-Several minutes later in a church parking lot-
Lance and Julio snuck through the parking lot as quickly and quietly as they possibly could. They would occasionally duck behind parked cars and vans when ever they saw a guard or a robbed priest. Lance and Julio pressed their backs against a van, making sure to stay in the shadowed part to avoid detection, while two guards exchanged words they couldn't quite hear.
Lance clenched a fist, "I should take them both out," he said in a low voice.
Julio grabbed his son's arm, "No," he said in a stern voice, "They make contact with each other every five minutes to make sure nothing is out of the ordinary."
Lance only rolled his eyes, he would have much rather have brought the whole building down. As we all know the Brotherhood boys are far from finesse players.
Julio noticing his son's scowl dragged him to another hiding space, "What does that woman teach you?" he questioned, "Do you know anything about stealth, finesse, control?"
Lance was being scolded, Lance hated being scolded. In fact, the only thing Lance hates more than being scolded was being scolded by an X-geek, "Hey she taught us how to survive," he said in an angry tone.
Julio started laughing.
"What? Why are you laughing?" Lance asked in frustration.
Julio shook his head, "It's just that…" he laughed again, "You have so much faith in this woman."
"Why shouldn't I?" Lance was steadily losing his cool.
Julio sighed, "When ever you get the chance ask your new 'mother' what her relationship to Victor Creed was," he said with a feint smirk.
"Sabretooth?" Lance questioned, "What did she do with Sabretooth?"
"I'll leave that for her to answer, but I can tell you what… no, who resulted from it," Lance looked at him expectantly, "Graydon Creed."
Lance was positive that if he was a cartoon character his jaw would have hit the ground and dug all the way to China.
Julio's smirk grew, "I take it she neglected to mention that," he said with great arrogance.
Lance simply pushed past him and slipped into the church between a guard change, Julio followed closely behind a smirk still present on his face.
-Meanwhile on the roof-
Todd and Regan walked the length of the roof, surveying any possible way they could infiltrate the building. They had agreed that evacuating the building would cause just enough chaos to allow Lance and Julio the time necessary to topple the last two leaders of the purifiers.
But unbeknownst to both people, two very yellow, very feral eyes watched their movements.
Todd walked to the heating vents and reached into a small pouch on his belt, "Did you find a way in yet?" he asked Regan.
Regan looked at the younger teen with a look of confusion on her face, "Yeah we can propel down and break through the stained glass," she said never taking her eyes off the young man, "What are you doing?" she questioned.
Todd never turned his gaze away from the vent shaft in front of him, "Evacuating the building," he proceeded to toss several small pellets into the vent.
Regan could barely hear the pellets breaking against the metallic blades of the fan. Then to her surprise a column of smoke shot out of the vent.
"Let's go," he said grabbing her arm and reaching for her grappling gun. He shot the spear like hook into the roof and jumped off of the roof. As momentum and gravity took over their bodies, the rope swung them into the building through the stain glass display, Todd's body taking much of the brunt force.
After rolling on a catwalk slowing their momentum, Regan shot to her feet and grabbed her comrade, "What the hell is your problem?" she asked in a world of pissed she didn't find attractive at all.
Todd wretched his Kevlar shirt from her grasp, "Hurry up, we have to find Julio before Lance can complete his mission," he said as he began walking off, "Make sure you turn on your comm. link."
Regan looked at her shorter comrade in complete an utter shock.
-A few minutes later in the church hallways-
Lance dove behind a large stone pillar as several guards and Purifier members ran past him. He smiled as smoke emanated from the vents. There was no heat or fire, but the need for survival made sure that no one other than the assembled team.
"Smoke bombs," he said with a smirk as he began moving down the hallway again, "Never thought I'd ever find a use for them after tossing a few into the girl's locker room."
"That's my boy," a voice came from the comm. device in his ear, "Now take a left at the next fork, and then head towards the massive double doors, Stryker should still be in there."
"You can't make sure from the surveillance room?" he asked.
"There aren't cameras in the any of the suites," Julio said sternly, "But I'm positive that Stryker and Creed are not together."
