Trask stared at the tracking beacon for several seconds, speechless, before his mouth curled into a wicked sneer. "I must say I am impressed by your creativity Mr Maximoff, but did you really think that it is that easy to find Genoa. It will take your friends time to get here, and Genoa is extremely well hidden. By the time Excalibur gets here you will be dead.
"But now I have more pressing issues to attend to. I'll leave you here, where you will have the best seat in the house to watch the death of one of the oldest cities in the world. I never liked London that much, did you? Oh, and if you want anything I'm sure Cain will be more than happy to provide it for you." Trask turned on his heel and left the observation gallery. Pietro turned his head to the left and was amazed to see the giant in body armour, who he had shot in Italy, lounging against the wall.
"How are you still alive?" Pietro asked in shock. Even with body armour a direct hit from the Sidewinder to the chest should have collapsed at least one of his lungs and left him dead a long time ago.
"I didn't get these muscles by just going to the gym," Cain grinned. "I was one of the experimental super-soldiers that the United States government created during the Cold War. Part of that means that I'm extremely resilient to physical attacks, although I have to say that bullet really did hurt."
Pietro leaned back in his chair, head spinning. He'd never heard of any super-soldiers that the US had created, but it would explain how Cain had survived a shot that should have been lethal. Surrounded by maniacs like Trask and Cain, Pietro silently prayed that Excalibur would get here soon.
Nick Fury's speedboat was an incredibly powerful craft - it was a sleek midnight black boat that had Forge practically drooling over it. Lance knew the most about steering speedboats, so he was at the helm, while Forge was examining the engine in delight, Evan was stowing the scuba tank that had fallen out of a locker and Callisto was studying the locator. "According to the locator, Pietro's two miles east," she said pointing Lance in the correct direction. "I hope he's okay."
"Don't worry, he'll be fine. I've seen him get out of way more dangerous situations than this one before," Lance said flippantly, but he too felt worried. Pietro had gone after Trask alone, without any Excalibur coordination, and Lance was worried that something terrible could have happened to Pietro. If only the locator could broadcast the wearer's life-signs.
After ten more minutes, Callisto told Lance to stop. "According to the transmitter, we are right on top of Pietro," she said, looking around in bewilderment. They were in the middle of a wide expanse of ocean, with no distinguishable feature in sight. No islands, no boats, just the vastness of the sea stretching away from them in all directions.
"That's impossible, there's nothing here," Evan said, his eyes scanning the horizon from something they might have missed.
"The locator is working perfectly," Forge said after checking the device quickly. "Pietro is here."
"That's impossible. There's nothing here!" Evan argued heatedly.
"Wait, what if Pietro's underwater." Everyone turned and looked at Lance as he voiced his suggestion. "We never thought of that."
"You mean like in a submarine?" Evan said, sounding unconvinced.
"Possibly, but maybe Trask's built some kind of underwater base. Maybe that's what Genoa is."
"Well let's take a look," Forge said standing up.
"How?" Callisto said. "I doubt it will be possible to just see anything by sticking our heads underwater," she said sarcastically.
"With this," Evan held up the scuba tank and wetsuit he had found in the locker. "Someone puts this on and goes down to have a look."
"I'll do it," Forge said immediately. "I used to do quite a lot of scuba diving when I was younger."
"Okay," Lance took charge once more. "Forge, you go down and take a look, we'll wait here. If you see anything come back and report, understood." Forge nodded as he pulled on the wetsuit, then adjusted the scuba tank on his back. With a quick thumbs-up, Forge fell backwards into the ocean and quickly vanished from sight. Lance sighed angrily and paced up and down the length of the boat, wishing there was something he could do to help find Pietro.
Pietro had been in the observation gallery for almost an hour now, and he was getting restless. He needed to stop Trask before he destroyed London, or any other cities for that matter, but how could he do it? Obviously Trask hadn't attacked any other city, or he would have come to the observation deck to gloat over Pietro.
Dejectedly sticking his hands into his pocket, Pietro suddenly realised that he might be able to take care of Cain. He pulled out a stick of pink chewing gum that was decidedly old - it had countless hairs and other pieces of dirt stuck to it - and it could be just the thing he was looking for. He casually popped it into his mouth and began to chew, taking careful note of how many times he chewed. When he got to the twentieth chew he spat it out, and suddenly turned and threw it at Cain.
It landed on Cain's left arm, and Cain leapt to his feet, unsure what exactly had been thrown at him. When he realised what it was he laughed scornfully, until the gum exploded, hurling him backwards into the wall.
Pietro made a dash for the door but as he got to it, it opened and two guards stepped inside. Pietro dealt with the first with a quick chop to the throat, and before the second guard could bring his gun to bear Pietro had slammed his head into the wall and knocked him out.
Pietro took both of the sub-machine guns the guards had been carrying and stepped out into the corridor. It didn't sound like anybody had heard the commotion in the room, because the corridor was deserted. Pietro ran to the end of the hall until he came to a lift. Inside it he studied the buttons, then hit the button labelled 'Technical Deck'. He was going to find Trask, and when he did he would make sure Trask never had a chance to hurt another person again.
They'd been on the boat for almost twenty minutes before Forge returned from his underwater foray. They gave him a hand to haul him up onto the boat and after he had taken the scuba tank, mask and wetsuit off he told them of what he'd found. "It took quite a long time to find it, but the water's extremely clear around here and the bed's not too deep. There's what looks like a whole underwater city down there, that must be where Pietro is."
"That must be Genoa. I don't think anyone expected Trask to have an underwater base," Lance noted.
"So now what do we do? We've only got one scuba tank, so we can't all get into Genoa, and even if we somehow managed to what good would it do? We haven't got enough men to take it by force." Callisto voiced the thoughts that had been in the back of everyone's minds for sometime now, they had just been concentrating on the joy of actually finding Genoa.
"We've got to tell Excalibur what we've found. Xavier can send more men and deal with Trask, there's nothing we can do right now." Lance reached for his cell phone when Evan spoke up.
"We've got to leave, now!"
"Why?" Everyone turned to face him.
"I just got off the phone with Nick Fury, and he's been on the phone to Washington. The President has just given the order to destroy Genoa. The air force should be here in about fifteen minutes."
"What about Pietro?" Lance asked in outrage. "He's down there with Trask. You can't just expect us to leave him!"
"I'm sorry," Evan shook his head, "but I have my orders. The President believes this is the best opportunity we have to deal with Bolivar Trask. You must turn this boat around right now."
"What'll you do if I don't?" Lance took a step forward threateningly.
"I'll be forced to place you under arrest," Evan suddenly pulled a gun from inside his jacket and levelled it at Lance's chest. "Now turn the boat around," he repeated slowly.
Lance grudgingly turned back to the helm. "That's better," Evan said, stepping towards him. As he did, Lance whipped around and lashed out, catching Evan in the side of the head with a hammer blow that threw him to the floor. His gun went flying out of his hands and Callisto picked it up.
"Lance, stop!" she shouted, as Lance advanced towards Evan. "What can we do for Pietro? You can't get down there, and even if you could it would only lead to your death as well as his."
Lance turned to face her angrily. "So you expect me to abandon my friend?"
"What choice do we have?"
Thank you for your review DaemonRogue 13, I'm very glad you enjoyed the last chapter. The end is almost in sight, but will it be a happy ending for everyone? You'll have to wait until next time to find out.