The air was hazy, and likely smelly, around him. He knew this, mostly because he was on his third fag in twenty minutes. The cherry red of tobacco burning brightly, a pleasant smell to him. Others didn't always share his opinion on that little matter of fact. For example, the purple haired bird sitting next to him on the bench.
"Fancy a fag then, luv?" He offered his pack of silk cuts to her, and the bint just arched her brow at him and snorted. Only a bloody noble woman could show that much disdain in such a simple fact. Point of matter though, she was a bloody noble woman. For all the fact that she was Asian – japanese, actually, he knew, she certainly acted British. As was her accent.
"Oh, I don't think so luv. Why, why don't you actually either tie your tie, or just undo it all the way. Or maybe I could show you something more interesting to do with it." Her tongue poking out between her lips, a near purr in her voice as he was sure she tried a sight that had reduced other men to their knees.
Pete Wisdom was not other men. He blew smoke in her face, before she even started to utter "Like strangling yourself.." Before she coughed.
"It's alright petal, ya wouldn't last a night with me anyway. Better than bloody Bond, I am. Driving, shooting, spying, shagging. Anything Bond can do, I do better." Most people thought he was bragging, when he said things like that. After all, he wasn't very tall. Five nine. A wiry slender built man. He smoked like a chimney. The short nondescript black hair had a few tinges of grey here or there. A full days stubble upon his chin. A very unimpressive man who's only real handsome feature was his icy blue eyes, who moved in slow extremely controlled ways.
No one would ever accuse Pete Wisdom of looking like someone who could move quickly if needed.
In almost every way, a total opposite to the woman who sat on the bench with him. About his height, with purple eyes and purple hair. The high facial profile of a beuatiful japanese woman, and the toned body of a martial artist. Including a rather bountiful chest. Bird looks more like a Japanese Idol than a bloody espionage agent or sister of Captain bloody Britian.
Appearances were deceiving though. Yet he knew that better then the woman looking at him vexedly. Still annoyed by his blowing smoke in her face, no doubt. He was fairly sure no one had ever done such to her before – Elizabeth Braddock had been a model to begin with, and her second body was better then the first. Ahh. There it is. Witch is trying to get into me head.
"Now now luv, didn't yer dear old dad ever teach yer any manners? Wot about that hero Captain Fruit of the Loom brother of yers? Innit nice to be prying in other peoples heads luv." He shook his finger back and forth at her, and the feeling of something crawling in his head receded.
"How did you know? You're not a telepath, or a psi." Now she was scowling, and sounded petulant. Yup. Spoiled princess. Correction, Spoiled Lady.Bloody Nobles.
"Well, fer starters luv, I spent nearly a decade working fer MI-5 and then MI-6. After that, I worked fer organizations ya innit even ever heard of. Ya get that deep into shite, and ya get taught ter shield yer thoughts from wankers like yerself. Mebbe ya could break em, probably could, yer pretty powerful, but the thing is luv.. Could ya do it before I got angry?" The grin he flashed her made her stiffen. Just like he knew it would.
It wasn't a friendly grin. It was a cold grin, a cruel grin. It was the grin he offered people before he began interrogating people, or had been infamous for using while he worked for the Crown. More then a few people had broken just from his grin alone, and the look that he found so easy to evoke into his eyes. Pete Wisdom was a man who'd seen so much death, so much pain, and been the cause of most of it, that he found it easy to show that in his persona. Which had become a useful tool, because cultivating it had made it less necessary to actually follow through with the threats his eyes promised people.
"You're a right tosser, you know that Wisdom?" She scoffed once again, although she didn't seem so ready to dismiss him as just a worthless low life in a cheap dirty suit and rain coat anymore.
"Got that right, petal. Ya ask me nice like, and maybe I'll toss yer over the bed later. Ya like that, huh? You noble types, always like the kinky rough shit."
Her hand imprinted red upon his cheek. Yep. Deserved that one.
Yes, you did.
A growl from his throat, as he worked at keeping her out again, and lit another cigarette.
"Where are these bloody yanks anyway? Were supposed to be here flipping half hour again. Leave it to yanks to not be able to tell time."
"I do not see why you're complaining, luv, you aren't the one stuck with a sitting companion who smells like a living ash tray." A twitch of her lips.
"Wot, ya prefer a booze soaked ash tray petal?" She laughed in delight as he pulled out his flask, took a swig, and handed it to her.
"Your still a right bastard, Wisdom."
"That I am petal, now quit hoarding me booze, share and share alike."
"So we just leave the bird here? Sure dat de way dis works?" Gambit asked with a frown, but the others nodded. "D'accord."
