back to real English, "However if you be wrong den I jus' pissed them off an' we in for even more pain den before. I don' know 'bout you, chere, but I ain't too keen on sticking around to find out which it is."
"Sister, please, let's do what Xander asks for now." Thorn said, trying to pierce through the primal nature of her sibling, "I somehow doubt that if they survive those four killers will let us escape retribution for hurting them. You'll get another shot at them."
For a moment it looked as though not even Thorn's word's would shake her sister's resolve to continue fighting but when the catwoman relaxed her stance and sighed, he knew that Maria had caved. With nothing more than a look, they took off at a pace just short of all out for the entrance/exit of the cemetery and soon could see their car parked just outside the archway. However that was as far as they got when something small and baseball sized got tossed in their path, causing all three of them to leap away from it. As it was, that just saved them from being killed instantly as the force of the explosion sent stone and dirt everywhere with some of it being razor sharp. He could feel the fragments of stone hitting him and while most wouldn't do much more than leave some bruises for him as going away presents, one deep gash along his left thigh was not so nice. It cut deep and just managed to escape becoming lodged in his leg by a few inches, but it was enough to cause some bleeding to start. Cringing in pain, he looked about from his prone position to see what the state of the others might be and was not encouraged by what he saw. Feral was done and it looked like she'd taken something to the gut, though whether it broke the skin or just busted the bones beneath the skin he didn't know. All he could see was her on the ground curled up in a semi-fetal position with her arms wrapped around her torso but that was enough to make him worry.
Thorn was slightly better off, though it looked like she had lost about half a foot off of her tail, but the healing factor she shared with her sister would stop the bleeding and mend the damage inside of two hours. The rest of her wounds were pretty much light cuts and abrasions that would be lucky to last half an hour with her recovery abilities. Still, her injuries would distract her and, if his hunch was right, they'd need all of their focus to be on what was about to happen if they wanted to survive.
Looking in the direction that the explosive ball had come from, Xander saw War standing there, looking a little ruffled from his earlier barrage of charged cards but most of the damage was cosmetic. He also looked really pissed, which did not bode well for any of them, so with much pain as well as effort, Xander got to his feet and took out what Vode had intended to be his secondary weapon. After all, explosions drew a lot of attention and a thief got by on stealth more often than not since getting through a job with the mark being none the wiser was the mark of a true professional. At first glance it looked like a simple metal baton but, with a bit of pressure applied to just the right spot, it telescoped into a staff just a little shorter in length than he was. Careful to keep his weight off his injured leg, Xander decided that his next move had to be getting the bruiser pissed at him and only him. Not exactly a smart move but it would give Thorn, as well as Feral, time to heal as well as hopefully provide him with an opening to attack.
"Nice l'tle surprise, homme! You get dat from a box of cereal or swipe it from a baby?" Xander taunted, trying to sound distinctly unimpressed with his adversary's bomb.
"My basic weapons were provided by my Lord, but that grenade I constructed myself." War replied with a voice as cool as ice, "You and your friends did well to avoid the brunt of the blast but it obviously addled your brain somewhat if you think that child's toy will be effective against me."
"Maybe, but you know what dey, say mon ami: it ain't de weapon that makes th' man, but de man what make the weapon." Xander said with a devil may care tone, "How about you an' me see who be de better warrior, mon brave?"
"You are a fool to challenge the incarnation of war to battle, but if you wish to die in battle then I believe I can accommodate you." War replied as he took two scimitars from sheaths positioned on his hips, "Prepare yourself for oblivion, FOOL!"
"LEAVE MY HUSBAND ALONE!!" Came a cry of rage from the entrance/exit of the cemetery and it chilled him to the bone when his mind matched it to a person.
Turning to the entrance/exit of the cemetery, he was struck with fear as he saw Sarah running full tilt towards War with her bones grown out around her in sort-of-armor-but-not-really configuration and bone gauntlets on each hand with fingertips coming to a point like talons. War obviously didn't consider her a threat as he almost negligently swiped at her with one of the scimitars but that turned out to be a mistake. With grace you don't expect to see with anyone but a ten year veteran of close quarters combat, Sarah leapt over the blade and, with a savage slash, actually managed to slice open War's cheek. Knowing that this would only enrage the weapons master, Xander dove forward as best he could and began delivering blows with his staff as quickly as he could. This went on for a while with Sarah drawing blood and then him using staff to yank War's attention to him rather than the pink-haired Morlock. For a moment he actually thought that they might stand a chance at taking the guy down but apparently Mr. Murphy had something to say about that.
"ARROGANT MAGGOTS!!" War bellowed as some kind of energy wave exploded outwards from his body, sending both him and Sarah flying easily thirty feet.
