Runaways:

War Machine

Chapter 4

Undivided

by Ri-kun

I used to think claustraphobia was something silly, like being afraid of ladybugs or that big, long, impossible-to-spell word that means being afraid of Friday the 13th. I had an aunt on my dad's side of the family who refused to be in a room with the door closed. She never visited much, but I could never understand what the problem was. I had been closing the door to my bedroom since before my balls dropped. It was the only real way to get free of my older brother and spend time alone with my private thoughts. And please don't make jokes; I wasn't talking about those kinds of thoughts.

For one thing, I did that sort of stuff in the bathroom. Easier to get rid of the evidence, and no one dared barge in on me!

Being buried alive under tons of concrete and shingles with only a magickal web to keep me alive made that fear seem a lot less idiotic. Gabriel was looking a little pale at the moment. I think that spell took more out of him than he wanted to admit. Casting these humongous encantations from that book was starting to show in his eyes. He looked more and more sickly recently. Granted, Gabriel had always been small and kind of spry, but I was worried about him. Even if he had stolen my girl, that didn't mean I wanted him to die. Especially not from something inside that book backfiring!

He insisted it was just the shock of the fall, and refused to say more. Scooby had gone over to him the moment the sky quit falling and sniffed him over. The undead mastiff sat down next to him with his tail thumping against the ground, which I took to mean he had given Gabriel a clean bill of health. I was still worried, but if anyone would know, it should have been that sack of bones. So, my mind wandered back over to the fact that we were trapped and buried alive. Everything had gone quiet around us. I could hear water dripping down from someplace close by, but other than that, the air felt dead. It was a far cry from a few minutes ago, when the ground had literally blown out from under us.

I found myself wanting to say something. We had been through so much together, and the last month or two was really only part of the story. Gabriel had stuck by me for a few years now, and I'd only just realized recently how good a friend he'd been. His parents had always been ferociously protective of him. Finding out they were evil just made sense in my opinion. We hardly got to do anything together without someone watching us, but he was an incredible listener. I had always come to him whenever life had thrown me a screwball. Me being the town's rich kid held a sort of stigma. No one expected my life to be anything but a bed of roses, which incidentally I never understood, considering the very nature of a rose bed! Gabriel had always been very patient and sympathetic when I needed a nonjudgemental moral compass.

I hoped now he had found a friend in me, as well. I hadn't done a very good job of it since this whole mess started. Thinking about that made me wonder if I'd ever been a good friend to him at all. The doubt was nagging at me something fierce. We had all lost our homes, our lives, and any shred of normalacy. There was no one we could run to for help. I'd never imagined I would miss school as much as I did. I missed the day-to-day boring parts most. All the things that people take for granted just because they're there every single day of the week; those were what I wanted back most of all.

I realized now that we could have made it together. If I'd been a little more understanding, maybe, this wouldn't have been so hard. Since this nightmare with discovering the Pride, he and I had slowly drifted farther and farther apart. Now, I wanted my buddy back.

"Gabriel?"

"Yeah?" he asked, raising up slightly. Scooby looked over towards me at the same time. I tried not to think about how creepy that was, and focus on what I wanted to say. This is always easier for guys to do in those sappy chick flick movies!

"Are we still buds?"

He blinked, and looked at me. "What?"

"Are we still buds? For real, man. What happened to us?"

Gabriel gathered up his book, and crawled slowly over to me. Scooby had to help him move part of the way. I think he'd injured himself real bad in the fall, and had been keeping it quiet from me. A lump formed in my throat.

"You're hurt," I stated, looking him over.

He sighed a little as he settled down next to me. "A little. Most of it feels like some real bad bruises. I'm casting a healing spell right now to take care of it. That's why I was being so quiet before. Being a ninja must run in the family, huh? You're barely scratched up at all!"

"I'm sorry."

"For what? Having killer reflexes?"

"For all that's been going on. I shouldn't have let the fact that you were with Nicole get to me the way it did."

Something passed over his eyes, then. "Dan..."

"I'm serious," I cut in. "I kept telling myself this whole time that it was my own damn fault for not making a move first, but some part of me still wanted to blame you. I've just been so angry since we found out are parents were supervillains. Throwing everything your way made it feel a little better."

"Dan..."

"What?" I realized that I'd snapped at him unintentionally. "What?" I tried again, more softly.

Gabe looked at his feet. "There's something I never told you. I've been keeping something a secret from all of you for a while now. Please don't be mad at me, though. I really don't think I could take it at this point."

I looked him in the eye as best I could. "What have you been hiding?"

