The Uncanny Sirens
Chapter 29: Loners- Part 1
By
The Uncanny R-Man
Disclaimer- All familiar characters belong to Marvel. Nightingale belongs to Agent-G.
The skies above Los Angeles-
High above the city of Los Angeles, one of the X-Men's many Blackbird jets carried the Sirens to their latest field trip. Rachel Grey and Talia Josephine Wagner were sitting in the pilot and co-pilot's seat, respectively. The Sirens were sitting in the seats behind them.
Penny stared out of the window, watching the clouds streak past.
'Penny for your thoughts.' Valeria Richards leant over before chuckling slightly. 'Heh. I just made a funny. I just asked whether you wanted a penny for your thoughts, and your name is Penny. Get it?'
But the red-skinned girl was completely oblivious to the cosmically-powered young woman's joke.
'Hello, Penny?' Val waved her hand in front of her friend's face. 'Ground Control to Major Penny, can you hear me?'
Penny snapped out of her daze as turned to regard Val.
'Hmm? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention.' Penny smiled slightly. 'I was thinking of Nicholas.'
Val understood exactly what her friend was talking about. Just before the group had set of for Los Angeles, Nicholas Gleason, also know as the member of the Paragons called Wolf Cub, asked Penny out on a date.
'You really like him, don't you?' Val nodded perceptively. 'You have good taste. Not that I like Nicholas like that. He's cute and everything, but I like my men to be a little less… fuzzy.'
'It's like what Mr Wagner keeps on saying…' Sharon chipped in. 'The ladies love the fuzzy men!'
'Fuzzy is so overrated.' The Stepford Cuckoos all chimed in as one. 'Wonder Man is much cuter.'
The three blonde telepaths leant back in their seats with identical dreamy sighs.
'Mmm, Wonder Man…'
'You guys don't happen to know why we're going to Los Angeles, do you?' Gale asked. 'Not that I don't appreciate the trip or anything, but why travel to the other side of the country when we could quite easily use the Danger Room instead?'
'I can't believe that you're saying that you prefer the Danger Room to Los Angeles.' Laura shook her head and tutted. 'And here I was thinking that you lived for shoes.'
The blue-haired Canadian visibly perked up at that.
'Do you think we'll be able to go shopping once we've done what we need to do?' The empath grinned hopefully as she turned to look at the squad's co-leaders. 'Can we, please?'
'I don't see why not.' Rachel smiled back at the group. 'I was planning on picking up a new dress, any way. Plus, I managed to nab dad's credit card.'
Los Angeles, later-
Once they group had landed, Rachel turned on the Blackbird's new cloaking device that Beast and Bishop had installed, the group disembarked and started to have a look around.
'Wow. Look at all these shops.' Gale gushed as she looked around at their surroundings. 'There's so many!'
'Meh. Los Angeles isn't all that.' Laura shrugged. 'I've been here before, back when I was still with Weapon-X. They had me kill some guy that was running for senator. I think his name was Petrelli, or something.'
The blue-haired Canadian empath chose to quickly change the subject.
'So, what are we going to do in this field trip?'
'We have to meet up with some people first.' TJ answered cryptically. 'Rachel knows a guy who knows a guy.'
'Okay, be ambiguous, then.' Sharon sniffed. 'Makes no difference to me. I'm just happy to get out of the mansion. That place is driving me nuts. It's the middle of summer, and Mr Summers has us running Danger Room simulations twenty-four-seven.'
'Oh, Sharon. It isn't that bad.' Val shook her head. 'Mr Summers isn't such a hardass nowadays. He's mellowed out since Rachel Jr came into the world.'
'Not mellow enough for my taste.' Sharon grumbled.
'That's because you always want to sun yourself in your favourite tree.' Val pointed ou.t 'Your definition of fun is chasing poor little Sammy Pare around the mansion.'
'What?' Sharon asked innocently. 'It's what I do. I'm a cat. I lie in the sun and hunt fish. I'd do the same with Mr Worthington, if he wasn't so cute.'
'Mr Worthington is overrated.' The Cuckoos chimed in. 'Wonder Man is much cuter.'
'Come to think of it, you're not all that younger than the type of age group that Mr Worthington likes to go out with.' Sharon smirked. 'You'd be in with a shot there now that he isn't with Paige any more.'
'We only have eyes for Wonder Man.' The Cuckoos sniffed before sighing dreamily. 'Mmm, Wonder Man…'
Rachel turned to talk to the group of girls.
'I think we'd better get a move on before the Cuckoos start to make a mess.'
'To the shoe stores!' Gale grinned happily. The blue-haired Canadian's smile started to fade when she noticed that her friends were staring at her. 'Or not…'
The High Street-
It seemed perfectly peaceful in Main Street. People were going about their business going in and out of the various stores, or just standing outside and staring in the store windows, taking a look at the wares. An armoured van pulled up outside the bank. The van had come to pick up the morning's earnings from the bank. Several armoured guards stepped out and went into the bank. They soon came out with bags of cash.
The security guards had all but finished loading up their van. One guard was standing in the back of the van while his fellows walked to-and-fro from the bank. The two guards outside the van were about to throw the last few bags of cash into the van when something leapt on to the van's roof. The impact shook the van, making the guard inside fall on top of the bags of cash.
