DISCLAIMER: The X-Men are Marvel's, used without permission, and no money is being made by there use in this grand tale. Dakota and the Destruction Crew are mine (Oh, the glory of creation!)
Feedback is always welcome and appreciated. I'd get down on my knees and beg for it, but typing and kneeling are hard to do at the same time at my desk.
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WARNING: There are people pummeling each other in this part. Nothing incredibly graphic, but I'll warn you anyway (just to cover all of the bases).
The First Step - Part Five
Beverly McIntyre
Dakota looked out the windshield of his van, watching Rogue fly the rest of the way to Angel's penthouse with Longshot dangling beneath her. She had carried and flown the van to a distance Dakota had deemed safe from any surveillance the Destruction Crew had set up. Luckily, Storm had created some fog to cover their movements from the everyday commuters. The last thing they needed was people getting into a panic because some people were flying around New York City without the aid of a plane or helicopter. When she had disappeared out of sight, Dakota started the van and drove out of the alley into the current of traffic. As he drove toward Angel's residence, he glanced over her shoulder at the other three occupants of the van.
Beast and Dr. Reyes were preparing the emptied back of the van as much as they could for incoming wounded. Dakota had left his mattress in the back of the van so Psylocke and Angel wouldn't have to lay on the cold, hard van floor. Dakota had been worried about not enough medical help for the two wounded X-Men with only Beast working, but it had been almost a blessing when Dr. Reyes had come forward and said she had been an ER doctor at Mother of Mercy hospital. If this is as bad as I think it is, both Psylocke and Angel are going to need a lot of medical attention. Dakota then glanced over at the hirsute man sitting in the passenger seat.
Wolverine sat slightly forward in the seat. He was just itching to get to the penthouse already. From the way Dakota had described the tactics of the Destruction Crew as the X-Men unloaded his van, Betsy and Warren were already in a world of hurt. Logan had no other desire than to make those people pay for hurting a couple of his friends.
Dakota looked back to the road ahead as Dr. Reyes came toward the front of the van. All I need to do is crash the van on the way to rescue two X-Men and I'll look like a major idiot to these people. He felt Reyes grab on to the back of his seat to steady herself as he turned a corner.
"Do you have an idea of what McCoy and I could be facing when we get Psylocke and Angel?" ,Reyes asked as she leaned over his shoulder a bit.
"Worst case scenario, they're both dead." Dakota heard a low growl come from Wolverine. "But if they're both some where on the side of the living, you can expect whip lashings, severe burns, gashes of all sorts, electrical burns, near-drowning, exposure to the cold, windburn, broken bones, bullet wounds, and anything else they could devise up to torture those two." The growl from Wolverine grew louder as Dakota finished.
"Is that all?" ,she asked cynically.
"Last time I checked." Wolverine's eyes burned as he looked over at Dakota.
"Why don't you quit your yappin' and start drivin'."
"Why don't you hold your tongue? The Destruction Crew has some sort of surveillance up. No doubt about that. If they see this black van come barrelin' down the road and come to a screeching halt in front of the building, they're gonna know we're here. Once they know that, they kill Angel and Psylocke and wait for us to fall in their trap. if you want to be responsible for two X-Men deaths, I'll speed up." Okay. I just told Wolverine off. Now all I have to do is wait for his claws to pop into my spleen.
"You just said the worst case scenario is that both of them are dead." Dakota could hear the blood-lust in Wolverine's voice.
"Worst case isn't necessarily what actually is. If we act on that premise, it'll be our fault those two die right in front of our eyes. That's what the D.C. is going for. They probably want to show off their might before battling by showing that they can kill two X-Men right in front of their teammates."
"How can you be so sure that is what they intend to do?" ,Beast inquired from the back of the van. Dakota turned another corner and saw his destination. He sped up the van up slightly, feeling himself the need to get there faster.
"I know how they think. I infiltrated them once. I know how they work together, how Lash likes to pursue her demented portrait of glory, and where their weaknesses are."
"So, it's your fault they're attacking X-Men." ,Wolverine growled.
