Ch. 9- The Feces Hits the Fan
Pietro was having a good day.
It'd started out just perfect; he'd gotten to school on time, taunted the x-geeks, and gotten himself a hot date with not one, but two girls. Twins! After all of that, he wasn't expecting for it to get better, but it did.
After coming back to the Brotherhood's decaying house and finding pop tarts that Freddy hadn't gotten to (food was so scarce it was almost funny), he'd noticed that no one was home. But the real question was, where had everyone gone?
Pietro decided a little, ahem, investigation was needed so he helped himself to looking in his teammates rooms. Peitro passed the Blob's without a second thought (the room was as disgusting as the man's eating habits), and went into Avalanche's one. Other than finding out he was disgustingly in love with Kitty, which he knew already, there was nothing to be found. It was the same with most of the other rooms, finding Piotr's room filled with paintings and supplies, and Todd's… Well, Todd's room was another one he overlooked. He then stopped in front of LeBleau's room.
LeBleau had made it more than clear that no one should enter his room without his strict allowance, as Peitro remembered all too well. The last time he'd zipped into his room to grab a deck of his cards to play with, he'd found himself flat on his face, a glowing red ace of spades shoved so close to his cheek that he'd gotten a slight burn. His demon eyes danced with an unearthly fire, as he growled out in a soft voice "No one comes in here homme, comprenez-vous?" He ripped the playing cards out of Peitro's hands.
Peitro had understood loud and clear, all right. He didn't need to know french to get that he was being told to stay the hell out. And he'd heeded those warnings so far, knowing that despite being Magneto's kid the cajun would do serious damage. He was just too calm about threatinging bodily harm, that he knew the cajun meant it.
But the mutant wasn't home now, and… Well, he really wanted to know what the man was hiding! Who knows, he could be plotting against the brotherhood for all they knew, and he'd be doing a service for the team!
Cautiously slinking in, he studied the room intently. It was his first chance to get a good look at the Acadian's room, and so he was taking his time. The place looked like a weird mix of a bar and the CIA HQ. Bottles of bourbon, cognac, vodka and other alchols stood in a line on wall, with shot glasses on a table next to it. Sitting next to a half-finished glass of scotch was a laptop, scanner, printer/faxer and several other expensive looking pieces of equiptment which Peitro had no idea what they did. On the wall next to his bed was a gigantic map of the surrounding areas and the city, covered in a thin sheet of glass and markered in specific locations with shorthand written next to it.
The final touch was the odd interspersing of normal, regular stuff. A few books were strewn near the bed, along with some porn; a mardi-gras mask was hanging on the wall and his clothes lay rather haphazardly to the sides of the room. His watch and cologne sat atop important looking files as if it were a natural thing to do.
Peitro tooka coughing swig of whishey as he looked around. While studying the cologne bottle, he caught a better look at the papers underneath it. Eyes skimming the page lightly, he could barely believe what he saw. Somehow, that card toting annoyance had found the bounties Magneto had given them ealier. The information was so nondescript and few that Peitro himself had privately giving up on the search, thinking they were untrackable. But leave it to a theif to track the untrackable.
Continuing his persual of the paper, he noticed something jotted down on the bottom of the page. 45th and Lexington, 4:30. Making the connections, he realized with a moment of stunning clarity that these were the time and directions to finding these people. And sure, he might be stealing the cajun's work… but oh well. LeBleau had stolen from so many other people, he might as well get a taste of his own medicine.
Pietro looked at the time. 4:42. If he ran fast, looked around in the right places, with luck he'd be able to nab at least one of the bounties for himself. And with that he was gone in a flash, looking for a group of asian students…
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Sakura was downright confused. At one moment, she was going to get a ride from the kind Mr. LeBleau to their car; the next, and she was flying at top speeds through the crowded streets of the city. It took her a moment to figure out that she was being carried by a white blond haired man- what!- who had a rather tight grip on her. At a few hundred miles per hour.
"What are you doing! Let me go!" Despite her yelling, Sakura's words were mostly lost to the wind, though the man seemed to get the jist of it. The mutant just made a cocky, irritated snort and ran faster.
Frightened, Sakura wondered what kind of magic the boy was using, perhaps something like the dash card? But his aura was eerily clear of magic, instead looking like a fizzling ball of strange energy.
