Take the Long Way Home
Here we are; chapter 23! Let's see what Coyote has in store for Mystique. Pray for her folks, that's all I'm going to say.
Fluffy's numba 1 gal- Actually I only told you what happens at the very, very end. There's still all the other stuff in between.
Andivari- There's a few people you thought of, and a few you didn't. Sorry, Hack and Slash don't feature right now, but later on…
LW- here's a little Dante to brighten up your day.
AzureDragoness- If you pick up the spatula, I'll set my little sister on you! *Motions behind me to a crate with warning and biohazard stickers all over it. Two insanely bright eyes peer out from between the boards.* And I don't know about a sequel. Lately I've been watching the Disney channel (Mom had the remote, had no choice) and I've gotten an idea for a Lilo and Stitch fic. I'm gonna write it for a bit and see where it goes. If I think it's any good, I'll post it.
descendent- Apparently I'm not doing that good of a job if you can wait for the next chapter. A really good author should be able to make a person absolutely crazy if they have to wait to long for a chapter. Apparently I haven't reached that level yet. But people are rereading this story? Wow.
L1701E- Maybe she will, maybe she won't; I haven't decided yet. Yes there will be another team up, bigger than last time, but New Mutants instead of the X-Men. Oughta be good, huh?
animeluvr- Huh? *Draco nudges me with his elbow.* "Just nod and smile man, nod and smile and pretend you know what the hell she's talking about." Yeah, kinda says something about the Institute now that Dante and Razor are there, don't it? I don't know how it came to be either, but it is an apt description of the situation. About to get very, very, very messy
-AAA- Translation
AAA-telepathy
AAA-self debate, or conversation with feral side in Shawn and Rahne's case
Disclaimer-Ya gotta ask yourself; 'Do I feel…lucky?' Well; do ya; punk?
Chapter 23- It's Payback Time!
Coyote and Todd looked up from where they were watching Wanda beat the snot out of her brother. "Hey guys, want some popcorn yo?" Toad asked, offering the bowl he had been sharing with Coyote. Lance ignored the offer.
"Guys, knock it off" he yelled, as the house shook. Suddenly he found himself the center of attention.
"Something wrong kid?" Coyote asked blandly. Before Lance could answer, there was a knock at the door. Coyote's gaze snapped around to lock on the sound. "Right on time," he growled under his breath. He got up and marched to the door, as Lance explained what he had just seen upstairs to the rest of the Brotherhood. He reached the door and opened it just as the kids reached the hallway entrance. They froze in horror as he turned the knob.
Mystique's face as he opened the door was priceless. She opened her mouth, and began to say something, but Coyote cut her off. "We don't want any!" he snapped, slamming the door closed in her face. He smirked as he heard bone crack against the door. Apparently she hadn't jerked back fast enough. Under the porch, Puck snickered to himself. He had used his powers to make the door slam far faster than was usually possible, insuring that his friend got the confrontation that he wanted.
Coyote turned, dusting off his hands, before another, harder knock sounded. Coyote sighed as he turned back to the door. Before he opened it he turned and looked over his shoulder. "As soon as I get finished, you guys can get your licks in." So saying he opened the door again, and, leaning casually against the doorframe, gave Mystique a bland look. "Yee-es?" he drawled.
On the other side of the street, four people watched the impending conflict. One, a S.H.I.E.L.D. field operative, watched through a pair of binoculars, as he munched on a taco. 'Ohhh, if that guy's as good at fighting as he is at pissing people off, this should get nice and bloody.' He took another bite out of his taco. 'At least this'll make up for missing out on those WrestleMania™ tickets.' He took a slurp of his cola, as he waited for someone to make the next move.
A house down, a H.Y.D.R.A. field operative watched the same scene, lips pursed. "I don't see why I have to watch these little brats,' she thought, 'but that specimen makes it all worth it now,' she thought, looking at Coyote through a pair of high powered binoculars. She idly looked down towards the spot occupied by the S.H.I.E.L.D. field operative. 'I wonder what interest S.H.I.E.L.D. has in these children anyway. There's no way they would ever trust the military. But at least the operative is a fairly nice specimen.' (AN: Apparently this gal's a little lonely *All my muses chorus*: "NAW, YA THINK!")
