AN: Hey folks, chapter 35 is here. I'll give you all fair warning, some of the material here is a bit darker than my norm, but the real world had to catch up to Shawn and his friends eventually, right? But don't worry, my normal skewed sense of humor will shine through in the end!
Chapter 35: Tournament of the Black Tear Arc: Setting the Stage
Tom O'Reily surveyed his property with a sigh, before going back inside the dojo. It was so quiet now…
Ever since Tom had returned home from his visit with his nephew things had gone from bad to worse. Jason Lutz, Jon's father, had rallied most of the town against him for "harboring those mutant freaks". Most of his students had been pulled from his classes, against their wills, by their parents, and those that had continued to attend had been abused, both verbally, and then physically by the worst of the town. Only the timely intervention of TsuyoshiKamiya, Sebastian "Slash" Kamiya's grandfather, known as Old Man Kamiya to the majority of the town ("Yoshi" to his friends), had prevented one of Tom's female students from being raped by a group of local thugs as an "example".
All five of them were currently taking up space in the county ICU. Tom was almost positive that they'd show signs of brain activity before the Y3K bug got them. Maybe. At least they still had their lives.
It was more than Tom would have left them with.
Tom had cancelled all classes after that, at the same time spreading the word through the local underground that if any more of his students were threatened in any way, shape, or form, then he would start calling in favors from both sides of the law, and it would not end well for the idiots who initiated it. Word got out fast, No one messed with the people under The O'Reily's protection if they liked breathing.
Right now the town was split down the middle on whether they should continue as normal, or drive both Tom and the Old Man out of town. Old friends were turning against one another as the infrastructure of the town crumbled. Tom hated it. He'd moved here because it was peaceful, because no one seemed to harbor any hatred against their neighbors. But with the revelation that at least three of their number had been mutants, the veneer of gentility was stripped away, leaving a raw, ugly face in its stead.
'Maybe it's time to take a vacation,' Tom thought, when a sudden commotion clamored through the house. An old Asian man with a thick mustache appeared, dragging something behind him. His iron-gray hair was in a shoulder length pony-tail, and he was dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and shorts. A shoto was tucked through his belt, the twenty-two inch, heavy wooden sword much, much more dangerous than it looked, especially in the seeming geezer's rough hands.
"Yo Tom, I caught this dude sneaking 'round the house, thought you might want to have a chat with 'em before I kicked his punk ass to the curb." Tom gave a wry chuckle. While Old Man Kamiya may have looked like an eccentric New Age Mr. Miyagi, he certainly didn't talk like one. Pushing the brief moment of levity away, Tom looked the man up and down.
The intruder was dressed in standard ninja garb, colored a dull smoky gray. He would have been fairly tall standing, an inch or two below six feet perhaps, a shock of red hair peeking out from his hood. Tom's sharp eyes suddenly focused on the man's hands. "Eh, what's this?" He bent down and tugged a small scroll from the man's clenched hands. The scroll was sealed with old fashioned sealing wax, and a seal in the form of a series of kanji was pressed into it. Tom's eyes lit as he recognized the seal, and the reason behind it.
"Hey 'Yoshi, what would you say to a little road trip?" Even as Sebastian's grandfather began to demand an explanation as to what the HELL he was talking about, a plot began to worm its way through Tom's cunning mind.
It was time for the world to learn that not everything was as it was presented by the regular media…
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The Next Day, New York City
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J. Jonah Jameson, founder, editor, and owner of "The Daily Bugle", scowled into the receiver of his phone as the reporter on the other end vainly tried to make excuses for the missed article. "Listen you worm, either dig up something worth putting on the front page or you're fired!" He slammed the receiver down on the startled squawk from the other end, before sighing and turning in his chair, massaging the ache between his brows with one hand.
The Bugle had recently hit a very bad dry spell. It seemed that all of the good stories were either happening on the other side of the world, or slipping through the reporters fingers like so much gold dust. Even Spider-Man had been quiet lately! Jameson groaned and covered his face with one hand. "I need some coffee," he groaned.