Either ways, Sakura had to escape. As she'd realized with chilling clarity, every second brought her miles and miles farther from her friends and safety. Grabbing her star key, she rushed through the incantation to unlock her staff.
The boy watched her for a moment with curiosity which then quickly turned into awe and then worry, hardened over with anger. Sakura desperately summoned a card, before recklessly activating the first cards she could get her hands on in a rush of breath.
"Fly Card!" Sakura's heart was beating like a drum as she felt the Fly's wings begin to materialize on her back; she never realized how long it took before, how much a second could count for everything. And that extra second caught up with her, as the boy startled, and feeling the wings beginning to grow, dropped her.
From an outsider's perspective, this could have been thought of as a good thing, but it was far from. Moving upwards of 100 mph and without fully formed wings, the only thing she could do was make a few pathetic sweeps before she hit the ground at a blinding speed. The only thing that saved her from instant death was the Fly, which shattered off her back on impact, leaving her to painfully roll across the ground for about twenty feet.
Pain blossomed all across her body in waves so powerful that she had to stop herself from biting her tounge off. Screaming wasn't even an option. She laid there like a broken doll, limbs akimbo, not daring to make the smallest motions. Tears leaked in a contsant stream down her face, as she registered the damage. She could feel the wet hot drip of blood down her right side, could feel the unnatural angle her left arm had taken underneath her body. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream. Most of all, she just wanted the pain to stop.
Slowly cracking her eyes open for the barest of moments against the pain, she saw the one thing that doomed her. The white-blonde haired young man held the star staff, which had reverted back into a key, and was looking at it and her with a keen eye. He gave her a smirking glance before burying it deep in his pocket, and moving towards her. Sakura tried to move, but her body protested in white-hot spurts of blinding pain. Sakura realized with growing dread that this was the end, she had been caught and would soon be killed by this strange man, who had gotten her on a whim and taken her down so easily. She had failed her duties to protect the cards, and the people. Her tears turned into muted sobs.
The Blond's hand skimmed across her face when he turned towards something, or someone, behind them. Sakura didn't know who, everything was becoming fuzzy… She just really needed to rest…
Sakura's eyes drooped closed.
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Peitro sighed, looking at the broken, defeated girl laying half unconcious at his feet. True, dropping her had caused the desired effect of taking all the fight out of her and leaving her a compliant little hostage, but… He really hadn't meant to do it. He'd been slightly worried and interested when he saw her fumbling around with that chain of hers. When he felt something starting to grow on her back though, he lost it. Who knew what could've come out of that girl? He'd found it a mile or so back on the road, and thought it best to keep it.
The file didn't mention she was a mutant, but then again he didn't read it the whole way through. He'd been too busy trying to get there in time to take her off of LeBleau's hands. And hell, the girl was pretty, even while beat up. Even bleeding and bruised, her skin looked delicate and creamy.
He made an impulsive move to stroke the unbroken skin on her cheek, but never got to do it when he heard a noise from behind him. Turning around sharply, he looked up to find several numbers of things happen at once.
"Oooh…shit."
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With the Speed Demon finally stopped and given them a chance for fixed coordinates, Cyclops got his team on the move. "In the Blackbird! Let's go, go!"
With his team rushing back on to the plane, and Li's team due to arrive via Nightcrawler once they got there and got a good visual of the place, this was looking to turn into one hell of a showdown.
Pietro had made it out of the city and was currently situated, according to the coordinates, in a park in the suburbs. His hostage, according to what the Professor could garner through Cerebro, was badly hurt and in need of medical assistance. This battle had already taken on a grim note.
Despite that fact, Cyclops was extremely confident that he could handle anything the Brotherhood could throw at them. He didn't want, and definitely didn't need Li's help. So, if he got delayed in sending Kurt over… Well, that would be just too bad. They needed him more.
The Blackbird finally landed, and Cyclops got his team out and moving. " Okay team, let's move! We've got two objectives: Get the hostage into safe custody, and keep the nearby civilians safe."
With that his team left the jet, running into an open field. Peitro was easily spotted on the other side of the park, his distinctive hair sticking out from a mile away.
