Runaways:

Youth Gone Wild

Chapter 4

Mystery Train

by Ri-kun

We were all really down for the next couple of days. Losing our only means of transport, as well as all the food we bought, put each of us in a serious funk. Nicole was blaming herself, spending hours at a time alone in her corner trying to translate the Abstract. The only time she came out was to eat what little food we were able to scrounge locally. I checked on her, but she insisted each time that everything was okay. The only other person who could get near her was Gabriel...

The rest of us tried to keep busy by honing our powers. The past two encounters had taught us all that we had to be ready for anything. Miguel was heading this up, and despite his lack of style, wasn't doing too terrible a job! I was actually surprised when he came up with several battle plans all on his own, for in case we had to fight multiple ninjas and sorcerers.

Or aliens, he'd added, sheepishly. "The trouble is," he pointed out, after a really rough practice. "The Pride have the advantage of working together. They've been doing this sort of thing a lot longer, so they understand how the other members' powers work!"

I was gradually mastering the jet hoverboard, though it wasn't easy. The board still had a habit of trying to buck me off whenever I pulled any aerial manuver more complicated than turning. Miguel had me volunteer for target practice with O-Ren. My job was to fly around and avoid getting hit with her metamorph gun! I hated doing it, but had to give him credit. He did ask her to turn the blast down as far as it would go. Of course, that didn't stop her from hitting me dead-on repeatedly. She was hell with that sniper scope!

Gabriel poured over his spellbook when he wasn't working with us. He was attempting to master the tarot cards, which looked like little more than random pictures to me. They seemed to make perfect sense to him, though. He even offered to try them out on me, but I declined. Magick gave me goosebumbs, even though I trusted him completely.

Well, mostly. The dragon incident had given me pause. I suspect that kept the majority of those cultists busy for the rest of the night! Which was probably why we were able to get away in the first place.

Finally, Nicole came out of her self-imposed exile. I was relieved to see her, since life in the Arcade wasn't the same without her there to lead us. She didn't sit down right next to Gabriel, but he was still close enough to reach out and take her hand, with a little bit of effort and stretching. I, however, was right on the other side, within a reasonable distance of her. It was nice to see she was taking the revelation of my deepest feelings so well.

Actually, that just left me feeling confused and angry, but I wasn't going to let anyone know that.

"I've been doing my best to translate the Abstract scroll," she said, when the meeting began. "It's slow going, and very complicated, but I managed to get a lot of it done in the last couple of days. I've even managed to figure out some of what the Pride are up to, but we'll get to that in a second."

"Are we in that thing?" Miguel asked, pointing. "I mean, does it say why our parents had us in the first place?"

"Actually," Nicole said slowly. "That's one of the biggest parts! We're as much a part of the Pride as our parents are. We just didn't realize it!"

"What's it say?!" O-Ren asked eagerly, leaning forward.

"I'll start at the beginning," she replied, unrolling it. "There are some things you all need to hear about this thing in general, but we'll start with the basics first. Let's see..."

Nicole paused, then took a deep breath. "Dan... Midoriyama, or whichever you prefer..."

"Dan is fine," I told her, quickly. "Go on ahead."

"Right. I guess we'll start with you, since this is where the Abstract puts things. Did you know that your father was in the military? He was a soldier during Vietnam, and set over there to do active service because he commited grand theft auto when he was seventeen."

"Yeah," I nodded. "The judge told him to pick either hard time, or service."

"Okay. Well, as it turns out, while your father was in Vietnam, he had this encounter with a group called The Hand."

Miguel gasped. "Sorry!" he apologized hurriedly. "It's just that... Well, I never really believed The Hand were real. There are rumors about them all over the internet on superhero websites, but the things they talk about just sounded too crazy to be real!"

"Like what?" O-Ren asked, curious.

"Later," Nicole said. "Anyway, The Hand were actually very active in that part of the world during Vietnam. Your dad came across there, and to make a long story short, he would up saving the life of a very important member. I haven't translated all the details, but apparently he was made a kind of honorary almost-member. The Hand don't like westerners much, but they made an exception in this case. They promised him whatever he wanted, so he asked that they train him and make him stronger. He wound up getting moved over to a neutral place near Tokyo, which is where he met your mom. They trained him, and then sent him back home with a handful..."