As the guard struggled to get up to his feet he heard the screams of his fellows outside. Something was tearing them to shreds! The guard went for his gun, his hands quivering in fear.
The guard slowly stepped over the spilt bags of money. Then an orange-furred face leered down from the roof of the van at him. The face was covered in blood.
'Oh, good.' The feline Hellion known as Feral grinned at the quivering security guard. 'I was starting to think that I'd killed you all.'
'G-go to hell…' The security guard stammered.
'Ooh, look at me, I'm shaking.' Feral grinned. 'Are you gonna use that pea-shooter, or are you gonna stand there and pee your pants?'
ZORT!
A bema of energy hit the security guard square in the chest, propelling him into the back of the van.
'Dammit, Aliyah!' Feral growled angrily. 'I had first dibs!'
'You were taking too long.' The half-human half-Shi'Ar young woman known as Aliyah Bishop retorted as she checked the energy levels on her battle suit before she picked up a few bags of money. 'We were not sent here to talk the guards to death.'
'Besides, haven't you ever heard of sharing?' The blonde probability-manipulating mutant known as Roulette grumbled. 'You'd better hope that your bloodlust hasn't gotten us into trouble. Again.'
'At least here, we will not have to worry about that clown Winger or that loudmouthed fool Kid Razor showing up again.' Aliyah grumbled.
'Yeah. It would suck if you got your butt kicked by Wolfsbane for the third time.' Legion smirked. 'Although, it wouldn't suck for us. We'd have a right laugh at seeing you get your head kicked in again.'
'Kiss mine, Xavier.' Feral retorted, giving her teammate a fuzzy finger.
'Don't you ever say that name!' Legion yelled at the feline Hellion, his eyes starting to glow bright red. 'Don't call me that!'
'Oh, great…' Roulette sighed heavily. 'You've gone and set him off. We'll never be able to calm him down now.'
'Then perhaps we'd be able to help…'
'What the hell…?' Roulette blinked in confusion, before she was knocked to the ground by a red beam of energy.
Feral readied herself to attack, but has taken out by a ball of webbing that pinned her to a nearby wall. Legion was next. He was slammed against the security guard's van by a gust of wind. That just left Aliyah.
'Show yourselves, cowards!' The Shi'Ar halfling yelled at her team's mystery attackers. 'And face my wrath!'
'Does anybody even talk like that anymore?' Another mystery voice laughed. 'Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?'
'You may have defeated the Hellions, but you shall find that I am not beaten so easily.' Aliyah boasted as she took to the air.
The halfling needn't have bothered, as she was sent crashing down to the ground by a rainbow-coloured blur.
'Aww, Julie…' The mystery voice complained. 'I was going to take her on. You guys never let me fight any of the cool villains'
'You shouldn't talk to much then, should you, Johnny?' Julie Power, the former member of Power Pack known as Lightspeed smirked.
'I never get any respect…' Johnny Gallo, the little-known hero called Ricochet whined as he joined Julie on the ground along with the rest of the Loners. There was Darkhawk, a former vigilante from Queens, the former New Warrior known as Turbo, and Mattie Franklin, the third heroine to call herself Spider-Woman.
'Wow. Phil is going to be pissed once he finds out that we used our powers again.' Mattie grimaced.
'I just wish that we got here in time to save the security guards.' Darkhawk sighed.
'Oh, cheer up, Chris.' Turbo patted her teammate on the back. 'We did all we could. At least we took out all the bad guys.'
'Not all of them!' A French-accented voice piped up from the shadows.
'I call dibs!' Ricochet said before anybody else had the chance. 'This one is mine!'
The young hero bounced towards the alley where their mystery opponent was hiding only to be almost beheaded by a skeleton in a robe brandishing a scythe.
'Ahhh! Death!' Ricochet yelped as he leapt out of the way.
Death kept on swinging its scythe, sending Ricochet leaping back to the rest of his team. A timid-looking redheaded girl followed death out of the alley.
'Hey, isn't that Tarot?' Lightspeed asked nobody in particular. 'She was one of the Hellions. Wasn't she dead?'
'Nobody stays dead these days.' Darkhawk grunted.
'We can save the history lesson after we've taken her down, okay?' Turbo told her team. 'Loners, let's get…'
No sooner had Tarot stepped out of her hiding place, then she was knocked to the ground by an invisible force field.
'…her?' Turbo blinked as Valeria Richards and the rest of the Sirens landed on the ground atop an invisible platform.
'Oh, for crying out loud!' Darkhawk yelled. 'More newbies!'
'Well, thanks for the gratitude.' Val tutted. 'No need to thank us or anything.'
'I am sick of newbies stepping on our toes!' Darkhawk shook with anger, as his hands started to glow. 'I'm not going to let it happen again!'
'Chris, no!' Turbo shouted at her teammate, but it was too late. The former vigilante lashed out with an energy blast, sending a surprised Val tumbling to the ground.
'You'll pay for that, bub!' Laura growled angrily.
SNIKT!
The young clone unsheathed her claws and leapt at Darkhawk with an angry growl.
'Rwawr!'
TBC…
Next: The Loners- Part 2
The Sirens Vs The Loners. 'Nuff said.