"Let's make this fast and take him by surprise," Cyclops spoke quitely into the mic. " Eva, I want to you port yourself and Evan on either side of them, and quickly move in so he can't get away. Kurt, you'll be working with me. I'll take him from behind and if he tries to dash off, take him down with your teleporting abilities,"
The three of the nodded, but looked as if they were confused. "Cyclops," Kurt began, "I vas under zee impression zat I vas going to go back for zee other team…"
Scott pushed aside his anger, giving a rational explanation. "We have no time to wait for them to bamf over here right now, Pietro can leave with the target at any time. And anyways, it's four of us against one. We undoubtedly have the advantage."
His team looked at him askance, but said nothing more as they got moving to take their places. Just as they were doing it, Cyclops heard the screeching of a car and saw Gambit jumping out of the driver's seat, the metal man Piotr right behind him. And Scott knew the battle had moved up a notch. The Brotherhood lackeys were easy to deal with, but the Acolytes were a different case altogether. They could do real damage.
"Bonjour, Homme," The Acadian said with a rougish smirk, his left hand holding a pack of glowing cards.
And to make it worse, coming from the far corner was the rest of the two aforementioned teams, looking supremely pissed off. St. John was looking especially insane today, flicking his zippo with malicious glee as he lead the Blob, Toad, and Avalanche into the mix. Scott sweated, realizing that the x-men were now outnumbered nearly 2 to 1. Biting back his pride, he turned to Nightcrawler.
"Get the other team over here, and fast!"
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Back in the city, Li was starting to get impatient. Cyclops should have contacted their team minutes ago, and he was beginning to worry over whether they were alright.
Just then, Nightcrawler bampfed in. "Zee Brotherhood and Acolytes! Come quick, help!"
Li's team rushed over to go immediately, but Syaoran stopped them. " Wait a second, let's have a plan before we rush in!" He said, stepping in front of Kurt.
"We want to take down the most dangerous mutants first," Li explained, "and from what I understand that would be the Acolytes. Kitty and Rogue, I want the two of you to work together taking down Pyro. Kitty can allow you two to evade the attacks, and Rouge you can drain his powers. From there, start using them to our benefit and try taking down Gambit."
"Jean, I want to you get a hold of Pietro by keeping him in the air, and you Kurt should deal with the Toad. I'll be taking down Colossus and helping wherever I can. We go in two at a time with Kurt. Now let's go!"
Kitty and Rogue went together first, leaving Jean and Li waiting for Kurt to reappear. Jean looked at their leader nevously, hoping he knew what he was doing, as Li's face took on the blank look of deep concentration. Kurt bampfed back for them, and time seemed to slow down before resuming the fast paced world of battle.
Blue smoke billowing around them, the three x-men landed in the middle of a full scale fight.
"Watch out!" Kitty called
Jean ducked, looking wildly about for the danger as Kurt bampfed to another spot on the field. Li, however kept standing, deflecting chunks of broken earth as if he were swatting flies. The Blob, who had been throwing the boulders, practically roared.
"Jean! Go find Pietro and the hostage! I'll take care of this!" Looking around to find the speed demon, she took in the destruction. Kitty and Rouge had taken on Pyro as instructed, but Gambit had come into the fight early and had singled Rogue out for a fight, leaving Kitty on her own. Gambit seemed to be taunting the southern girl, small explosions going off with the light whistle of a thrown card. Kitty on the other hand, looked to be having a much worse time as she kept nearly constantly intangible, the waves of fire passing through her.
Eva looked half amused and half sickened as she fought against Toad, fingering her throwing knives with a dangerous glint in her eyes. Jean had long ago explained that while they fought the enemy, the x-men's prinicipals called for as little violence as possible. It was clear that the Sorceress was having a hard time with that rule.
Scott fought across from her meanwhile against Avalanche as usual, making a veritable mess as the land around them itself writhed like tentacles, going up into showers of dirt and fire whenever Scott shot a stray beam of light.
Jean finally located Pietro, who was dueling it out with his long time rival Spike. "Spike!" She called, "Let me deal with him, just get the girl back to the Blackbird!" The hostage, lying a bit past the two mutants, looked more than worse for the wear; her wounds were serious.
"Well, if it isn't the red-headed bitch," Speed Demon called out caustically, before running over and roughly pushing Spike away from the girl. "No way, she's my bounty!"