Two figures reclining in separate trees were also riveted by the fight. 'So,' Thanatos sneered, 'that idiot mongrel is here as well. No matter, if the plan I'm hatching works, I can sit back and watch O'Reily destroy him, as well as any of those pathetic losers who refuse to submit to Magneto's will.' After the fiasco at the bank, Magneto had ordered Mastermind to do a little mental reconstruction. Thanatos was now incapable of attacking anyone without a direct order from either Magneto himself, or Sabretooth. Instead he was being used as a spy, like Gambit.
His current assignment was to watch the Brotherhood and assess the progress Pietro had made with them. However, due to his training, Thanatos was able to hide some of his thoughts from the Italian. He had his own agenda, now that he had seen that Magneto's wasn't about to do him any good.
Mystique, having reverted to her original form, was alternating between holding her nose and glaring at balefully him. "Who are you?" she said, attempting a sneer. But it's kinda hard to maintain a sneer without wrinkling your nose. And that was something Mystique just couldn't do right now. Gee, I wonder why?
Across the street, in the oak tree next to the Hood Boarding house, a female figure reclined in the branches, watching the impending fight. She smirked as she watched Mystique attempt to gather together some shreds of dignity together. "Take this witch to the cleaners; brother." The woman is average height, with waist length, lustrous black hair. She wore a simple pair of jeans, a red t-shirt, a pair of old scuffed tennis shoes and a straw cowboy hat pushed up on her forehead. Around her neck she wore a pendant of a bird in flight.
Back on the ground, Mystique glared daggers at Coyote. Coyote was returning it with a cold stare. "The name's Coyote. And you," he spat, "are the shape changing biotch that made these kid's lives hell. And for that, you're going to get a taste of your own medicine." As he spoke, he rolled up the sleeves of the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. Mystique dropped into a fighting stance; Coyote following suit. He smirked.
"Shall we dance?"
Mystique lunged forward, trying for a high kick. Coyote blocked with his forearm, and countered by sweeping her legs out from under her. He followed it up with a hard punch to her ribs. "OOOHFF!!!!!" Mystique grunted. Coyote stood back, and waited for Mystique to regain both her breath and feet. As the two began to exchange punches, the Brotherhood came out on the porch to watch.
"Whoa! He's really doing a number on the old hag," Toad whistled.
"Take her OUT Coyote!" Tabby cheered. Lance, Pietro, Wanda and Fred all watched silently, approving looks on their faces. None of the Hood members made a move to help their erstwhile boss. Kitty and Rick just looked on in amazement as Coyote rained punch after punch down on Mystique's form.
"Ya know, as much as I would love to be the one to take you to the cleaners, I think that that honor should belong to the kids you've dumped on, and then just plain dumped, how many times now Lance?" Coyote called.
"Twice now," Lance called back. Coyote nodded as he delivered a short uppercut that had the woman's teeth rattling. As she hit the dirt, he turned and walked up to the porch. He looked over his students, who were looking at him with curiosity.
"Well?" Coyote asked, ""what are you guys waiting for? It's your payback time right now. You can't tell me that you don't have things to get back at her for!" As he spoke, underneath the porch Puck was chanting a spell to increase the bravery of timid warriors. He had taken a small peek into the memories of the children here, and suffice to say, he had not been impressed with the way the blue skinned woman had dealt with the problems the kids had attempted to bring to her attention. The shoddy state of the boarding house, the lack of good food, and the general fact that Mystique was totally unsuited to care for children. He was looking forward to this with extreme enjoyment.
As Mystique stood, breathing heavily, the entire (current) Brotherhood stepped forward, spreading out into a semicircle. (AN: Big, BIG hint here. Let's see if you can guess who joins their happy little family later on.) Mystique smirked as she watched them approach, locking onto Wanda. She would be the biggest threat. 'Best take her out first' she thought to her self.
