Yes, I do admit that I am (and probably will be) drawing quite a bit from the S.W.O.R.D series that came out some time ago, but...there's a character in there that I wanted to bring in really badly, and didn't know how else to do it.
DISCLAIMER: I own Borderline. The universe this story takes place in belongs to Persiana13, and everything else belongs to Marvel.
Chapter 6: A Bit of S.W.O.R.D-play
At the headquarters of the Dark X-Men, two individuals stood on a balcony, overlooking the city. One was a dark-skinned man shrouded in a black cloak. The other was a blonde girl in a white jumpsuit.
"We should have gone to that meeting, Cloak," said the girl to her partner.
"I do not trust these so-called 'X-Men'," replied Cloak.
"Why not?" asked Dagger, the second half of the duo known as Cloak and Dagger. "Cloak, Osborn gave us a chance to take our war on drugs to a world-wide scale. If we start here in the U.S., as members of his X-Men team, we can make sure that no one in the entire world suffers because of drugs."
"That may be," Cloak sighed, "but I am nonetheless apprehensive of our…membership…with these 'Dark X-Men'."
"You're 'apprehensive' of pretty much everything, Cloak," Dagger quipped. "Just relax for once. Everything's going to be fine."
Down the hall, however, all of Cloak and Dagger's exchange was heard by a smirking Daken.
"Listen to your little girlfriend, Cloak," smirked the son of Wolverine. "Otherwise, you'll find out how true your apprehensions are."
Borderline and his group had finally finished the renovations to their new base. Like the Baxter Building before it, the facility formerly owned by the Illuminati was now the home of five renegade superhumans and one strange human, all dedicating to halting Osborn's reign of terror.
"So, what do we do now?" Angelica asked, leaning on Borderline's chair as he typed at his computer.
"Need to get Cloak and Dagger off of Dark X-Men team," Borderline said, never turning away from his computer for even a second. "You and Toxin need to do that."
"Why?" Toxin whined.
"Because Angelica knows full well the problems faced by working with the wrong side, and can explain those problems to Cloak and Dagger." Moon Knight began. "In addition, while Angelica is fully capable of protecting herself, she needs additional support due to being so near to Daken."
"Plus, Remy say you need to get out more after dousing Remy's staff with your webs," Remy glared at Toxin.
"Oh, fine," Toxin groaned.
"Well, come on," Angelica said, approaching the elevator. "Let's go, Toxin."
On the surface, Angelica and Toxin—the latter in his guise of Pat Mulligan—strolled down the street leading to the Dark X-Men's headquarters. With both wearing civilian outfits, neither seemed capable of posing any sort of threat. Neither also noticed a pair of high-tech binoculars staring at them from a nearby rooftop.
"How do you think this is going to work?" Angelica asked.
"No clue," Pat shook his head. "We wouldn't be doing this if it was as easy as going up and saying 'hi, Osborn's going to have you killed off when he's done using you, how about hanging out with us'?"
"When is anything ever that easy?" Angelica asked.
"Never," Pat replied. "I—gah!"
Pat's sudden exclamation was in response to a device that had come from nowhere and attached itself to his shoulder. The device charged a blast of electricity through his body, rendering him unconscious within seconds.
"Pat!" Angelica cried, powering up. "Who did that?"
A troop of men in black suits and helmets quickly arrived on the scene, one firing off another of the device used to incapacitate Pat to do the same to Angelica.
"We took down the symbiote," the lead trooper declared into a communicator. "Let's head back to base."
The men teleported away after their leader spoke, Pat in tow. After Angelica recovered, she left as well, heading straight back to her team's base.
"Toxin has been captured," the lead trooper declared upon appearing in a massive space station. His words were received by a familiar face displayed on a video screen.
The face of Henry Gyrich.
"Good," Gyrich smirked. "That adds another alien to the tally. Soon, there won't be any chance of another invasion."