Sighing, he fell in behind the other three, Logan wandering ahead sniffing at the air, while Kurt was following him in a heavy rain coat with a hood up, to hide his demonic fuzzy elfness from the world. Ororo on the other hand, just walked along side with him.
"Stormy, why we leave de jet here?" He inquired, once the other two were a bit ahead.
"Because there's no one to pilot it, Remy, and Lord Braddock ensured us that this part of the property would be safe to hide it for now. It will be there when we go back for it."
"If you say so. I still don' like leavin de means a getting home parked a ways away...Or going at one of Sinister's labs wit' two people we ain't done no training wit'. Oh well, it a challenge I guess, an Lord know dat dis cajun always love a challenge, huh?"
Storm yelped at the pinch he gave her, before he danced away to catch up to Logan. He was fairly sure there was small bolts of lightning coming after him.
".. so that's when I shot the toerag in the foot, an asked him where his god was now." Wisdom was telling Betsy with a dry tone, despite the fact it was a funny story. At least, he considered it such.
"Our pickups are here, luv." Betsy demurred, putting the cap on his flask and handing it back. To which Pete looked at it forlornly, shook it to find half of it's contents were gone, then pocketed it.
"Yer right petal. There's short and hairy now, not to sure who the hooded one is... Bullocks." He knew that tall figure coming behind them, before the pretty white haired African woman.
"LeBeau, you wanker. Wot the 'ell you doing with this brady bunch, mate?" To his lack of surprise, LeBeau wrapped an arm around Storm's shoulder, and gave him an exaggerated grin.
Figures.
"Dunno mon ami, bout to ask you de same question?"
"Things took a turn fer the worse wot with the blokes I was working fer. Right then, you lot are here. We got a job to do, before either of us are going anywhere with you bunch of spandex and leather wearing sexual deviants."
At least Betsy was laughing at that, but then, the woman was wearing a glorified swim suit underneath her coat. He'd gotten a few peaks at it while they'd been sitting. To his surprise, Logan laughed too, while Ororo and the hooded man frowned at him. Gambit was just grinning like it was the truth.
Shite, some things I don't bleeding want to know.
"Logan, Gambit, you will be with Wisdom. Kurt and I will go with Betsy, once we have breached the lab. You are sure this is the place, Mr. Wisdom?"
"Oh, it's the bloody place all right. Stake yer life on it." His grin was unappreciated, as usual. Ah well, you couldn't win them all. Tossing the do-hickey he'd lifted from his former employers to the wall, then tapping the combination of keys on it, the previously flat wall pulsed with energy, before a doorway appeared.
"Thirty minutes. That's how long this'll keep up. Don't over stay yer welcome beyond that, or we gotta find another exit. Ladies first." He was unsurprised that Betsy went through first, then Logan, Kurt, Storm, Gambit, and finally he himself.
Bloody 'ell, what am I doing with the spandex crowd? This is only gonna end in flipping tears.
"Boss?"
Sinister looked up coldly from his console. "Yes, Scalphunter?"
"Security alert in the London Lab. Tesseract there just activated itself, and six mutants detected. Ah.. one of them is LeBeau, Sir."
"So the mouse comes to the hawk. Very well, let's give them a surprise, shall we?" Sinister's smile sent chills down Scalphunters spine.
"Sir?"
"Come. Watch." Sinister invited Greycrow to join him at the consoles, as five men appeared via another tesseract on the security monitors for that section of lab. Monitors that also showed the X-men already cutting into Sinister's labs with raw destruction.
Sinister had another team. That somehow Scalphunter had never known about. Interesting.
"Hate dese labs." Remy noted, as a series of his kinetic charges went off, obliterating tanks and other precious lab equipment. But his destruction, while visually impressive, wasn't that much quicker then the super heated energy knives Wisdom through with nasty accuracy, melting anything they hit – or igniting anything that was flammable. Wolverines claws.. well. They were as lethal to lab equipment as they were to anything else.
"God damn explosions are hard on the hearing, Cajun." Logan growled, from slicing a series of terminals into scrap metal.
"Sorry mon ami, dat de way de powers work. Badda bing, badda boom." A grimace, as he tossed a few more cards at more sets of tanks.
Except the resulting explosion was far, far louder then it should have been. Waves of sound knocking all three of the men onto their asses, and left Logan clutching his head at the massive sonic attack.
What de... shit. He tapped his comm once, to indicate to the other team they just ran into opposition, while pulling more cards from coat to get ready to throw. The main assailant looked to be a tall pink haired man dressed like a fruit, who was still screaming those painful ear wrenching sound waves at them.
