Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except my characters. Which are quite a few this time around. Let's try it this way: I don't own any Marvel characters that happen to show up in the upcoming chapters and which I'm sure you'll recognise without any need to name long lists. I also do not own Jenny, which Dizi created a few years back and which is a fabulous character. I strongly recommend you read her adventures with Wolverine and the X-Men.
18. The Action Before the Action
Creed followed Mystique into the nether regions of the city through an ancient cellar. The building had been connected to the catacombs during the German occupation, with a crude 70 feet long downwinding corridor.
"Ya could've warned me t'bring another pair o'shoes," he grumbled as both his shoes and suit started to whiten under the limestone dust.
Mystique laughed. She had returned to her blue shape and was wearing the hiking boots she had previously stashed in the cellar. When they got to the ancient catacomb tunnel, they stopped for a few minutes as Mystique unlocked a rusty scissor gate. Creed had never been to the Parisian catacombs, but he knew they were a labyrinth of quarries, used centuries ago to extract limestone for building purposes. Over the centuries, there had been a few cave-ins but most of the quarrying tunnels remained. In the previous century, some of the tunnels had become ossuaries, open to the public and the tourists, while the bulk of it had been locked down, even if illegally explored, mapped, painted and turned into private partying rooms by plenty of people.
"Underground party?" Creed asked to break the silence.
He had never enjoyed the unnerving silence of deep cave systems, or their darkness. His ears were constantly picking up information from the world around him, but down in a cave, there was almost no sound. He could feel vibrations, if the stone around allowed him to, but the lack of the accustomed background noises almost caused him a sense of vertigo. It didn't help that the scents behaved differently, down here, away from wind and normal air movement. And then, of course, there was his vision. He could see well enough in the dark, but that was because his eyes could use the slightest type of light in a way that human eyes simply can't. If you walk deep enough into a cave, though, there's no type of light for any eyes to pick up on. And Victor Creed was certainly not used to being fully in the dark when his ears and his nose were off balance. Not to mention Mystique knew how much he disliked caves.
"Business meeting," she called back softly.
The light of the torch illuminated the pale environment as they followed the winding main tunnel, ignoring the few corridors and passageways that took off in different directions. It was another thing he disliked about deep caves: they destroyed his sense of orientation. Of course he could easily backtrack following his scent, but if for some reason he couldn't, it was very difficult to get his bearings and calculate where he was in relation to the upper world.
"I can think of a whole lot of other nicer places t'have a business meetin' at," he grumbled as he sloshed through ankle deep water.
Obviously, Mystique laughed.
"We're almost there."
She was right, they were almost there. The water gave way to mud and then to dry ground. The echoes of their steps became distorted, alerting to a wider space coming up ahead just before they did enter a broad room with three thick pillars supporting the ceiling. Mystique walked to a generator on the far-off wall, behind some stocky furniture, and switched it on. A crackling start gave way to a yellowish light from half a dozen lightbulbs around the space.
"So, what do you think?"
The walls had been whitewashed decades ago, and there were some very old graffities in French. Creed guessed this had been used by the French resistance and wondered why the more recent bands of tunnel explorers had never come across it. There was a wide, solid table near the generator, with a couple of sturdy chairs and a cabinet. Mystique set her switched off torch on the table and walked around the table towards him.
"Quaint," he said as he also walked up to her, "dirty and uncomfortable."
He could smell the adrenaline on Mystique. It meant the meeting would entail more action than parley. Creed didn't need to smell her arousal to know she was about to get a hold of his belt and unbuckle it. Raven had always enjoyed a bit of action prior to some fighting. The only question was whether she meant to have him as an ally on that fight, or as some sort of sacrificial lamb.