She settled back into a defensive posture as she waited for them to charge in blindly as they usually did. So she was beyond shocked when Toad was the one to initiate the attack. He leapt over her, sliming her, and the area around her liberally. Mystique made a move to kick him out of the air, but was brought up short. She looked down and found that her foot was wrapped tightly in a tendril of earth. She gaped in Lance's direction.
He was kneeling, one hand on the ground, head down so his bangs obscured his eyes. When he looked up and smirked, you could see that his eyes had a strange bluish glow coming from them. "Surprise," he smirked.
Over on the porch, Coyote was leaning against the wall of the house, making comments on the battle to Rick, Tabby and Kitty. "That was a good opening move," he noted. "Not only did Toad provide a distraction for Lance, but he's also managed to make her footing extremely treacherous. I guess even a little training goes a long way with these kids."
"Never mind that, how was Lance able to do that!?" Kitty asked. Rick scratched his head.
"This is something new?" he asked. Tabby nodded.
"I thought he could only make those earthquakes," she confirmed. Coyote just smiled as he watched Pietro knock Mystique back to the ground with one of the katas he had shown him. So far, Wanda and Fred were both standing back and letting the others have their own turns.
"That's enough you little brats!" Mystique spat, wrenching her foot out of the earth. She made an attempt to punch Toad as he strafed her with slime once more, but he blocked with his arm, before jumping away. He looked over at Lance and Pietro, and nodded. The two nodded as well, and let up on the attack.
"Your turn Wanda, Fred," Coyote called from the porch. The two of them nodded. Mystique, battered and bruised, glared at them all.
"What do you think you are doing!" she shrieked. "I made you! I took you from your pathetic, squalid lives, and made you into what you are today. I OWN you!!!" Lance stepped forward then, a barely contained rage showing in his eyes.
"You made us?! No; the only thing you did was take us from wherever you found us, and expect us to be your willing little army. You expected us to do things with our powers that we didn't know how. You expected us to fight, but were to busy scheming on how to get rid of the X-Men to train us. You wanted us to be powerful, but had neither the time nor inclination to get us good food and medicine when we needed it. You expected us to do all that ourselves!" He looked around at the rest of the Brotherhood. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I do not want her back in charge. Coyote ," he gestured towards the porch, "has not only helped us get the money we need to survive without having to steal, he's trained us, he's put up with us, and by GOD he actually seems to care about what we do with our lives! And I say we stick with him! And even if the rest of you don't; I intend to!"
Under the porch, Puck stopped laughing for a moment as he realized that the great Puck had made a mistake. Instead of casting a spell that inspired courage in timid warriors, he had cast a spell that gave eloquence to a true leader. The kind of eloquence that Hitler had possessed. The kind of eloquence that could cause serious damage in the wrong hands. He paused for a minute as he used his powers to look into the boys mind. What he found relieved his fears. Though Lance had been seriously mistreated throughout the course of his young life, he didn't posses the unfiltered evil that Puck had felt when he had had the misfortune to be in the presence of Hitler during one of his missions for Oberon. There was a shadow about him, yes, but nothing to indicate even the potential for true evil. He sighed in relief, then went back to observing the fight.
Lance looked at Fred and Wanda. "Time for the big finish guys." They nodded and charged. As Fred swung an uppercut, Wanda fired a hexbolt at his fist, encasing it in a golden glow. When it connected with Mystique's chin, there was only one word to describe it.
BOOOOOM!!!!! Not 'boom', not 'Boom', not even 'BOOM'. But a fully capitalized, italicized, five O's and exclamation points, 'BOOOOOM!!!!!'.
A dustcloud formed when the impact hit, broken by Mystique's semiconscious frame flying out, leaving a trail of dust and smoke. Rick raised both arms in the field goal sign, yelling, "AND IT'S GOOD!" Mystique managed to turn into a crow mid-flight. She cawed angrily a few times before flying off. Todd looked at Wanda in awe.