"Sorry! With a few Hand members. I guess they didn't really think he could do much over here, or else expected him to fail, but your father and mother began systematically taking over the underworld in this part of the coast. It didn't take too long, either!"

"Next," she said. "There was your parents, O-Ren. They were scientists who manufactured biological and chemical weapons for the Triad in Hong Kong. When things got dicey there, they decided to pack up and flee. When The Hand learned they were headed this way, Dan's father pounced at the chance to have them executed. But your mother had an encounter with Miguel's mother, and things got complicated."

"Even more than they already are?" Miguel wondered. I had to agree with him, privately!

"Very!" Nicole said. "Your family are actually Skrull crimminal rebels who tried to take over one of their outposts a few solar systems from here. When they failed, your mom led the escape to earth. Their ship was too damaged, so they set up an interplanetary arms smuggling trade out of town. This brought a lot of trouble, which is what caused the war to break out in the first place. See, the Pride got formed because of fighting over territory, but I'll get to that in a bit."

"You're parents," she pointed to Gabriel. "Came to Meridian to set up a base for Dormamu. Remember, Miguel, how you said that his spellbook, the Word of Mordo, was probably written by Dormamu's servant? Well, it says right here that Gabriel's dad was a rival of Baron Mordo's. They were fighting over who would serve him, and your father finally left to establish his own power base. The Merryweathers were neutral in the beginning of the Pride War, but that changed before too long. They mostly fought against everybody, and did a fairly good job of holding their own!"

"My mom had a shitduck fit once when I came home with a parking ticket!" Miguel muttered. "And she's the crime lord?! That's just wrong."

"What about your parents?" I asked her quickly, before I could lose my nerve.

"Mutant lab rats," she replied, nonchalantly. "They escaped from Canada, a project the government there had set up called Weapon X. Basically, it was designed to turn mutants into living weapons, but my parents made it out. They sought help from someone named Mr. Sinister..."

"Heard of him!" Miguel called out. "He's bad news."

"Thank you, Miguel!" O-Ren said, pointedly. "Go on, Nick."

"Sinister helped them set up a base where they would recruit mutants and train them. This Mr. Sinister guy had the technology and know-how to give my parents stuff that would keep their students under control. Apparently, that's why my mom was a guidance councelor for the district," she added, quietly. "Made it easier to find the right ones!"

"You knew they were mutants," I said. It wasn't a question, but Nicole said nothing in response. O-Ren quietly shook her head at me, and I abated.

"The Pride was formed because of a group of beings called the Externals," she went on, after a minute. "There's not much in the Abstract about them, but apparently..."

"They're an ancient race of super-powerful mutant immortals," Miguel finished. "X-Men fan website has a whole article on them!"

"Would you shut up!" O-Ren hissed.

"The Externals have something like a temple, or maybe it's a shrine, built somewhere around here. They gathered the key members of the Pride together, and forged a treaty for them to sign. That's how the Pride got formed. Dan's parents control and regulate the crime all along through the Gulf coast. My parents sell mutant slaves on the black market to foreign powers, usually Genosha. O-Ren's mother and father make weapons and viruses and sell them for profit. Miguel's family have heresay in any alien technology that comes through Pride territory. And Gabriel's parents deal with the supernatural! They all share the wealth, and have say-so in what happens in their own areas."

"Why'd they sign the treaty to begin with?" Gabriel asked. "It doesn't sound like the sort of thing they'd agree on. From what you've told us, our parents were all ready to wipe each other out!"

"The Externals didn't give them a choice," Nicole said, simply. "They would either work together, or be obliterated!"

"What do the Externals do?"

"Maintain order, mostly," Nicole told him. "They act as a kind of police, making sure things run smoothly within the Pride. In exchange, the Pride have to donate a tithe every seven years to them; ten percent, just like in church! The treaty was meant to last for a hundred years, with a tithe every cycle of seven years, and the third cycle is in just a few months!"

"Great!" Miguel shouted, jumping to his feet. "That just means we have to..."

He stopped there. "Wait, what does that mean?"

"Nothing!" O-Ren hissed at him. "It does mean nothing, right?"

She almost looked a little afraid as she asked Nicole this. Nicole, however, just shook her head.