She kissed him demandingly and Creed corresponded to a degree, as his hands pulled her dress up and ripped off her underwear. Raven Darkholme was easily the best lay he had ever had, although she should, with all her experience, not to mention her powers. Up until four or five years ago, if someone were to offer him a choice – Raven or anyone else – he'd have gone for the shape-shifter without hesitation. She was danger and pleasure rolled into one: the threat the renegade woman represented even to him forced his senses to the utmost, which meant he felt, smelled and tasted the experience to a far greater degree. It was intoxicating! Pure ecstasy.
Her legs entwined around him, Creed closed his eyes but didn't let himself go. The intoxication was part of the past. Not that she had lost her touch or creativity, Raven was still the best screw you could get, but... It was great for that moment. Once they were done, he needed to be back on his guard because you could never really let your guard down with Raven. He'd learnt that the hard way – very hard way – with her alias Leni Zauber. You did not spill anything to Raven, not your secrets, not your feelings, not your inner-most thoughts, nothing. Isabel, on the other hand, had slowly warmed him to another type of pleasure.
Pushing the shape-shifter's back down on the table, away from his nose, Creed closed his eyes and bit his lip, making sure not a whisper left his tongue. The thought flickered quickly through his mind, that he was simply using Raven's body and she'd be pissed he was not taking her needs into account. Well, fuck her. He was thinking of his Nesi, right now.
She had learnt a lot, in the last six years, but she could never reach Raven's level since she was not a shape-shifter capable of molding both her outer and inner body in ways that were simply beyond words. The inner part, especially. But what she lacked during, she more than made up for in the after. Because you can have all the pleasure you want and never actually feel satisfaction, always wanting those moments of pleasure to continue on and on. But Isabel gave him a satisfaction he had never experienced; the very simple ease of relaxing, knowing she was not about to stab him in the back. Knowing his tongue could slip all it wanted because she would rather die than let anyone as much as dream what he thought and felt. Of course there was always danger associated to that type of relaxing, but it only meant the outside world could attack him when he wasn't looking, whereas with any other woman, he was always expecting them to attack him themselves, in some way.
Ah, his Isabel! He would have given a lot to replace Raven with his woman right now. Love was for losers, like his Lil' Devil had told Wagner once. The most over-rated feeling ever! Now trust, that was something real. If you could really trust a woman the way he could trust Isabel… even if he didn't go around telling her about his past or sharing any secrets, he knew that he could if he wanted to. And that feeling of trust was as powerful as Birdie's old glow. It made the before more arousing, the during more intense, and the after pure satisfaction. So much so, that simply thinking about it made him come, rolling his woman's name hungrily in his mind.
"Wait a minute! Is that it?" Creed pulled his pants up and quickly got out of the shape-shifter's range, just in case. "You're not going to make me come, you selfish bastard?!"
He was playing with fire now, but he didn't care. Raven had been the one to teach him that thinking about a woman's pleasure was in his best interest. At least with Raven it was. Creed only bothered to think about the woman when he felt like it, though, or with some very specific women. Like Raven; or like Ruth, though not so much when it came to her girls. Isabel didn't really count because, whereas he made sure those women were enjoying themselves because they would go the extra mile for him, Creed actually enjoyed witnessing Isabel's pleasure. It was a different thing altogether.
"Blame it on this rat-hole," Creed shrugged, buckling his belt. "It ain't exactly the most romantic place in town, is it?"
He actually laughed when Mystique echoed the word 'romantic' in angry disbelief. It was a code Isabel had started, really. In between them, romantic now stood for any type of foreplay or anything that was a turn-on. And those catacombs couldn't be more of an unromantic turn-off.
"Look, why don't we get outta here an' go t'yer place, huh? I promise it'll be much more fulfillin'."
Mystique was beyond pissed as she adjusted the skirt of her dress and glided around the table, towards the cabinet that stood next to the generator. Well, what was she going to do against him? Hmm… maybe try to force him to go back without a torch, he wondered as he realised the woman had both torches and was putting them away in the cabinet. The door was ajar and he couldn't tell what was inside. He decided to play nice as she was putting something over her head, whatever it might be.