"Hardly. Few people know of my connection to the X-Men. The D.C. aren't among those number." Dakota was fairly sure they didn't know of his connection. They just knew that Blackhorse Inc. would contact the X-Men if there was something its operatives couldn't handle, which hardly ever happened, or was a personal matter for the X-Men to handle. The van rolled to a stop in front of the apartment building. Dakota had to grab Wolverine before he opened up the van door and jumped out of the van. "Whoa, I thought we said no direct action to make the D.C. notice that we're here."
"You said, bub."
"Wolverine, if what Dakota has told us about the Destruction Crew is right, he is the authority on what to do here. I think we should follow his lead in this situation." ,Beast said as he came to the front of the van. "If you have a plan, Dakota, now would be the opportune time to share it with us."
"I hadn't been too sure of how to get Wolverine and Dr. Reyes to the penthouse, but it seems that Longshot's luck has rubbed off on us." Dakota pointed to two window washers who were preparing for a day's work. Dakota reached over and grabbed his baseball cap off of the dashboard. He slipped it on then opened the door. "Wait here. I'll be back."
"All right, Beast. How far up the side of the building are Wolverine and Reyes?" Dakota kept his head down so all the security camera in the elevator could see was the top of his baseball cap. He spoke into a Forge-created headcom unit. He, Beast, Storm, and Longshot all had one on.
"They are half way up. And doing a convincing job of playing the part of window washers, too. But I find it most concerning that if my two X-compatriots are going to be in as bad of shape as you said them to be that I'm sitting down here in the van, twiddling my thumbs."
"I understand, but Reyes has her forcefields to protect her. You only have your masterful feats of acrobatics." Oh, no. His vocabulary is rubbing off on me. "Bouncing around the room is not going to save your hairy hind-end if Inferno sees you. She knows that fur burns nicely." There was silence on his headcom. "Besides, burnt fur smells so awful."
Dakota heard both Longshot and Beast chuckle. He hoped the levity would ease a small amount of tension. He just hoped that the D.C. weren't listening in. He had bet that Forge's technological genius far outstripped Tech's.
"Dakota, Rogue and I are in position and waiting for the signal." ,Longshot reported in.
"As are Cannonball and I." This had been the first time Storm had spoken up since leaving the mansion. Being a leader of the X-Men, she felt an extra burden from two of its members being tortured. Dakota had a feeling that she felt a little responsible for this. She probably had thoughts running through her mind on how she could have prevented this. You have my pity, Storm. Being a good leader makes you worry like that.
"All right. Beast, how far up is the dynamic duo now?"
"Approximately three quarters of the way up."
"Okay I'm going to do my thing here. You flyers wait until you see people start to move toward the door to the foyer where this elevator comes up. Get in there as fast as possible." When Dakota had finished, he pulled off his cap, looked up at the security camera, smiled, and waved cheerily.
Things were almost too quiet in the penthouse. There were a couple of window washers starting to work on the side of the building in one of the security monitors. In another one, a man stood in an elevator and waved rather foolishly at the camera. Tech stiffened up at the sight that greeted her on the security monitor in front of her. "Lash, you better come and see this."
Rogue held Longshot under his armpits to keep him aloft with her. She was getting rather impatient with this waiting. She wanted nothing more than to swoop into that penthouse and knock a few heads together. Psylocke and Angel were her teammates, her friends, and her family. These Destruction people had picked the wrong people to torture at the wrong time. After her ordeal in Antarctica, she felt a serious need to physically hurt somebody. These villains presented just the opportunity.
Longshot, who had been squinting through the fog, watched the movement inside. He saw a few people moving toward a door. "Rogue, they're moving. Let's go."
Lash had just sent Tech and Bracht to go take care of Dakota by sending the elevator car he was in back down the shaft, unaided by it's cables. She turned around to find Psion standing in front of her. "What d'you want?"
"Shadow thinks we have a problem. There's a semi-thick fog that just rolled in. He's having trouble seeing in here." Lash knew what this meant. The weather-witch was nearby and getting closer.