"Well I'm afraid I left my coffee pot on the ground floor, but how about a chance at not one, but two once-in-a-lifetime stories?" JJ shot up with wide eyes, to find Tom seated in one of the chairs opposite his desk, feet propped up and a shit-eating grin all over his face. The ninja nodded. "How ya been ya old newshound?"
JJ controlled himself with difficulty, giving the younger man a strained smile. "I really hate it when you people do that O'Reily." Tom paused for a second, before pouting.
"You mean somebody else took over my job of scaring you shitless in your own office?" he asked with an exaggerated trembling of the lip, and wide puppy-dog eyes. Jameson couldn't help but give a chuckle at the ridiculous picture that the other man made.
"Whadda you want exactly O'Reily?" JJ got straight to business.
"A little positive publicity for a minority that's being maligned for circumstances beyond their control."
JJ blinked for a second, translating the lawyer-speak into plain english. Then his eyes narrowed. "You want some good PR for mutants don't you?"
Tom tensed, anger flashing in his eyes. "JJ if you start babbling the same shit I've heard from nearly every other news cast and rag paper then so help me…" The metal armrest on Tom's chair squeaked in protest as his calloused fingers dug into it. Suddenly Jameson threw back his head and laughed.
"Relax O'Reily, I may be an ass, but I'm no bigot. I'll write the article personally. Should boost sales a little, either that or get me stoned as a heretic."
Tom relaxed. "I'd also like for you to host a debate on your news cast, some of the head bigots versus me and a few other debaters." He chuckled. "At the very least it'll give me a list of who to watch out for."
JJ taped his chin and "hmmm-ed". "That's a tall order there O'Reily, but I think I can manage it. But what exactly do I get in return?"
Tom tossed a small rolled parchment to the older man. JJ caught it, fumbling with it for a moment, before getting it unrolled. He read through it quickly, after scanning a small note Tom had added in at the top, before his eyes widened.
"You're willing to risk…everything basically, to take a reporter THERE?! AND a photographer! Either you've got more pull than I thought, or you've got balls of steel! I don't think even the Kingpin could pull something like that and get away with his life!"
Tom shrugged. "Eh, a little bit of column A, a bit of B. The point is, are you interested? There'll be certain restrictions, such as the use of professional names only, the blurring of faces, and changing of civilian names for protection; though that's more for you than them." JJ nodded. He was well aware that the circles O'Reily traveled in valued their privacy over all else. One slipup could result in some very nasty things happening to him.
"I'm in. Just give me a few days to pick the right people for the job."
Tom nodded. "I'll come to pick them up in two weeks time, before we go to pick up a few of my students. They're going to be fighting too." With that he ambled over to the window, and promptly vaulted out onto the ledge, before jumping out of sight.
JJ nodded absently, already turning to the phone. "Janice! Get Robby and Parker in here, on the double!" He looked at the scroll once more, before adding, "And tell Parker that this job'll pay extra."
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Xavier's
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Logan was sitting at the long table in the kitchen, grumbling into a beer. A few heads poked around the corner, before whisking out of sight.
"See!" Tabby whispered to Amara, "I told you that he was in here!" Rick shook his head in disbelief.
"So that means that Shawn really…?" Tabby nodded so fast that it looked like her head was about to fly off.
"You got it Princess. He and his two ghost-buddies tossed Logan and Scott right out of the Danger Room, and now they won't let anyone in!"
At that moment Bobby skidded around the corner, eyes alight. "Hey guys, Smaug's letting us in to see what Shawn's doing!"
The two girls followed the icer back down towards the DR. As they stepped off the elevator though, Tabby's steps faltered. Rick looked up at the noise, and stilled as his eyes met Tabby's. Emotions shot between the two in an invisible skirmish. Embarrassment tussled with satisfaction, and friendship waged a valiant effort against desire and lust. Love was keeping his head down and out of sight. Then Tabby broke the connection, lowering her head as she walked by Rick, a small flush on her face. Rick half-reached out for her shoulder, but then sighed and let his arm hang back down.