"Nicole has been... blackmailing me. She told me that if I didn't sleep with her, that if I didn't help her with the Abstract scroll, she would tell everyone about me. I don't know how she figured it out, but she did. She needed my help decoding the scroll, and..."

"She... blackmailed you?!" I was having a hard time wrapping my head around that one. "Wait, Nicole found out something about you, and that's why the two of you are together?"

"She said... she needed me to sleep with her so you would back off."

That did nothing to help my ego. "Oh."

"I think there was more to it than that, though," he added quickly. "I think Nicole has been planning something for a long time. It all has to do with that scroll, and a place she calls the External Temple. She's changed a lot since this whole thing began, Dan. I don't think Nicole is the same person we knew."

What Miguel had said earlier tonight came back to me. "She has been acting pretty obsessed recently, I'll admit. But why would she want to keep me away from her. I mean, seriously! I'm not that bad with rejection. She could have just told me to fuck off."

"It's not that. The scroll came from your parents' house, in their basement, right? Maybe she was afraid you'd be able to translate it on your own. She's looking for something inside that thing, Dan. I was only able to use the tarot deck while she wore the Seer's Ring, so she could understand it better. She never let me get too close."

I was starting to get worried, because this was beginning to make a creepy kind of sense. "I have to ask. What did she have on you that was so bad?"

Gabriel looked back down at his feet. They were starting to facinate him. "I'm bisexual."

I had been expecting a lot of things. No, actually, I hadn't known what to expect by that point. Nicole having some secret agenda that included all of us was hard enough to take in. Whatever I'd been waiting to hear him say, it sure as hell wasn't that.

"You like guys?"

"I like girls," he corrected. "I mean, I really liked a lot of the stuff Nicole and I did together."

So did not want to hear that! "I had been with a couple of girls before," he went on. "Did I ever tell you that?"

"No... you didn't!"

"My first one was at a family reunion. She wasn't related to me or anything. Her folks were vacationing in the same spot. I don't know, she just dragged me off one evening to this spot behind some bushes. It was okay, but I was pretty shaken up by the whole thing. This was back when I was still getting the hellfire and brimestone treatment at home. But, I think I like guys, too."

"Okay."

"You don't mind it? I mean, you're not weirded out by it?"

I was seriously weirded out by it. I was trapped in a collapsed department store with my best friend, who'd just come halfway out of the closet right in front of me! "No, I'm okay with it. I was expecting something worse, to be honest with you."

"Like what?" he grinned. "I want to know."

"Oh, I don't know. An axe murderer, maybe? Or that you still listened to New Kids on the Block!"

"You're one to talk!" he jeered back. "I know you bought the collector's album the moment it hit the shelves."

"I did not!" I practically screamed, turning red.

"You're a terrible liar," he countered, chuckling. "But thanks, anyway."

Then he kissed me. It was just on the cheek, but I hadn't seen him coming. The movement startled me, and I could feel a shiver going down my spine. A part of me was really uncomfortable with him being so close. But another part hadn't complained too much yet. That was really bothering me!

"To answer your question," he said quietly. "We're still buds. At least, I hope so..."

I leaned forward. I don't know what made me do it. Something about it just felt right. I would go on for hours later telling myself that it meant nothing, that I was just trying to let him know how much he still meant to me, and how bad I felt that it took something like a roof falling on our heads for him to come to me with all this.

It was at that moment that the rubble next to us exploded inward with all the force of my brother's digestive track after a full-course mexican dinner. I made a note to thank whoever had come to kill us before we died, as Gabriel and I scrambled to get out of the way. The blast had sent Scooby back a few paces, but he was on his feet in seconds with teeth bared, ready to take on whatever came through that smoldering hole.

"Life signs located," said a metallic voice through the smoke filling up the small space. "Commencing bio-scans."

Gabriel had his hands out, and they were glowing. My bo was extended to full length, with Scooby in front of us. Slowly, the smoke cleared away enough for us to see who it was. I had to blink a few times for the sight to register. The girl we had come here to rescue, at least I think that's who it was, was standing in the arch made by the blast. The thing there was wearing her clothes, anyway. Her skin had gone to a greyish pale color with strange tattoos all over that reminded me of a circuit board. They were glowing a little, right alongside her eyes. There was a triangle on her forehead, and it shot out their weird beam that passed over both of us.

"Targets confirmed negative on both DNA target match-ups, as well as signal scan for mutant X-gene. Visual target number two shows recent contact with designated target, implying that designated target is nearby. Beginning aerospace scan of the entire area, now."

She was looking at me as she said the last part. "Hey, why am I number two?" I demanded.