"Now now now, as annoying as Ruckus's voice is, we can't be having you do that." A voice lectured him, as he felt himself wrapped up in a sticky goey purple tar. Before it enveloped his eyes, he could see Wisdom was facing off against a man who looked somewhat like an ape.
Great. We getting spanked by Sinister's boy band rejects.
"Ororo, das vas ze signal." Kurt pointed out to her, as their commlinks flared.
Their own destruction was not quite so rampant as the other teams, with the majority of the damage coming from Storm's lightnings and winds, while Kurt and Betsy handled things more.. physically.
"Thank you, Kurt." Ororo frowned. That there had been no words following, meant they had met resistance. Even as she was about to order them to go meet up with the others though.. One of the near by potted plants, so seemingly out of place in these cold labs, seemed to stretch out, seeking to to trap her. The first few branches were met with lightning bolts, but she wasn't fast enough, and the limbs entagled her, and began wrapping around her. Trapping her. Wrapping and wrapping, until she was trapped in a constricting cacoon of dark woods.
Oh by the Bright Lady, no!
Storm railed, reaching for lightnings, blasting at the growing limbs, to find that they were replaced as quickly as she threw lightnings at them.
"Yer bunch of wankers think yer up to snuff, huh?" Wisdom sounded disparaging around the butt of his fag, he knew. First rule of thumb, put your opponents down and psyche them out. It wasn't looking so hot, with the cajun wrapped in some goo, and Logan ever so slowly crawling while howling towards the screaming man.
"That's right englishman, we're gonna crush ya." A snarl, and a swipe of very strong looking hands with slightly sharpened claws at them passed at him. The ape-thing actually looked surprised when Wisdom deftly side stepped. He was used to that expression. Everyone always assumed his carefully controlled placid motions meant he was slow, while in reality his reactions were battle hardened by over 14 years in service of the Crown.
"Yer sure bout that? Don't think I ever much feared getting me arse handed to me by a hair bag like yerself." Wisdom snorted, but he was sticking on the defensive. The surprise of course, came when some of the mans nasty looking fur ejected after a near miss like a quill attack. Only his rain coat saved him there, and the ape man snarled.
"Wot? Never heard of body armor ya wanker? Ya think I lived this long as an agent of the crown without a few advantages?"
"You talk a lot for someone who hasn't even attacked me back yet. Your a mutant, where's your power?" Hairbag was starting to get annoyed at the man, and when Wisdom's fingers started glowing and he jumped back, he wasn't at all expecting what actually happened. Pete deftly drew his 9mm with his other hand, and capped four rounds in Hairbag's legs.
"That's wot ya get fer being a wanker with bad breath. Shite mate, yer smell worse then I do." If only he'd known how accurate that statement was, when Hairbag cried out in pain on the ground, and from his mouth emerged a gas that left Wisdom sputtering and coughing, and feeling conciousness start to fade away.
Damnit, Wisdom. Rookie trick got ya. Yer better then this.
Pete was aware of three things. One was one of his hot knives flung from a finger tip at Hairbag as he fell towards the floor, the other was an explosion rocking the whole room. The third thing, was the floor was cold, but that was far less important.
It was times like this, Elizabeth Braddock really wished her psi-blade could cut physical matter. Namely, that which had hold of Storm. Lacking that ability to free Ororo, she instead launched herself in an arcing summersault that would surely would have won her a medal at the olympics, as she attempted to bring her psi-blade down at the man who appeared to be the cause of Ororo's situation.
The smile on his face warned her as she hit the downward arc of her leap towards him, as his staff spun in his hands, and then extended impossibly to strike her in the stomach mid-air, sending her sailing across the room. She barely managed to readjust her movements over the pain in her stomach, her feet hitting the wall, legs giving, and then pushing, sending her back across some of the distance, to land with a considering look.
"A nice trick, but of limited use now that I know it." She noted cockily, even if she was at a temporary loss as to how to overcome the stand off capability he was showing, and his mind was closed off to her with some kind of psi-screen. Technological no doubt.
"Not at all girl. Ya see, I just got to hold ya there while my plants kill your friend, and Slab here kills ya. Pity your demon friend ran off."
Betsy frowned, when she saw 'Slab'. A brute of a man, whos mind she couldn't touch either. Cursed technology. Today wasn't her day. Now Kurt.
She instructed, while leaping over a computer terminal, and going around Slab towards Ramrod. True to her sending, Kurt appeared out of the shadows as she moved, launching onto Slab's back and trying to use his own momentum against him to carry him into a wall.