"I really don't know, in all honesty! I keep hoping I'll be able to tell everyone more once the Abstract is decoded. So far, it's been a rough trip!"

"You'll get it," Gabriel assured her. "We all know you will!"

Dammit, I'd wanted to say that. Gabriel didn't even notice the awful look I shot his way; his face was glued to Nicole's in such a way that reminded me of a little puppy I'd tried to take home once when I was four.

"So, what do we all do now?" Miguel asked, scratching his head.

"You all come with us, or die!"

Everyone jumped up, but it was me who spotted them first. The Hand ninjas, materializing out of thin air like their bodies were made from it, and armed to the teeth! My brother, Joseph, was leading up the charge, and had eyes for me as his body finished putting itself together from nothingness.

"Run everybody!" Nicole ordered.

We all stood our ground, though, except for Scooby. He was adequately named after all, it seemed, because the undead mutt went charging off to the back like a dogcatcher was after him. Just when we could've used him, too! Gabriel had his spellbook out at once, though, with a hand raised ready to blast them. He was muttering something under his breath, while O-Ren pointed her rifle at a ninja behind Joseph. I had my bo staff out, along with my rocket hoverboard. Miguel had shapeshifted his arms to look like the Thing's, indicating he had access to the Fantastic Four's strongman power.

Yet, I still felt like we were outnumbered.

"I don't freakin' believe this!" Miguel roared. "They can't located Osama in a fucking cave, but the Pride finds us hiding out in a video hall!?"

"The Pride has known where Osama Bin-Laden has been hiding for months now!" Joseph counted, arrogantly. "Not quite as long as we've known where you are, but almost! We've just been waiting for the right moment!"

"Which is now, I guess," Nicole said, bravely.

"No one here has to die," said Joseph, raising a clawed gauntlet. "The Pride wants all of you alive. If you come quietly, there will be no bloodshed!"

"Sorry, bro!" I catcalled. "But there won't be any bloodshed either way. You forgot the most important part of playing Street Fighter II Alpha."

"Nani?" he said, looking at me like I'd lost my mind.

"Never let your guard down!" I cried, ducking.

"Now, Gabriel!" Nicole ordered, pointing.

Gabriel raised the book open-faced, and a blob of green gel came flying out from it. As soon as the stuff touched the air, it began to spread out between us and the group of ninja death squad attackers. The stuff stretched itself thin, until it was a wall touching every part of the room between us and them. At the same time, Scooby came running up with the magic carpet Gabriel had stolen with his help a few days before. I was wrong again, it seemed!

"Oh, and by the way, Joseph!" I called out, as we rode towards the glass window. "You're not fucking Japanese!"

O-Ren fired on the door as we rushed towards it. The glass shattered, along with about half of the wall, but it was nonetheless a way out! We rode that magic carpet out into the windy air of the afternoon sky, cheering and crying out like cowboys from the old west. I was almost sorry for a minute that I'd never watched those lame John Wayne movies with my dad. He'd loved those things with a passion. Of course, he also loved being a ninja crime boss...

We were plowing through the air at a speed not even 747s would've felt safe with. Which just goes to show you, no matter what kind of vehicle a teenager may drive, we instinctively cannot bring ourselves to drive the speed limit! Miguel was using his arms to steer it, and taking off the tops of a few trees as we flew by. Nicole ordered him to slow down, and had to repeat herself several times to be hear. O-Ren simplified things by tapping him on the shoulder with the barrel of her rifle. Miguel complied at once.

"Say!" he shouted, as we began following a set of train tracks that led out of town. "Does anybody here know the words to Steppenwolf's 'Magic Carpet Ride?'"

Gabriel started to open his mouth, but Nicole shushed him. "Not now," she said, gently. "We need to figure out where we go from here."

"It's really my fault," I told her at once. "I never did set up those traps like I promised."

"I doubt they'd have stopped ninjas from The Hand, anyway. We need a battle plan, and fast!"

"It's time to stop running away," Gabriel said, over the wind in our ears. "We need to take the fight to the Pride, instead of hiding away. They knew where to find us, which means they'll probably find us again if we keep laying low."

"But they won't expect us to turn around and fight back," Nicole finished. "Not a bad idea, actually!"

"What?!" O-Ren shouted, whirling around. "Please, tell me I didn't hear you right."