"Designated target not in immediate area. Beginning widespace scan!"

"Okay," Gabriel said, lowering his hands a little. "This is weird."

"Very," I agreed, nodding. She was just standing there the whole time we were talking, ignoring us with her head thrown back. "Even for us! Is... that the girl we came here to rescue?"

"I think so. What do you suppose happened to her?"

I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover and all that, but believe me when I say that in this case, it was a valid question. I was starting to wonder whether Jeff's little teleportation trick had been a coincidence or not. "Dan," Gabriel said, raising his hands up again. "This may have been a trap."

"I agree. Maybe we should be just a little bit worried abou this?"

The girl lowered her head back down to stare right at us. Gabriel and I were at once on our guard, but she ignored us. I should have been used to that by now. "Long-range scan confirmed designated target's location. Begin Protocol Nine!"

Protocol Nine sounded like something bad and painful. I was remembering the killer robots from the food court, when she abruptly turned around and began walking in the opposite direction. Gabriel and I looked after her.

"That wasn't what I thought would happen," I mused. "Do you think we should follow her?"

"I think she knows the way out," he pointed out. "That's good enough for me!"

"Me too. Let's go!"

I was running like a madman through the open space left in her wake. I was running towards what appeared to be a killer robot once again, instead of far away from it. This was becoming a bad habit for me. Were I to ask Miguel, he could probably tell me about a ten-step program for superheroes that was accepting walk-ins! Thinking about him made me almost stop and scratch my head for a second. I suddenly felt like we were forgetting something real important.

"Which way did she go?" I asked, snapping back to the present.

"Up," he pointed. "Got your jetboard?"

I nodded, whipping it out. "Climb on!" The board whined a little as we rose up through the air after her. I still didn't know her name, or even if she really had one at this point. Do girls who spontaneously polymorph into androids carry cell phones?

She was standing at one of the walls, looking it over, when we flew slowly out from the pit. I had just enough time to wonder what she could be doing there, when there was this jaw-rattling explosion that shook dust and plaster down from what little remained of the roof onto our heads. When my eyes stopped burning from all the crud that'd gotten into them, I looked up and nearly fell backwards off my board on top of Gabriel. There was this enormous hole left where she'd been standing a second ago. Our mysterious andriod girl had just blown a gaping crater into the wall big enough for Kamegami to drive through and parallel park!

Thinking about Kamegami finally made what'd been nagging me since down in the pit click into place. "The others!" I gasped, landing the board. "I completely forgot! They're still chasing after the Sentinel!"

"And from the sound of things," added Gabe. "It's not going very well."

Explosions roared off in the distance. The fire raid siren was bellowing through town as the cries of people screaming in panic and agony echoed somehow even louder through my ears. It sounded like a war had broken out in the time we were gone. I think that was exactly what we'd unleashed. That monster was destroying our town, and we were the ones that'd unlocked it's cage.

"What have we done?" I whispered.

"Orders, sir?"

Gabriel's voice didn't register at first with me. He had to say it again before I looked around at him, blankly. "What are your orders, sir?" he repeated. "Nicole isn't here. I'm designating you fit to command. What's our next move?"

That snapped me out of it. Don't ask why! "We locate the others," I told him, setting the jetboard on the ground. "They were going after the Sentinel, so it shouldn't be too hard to find them. After that, you and I are going to convince them to help us stop that thing, no matter what it takes. And after that..."

I took a deep breath as Gabe stood on the board behind me. "After that, you and I are going to sit down and have a serious talk with Nicole."

"Yes, sir," he shouted over the roar of the board.

Scooby followed along after us on the ground. He would be a little late getting there, but that had proven by now to come in handy, so I wasn't worried. As we flew off together, I looked back at the nearly demolished building . I'd been attacked by horrors of all shapes and sizes inside that place, buried alive inside a pit, had a cute girl turn into a robot in front of me, and almost kissed a guy.

Yeah, I was more than glad to be leaving that place behind!

*****

The battle wasn't going very well. I hadn't been expecting it to, but the surprising part was that the others were already engaging the Sentinel robot when we flew in. Somehow, I hadn't been expecting that. It looked like I wasn't going to get to use the inspiring speech that'd been rooting around in my head on the flight over. Opting to save it just in case we needed a 'don't give up now' pep talk, I touched down roughly and put the board away while Gabriel regained his footing. The battle ground had been formed in the middle of the Wal-Mart parking lot, if you could believe that. Cars were scattered everywhere in all directions. Most of them had been turned upside down or on their sides. More than a few were on fire, and even a couple had been buried into the concrete nose-first.