"Ok, if I knew ya was gonna get that ticked…"
She turned suddenly, and Creed frowned as he recognised a set of night-vision goggles on her head and a gun in her hand. As if that could stop...
"I know who you are," his blood froze so suddenly he couldn't have moved even if he wanted. "Tigard."
Oh, what a relief! Partially. For a moment he had thought she'd seen through the ruse and…On the other hand, if she knew he was Tigard, did she also know about...
"If you don't want to relive the wounds you got last month, in Philadelphia," icy fear coursed through his veins, his eyes now glued to the deadly weapon. "You will do exactly as I say."
The lights went out then and Creed blinked against the sudden darkness, so complete even his sensitive eyes couldn't distinguish the slightest outline. He could hear Mystique's breathing some feet ahead, as well as its echo reverberating through the room; and he could smell her. She was still angry.
"Call your team."
"The phone ain't gonna work down here," he said slowly, as he redrew the map of the area from memory. The echo of their voices, apparently coming from everywhere, didn't help; it was like a freaking mirror house for sounds.
"With X-Men technology? Do you really expect me to believe that?" The only exit was that tunnel to the left, some feet away. "Stop wasting my time!"
He reached for his pocket and got his phone out, its pale electric light breaking through the darkness. He could see Mystique had just pulled the goggles up, so he wouldn't be able to blind her with a sudden flash. If it were anyone else, he would try to run off to one side and then charge, but Mystique was too experienced not to shoot him at least once and he was not going to risk a bullet to his torso, not when McCoy and his infirmary were four hours away, not to mention the long winding tunnel he'd still have to go through.
"How did ya find out?"
She sneered.
"It would be very callous of me if I didn't keep tabs on new members of the X-Men, wouldn't it?"
But did she know about Isabel and Lilia? If she did, he would have to kill her. Or better yet, he had to kill her no matter what she knew now, because she could always figure it out later.
"Phone Cyclops. Tell him you have come across a room that can provide some interesting information and that you want Wolverine's assistance processing the area to identify people by scent."
"Wolverine," he asked, frowning.
"Yes, Wolverine. He can come with company, but Wolverine must come in. Tell him to enter the tunnels through the man-hole on Rue Sainte-Marie, by the Italian restaurant. In the tunnels, he should go towards the North and keep walking until he comes across a unit of police officers patrolling the tunnels, looking for illegal explorers. He should identify himself as an X-Man so the officers will dispense a man to take him to the room you're processing. Make sure he understands there is no danger whatsoever and that the officers are both friendly and speak English."
He nodded slowly. Why was she after Wolverine?
"So I lure Wolverine down here fer yer friends t' capture, is that it?"
"To kill him," she corrected. "If my friends succeed in terminating him, you get to walk free. Otherwise, you're the one who dies, so I hope your survival instinct makes the right choices. Now make the call and put it on the loud speaker."
"Are you sure you don't need anyone else," Cyclops asked as Bishop searched frenetically for a map of that section of the tunnels.
"If ya got anyone else with heightened senses," Tigard spoke slowly, intentionally. "Feel free t'send 'im too."
"What about Mystique?"
"She's gone. Oh, by the way! Wolverine had better bring lights t'last us some good hours. If the batteries die off... it's absolutely pitch dark down here, ya know. Even fer my heightened senses."
It suddenly made sense, the strange sound a few minutes ago! Wolverine, opposite Cyclops, mouthed 'the generator' as he slid a finger over his throat. Cyclops nodded in agreement. After all that mess with Isabel's miscarriage and Lilia's misunderstandings, Cyclops had insisted that the phone Creed carried was to be always on surveillance mode during the mission, constantly transmitting whatever was said and wherever Creed went. Just in case the man went accidentally berserk if Mystique revealed she'd been impersonating Sabretooth. He couldn't have made a better decision.