"What other options do we have?" Nicole asked, pointedly. "The Pride are after us, we can't go to the police for help, and our only hideout was just compromised a few hundred miles back. Miguel, please slow down!"

"Anyway," she said, once he did as she asked, with O-Ren's unneeded assistance. "I really don't think the Pride were involved in this latest attack."

"That got my attention," I said, raising up.

"What makes you say that?" Gabriel said, confused.

"This wasn't nearly as organized. Everytime our parents have come after us, there have been ninjas and aliens and cult magicians all working together. This time, though, it was just Dan's older brother, and he didn't bring very many with him. I mean, if we could escape all of them before, why would he risk something like that now?"

That got my mind running overtime. "Joseph is probably planning something by himself," I told her, thinking quickly. "He always did like to go off by himself and do things his own way. My dad... used to warn him that it'd get him in trouble one day."

"Right. So, the Pride are divided. Much as I don't like it, this may be our best chance to catch them off guard. What we really need to do now is find out..."

Then, there was gunfire. Lots and lots of it, coming from somewhere just below us. The sound of a train whistle blowing cut most of it out, but that didn't stop the blasts from eating holes all our only mode of transportation left! Whoever was shooting must've been a terrible shot; they hit the carpet dead-on, but missed each and every one of us. We did, however, manage to fall off as it caught fire. A few scorch burns from stray bullets had turned it into a flaming mass of moth balls in seconds.

I jumped on my jet hoverboard and rode off. Not to run away, but to look for whoever was shooting at us. My gloves, the shien tekkon my brother had called them, went on easily as I spotted the shots coming from the train below us, near the caboose. Weird, that I'd remember something like that in a life-or-death situation!

Everyone else was still falling! I was too far away to reach O-Ren or Nicole, but Miguel caught them both in his arms. He was projecting a force field around himself even as his body reached the cable car in the middle, slamming into it with all the force of a car accident. Gabriel was still falling alongside Scooby, who had the neck of his shirt in his slobbering jowls. I muttered something about chivalry not being worth the effort, then caught them both as they neared the ground. The two would've landed on a slope heading downhill if I hadn't made it in time. However, it was then that I learned the jet hoverboard was never meant to be used by more than just one person at a time!

Stains from Scooby's decaying body soaked into my ninja clothes as I held on to him for dear life. I didn't understand how Gabriel could bear touching something like this! He weighed even more than he looked, which was a lot. The board beneath my feet gave out several coughing noises, which told me I was about to be in serious trouble. I yelled for someone to think of something quick, but I don't think they heard me. Gabriel, bless his scrawny hide, did something with his hands that caused the wind to kick up all around us. There was a whoosh, and suddenly we were airborne again. I thought perhaps for a second that we would land somewhere south of Oz, but luck wasn't on either of our sides!

When I looked up, we'd made it to the train. There was about half a second's time to look around for the others, before a dark shadow fell across all three of us. Scooby gave a low growl, and leaped up off me with a snarl. I was very thankful, at least until I heard the gunfire. There was a yelp of pain, and Scooby hit the ground again. The metal of the train car shook with the impact, and I could see several holes with smoke rising up from them, and something green pouring out.

"Bad dog!" the stranger in red and black shouted, shaking a finger his way. "Very bad! No sea biscuits for you tonight!"

I blinked, and watched as he strode purposely over to where Gabriel and I lay tangled up in each other. "I hope you realize that there's a leash law in this county. If you're animal isn't on a proper leash, then I'm afraid I'll have to put a bullet between your ears!"

"What are you?" Gabriel hissed, trying to stand with me on top of him. "The Pride's dutily-appointed dogcatcher?"

"Very cute," he said, lowing the barrel of his gun at us. "No, I'm the guy that's here to collect the bounty on your heads. If it weren't for the fact that I need all of you alive to see a dime of that ten million dollars, you'd be kissing hot lead by now. So, we can either do this the hard way..."

"Or you can kiss my ass!" I raised both hands, and gave him a fistful of fire right to the upper torso.

To my utter shock, it didn't do much more than make him stagger backwards a little. "Children..." he coughed, waving his arms in front of his face. Most of his body was still on fire! "Children shouldn't smoke," he lectured. "Nor should they go around setting fire to mercenaries with... " he paused. "Super-powered weaponry that they seem to have magically produced from nowhere."