The only bit of good luck he had was that his so-called betrothed had been within arm's reach when the wave had been emitted, so he was able to pull her towards him and thus cushion the blow for her a bit. Unfortunately that just meant the landing was more painful for him than it otherwise would have been, so it was kinda a good thing bad thing trade off. As Sarah rolled off of him, he could definitely feel the bruising along his back make itself known but was thankful that there were no broken bones beneath the bruises.
"You okay, petite?" Xander asked as he worked through the pain to get into a sitting position.
"A little rattled but otherwise fine," Sarah replied with such hostility and determination that he knew that the programming that the mind sculptor had shoved into her was at least partially in command right now.
It was something that he, Thorn, Stormy and Feral had discovered about five days after they had escaped from the slavers when they had stopped into a motel for the night. He, of course, had implemented the usual anti-vampire safeguards in an effort to make it safe but sadly those protections were only valid inside the room. He and Sarah had been on their way back from the convenience store across the street from the motel (they'd gone to get some snacks for the others, including enough Twinkies to enlighten them all about its sugary goodness) when a group of demons decided to show up. He had been able to pick out two vampires, three Fyarl demons and two weird looking demons with rubies embedded into their foreheads. For about three seconds he'd hoped that the two of them would be able to make it back to the others before things got dicey. Sadly when one of the ruby demons pointed a finger right in their direction, he had known that escape was no longer an option. Deciding to strike first, he pulled out a full hand of cards and threw them at the demons with each card being the equal of a stick of dynamite.
The vamps had been dusted and a fyarl was left groaning on the road but other than that all he'd done was piss them off.
He threw a few more cards but when the enemy closed to a distance where the blasts would hurt him as much as anyone else, he was forced to resort to his telescoping staff. Using a variation on the stick and move strategy, he did his best to keep himself between Sarah and the demons since he had not wanted her to come to harm. However by restricting the distance as well as direction he could move, the demons were given a sizeable advantage over him. All too soon Xander had found himself receiving blows that had his thief side yelling at him to cut his losses and run. Naturally being the brilliant warrior he was, he had refused to do that and, for his bravery, he got a fyarl fist in the jaw that sent him to the ground five feet away. On his back with his staff laying just outside of arms reach, he looked at the advancing demons with only one thought running through his mind.
I am SO screwed!
It had been at that moment that both he and the demons received a painful shock from a bone armor clad hellion named Sarah. It had shocked him speechless watching her deliver blow after bloody blow to the demons and, judging by the fact that over half of the remaining demons went down in the first twenty seconds of her assault, so were they. However surprise and shock only last for a short time and eventually a ruby demon managed to get a solid hit in with his mace knocking Sarah into a parked car that was nearby. The group of demons was now down to two fyarl and a ruby head but all of them looked pissed at the lacerations they'd received and probably would have exacted a painful form of retribution from them had Feral and Thorn not shown up in time. They managed to dispatch the remaining demons and once that was done, the two catwomen had aided him and Sarah into the hotel room. It was there that they learned from the calmed-down pink haired Morlock girl that when she had seen him knocked to the ground, a scratchy voice in her head had offered to kill the demons for her. She had gone on to explain that ever since they had escaped the slavers, she'd heard the voice at moments when she felt threatened. When he had carefully asked if the voice had a name, Sarah had nodded and said that the voice called itself Marrow.
He had been greatly disturbed by the possibility of Sarah having another personality lurking around her head, so he'd done his best to keep the dangerous situations to a minimum. Despite a few close calls, he'd managed to keep 'Marrow' from surfacing again but if the look he was now seeing on Sarah's face was what he thought it was then the second personality was on the verge of being released again. That would not be of the good, since he doubted that the berserker tactic would do anything other than get Sarah killed if she tried to use it on Death.
"I had considered being merciful and granting you all a quick, painless death but you have insulted me, injured me, and so now you will pay dearly!!" War bellowed as it swung his two scimitars like baseball bats and unleashed blades of energy that shot towards their targets like freight trains.
Grabbing Marrow by the shoulders, he ignored the pain he was feeling and rolled them both as quickly as he could to get out of the path of the oncoming attack. Feeling an intense heat just skim the surface of his back, Xander knew that he had just barely managed to escape getting his back sliced open. Picking up a fragment of a tombstone that had been broken off by the grenade War had thrown, he charged it up as much as he could in the space of the few seconds he had and, when he was once again on his back, he threw it at War. With the force of a block of C4 going, off the object charged with kinetic energy hit its target and let loose a cloud of flame that almost reached out to engulf him and the others but, fortunately, it dissipated at the last second. He did not move from his position but instead waited for the results of his attack and kept his free hand close to his next pack of playing cards just in case the rock failed to do its job. What he saw as the smoke cleared made him accept that this guy was way out of his group's league and defeating them existed somewhere between slim and none at the moment.