A low whistle sounded, and Pietro was able to escape just in time from the glowing card sailing towards his feet. "Your bounty, homme? You got a death wish or som'tin?" Peitro said some rather unsavory words and tried to punch him, but was tripped up by the grinning cajun.
Jean looked at the two, confused, before Kurt bampfed over. "Vas happening?" He asked, looking at the two glowering mutants.
"I have no idea," Jean responded, but quickly got back on task. "Kurt, get Li over here as soon as possible! That girl needs medical assistance."
"He's indesposed at zee moment, though," He responded as he ducked from a chunk of rock and pointed over their shoulder. Blob was lying facedown on the ground, looking for all meanings of the word trashed, while Li took on the giant metal man Colossus.
"Go get Rogue and fight together against him, we need Syaoran over here now!" Kurt disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke as Spike came back over. "This is seriously weird. What do we do?"
The fight between Pietro and Gambit was heating up, though it was very clear who was going to win. Gambit seemed to be toying with the speedster, delivering attacks that would do minimal damage but create serious amounts of pain, from the howling he was making.
"Leave them to it. All we have to worry about is getting the girl. Hopefully, Li-" Syaoran appeared just then with Kurt, who bampfed away with a little salute.
"What's going on?" Li said as he took in the fight, and then looked at Jean.
"Speed Demon and Gambit seem to be having a fight over the hostage," She reported, "and we need your help with her. She's in worse condition than we thought, so we need to get her medical attention, fast." Li looked over to the bloodied girl thirty feet away, and a shiver seemed to race through him.
"Li, man, you alright?" Spike spoke up, noticing the way Syaorans' face took on a look of alarm.
"I'm fine. Spike, Keep watch that nobody attacks me, healing takes a lot of concentration and I won't be able to defend myself. Jean, keep watch of this battle and step in if they break up or one of them falls." He fingered a few potions on his belt, before looking at Spike. "You ready?"
Spike rolled his eyes. "I was born ready," With that, the two ran to the side, making a wide arc around LeBleau and Pietro.
Jean watched them, her lips pursed. Something had happened to Syaoran when he looked at the girl in the distance, she felt it. She wasn't good at reading emotions, but she could feel overwhelming amounts of fear, desperation, and a tiny ray of hope coming from him. She wondered why.
Just then, the Speed Demon finally fell from a swift hit over the head by Gambit's bo staff. Gambit smiled rougishly, looking at Jean. "Desconsole, madmoiselle, but I have another femme to look after,"
Jean narrowed her eyes, an indefinable anger striking her. "Who, Rogue?" Jean had seen the way Gambit looked at her and just didn't get it. She didn't understand why the Cajun flirt would even bother to try and woo the goth, since she wasn't very pretty and, oh yeah, untouchable. She was sure he had some scheme in mind for her, like last time with Mardi-Gras.
"Non, not this time," He said, his smirk widening. She wondered what he was smiling about, and then realized too late. The sneaky theif had distracted her and sent a glowing card right towards her feet, before she could even react. She went sailing, and fell unconcious immediately.
Remy smirked at the felled red head. He could sense a little of her feelings, not much, but what he learned he thought stunningly funny. Jean apparently was jealous of Rogue, who he knew for a fact had once been jealous of Jean in return because of her crush on ol' one eyes. Phew, he was glad Rogue was over that, because he'd have serious issues over falling for a girl who liked Mr. Stick-Up-His-Ass Summers.
He stealthily ambled his way over to the bounty.
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Scott could not believe it.
He and Avalanche had been going at each other for at least fifteen minutes now, fifteen uninterrupted minutes of fighting which surprisingly looked grim for him.
Scott for once was losing, and realized it with painful clarity. He knew he was a better fighter than the rock boy for sure, he'd spent so much time in the danger room that there were jokes he did 'other things' with the robots (he wanted to kill Bobby for that). It was just he couldn't keep his focus, trying to figure out what was going on in the battle and why everybody was looking to Li, and of all people, Jean! For instruction. He was the team leader, he was the one supposed to be answering the questions.