This tension between the two had yet to be resolved, and in the days following the recovery from the Cleveland trip it had only worsened. Now the two weren't even able to speak to each other, even in passing. It was killing Rick inside. When he had first gotten to the Institute, Tabby had been one of the first to make friends with him, and to be honest, he'd been a little taken with her from day one.
As he had gotten to know the residents of the Institute better, all of them began to fall into set places in his world. Scott was the inexperienced leader, afraid that every choice he made on the field might somehow backfire, and so he strived to be the best he could, often taking it into overkill territory. Jean was that little voice in the back of your head, literally sometimes, that asked you if you'd done your homework yet. The rest of the original X-Men and New Mutants fell under easily recognizable categories; prankster, scholar, valley girl, technophile, little brother, annoying sister, defender, mother figure; the list went on and on.
Only two people refused to be categorized. One was Shawn, who seemed to have so many different hidden facets that he was impossible to pigeonhole. The only title Rick had been able to attach to his name was "fighter", and even that seemed inadequate sometimes.
The other was Tabby. No matter how hard Rick tried to shelve her in the back of his mind, she managed to work her way to the front, defying his attempts to tag her; blasting right through any other thoughts in his head.
Speaking of blasts…
As Rick walked into the Control Room, the structure shook from a shockwave that emanated from the DR. Abandoning his rather morose thoughts, Rick rushed to the windows and peered out the glass, noting in passing that Tabby was right beside him. His jaw dropped when he caught sight of the action down below.
Shawn was standing in the center of the DR, a bloody mess. Sweat and blood dripped off of him in equal measure as he tried to catch his breath. Arrayed around him were almost fifteen of the highest level training robots, which were armed with everything short of ballistic firearms. His forearms were distended into scaled down versions of his draconic form's, as were his feet, while the rest of him looked normal enough, if battered as hell.
Bahumut looked on from the control room, a stern look on his face as he leaned towards the mic. "Again Shawn, if you don't take it to the next level you're gonna die out there!" Heads whipped in the ghostly dragon's direction at the word "die", horror etched on their faces. But before anyone could say anything, a deep, rumbling roar seemed to roll through the entire mansion.
Down below, Shawn exploded into a frenzy, moving so fast that he was almost a blur. He ran at the first robot, jumped off the ground, and ran up its chest, his t-rex feet tearing the metal like tinfoil, before he reached the things head, grabbed it, went into a sort of handstand on the thing's shoulders, before flipping over onto the bot's back. He roared again as he pulled the robot down after him, throwing it over his head with the force of his momentum.
He didn't let go of it though, and followed it's erratic flight like a kite caught on the tail of a 747, crashing into a small group of the trainer-bots. He kicked off the pile, just as the mass exploded, propelling him into the next group, which was savagely dismantled with strikes to the machine's joints that shattered them like so much rotten wood. He finished the last one off with a heel-drop to the head that caved in its steel skull.
As he stood in the center of the room, panting, half blinded by sweat and blood that had dripped into his eyes, his ears still ringing from the rush of battle, he thought back on the small scroll that was still resting unopened serenely on his bed upstairs, and he bellowed up at Bahumut to send another wave.
'I gotta get up to speed, or I'm as good as luggage.'
---
At the Brotherhood Boardinghouse, Lance and Todd were watching a similar scene with queasy stomachs, while Coyote stood by, stone-faced. Hack was fending off Biker's tonfa, Scratch's chains, and Decoy's hammer!
That wasn't to say that he'd escaped unscathed, oh no. He was battered and bruised, with a small trickle of blood leaking from his mouth, alongside the other scrapes and cuts he'd acquired. Said trickle was wiped away with the back of one hand, before Jon scowled at his team. "Stop holding back! If you want to help me so much, then help me get strong enough to be taken seriously! Otherwise go back in the house and I'll just spar with Coyote instead!"