There was a growl behind him. "Or," he added, backing away towards the edge. "With mutant dogs that cannot be killed by conventional, tried and true methods!"

"Scooby isn't a mutant," Gabriel said, crawling out from under me. "He's dead. I brought him back to life with a magic spell."

The others were coming. I heard their footsteps against the roar of the train, somehow! "Make one move!" O-Ren warned, pulling up next to me. "And I drop you into the river!"

"Children should never play with guns!" he shouted. "Not at all!"

O-Ren pushed a button on the side of her rifle. "Especially," he said, as the gun shifted to it's plasma assault blaster mode. "Not guns that can shapeshift into even more powerful guns! What the hell is going on here, anyway!? Did I stumble onto the set of a reality tv show?"

"Who are you?" Nicole demanded. "What do you want with us? Did the Pride send you?"

"Pride?" he shouted, looking indignant. "I'll say my pride's been injured. Nobody told me you kids were armed with more firepower than the HYDRA! Speaking of which, you in the ninja suit!"

"Me?" I asked, pointing at myself.

"Who'd you have to sleep with to get all that hardware?"

"He stole it from his parents," Miguel said at once. "We all did, really."

"Miguel, shut up!" O-Ren hissed.

"The Pride didn't send you?" Nicole asked, keeping her eyes sharply on him.

I raised my fists again as he scratched his head in confusion. "Who is this Pride you speak of, Queen Amadala? I came all the way down here to bum-cluck Mississippi in the middle of nowhere because a buddy of mine tips me off about some easy money I can make. I've got some people I owe a couple things to, and figured this'd be the easiest ten million I could make. A bunch of runaways rob a bank and steal a broken down van to escape in... Who could resist?"

Then he sighed. "Something about that smelled funny from the start, though. Like waking up in the morning to find out you've been out of socks for eight days. Or Meryl Streeps own line of perfume!"

"Who the hell are you?" O-Ren demanded, leveling her gun at his face. "What do you want with us?"

He either didn't hear, or wasn't upset about her having a bigger gun than him anymore. "Figures!" he grumbled. "I get sent on a suicide mission to capture a bunch of punks that have enough hardware between them to raid Fort Knox!"

Something occured to him, then. "Say! You five wouldn't be interested in doing a little job would me, would you?"

I started to ask permission to give O-Ren clearance to fire. She looked ready to anyway, but things weren't over. Not by a long shot, which should've occured to me by this point! Speaking of shots, that was exactly what happened to us. We were suddenly being shot at from all directions. I thought maybe the Dormamu worshipers had come back, because the attack came from above. When I spared a glance up, though, there were just a bunch of weird-looking guys in old yellow radiation suits.

Oh, and they had jet packs.

"Friends of yours?" I yelled, when the Spider-Man wannabe fell on his face in front of me.

"Not mine," he replied, peering out between the gap in his fingers. "Not I, said the little red mecenary!"

"A.I.M.!" I heard Miguel scream, pointing.

Thinking he meant me, I raised my hands and caught on full-on in the face with a blast of heated fire. His jet pack gave a roar as the flames I produced caused it to overheat. There was the sound of an explosion that seemed much farther off, and he was gone. The man who'd just tried to kill us went rocketing wildly through the air, before losing all control and slamming into the the underside of a bridge. I felt a cold wind fill me up from the inside, as the reality of what just happened hit me.

"Miguel!" Nicole cried out over the chaos. "We need a force field, now!"

The force field came, but O-Ren didn't stop firing. I don't know that she was in her right state of mind at the moment. She just kept grinning up at the air above us, like she was seeing something we weren't, and firing away. This meant that her shots ricocheted off the inside of the dome and came back our way. Nicole shouted something to Gabriel, who jumped up and tried taking the gun away. O-Ren threw him aside like he weighed nothing, and kept right at it.

"That girl's been abstinent for way too long!" the guy said, taking cover next to me. "Know if she's seeing anybody?"

I couldn't believe what was happening. My mind just wouldn't wrap around it.

"Who are you?!" I demanded, pushing him out of the way.

"Name's Deadpool. And you might want to get that gun away from your trigger happy friend over there. From the looks of things, this isn't over by far! We're about to have even more company!"

Oh, joy!