The fact that he was still busy in a fight didn't matter. They should have come to him first! He dodged a boulder and looked over to see two of Magneto's goons, Gambit and Pietro, fighting each other. 'That's weird… Why is Kurt going to Li now? He should have come to me!'
His thoughts were broken when the ground underneath him bucked and threw him, giving him even more cuts and bruises. He rolled just in time to save himself from falling into a deep rift growing in the ground. Avalanche laughed.
"You're almost too pathetic for me to squash, Summers. Who died and made you loser of the x-geeks?" Scott growled and got back to his feet. Team listening to him or not, he had to beat Avalanche. He would not let his reputation be ruined like that.
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Syaoran stealthily made his way over to the prone girl, his heart thumping. Ever since he got here, he'd been on edge even though he'd had no time to show it. Maybe it was him going crazy, maybe it was him looking for things that weren't there, but he was almost sure he was feeling… Her aura. But it might just be another sorceresses' that felt similar: while it was comparatively stronger than most in the clan, it was definitely not strong enough for Sakura. Sakura's powers stood out like a diamond next to coal, even when she was hurt.
And then Jean pointed out the prone girl some distance away, and his heart nearly stopped. The girl was far enough away that he couldn't make out her features, but what he could see had him both deeply afraid and desperately hopeful. Whoever she was, the girl had honey-brown hair, just like… Her. But no, Sakura wasn't in America, she was safe in Japan with her old friends.
Syaoran had taken care of most all of the threats to the Sorcerering World so far, since he was used to fighting them and it was his duty to protect the widely stretching Li Clan. Besides, most of them targeted him because he was a known, powerful figure. He'd had several tough battles, and had endured a lot of pain and suffering, but none of them had defeated him so far. He was sure Sakura was busy with training all the time, anyways. Eriol wouldn't let her get too slack.
Running closer towards the bloodied figure, he pushed dual hope and panicky fear away. He needed to be clearheaded if he wanted to be of any help in this battle. But despite this, his nervousness kept mounting. Right before he rolled the girl over, he felt his sixth sense flare. 'It's Her…'
Syaoran found himself oddly detatched, looking at the face of his youthful crush. It seemed so unreal, and so horrifying in it's reality that his rational self took a backseat while raw instinct took over. It was his Sakura, bleeding and broken in the middle of a field, near death.
He stopped breathing for a moment, before flying into action. He roughly tore potion after potion out from his belt, carefully pouring some down her throat and applying others on wounds, not letting himself think too hard about her state because he knew that he'd collapse in despair and fear.
He went into the healer's trance, carefully mending her bones, replenishing her blood, fixing tissue and ligaments, cuts and bruises. Even with his working as fast as humanly possible to heal her of her wounds, he wasn't sure she was going to make it. She had been left unattended for too long, lost too much blood and taken too much damage. Her heatbeats were few and far between, her breath was shaky and shallow. The one girl he'd ever felt any romantic feelings for, was likely to die right here in the dirt in front of him.
As he came back out of the trance, Evan seemed to be trying to say something to him, but he couldn't hear it. All he heard were echoes of words, muffled and garbled, that didn't make any difference right now.
He turned first to the Cajun, who he'd known was slinking closer and closer to Her. To Sakura. He saw red.
'Fire!' He thought, and a jet of flames nearly disintegrated the stumbling Acadian, who seemed to instinctively realize the danger and backflipped out of the way. LeBleau looked at him with assessing eyes, and holding up his hands, backed off. Li just knew that the Cajun could feel his bubbling rage, and knew fighting him now would be forfeiting his life.
The Speed Demon, however, didn't. But Li didn't mind that at all. He was the one that got her in that state, he instinctively knew. Somewhere in a distant corner of his mind he realized his mind reading abilities were going haywire, picking up everything, but an overwhelming part of him didn't care. He wanted vengeance. He wanted to kill Pietro.
The white haired mutant was running his way at top speeds, but time seemed to slow down. Syaoran could see him determinedly running, a sweat drop slowly sinking towards the earth as the boy tried to make his way to Her, and he snapped.
His ying-yang pendant, which he had yet to use in America, was ripped off his throat. He focused and the necklace turned into his sword, which had grown longer and more lethal looking due to his black mood. Pietro blanched, and finally realized his danger. But it was too late by then, because Li had already summoned the wolves.