A screech from behind was the only warning he got before Gremlin pounced on his head, sharp claws raking at his scalp as teeth sought tender areas. Jon shouted, before ripping the goblin-esqe creature off of him, punting the green menace in a random direction. He tried to wipe the blood dribbling into his eyes away, but had no time as Scratch pinned his arms with his chains. Hack struggled to bring one of his daggers to bear, knowing that the links could be pried open with his blade, but froze when he felt the cool metal circles of Biker's berenja pistols against his neck. The virus' voice was soft as he spoke. "Yield Boss, I don't like this kinda training. Spar with Coyote, spar with the rest of the Brotherhood, but don't do this to yourself, there's only so much those reconstruction programs can fix."
Jon stiffened for a moment, before slumping bonelessly to the ground. "Alright guys, I yield." He punched the ground as Scratch's chains dissolved, cursing under his breath. Todd managed to catch the words "too weak", and something inside snapped.
With a bound he was over the railing of the porch and at the other boy's side. Grabbing Jon's collar he shook the other teen like a rat, before locking gazes with Jon. "Don't ever call yourself weak yo. I let people call me that for years, and I'm only in one piece because I managed to find a friend here or there that kept me from slitting my wrists just to get away from my own weakness!"
Off to the side, Coyote mentally noted that it was time to increase the boy's weights, and then find out what the hell Freddy was putting in his cooking. Todd was wearing nearly thirty pounds on each wrist and ankle by now, and his slight frame had barely increased in mass, indicating that "the Toad" was more of a bullfrog than anyone would have expected. And he was still shaking Jon around like a rag doll, so caught up in trying to drive a point home that he was getting careless. Raven chose the moment to step in.
"Todd, let Jon go, he doesn't need to be flung about like that, especially not if he's about to pass out from blood loss." The woman's voice was quite, but firm, with a silent air of command that couldn't be ignored.
Toad froze as he realized exactly how hard he'd been shaking his fellow Hood, and gently set Jon back on his feet. The blonde swayed for a moment, before Lance grabbed one of his arms, steadying him. Wanda appeared through the door, followed by Sharon, whose tail was lashing the air with suppressed agitation. She hated seeing her boyfriend nearly killing himself over something like a letter, and she said as much as she handed off the bandages she was carrying to Raven, while Wanda dumped her own load of medical supplies into Coyote's waiting arms. "Why does Jon-jon have to train so hard; will end up killing himself!" Her eyes went a little empty then as she muttered "and leave Catseye all alone," under her breath.
"I think I should probably explain it for him, looks like that last hit from Gremlin knocked a few sub-routines out of synch in that digital skull of his." Coyote's assessment looked to be pretty accurate, Jon's eyes were out of focus, and he was starting to grin vacantly.
"Oi, lookit all the pretty spots…"
Coyote palmed his face, before turning to look at the assembled Brotherhood. "Okay, the long and short of it is…"
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The Alley
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Slash ducked a swing of Spyke's fiery javelin, lashing out with a wooden Tetsusaiga. Spyke blocked, kicking the demonic mutant away. "So you and these other guys that trained at that dojo have to go to this tournament or else you'll be killed?" Slash wiped a bit of blood from a gash on his face off with his thumb and nodded.
"Essentially, but you understand that the "invitation" for family and close friends is something I wasn't aware of, right?" Spyke nodded even as he shot out a burst of arrow-sized spikes at Slash.
"I don't like it, but since at least four people have to come with you, I figure that I better go to protect them. Calysto can take care of things here."
"So glad that you trust me, Mr. In-Charge." Calysto's dry comment caught Spyke by surprise, the teen turning his head to look at her. It was all the opening Slash needed. Calysto blinked, and suddenly Slash was pinning Spyke's neck to the ground with his wooden sword, keeping his body angled in such a way that he could dodge any spikes while keeping the pressure on his opponent's neck constant. Shippo's voice was carefully neutral as he spoke from the corner he'd been observing from.
"I think that's enough for now Spyke. You've both got a week and a half to beat each other senseless in the name of training. Right now we need to finalize the list of who's willing to go to the tournament."
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Magneto's base
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Magneto looked at the scrolls that Gambit and Thanatos had handed to him, and raised one eyebrow.
"Surely you can't be seriously afraid of threats from these humans," he spat. Krupner slammed his hands down on the desk the Master of Magnetism sat behind, denting the metal structure.