At their respective posts, both the S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.Y.D.R.A. operatives were racing to record what they had just seen. Both of them were envisioning promotions for showing their bosses how lucrative, for lack of a better word, it would be to have these teens on their side. In his tree, Thanatos shifted. 'Time to make my move,' he thought. The woman in the other tree silently climbed down and began approaching the house. No one noticed her due to the celebrating that was going on.
"Did we just…did we just beat Mystique?" Todd asked, in shock. Wanda nodded, looking just as confused as he did. After a moment, the two of them smiled slowly. They looked at each other, and then the dam burst. Toad grabbed Wanda by the arms and the two of them began to jump up and down excitedly, babbling and congratulating each other. Coyote palmed his face as everyone else's jaws hit the floor. Said jaws then attempted to go through the porch when Wanda gave Toad a tiny kiss on the cheek. Coyote just smirked as Todd suddenly froze in mid-jump and gently touched the cheek his crush had just kissed. He looked at Wanda for a moment…
Right before four foot ten of adolescent mutant hit the ground in a twitching heap. Rick walked over and poked him in the leg. "Is he gonna be alright?"
Pietro in the meantime, had whisked off to his room. He didn't care if the others killed him for this; he had to report this to dad. There was absotively no flippin' way he would let Todd hook up with Wanda. He'd rather see her date Freddy first, not that he had anything against the big lug mind you. He went to his dresser where he had stashed the cell phone his father had given him, but it wasn't there. Instead, he found a note.
"Hey kid, relax. Your old man sent me to do an observation run on you schmucks. I saw the fight, and I saw the kiss. Your dear old dad will hear all about it in my report to him. And since I'm making a report to him, I thought that you wouldn't need the cell anymore.
Your new pain-in-the-ass spy,
Thanatos."
Pietro chose this moment to reveal the extent of his vocabulary. And let's just say that he had some words in there that would make the saltiest of sailors blush.
Back outside, Todd was just sitting up groggily. "That had to e one of the best dreams I've ever had," he said wistfully. Lance grinned at him from where he had his arm around Kitty's shoulders. Said valley girl was looking more than a little dizzy from the intense kiss she and her boyfriend had just shared. Apparently Lance was on a euphoric high from his defiance of Mystique. Not that she minded.
Although the catcalls from Rick and Tabby were starting to register. And those she minded.
"It wasn't a dream little guy. We actually kicked Mystique's ass, and Wanda actually kissed you." Lance cut off whatever else he had been going to day as the sound a clapping reached his ears. Heads turned as the others noticed it.
It was the woman from the tree. She appeared to be genuinely applauding them, not mocking them at all. Coyote looked at her for a moment, did a double take, and leapt over the railing of the porch. He rushed forward and swept the woman up in a crushing bear hug, picking her up and spinning her around in a circle, not an easy feat when you take into account she was about a foot taller than he was. "Raven!" he yelled happily.
The woman just laughed and hit his shoulder playfully. "Put me down you idiot," she laughed. He voice had a melodic quality to it that set the teens who were watching warily at ease. As Coyote set her down, she approached the Brotherhood, a fond arm thrown around Coyote's shoulders. Lance stepped up as spokesman for the group.
"So," he said, crossing his arms, "who's she Coyote?" Coyote just grinned.
"Guys, this is my big sister Raven."
Back at the Institute, Dante sat up suddenly and wondered why he had just felt a cold chill run down his spine. After a moment, he shrugged it off and returned to cleaning his pistols, Life and Death.
Back at the Hood House, Pietro came downstairs, a grim look on his face. He ignored the newcomer, and went straight to Coyote. "We have a problem," he said, handing the note from Thanatos to the man. Coyote skimmed it and then demonstrated that, no matter how large Pietro's curse vocabulary was, his was honed by centuries of experience. Lance and Rick blanched as he delivered a particularly vicious string of curses. Lance looked at Rick over Kitty's head.
"Do you think that we really want to know what the rotting goats head and the nest of hornets are for?" Lance asked.
"Probably not," Rick answered. Raven looked over at Wanda and Fred.
"So," she asked, "is everyday as exciting as this?" Wanda just looked at her.
"Why do you want to know?" Fred asked.