"Fine," Lance said as he finally made it to the door, "I'm going in."
As Lance extended his arm to grab the door knob he immediately noticed a pink light radiating around the doors through the cracks between the doors and the floor, walls, and ceiling.
"Oh crap," Lance said as the doors exploded in front of him sending him flying back into the hallway.
"Little mutant sheep shouldn't wonder into the wolf den," said a man wearing a long brown rob, that had a white cross on his chest the extended the full length of the robe. The robe was held closed by a snug white sash.
Lance looked closer at the man and noticed that the right sleeve had been ripped off. He couldn't figure out why as the man had shifted his position to hide his right arm from view.
"Lance you have to watch out for his right arm," Julio's voice echoed in his son's ear.
Lance, still lying on the ground, extended his arm and began forcing the ground to shake violently.
The man smirked, "The day Reverend William Stryker is caught off guard by a mutant is the day the Purifiers abandon their mission from God," He finally shifted his position and stuck his right arm straight out for Lance to see, thoroughly leaving the young mutant teen speechless.
The arm was robotic in nature, and heavily armored. It was pure white at the moment, and the forearm was massive, making Stryker's arm stretch all the way down to his knee. Then to cap everything off his hand only had three fingers and a thumb.
"Do you like it?" Stryker asked as the light hit the arm giving it a slight pink sheen, "I designed it myself," a pink ball of energy began forming in his palm, "It was part of the Nimrod prototype, but I deemed it too bulky to be properly concealed," he then shot at Lance, but Lance quickly rolled out of the way, "Oh the operation was painful, removing an arm, then attaching what was left of my nerve endings to a mechanical substitute, but it was deemed quite necessary."
Lance ducked behind a pillar, but Stryker shot at it rendering it rubble.
"You see, Lance, I know exactly who you are," he shot another pink blast at Lance but he used his powers to make a tidal wave of dirt to take the brunt of the blast, but it still hit Lance sending him into the corner, "You're Julio's demon son, and now that I have you cornered, I'm going to do what he never could," his hand began glowing pink again, "Any last words?" he asked with a sick smirk.
"Go to Hell," Lance said with his own smirk.
Stryker's face contorted into anger and he released the blast at point blank range kicking up dust and rubble. The smirked returned to his face, "Takes care of you."
Suddenly, the ground began shaking violently, and Lance shot out of the dust to deliver a savage haymaker to the Reverend, sending him flying back several feet.
Stryker nursed his injured lip and pride as he got to his feet, "How?" he asked in disbelief, firing off a few more blasts in desperation.
Lance smirked as the blasts deflected off his shield, "See I fight a guy who's got a concussive blast like yours on almost a weekly basis," his hand shot out causing jagged stones to impact the wounded Reverend, "The only difference is that while yours can break a part a pillar and kick up some dirt, his can level an entire mountain," Lance grabbed the Reverend's arm and began channeling his seismic energy into it causing it to spark, "Now I hate to admit it, but he's one of the few people that can make me go all out," armor plating began to crack and fall off as circuits began exploding, "And you… you aren't even in his weight class," Lance said as he poured more energy into the task, "You're not even a decent workout compared to him," as Lance finished his statement the arm exploded leaving everything below the elbow in complete ruin on the floor, "Remember that next time you want to take my species on, we're made of better stuff."
As Lance began walking away he could hear something coming in over him comm. link.
"You just used him!"
-Meanwhile in the surveillance room-
Julio watched as his son began issuing a savage beating to his former partner. He sat back in the chair with a wide grin decorating his face. As we watched his son's fight he though if a father could be any more proud of his only son than he was right now.
"I know everything," a voice came from behind the older Mexican male.
Julio whirled around and eyes Todd, "You know nothing boy," he said with agitation.
Todd smirked as he began walking forward; he amphibian skin began to shift. It became blue and his short spiky hair grew down to his shoulders and adopted a red tint. Toad was never on the mission, it had always been Mystique.
Raven smirked at the shocked man, "I know you're not Lance's father."