"Sarah? When I give you the word I want you to go to Feral and Thorn and get dem to the car as quickly as you can," he said in a tone that would brook no disobedience. "I'll keep him busy 'til you're done but den you're gonna have to come pick me up 'cause I don' think I'll be able to make the dash an' keep him busy at the same time. Comprendre?"
He didn't even need to look at her to know that she would refuse him so he did the one thing he knew he was going to regret later one way or the other.
He cupped her cheek with his hand and guided her eyes to his.
"Don' worry petite, Gambit ain' goin' nowhere. Now go!" He said before he let loose with a flurry of cards to keep War from interfering.
Pushing himself into a kneeling position, Xander continued to pepper War's last known location with charged cards while looking in Sarah's direction every now and again to check her progress. While both older women were taller than the bone girl, both of them were in good enough shape that they could support their own weight quite a bit and that left only what remained. Getting Thorn to the car would be the easy job since the older woman was probably the least injured of them all, but he knew that when Feral's turn came it would be much harder. Already he could tell that her natural healing factor had reduced the pain she'd been feeling to more manageable levels and that meant in another ten minutes she'd probably be well enough to act on the need for vengeance that was no doubt boiling within her. He just hoped that seeing how easily War was standing up to his explosive cards would cut through all that and convince her of the need for a tactical retreat, otherwise she was probably going to get everyone killed when they tried to save her from herself.
He was reaching for his second last deck of cards when he noticed a discouraging sight indeed in the form of his cards exploding well short of their target. It didn't take him long to realize that it had to be an energy barrier of some kind and that meant that direct attacks wouldn't do squat from here on out aside from waste ammo. So he decided to change tactics by aiming for the ground beneath War's feet instead in the hopes that there was a tunnel or sewer line beneath him. After all he knew the entire town was practically honeycombed with them, so the odds of him actually dropping War into one by taking out the ground beneath the warlord's feet were pretty good. The only down side was to get the necessary power into each explosion necessary to break up the earth beneath them he needed to hold onto the cards for longer than was healthy given his current situation. Fortunately though someone up in heaven proved that they liked him when a lucky volley of cards miraculously detonate what had to be a gas line increasing the potency of the blast considerably. At this sight he couldn't help but smile with satisfaction since a blast of that magnitude had to be enough to earn him enough time to get the hell out of the area with Sarah and the others. With that in mind he got to his feet and after retrieving his staff he used it as a walking stick to help him walk to the entrance/exit of the cemetery. He had almost made it when a sound like various machine parts coming together caught his attention and slowly forced him to look in the direction it was coming from. What he saw was enough to make him believe that Lady Luck had just played him for a fool by making the gas line explode.
Rising out of the flame filled hole atop a horse that looked like a cross between an AT-AT from Star Wars and a horse straight from the depths of Perdition itself was War. However this War was different from before since now the man was covered in what had to be the most intimidating suit of armor the Xan-man had ever seen. With blades accentuating the joints and symbols of some kind etched into the metal it wasn't hard to see why the man considered himself the personification of War. Fortunately as the sound of screeching tires reached his ears he knew that the opportunity to escape had arrive so with patience that could only have belonged to his thief half he waited until the headlights bathed the area around him before repeating his fifty-two pick up move. The difference this time though was that all the cards were directed at a single target allowing for a much more concentrated series of explosions. As the last card left his hands he turned and was grateful to see the whole gang in the car with Thorn behind the wheel with the passenger-side door open for him. Deciding that now was not the time for finesse he dove into the car as quickly as he could and by accident (really!) landed face first in Thorn's lap. As the car began to peel out of the cemetery he quickly repositioned himself into the passenger seat before slamming the door closed. Looking at Thorn he gave her a quick 'sorry about that' grin and was shocked to see her return his grin with one of her own.
Hers, though, was not one of apology but rather a 'I did not mind one bit' kind of grin that had him distinctly worried about what she'd do if she ever got some alone time with him. Deciding that a change of topic was needed for the sake of his sanity, he looked over his shoulder at the shrinking front gate of the cemetery to see if they were being pursued. He saw nothing though, nothing at all, and it made him wonder whether or not to consider this a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand it could mean that War had decided that the five of them weren't worth the aggravation but on the other hand it could a 'head them off at the pass' situation. Deciding that another fight needed to be avoided, he decided to think happy thoughts in the hopes that such things would keep Mr. Murphy from intervening as well as slam the door in the face of the ole Harris luck.