"These aren't humans you ignorant ass, they're shinigami! Death GODS! If the-urk" Krupner was cut off in mid-rant as Sabretooth closed a hand on his windpipe at a gesture from Magneto.
"Curb your temper Thanatos, or do I need to have Mastermind fix that too?" Magneto arched one brow, folding his hands in front of his face. "Now, if you think you can explain without irking me any further, do so." Thanatos glared at him for a moment, before pointedly shifting his eyes towards Sabretooth, who still had his hand locked around the smaller man's throat. Magneto groaned. "For God's sake Creed, let the man breath!"
With a disappointed grunt, Sabretooth let the assassin go. Krupner wiped away some small spots of blood from the feral's claws, and threw him a glare, before taking a breath. "The Shinigami clan is quite easily one of the oldest, well known, deadliest, and most controversial clans of assassins in existence. Rumors are they've offed more than one Emporer, and even took the contract on Kennedy. They're ruthless, they're inventive, they're unpredictable… and they're honorable." The last was muttered almost like a curse.
Behind his hands, Magneto's lips twitched upwards. "And…"
Thanatos snapped to look at him. "And every underworld element with a sane mind heading their organization knows not to cross them if they want to stay alive! Magneto, not even the Kingpin has been able to cross these guys without coming away with fewer men than he went in with. A lot fewer men."
Gambit nodded. "Oui, de Shinigami be some bad fellas to cross. One of the heads of the Assassins Guild decided they were gunna kick one of dere operatives outta town, a message to leave N'Orleans to de natives or someting like dat." The thief shook his head. "It wasn't pretty. De Shinigami guy left de kids n women alone, at least those that didn't try and attack him. De rest…" He gave a sick looking smile. "Well let's just say dat de family graveyard had to be expanded dat day."
Magneto nodded in understanding. "I see… and what of this proviso that my presence is not welcomed?"
Gambit looked a little nervous now, as did Thanatos. "Um see boss, dis tournament's gonna have a lot of people with a lot of pull on both sides of the law dere, and I guess dey just don' want you trying to take advantage of de situation." Magneto nodded.
"Thus the warning I received that should I attempt to attend, one of these," he held up a slim wooden needle that was about seven inches long, "would find a new home in my brain via the optic nerve passage." His tone was flat, void of anger, or anything else. The Acolytes all shivered, this was when he was most dangerous. Magneto leaned forward.
"Very well, I'll allow you and Gambit to attend this function, along with Mastermind and Piotr. That should fulfill the stipulations these…people, have imposed on me." 'And keep my own skin in one piece, whoever could leave that needle in my private bath while I was showering is not someone I dare cross.' He smirked behind his hands as he glanced at a sheet of paper on his desk. 'At least not yet.'
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Forge's lab
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Forge's hand shook as he held the letter closer to his face, peering at it as if trying to decode some hidden message. The letter, from a patent firm called White Dog Enterprises, was an invitation to a meeting between him and a representative of both the firm, and Stark Enterprises, to negotiate a deal for the rights to research and development of his latest invention. He frowned a little as he noticed the place set as the meeting point, even though the letter assured him that the place would be heavily guarded during the negotiations.
"Who sets up a meeting in a dump in New York City?"
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To Be Continued…
Well, there's the first chapter of this newest arc. It's gonna be a lot longer than Dot Hack Redemption too. Next time, the tournament looms closer as the groups make their final preparations at the end of the two weeks. Who will go, who will stay, and who will show up? Find out next time, in a chapter titled "Gathering the Players"!
AN: Okay folks, I'm back and badder than ever! But I need your help. I need fighters. I've already come up with a few, but this Tournament is the biggest thing in the Underground, and it attracts types from all over. So what I need from you all are fighters with interesting, strange, and if possible, outlandish fighting styles as possible. They can be mutants, meta-humans, or ordinary people with extra-ordinary talents like Tom. Weaponry is allowed, and remember, the more unorthodox, the better. The top three picks will be featured in my story, and who knows, if I like em enough I may bring them back in later chapters!