"We have-" Crash! The plate-glass windows behind Lash shattered into pieces as Rogue flew straight through it with Longshot holding on to her ankles for dear life. He had grabbed onto her ankles in transit to the penthouse. He knew she wouldn't go through the already smashed double doors. She would make her own entrance. Rogue had actually let go of him once she got to the edge of the roof. She was near-invulnerable, he was decidedly less so. But he knew he had to get into the building sooner rather than later so hitching a ride via Rogue's ankles seemed the best choice. Once she was past the window, he let go and nimbly landed on his feet.
"Hi, Lash! Long time no see." ,Longshot said as he watched Rogue plow right through both Lash and Psion on her way toward Psylocke and Angel. Rogue didn't get halfway to her teammates when she was thrown back out the opening she had created by a hurricane-force column of air. Rogue went through the opening and made another opening in the building across the street. As luck would have it, Longshot avoided the same fate by lunging toward an oncoming Tsunami.
Longshot, with a brightly glowing eye, shouldered into Tsunami's stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She tumbled to the floor while Longshot managed to remain on his feet. Two throwing spikes came to his hand as he whirled and threw the spikes at Zephyr. The spikes didn't have enough power behind them to get through the defensive updraft that surrounded Zephyr, but they were enough to momentarily distract him and lead to a small decrease in the power of the wind column that was pummeling Rogue. Longshot danced to the side as Tsunami vainly tried to get the air back in her lungs and get a foot into his crotch.
Zephyr turned to Longshot and called up a second column of air. Let's see if Mr. Hollowbones can actually fly. He caught Longshot in the middle of it and lifted him in the air. The column of air carried him to the center of the space between buildings and dissipated.
Longshot smiled as he just hung there in the air. Zephyr looked shocked. "I do not know who you are, but kindly refrain from dropping my friend from off of buildings."
Instead of turning around to see who had spoken, Zephyr dropped down in time to see a blond kid streak by his head. The kid continued forward and literally bounced off of Bracht's chest as s/he turned away from the foyer and plodded toward the action. Bracht grabbed Cannonball's feet as he fell away and swung him like a baseball bat once.
"Pardon me, but ah don't appreciate bein' used as a Louisville slugger." Sam tried to blast out of Bracht's earthen grasp, but found that the thing that looked like a giant pile of rocks in a humanoid form was quite strong and kept hir hold on his ankles.
Storm brought Longshot back into the penthouse before turning her attention to the white-haired man Cannonball had missed. She called up her own wind column and was just about to bring it to bear on him when white-hot pain flashed across her back. zzact
Lash stood behind Storm as the wind-rider stumbled forward and grunted. She started to re-electrify her left-hand whip as she swung her other electrified whip at the X-Men leader. The whip stopped incredibly short of her intended target as it discharged and wrapped around the arm of somebody who had abruptly appeared in front of her.
"Y'know, sugah. Y'really shouldn't do that." Rogue drew back her fist. Lash's eyes widened.
Psion pulled himself up to his hands and knees. His head was still ringing from when it had bounced off of the floor. He could feel a small trickle of blood flowing over his top lip. "Ooooh, my head hurts."
"It'll be the least of your concerns when I get through with you." Psion looked up to see a man in a window washer's outfit with six bone claws extended out of the top of his hands.
Wolverine slashed down at the kneeling telepath but never quite connected. Instead, he got a faceful of Cannonball's chest. Wolverine was lifted off of his feet and flew back through the broken double doors he had come in from. He hit the ground hard and skidded over to the edge of the roof.
Cannonball was trying his best to get out of Bracht's grip on his ankles. He tried to modulate his field to make him slippery to hold onto, but his field was nearly maxed out trying to keep Bracht's hold from turning his ankles into jelly. Gawd, this is embarrassin'! ,Sam thought as he fought against being swung at an incoming Reyes.
Reyes saw the mini-mountain swinging Cannonball at her and dropped to the floor. As Sam swung above her, Reyes scrambled toward a woman with a fiery nimbus surrounding her body that was heading directly towards Angel. As Reyes moved away, she shouted some sage advice at her fellow teammate. "Go limp, hayseed. Stop giving that thing a bat to hit people with."