Xander, jus' hope that he hasn' used up all his credit with Lady Luck a'ready! He thought too tired to even think about forcing his thoughts and words back into proper English.
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Back at the Cemetery, Same Time
"Enough War! Let them go." Death said as he, Pestilence and Famine walked up to the pit of flame that lay beneath their armor clad comrade.
"NO! They have dared to defy me and insult me by thinking that such paltry attacks could defeat me!" War bellowed with his wounded pride clear for all to see, "I will hunt them down and teach them the true meaning of fear, starting with the bone child!"
"Have you forgotten the reason we came here, War?" Famine asked with her hollow voice, "We were dispatched to the Hellmouth to gather the items needed to restore our Lord to full strength. Would you put your own desires above your duty to Him?"
That one question served to do what Death's command could not and, in an instant, the maelstrom of emotion was gone from War's eyes and in an instant both his metal steed as well as his armor was gone leaving only the form he'd been in when the battle started. Like a feather caught on the wind, he drifted down to join his brethren and, once on the ground, he glared at Famine as though she had insulted him.
"My loyalty to Lord Apocalypse is without limit and indestructible, Famine." War replied before turning to Death, "I assume the three of you managed to procure what we came here for?"
"Indeed. The Heart of Isis is now ours. The mortal Cromwell may have placed formidable wards around his resting place to keep it from us, but like all mortals, he lacked the foresight of our Lord." Death replied as he held up a ruby the size of a baseball yet cut to look like a human heart precisely.
"Then we have but to locate the scrolls of Ma'at and the spirit of Bast to complete the mission set before us by our Lord." War said with a small grin of pride at what his comrades had accomplished with him so far, "How fortunate it is for us that both items reside within this town of mortals. Soon our Lord will be fully restored and the cleansing of the weak from this world can begin in earnest! Glorious!!"
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1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, Westchester County, Same Time
"I found her!" Exclaimed Emma Frost as her eyes snapped open and she lifted the Cerebro helmet from her head, "The contact was very faint and somewhat disrupted but I'm positive that it was Storm."
"Is she alright?" Bobby Drake asked with concern about his favorite teacher.
"I did not detect any pain or distress but due to the lightness of the contact, I cannot say more." Emma replied as she closed her eyes to recover from the exertion of using Cerebro.
"Do you know where she is?" Logan asked from his position leaning against the doorframe of the entrance/exit to the Cerebro chamber.
"In California, someplace near Los Angeles, but that was as close as I could narrow it down to." She replied as she stood up and began to approach the de facto head of the school, "There was considerable disruption, like white noise, blocking my mind. If I go with you to California I might be able to get a better lock on her mind."
"Then let's get going. Bobby! Get Peter, Kurt, Kitty and Rogue together then meet us at the Blackbird." Logan ordered as the doors to the Cerebro chamber began to open.
"I'm on it!" Iceman said before he dashed down the hallways of the sub-basement of the mansion towards the elevator that would take him up.
Watching the boy go Logan couldn't help but recall how this whole mess had started just three months after losing Jeannie, One Eye and almost the Professor. It had been a spot of hope for everyone to learn that just before the Phoenix destroyed his body Charles had managed to transfer his mind into another body on Muir Island. While the body the founder of the school occupied needed some time to regain normal mobility after being motionless for so long it was coming along swimmingly. However it had been two months ago, when their search for Storm had hit an impasse, that they learned a horrible truth. While Xavier had managed to transfer his mind to another body his new host form was just a normal human and therefore without any special abilities of any kind. So while the man had escaped death it had cost him his telepathic powers in the process. It was lousy timing since they could have used the skills of such a potent telepath to search for Storm but they were able to find a suitable mind reader to step into that role and help them search. Emma Frost was apparently an old friend of the Professor's who had left him after some argument or another about the direction he was taking the school. When she'd been informed of the current crisis she had agreed to help them find their missing team member. It had taken two months straight to find Ororo Munroe but three weeks ago they'd caught a break. A few miles out of New Orleans Cerebro had detected a blip of Munroe's weather manipulation powers but just as soon as it had appeared it had vanished. Still it gave the mansion residents hope that they might still stand a chance at finding Ororo so Emma stayed at Cerebro almost around the clock to make sure that if another weather disruption was detected she could pin down the location that much faster. Today that dedication had paid off and with a little luck within the next few days Storm would be back home amongst friends and life would return to something approaching satisfactory.
"Hang on 'Ro. We're coming," Logan whispered more to himself than anyone else before he left the Cerebro chamber allowing the lights inside to switch off and the door to slide shut before locking.
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