"Because I intend to keep an eye on my little brother." She looked wearily at Coyote, who had run out of English curses and was now onto cursing in Shoshone. "Big brother Wolf asked me to track him down and bring him home if I could. Since he's training all of you; unless I miss my guess," She looked at Todd, who nodded an affirmative. "Well then, I guess I'll have to stay until he's finished training you. Besides," she added, looking at Coyote, who had moved on to Apache, "You kids need a woman around the house, or else you'll spend all your free time in belching contests." Coyote ignored her, and kept right on going. He handed the note, which he had crumpled in his fist, over to Lance.
Lance removed his arm from around Kitty and took the note. After a few seconds, his brow furrowed. Another second later, and the earth around him began to shift, small lumps and hollows forming in the ground around him. He looked up and glared at Pietro. The silver-haired speedster had the good grace to look ashamed. "Look," he began, but Lance cut him off.
"Save it," the terrakinetic growled. He looked at Kitty. "I need to cool off for a little bit, okay?" At her nod, Lance stalked into the house, flinging the note and slamming the door behind him. Coyote on the other hand, had moved on into cursing in Shawnee. Tabby went to retrieve the note, missing the way Ricks jaw went slack as she bent over. He managed to gather his wits before she turned back to them.
"Wonder what got Lance so hot under the collar?" After reading the note, she went slightly pale. "Ummm, Kitty? Do you remember that guy who attacked the bank because he was after Shawn?" Kitty nodded once more, while Rick just looked confused. "He's back, and he's working for Magneto." Raven looked between the two, noting the face that they both sported. She crossed her arms and looked sternly at Pietro, who shuffled his feet like a guilty five year old that had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"I want to know what's going on. NOW." Pietro gulped, while the rest of the Brotherhood just stood there. Fred scratched his head in confusion.
"Could someone please explain what's goin' on here?"
In the background, Coyote was now cursing in Navaho.
--Magneto's Lair—
Magneto glared at his two spies from his chair. "Your reports," he ordered. Gambit stepped forward.
"De ony'(only) ting Gambit fine out is dat de Draco be able to create some sorta projections that can iteract wit de enviroment." The Cajun flicked the toothpick he had been chewing on onto the ground. "Dey look pleny tough." Magneto nodded, going into thought.
'This 'Draco' is becoming more powerful than I had anticipated. I need to find some way to counteract this power shift, or else Xavier will maintain his edge over my Acolytes. Perhaps the Brotherhood…?' When Thanatos was sure that he wouldn't interrupt his 'leader's' (He smirked mentally) thoughts, he stepped forward to deliver his own report.
"I'm afraid I have bad news My Lord. The Brotherhood has forsaken you." At this Magneto shot bolt upright.
"Explain yourself, before I decide that you need a lesson in holding you tongue; literally." Thanatos nodded, not perturbed by the threat.
"One of O'Reily's friends, a man called Coyote, is now living with the Brotherhood and training them in the use of their powers. They seem quite comfortable with him." Magneto seethed, but calmed quickly.
"And?" he demanded.
"Today, the woman Mystique attempted to retake control of the Brotherhood."
"I assume the traitorous witch defeated this…human?" Thanatos smirked, stretching his disfigured face into a grotesque mask.
"He not only defeated her easily, after he allowed her to regain her breath, he allowed the Brotherhood to finish her off, further bonding them to himself. Your son and daughter assisted in her downfall. And it also appears that your daughter may be developing feelings for one Todd Tolensky, aka 'The Toad'." Thanatos could only cackle gleefully in his mind as Magneto's eyes bugged.
"I…see." Magneto turned around, waving a hand dismissively. "Go," he ordered.
As Gambit and Thanatos left their leader's office, they couldn't help but smirk evilly at each other as a strangled yell echoed through the base.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"
---To Be Continued---
Well, there's that chapter. Next time, Magneto makes plans to acquire a new ally to even the power structure. And it's one of the X-Men! Also, a certain reptile's birthday is coming. What madness lurks on the horizon? Find out next time, but until then, Read & Review! And any suggestions are welcome.