Bracht had a problem when hir bat suddenly went limp.. S/he shook the blond kid, trying to get him to straighten back up. S/he was going to put him down, figuring s/he had finally broken him, when Lash flew by and crashed through the swinging door to the kitchen. Bracht got an idea on how to use a limp body.
"Rogue, take care of Bracht. It's got Cannonball in a bit of a tight spot." Longshot said as he dodged a waterball thrown at him by Tsunami. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Bracht trying to use Cannonball like a whip on an oncoming Wolverine. He was brought back to his own problems when the waterball shattered a vase behind him. He looked at Tsunami. "Dakota had said hard water was a pain, but I had no idea."
The apartment building shook under everyone's feet as the explosive Tech had sent down the elevator shaft exploded. She ducked back into the foyer as pieces of shrapnel from the elevator car shot up. "One down." ,she said as she drew out her modified version of a stun gun. "Couple more to go."
Zephyr was having a hard time keeping his feet on the ground as he and Storm battled with their wind columns. He was losing rather quickly since his only power was air and wind manipulation and she had lightning bolts and other weather manifestations that were giving her the upper hand. Zephyr heard the crackle of energy from the lightning bolt slightly before it hit him, causing him to black out.
Inferno had almost gotten to Angel to burn him to cinders when Reyes popped up in front of her. Inferno sent a superheated fireball the doctor's way. She was slightly impressed when Reyes withstood the blast. Rather than attempt that again she switched tactics and sent the fiery aura around her to burn the two hostages. The fire was almost to Angel and Psylocke when a rain cloud appear over it and poured out a deluge to extinguish it. Inferno didn't have much time to worry about that, though. Simultaneously, Reyes swung a fist at the pyrokinetic.
Rogue flew straight at Bracht, who had given up using Sam as a whip and had just started swinging him wildly at Wolverine. Bracht sensed something was heading toward hir and turned slightly to see what, giving Wolverine a chance to harmlessly rake his claws over the diamond-hard skin. Rogue hit Bracht with every ounce of gusto she had and did the near impossible. She sent hir flying. Bracht flew through the bedroom wall and landed heavily on the bed, breaking the old oak frame into splinters. Hir hands relaxed hir grasp enough on Sam's ankles enough to let him escape.
Tech rushed into the room and quickly sized up the situation. Rogue had just pasted Bracht. Cannonball was emerging from the bedroom through a hole in the wall, looking slightly shaken. Tsunami was being kept busy and annoyed by Longshot's acrobatic ability. Zephyr looked to be knocked out momentarily. Inferno was having a cat fight with some woman. Psion was trying to escape Storm's wrath. Lash was no where to be seen. Wolverine had seen her and was moving toward her. She looked down at her souped-up stun gun and knew it wouldn't be enough to stop him, but it was all she had right at that moment she wouldn't have time to pull together any other doodad that would be capable of stopping Wolverine. With her heart in her throat, she charged at the six-clawed man brandishing her stun gun as menacingly as her could.
Wolverine nearly laughed at the young woman running at him with a stun gun. She's either very brave or very stupid to charge at me with a stun gun. He slowed up to meet her. She came onto him with full speed. He used a basic flip to send her over his shoulder. As she flew by, she desperately jabbed with her stun gun. She managed to stick it into his shoulder. When the stun gun connected with Wolverine's body, Logan felt like all of his nerves were on fire.
Storm was distracted from her pursuit of Psion from her teammate's scream of rage and agony. So far, Psion had offered little to no fight. He had been basically cringing and running. Storm felt confident that he was not a threat. She turned to go help her friend when she saw Dakota stumble in from the foyer. He looked bruised and a little burnt but otherwise fine.
Shadow cursed at the fog. He couldn't see into the penthouse. If he shot through this he could very well hit one of his teammates. He decided to wait a little while longer before just shooting into the penthouse. He just hoped that he didn't hit any of his teammates or he'd get some very harsh discipline from Lash.