Luckily, the fun wasn't over yet. Cop cars blared off in the distance. I could hear ambulance sirens roaring off in the direction of the hospital. It looked like the police were keeping a safe distance, and making sure everyone else did the same. That wasn't to say the Sentinel had no one to play with, though! The Pride had apparently decided it was time to take this thing head-on. I could see what looked like an ensemble of fighters from all aspects of our parents' professions gathered together, wielding everything from laser blasters and plasmite grenades to ninja magic and throwing stars. It was almost inspiring.

The group saw us the moment we arrived, but it took them a second to show up. They had to dodge quite a bit of crossfire before reaching us; O-Ren brought up the rear with her blaster slung over her shoulder. It looked like she had set up a sniper position behind somebody's overturned SUV. They were all looking at us like we were there to save the day. I noticed then that Nicole wasn't with them, and frowned.

"Where's..." I started, but O-Ren beat me to it.

"Gone," she answered flatly. "Went back to the house for some mechanical do-hicky she kept saying would shut this thing off."

"She said something about it being installed in the back of the robot's head," Miguel added. One of his arms was much longer than the other. He still wasn't able to use Mr. Fantastic's powers well yet.

Explosions were going off all around us. It was getting to where I could barely hear them. "So what's the plan?" O-Ren demanded. "My gun's used up all it's power. I'll have to recharge it before it can fire anything out of it again. And Stretch-O here is still as limp as ever!"

"Look out!" I screamed, pointing behind them.

Gabriel started flipping through his book, but I knew he wouldn't be able to put up any kind of spell in time. Miguel just raised both hands in front of them, and the car that'd been hurling through the air towards us slammed into something solid and invisible. Once the car rolled off and came to a stop, he dropped the force field and grinned smugly.

"You were saying?" he asked O-Ren, wiggling one eyebrow.

"Time to fall back," I told them. "We've got some things to tell you both, but it'll have to wait. Follow my lead, and don't get lost in the smoke. We've got to get out of here before one of the Pride notices us and decides we'd make better targets!"

The war was waging all around us. It was hard to breath; the smoke got in my eyes and brought tears to them, but I kept right on going. Don't ask me how I knew when O-Ren tripped and fell down. I just stopped and pointed for Miguel to help her up. Once she was secure again, we kept on going.

The good part about all of this was that no one seemed to notice we were there. The Sentinel was doing a good job of holding their attention. The war machine looked a little worse for wear, granted. It had scorch marks and pieces of metal blown off of it, but hadn't fallen down yet. Were our own lives not at stake, along with the entire town's, I might have stopped and applauded it for giving our parents a run for their money. As it stood, we were going to take this thing on just yet. It looked like the Pride could keep it contained while we searched for Nicole and her mysterious-yet-convenient device that would shut that damn thing off!

We were taking cover behind a car that was turned over on it's side, when something grabbed me by the leg. I looked down, and wished immediately that I hadn't. Perhaps the one person in this entire fiasco that I wished hadn't survived was lying there. Jeff looked perhaps the worst of us all. He was bleeding profusely from several injuries all over his body, and one leg might have been broken. But he was alive.

Dammit!

"Help me!" he screamed hoarsely, squeezing my leg like a vice. "Please, help me!"

"No," I replied in a flat tone. "Let go of me right now, or I'll stomp your face in and beat whatever's left with my bo!"

"Help me, please!" he coughed. "Or we'll all die. Please, I can help you stop that thing!"

"I don't believe you," I responded, shaking him off. "You're a monster, Jeff. You'll say or do whatever it takes to make sure you survive. As long as you're the one standing on top of the pile, nothing else matters."

His eyes met mine. "The Pride won't be able to stop that thing. I redesigned it so that it would be immune to all their powers and technologies. They're just keeping it contained for now. Sooner or later, it will get free. I swear I will tell you how you can stop it, but you must take me away from here before they find me."

"Why would you be worried about our parents finding you?" Miguel asked.

I was wondering that myself. "They'll think I was the one who set that thing loose," he gasped. "They'll use any excuse to get rid of me. The Pride never saw me as much more than their errand boy. If the Externals hadn't chosen me along with them, I would have been gone years ago!"

I didn't want to do it, but found myself nodding. "We help you," I spoke in a clear voice so he would hear me. "And you tell us everything you know about the Pride. No tricks this time, or I'll turn you over to our parents personally in exchange for them letting us all go free. Got that?"