From the crash she heard, it sounded like it was working, as Kurt bamfed about, leading the brute on a merry little chase. Unfortunately, her own fight wasn't going so good. Each time, that damned staff found a way to block or harry her, extending and moving impossibly. Were it just a staff, she could have easily gotten close enough. Even jamming her psi-blade into the staff didn't seem to have any effect but to make Ramrod laugh.
She earned herself another knock across the room before she could even get close to try plan B, which was attempting to free Ororo. Blinking back the pain of impact with a wall, she was in time to see Kurt get sent sailing from a back hand that finally caught him, yet he bamfed mid swing, to appear above her.
Ahh Betsy?
I know Kurt, we need to change opponents. You take Ramrod.
With that, she launched into the fray once more. This time she felt significantly more confident in her fight, as she dodged wild swing after wild swing, despite the pain flaring in her ribs, stomach, and back. All it took was dodging two swings, and one 'upper cut' from her to finish Slab off, her Psi-knife jamming right into his chin, and K.O.ing him instantly.
Turning, she saw Kurt's fight was going better as well, although he hadn't ended it nearly so quickly. He was teleporting between each swing of that staff, and scoring hits on Ramrod each time. Yet Betsy frowned noting they were only minor hits. They were taking too long, and Ororo was panicing.
Kurt, hurr.. oh no.
"So, dey call ya Gorgeous Goerge, eh?" His mouth was about the only part of him that wasn't covered in the goo.
"Yup. Ya can see why, huh? So, you going to give up now Gambit? You can't get out of this."
"Non. Poppa, he always tell me dat I could do de impossible. Like so." He couldn't actually feel George's surprise, something was blocking his empathy. However he felt it because the man was squirming as if trying to see what he was talking about. All it really took was one glance at Gambit's eyes though, to know the truth.
He'd turned his powers on. Oh sure he couldn't charge organic objects, like George was. He wasn't crazy enough to charge his clothes, not this time. Instead he charged what he'd never really shown people he could charge, as hundreds of small explosions went off along George's body that was trapping him.
Needless to say, it was messy as purple goo exploded away from him, and none too good for his coat either. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he was launching up to catch a hold of the ceiling, and swing to get some distance, sending five cards sailing back at George.
"Y'forget mon ami.. de air, she ain't organic. Bitch to charge, cept when someone foolish enough t'give me pockets of it.." Shit talking in combat was an art form, after all. Especially when bragging about something one wasn't certain they could even do until they'd done it.
Two down.. now for de songbird. Damn, Pete really messed dat one up.
Even as Remy spun to throw a set of throwing spikes at Ruckus, he found he'd been a bit over-anxious. In two ways. The first, George clearly wasn't down, judging by the purple goo hand that grasped his ankle, and hurled him towards a wall.
The second was Logan was up again, and looking mighty pissed off. Comparatively, Ruckus wasn't looking so cocky as a few hundred pounds of feral Canadian leaped at him with claws bared.
"Y'know, dis gonna be a pretty boring fight. You throw me round, I blow you up, how bout we jus' say dat I win?"
"Why would we ever do that? I think I'll just suffocate you instead."
"Well dere i.." s always dat choice. Course, putting ya nasty hand over my mouth just gonna piss me off. Lesse.. Heh. T'ank you, Jubilee.
His hands found something of use in his coat. The bag of ball bearings he and Jubes had been planning to use to fix up the playground for the littler kids. See how the gooey bastard liked having those go off inside of him.
Oh dis gonna be good. 29.. 28.. Counting to himself how much time he had of consciousness left while he discreetly slipped bearings from his pocket into George, who seemed to be oblivious.
Logan looked like he was kicking Ruckus's ass, from what he could tell through the purple goo. Damn. Petit holmes gonna make me look bad.
When his bearings went off, and George splattered thoroughly across the room, Gambit almost smirked. Until he heard a much louder boom from the other direction.
"Well. Well. Well. Who would have thought she had it in her? I suppose the loss of that lab might have been worth just finding it out." Sinister murmured, watching power outputs of each of the mutants who were fighting in his London lab. Peaking highest at the moment, was the one for Storm.
"Sir?"
"They were just clones, they can be replaced. The Nasty Boys clearly need more training if they were taken apart by this meager band, anyway." Sinister's smile was cruel as always.
Bright Lady, I can't breath! AIR!
The winds came first. Ripping and pushing at plants, and when the winds couldn't do it, lightnings joined them. Lightning crackling from her eyes, her hands, circling and blasting from her body. With the force of a tornado, the cacoon that had entrapped her was ripped to shreds, lightning crashing outward from her as she burst into freedom.