"Okay," Cyclops said, trying to make his voice sound casual. "He'll be on his way shortly. Hang tight."
He switched off and looked around. Gambit and Cannonball were ready to enter the tunnels after Creed. The locator on the phone was strong enough that it had transmitted a clear picture of the path and, in the meantime, Bishop had managed to find a map of the area.
"Well done," Mystique's voice sounded softly, "now destroy it."
That was not good. Logan had already warned them that their senses got slightly eschewed in deep underground systems, especially if the walls were irregular and damp, which meant Creed was at an unusual disadvantage. Worse: if they were in the dark, both Gambit and Cannonball would have to go in without any lights and they hadn't exactly packed night-vision goggles.
"Ya're jokin'," Creed grumbled. "If we're gonna hav'ta wait here in the dark till yer boys take care o' Wolverine, the least ya could do was let me play a bit o' candy crush. This is gonna be mind-bogglin' borin'!"
"He's keepin' up his cover very well," Wolverine commented dryly. "I bet he's gonna give it his best t'get outta there as soon as possible."
Mystique was laughing freely, truly amused. At least from the sound of it. If Creed could find a way of talking her into letting him keep the phone…
"But we won't have a clue what that is if we lose the audio," Cyclops grunted.
"You couldn't be further from Sabretooth, could you?" Mystique was saying.
"And she can still just shoot him," Cyclops shook his head. "If she really is packing those toxic bullets and he gets a shot to the chest, he's as good as dead. We won't be able to get him back to the Institute in time to save him."
"...livin' in the past," Creed snorted in the background, getting Cyclops's attention to the screen, where a map of the tunnels had been combined with the red dot which marked Creed's position. As much as he didn't care for the man, he was not about to sacrifice him. And much less Wolverine.
"The same thing applies to you, Wolverine, because those officers will have the toxic bullets, too."
The feral frowned but didn't say anything. In the short silence, Mystique's voice rang clear and passionate: "I'm not living in the past, you asshole. I'm living in the future. For the future!"
"I bet she's countin' on usin' my death t' raise the price on those slugs an' make herself a richer future," Wolverine mumbled before looking Cyclops in the eye. "We gonna wait much longer?"
No, they couldn't, but still...
"Gambit, Cannonball," Cyclops looked at both men. "Get going on the extraction. Sam, try to use your speed to apprehend Mystique before she can shoot anyone. Our best option is you getting Tigard to safety as soon as possible. Use your lights while you can and Bishop will warn you when they'll become visible to Mystique. You'll have to be really fast at that point or you'll basically sign Tigard's death sentence."
"I'm not going to say it again, Hyde. I'm sure you don't want me to change my mind and kill you too, do you?"
"Have you got the maps for the tunnels under Rue Sainte-Marie, Bishop?"
"Still workin' on it."
"Fine," they heard Creed grumble slowly. "But ya better not think I'm gonna let my life be decided on someone else dyin' or not."
White noise. Wolverine killed the sound and got ready to walk out but Cyclops grabbed his arm.
"You're wearing body armour. Take civilian clothes so you can put your jacket over the vest and hide it."
"It's August and it's hot," Bishop pointed out. "It'll look odd for him to have a jacket zipped all the way."
Obviously.
"Have you got any better ideas?"
No. Neither did Logan, who was already changing clothes without a single word against it. They'd all seen what that toxin could do, after all, and Cyclops had always guessed one reason Logan didn't mind packing a tone of physical abuse was the fact he believed himself capable of surviving it.
"Bishop, keep looking through those maps and keep us all in touch." The bulky man looked up from the computer. "I'm going with Wolverine."
"No, ya ain't," Wolverine grunted as he finished putting on the vest.
"I'll stay behind you, in the shadows," Cyclops explained. "You're going to need all the backup you can get."
Wolverine shrugged, not happy with it, and Cyclops put on a vest himself.
"Let's get going then."
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