There was a semi truck behind him that hadn't been flipped over yet, strangely. I didn't notice Miguel behind me until he stretched his arm out and sucker punched Jeff with all his strength. Jeff went flying all the way back, then hung limply in the air as Miguel surrounded him with another force field bubble.

"Did you have to do that?"

Miguel shrugged at me. "He doesn't need to be conscious, right? All we agreed to do was get him out of here."

"Hmmm, good point. Let's go!"

"How?" O-Ren stopped us. "Nicole took the turtle tank, remember?"

"Shit! We can't get out of here without Kamegami."

Explosions rocked the ground. "What?!" O-Ren demanded.

"Kamegami," I repeated loudly, so she would hear me this time over the noise. "It's the name of our new ride. I picked it out myself. It means 'turtle god!'"

"Kamegami is right over there," Gabriel said, pointing to a thick grove of trees leading down a hill. "It's parked outside the Game Stop in the shopping center down below."

"Thanks for using the name," I said. "And, are you sure?"

"Positive."

"That's where we parked it," Miguel told us. "How could Nicole get back to the house if she didn't take the... what did you call it, again?"

"Kamegami," I repeated. "And we'll just add that to the growing list of questions I plan on asking her once we get out of here. How much longer can you keep that force field up?"

"Don't need to," he replied. Miguel let go, and Jeff immediately fell out of the sky into his waiting arms. Before he caught him, Miguel shifted his limbs and legs to that of the Thing. "Super strength," he reminded me. "Let's boogie!"

Just like Gabriel said, the tank was parked right in front of Game Stop. To my relief, the game store had survived the barrage with little to know damage visible. I crawled up first with Gabe coming right after me and threw the top open.

"This doesn't feel right," O-Ren said in a worried voice as she climbed up. "Nicole wouldn't have tried going on foot. Something must have happened to her! Gabe, can you use that dead dog of yours to pick up her scent? Where is he, anyway?"

"I sent a message for him to meet us at the house," he answered, holding the hatch open for her. "We can use him to track her down if she's not at the house."

"When we do find her," I said, sliding into the driver's seat. "I've got a few questions to ask her."

"Like what?" Miguel asked. "Hey, who said you could ride shotgun?"

"First come, first serve!" O-Ren countered, before turning to me. "Like what?"

"Dan..." Gabriel warned.

"Nicole's been blackmailing Gabriel," I said at once, ignoring him. "She used him to help her translate that scroll."

"What?!" both Miguel and O-Ren said at the same time. "How!?"

"It doesn't matter," I told them. "For now, let's get out of here! Is Jeff strapped in?"

"All secure," Gabe assured me, patting his unconscious form on the head.

"Then our asses are gone!"

I made liberal use of Kamegami's off-road capabilities and the fact that the Sentinel had torn up most of the town to get us home faster. The closer we got to the district where Jeff's house was located, the less damage there seemed to be. One really strange thing was how quiet the town seemed on this end. I was sticking to the roads now, but there wasn't any traffic. Meridian just wasn't the kind of town that you could drive a tank through without hitting every stoplight.

"Looks like somebody gave the order to have the whole city evacuated," I warned, keeping both eyes on the road. "Keep an eye out for any city officials. Even without the price on our heads or the big green tank, we'll still a bunch of runaway kids. If somebody sees us, there's going to be trouble."

"Bring it on," was all O-Ren said.

I rolled my eyes and pulled up along the side of the road where the house way. It was funny how we'd been staying here for as long as we had in a ritsy neighborhood, yet not one neighbor had complained, or reported anything suspicious to the police. Then again, that was suburbian for you!

"Let's make this quick," I told them, shutting everything down. "It looks like we'll have to abandon this place tonight, too. While we're inside, grab whatever it is you need and get out. Once we find Nicole, we'll deal with the..."

The whole tank shook. I was nearly rocked out of my seat by the explosion. The screen blinked to life on it's own, showing me what was going on right outside. I almost wished it hadn't, because the sight made my stomach turn inside out. Our home, the hideout we'd kept ourselves locked away in for over a month, was in flames. The explosion had taken it completely out, leaving only a towering inferno that blazed against the night sky. Everyone looked on in shock and horror, but I felt empty on the inside. O-Ren started crying, and for once didn't protest when Miguel tentatively put his arm around her.

I didn't see Gabriel move, but he was suddenly standing next to me looking on at the screen. We both watched as our home burned to the ground, along with perhaps one of our own. If Nicole had made it back, she was long dead by now.

Jeff stirred, rocked back to consciousness by the shaking of the tank, and looked around groggily at us all.

"What happened?" he mumbled, deliriously. "Are we there yet?"