To find a surprised looking Betsy staring open mouthed at her on one side. A large man was comatose amongst a pile of rubble in that way. Turning her heard seeking her tormenter, she found a very unpleasant sight to her eyes. Kurt was crumpled against a wall, that staff placed against Kurt's neck. Yet Ramrod's eyes were on her, in sheer surprise.
That surprise remained there, even as winds and lightning impacted him, throwing him down corridor after corridor.
"Come." She ordered, moving to help pick Kurt up with Betsy's aid, as they made their way back towards the others. Behind them, a vortex of weather was brewing in that room. An indoor tornado, already ripping the lab apart. Never before had she created such a thing in similar confines away from open air, and she wasn't sure she could have stopped it if she wanted too.
But she didn't, so it was a moot point.
When he awoke, it was laying on one of the medical beds of the Black Bird.
"Bloody hell." Patting his coat, he found his cigarettes, pulled one out, hot knifed the end, and inhaled refreshing nicotine.
"Quite so, luv. Quite so." Betsy's tone was just as disgruntled as his, and he saw why when looking over. Her costume was now adorned with bandages across her ribs, and Nightcrawler was in another bed, but he looked to be out of it still.
"So we win or wot?" Since they weren't in that lab still, he guessed so.
"Oh, I think we won Wisdom. Or rather, Storm did. While we picked at the opposition, once she broke free she finished off two of the attackers – and wiped out the rest of the lab. She was in quite the tiff, who'd have thought she had it in her?"
Wisdom just grimaced, and sucked on his fag. "Eh. Wot can ya do I guess? So we're on the Brady Bunch's jet?"
"Astute, Pete, very astute." Betsy noted dryly, to which he flicked her off.
"So yer going with 'em?" He still wasn't sure if he was. It was in the States, after all, but all that was left here in the UK was spending each day wondering if one of the few remaining Black Air failsafes would find him and off him when he wasn't looking. Pisser of a way to live life, or to die. The respectable agencies weren't willing to touch him anymore, after his involvement with Black Air. Cleared him of wrong doing, they did, for his part in dismantling the agency, but oh no. No one wanted to touch Pete Wisdom now.
They just sealed his record tighter then a virgin, gave him some fancy medal, and booted him.
"Of course. I planned to from the beginning. You're the one who wasn't sure if you were going to go with."
"Astute, petal. Ya think these bunch of tossers are gonna be able to handle having two Brits around?"
Betsy arched an eyebrow at him and laughed. "Oh please, Wisdom. You barely qualify as human, don't make me think of you as a country man. You're hardly the God, Queen, and Country type anyway, with that mouth of yours."
Wisdom just smirked. She obviously hadn't peeked into his thoughts too much while he'd been out. He'd have thought a telepath would know the old saying. Don't judge a book by it's cover.
"Guess I better go then, someone has gotta keep yer from having delusions of grandeur petal."
"So ya both coming, eh? Good. I let Stormy know."
"Sod off LeBeau, you dirty french bastard." Wisdom growled, as Gambit walked off laughing.
"Really Pete, do you get along with anyone?"
"Get along with people, petal? Built me career on making people want to kill me." Wisdom laughed. "Get along with people.. Heh.."
Screw you, Bird. All me mates are six feet under. That's wot happens when I get along with someone.
"Ororo says they'll bring our things from the Manor." Betsy smiled happily, relieved at someone else acting as her porter no doubt. Wisdom just hoped that filthy cajun just didn't steal any of his things while he helped move it.
"The Black Bird is about to land, Professor. Should we go meet them?" Scott Summers was looking a little better then he had the last few days. Not having the others to fall back on, having to be the Responsible Figure had asserted his control. Charles was just worried now that the others were back, he would begin to decline again.
Somehow, someway, there had to be a way to help Scott. Yet there was the lurking suspicion in his stomach that the only thing that would help his adopted son was Jean's return. He'd felt.. flickers.. of something, maybe Jean, out there. Yet Scott hadn't seemed to feel anything. Or perhaps he was, and that was why he was taking things so hard?
"Yes, of course Scott. They have both of the new recruits with them, and it would be best to give them a warm welcome. Kurt is also injured, Jubilee and Kitty are already preparing the infirmary for him."
Hope is Eternal, Scott. You have to believe that.
Charles smiled, at the surprised look on Scott's face at the telepathic sending, as he wheeled past the man.
To his surprise, he heard Scott quoting lightly behind him.
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest. Alexander Pope."
Author's Note: Next up, Wisdom and Betsy settle into ze mansion. Amongst other things. Thoughts on Pete? Good addition, bad addition? Is a trio of bad boys (Gambit, Logan, Wisdom) too much? Is Jean dead? How dead?