As Dakota entered the penthouse in a less than grand manner, the fighting momentarily stopped. He looked around at everyone. "What? Haven't you seen a guy who's just narrowly escaped being blown up in a elevator car before?"
Tsunami looked at Dakota and let out a scream of rage. She had sworn she would kill if given the chance. He had seriously hurt Zephyr when escaping from the D.C. once it had been found that he was a mole. She was going to make him pay.
Of course, in her rage induced state, Tsunami had forgotten about Longshot. As she tried to move past him, he made a lucky punch to a vital area that dropped her into unconsciousness. Longshot looked over at his friend inquisitively. Dakota shrugged. "Sometimes, I just have that effect on people."
Reyes took Inferno's momentary distraction and used it well. She landed a wicked right cross on the red-head's chin. Inferno fell to the floor and didn't get up.
Sam blasted right toward Psion. Given the choice of knocking out Tech or the telepath, he would sooner hit a man than the girl who looked to be just a bit older than his sister Paige. Sam moved by Psion with his fists extended and clipped the telepath on the chin. Psion spun around once then sank to the floor.
Tech looked extremely scared as Wolverine turned around to face her. He reached down and grabbed the front of her shirt. He hauled her to her feet. He's going to slice me into little pieces. I know it. He drew his hand back. Tech's eyes were riveted to the three, foot-long claws. snikt Wolverine jackhammered his fist into her face, expelling some of the pent up rage he had toward these people and what they did to two of his friends. When he stopped and let go of her, she slumped to the floor, her face a bloody mess. He moved away from her, popping his claws out so he could cut his half-conscious friends free.
Rogue emerged from the hole in the wall that led to the bedroom, Bracht unconscious in the middle of the room.
Reyes looked at the two X-Men and gasped. Those two had been savaged by the Destruction Crew. She didn't know if her medical ability could treat all of their wounds.
Dakota looked over at Angel and Psylocke and felt his stomach rise. The D.C. had been particularly merciless. Angel was burnt on his wings, side, arm, and soles of his feet. He had a few whip marks across his torso with many more gashes covering his body. Psylocke had a raw and bloody back from Lash's handiwork; she was nearly blue and shivering. Tsunami and Zephyr were trying their exposure trick again. Only this time Psylocke didn't stand up to it as well as I did. Dakota looked away before he saw anymore of the two. He spoke quietly into his headcom unit.
"Beast, you'd better get up here." He looked over at Longshot, who looked almost physically ill by the sight of the two X-Men as Rogue helped Wolverine get Betsy down. "Longshot, get a head count. Let's see if any of the D.C. is missing." His friend nodded and moved off quickly, glad to have something to do that took his mind off of the condition his friends were in.
"What kind of monsters could do that?" ,Storm asked as she stood apart from the rest of the team as they tried to get Betsy's feet out of the floor and unshackle Angel from the floor.
"The kind that go to hell" ,Dakota replied softly. Storm looked over at him with eyes filled with sadness. "Um, let's round up them up. Afterwards, I'll go get someone to go lock these people away."
They both moved to get the Destruction Crew bound up for the authorities when Longshot came running out of the kitchen.
"Dakota! Shadow's not here!" Dakota quickly looked around at the shadows but quickly dismissed the idea that the assassin would be in the building. Shadow was a sniper which means he would be sitting on a rooftop somewhere sighting them up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a faint flash through Storm's slowly dissipating fog.
Shadow saw a white-haired, African woman standing right across from him. Well, thank God this fog is finally liftin'. He sighted her in his scope but saw something else that disturbed him. The rest of his team was down and out. Got time for one shot and then I'm 'portin' us back to base. Shadow closed one eye and squeezed the trigger.
"Storm, look out!" Dakota shoved Storm out of the way in time to feel the bullet enter his own body. He felt the bullet get halfway through his abdomen before exploding, sending bits of shrapnel throughout his body.
Longshot saw his friend push Storm to the ground and stumble backwards. Dakota swayed on his feet for a second, looking down at his stomach. "Shit" was all he said before collapsing to the floor.
