Disclaimer: You know, it seems that over time I am willing to put less and less work into actually writing these disclaimers, as evidenced by fewer and fewer words over the last few chapters. It has begun to make me wonder, 'Do I write less and less in the disclaimer, because I am lazy, or do I write less and less because as I write more and more of the actual story, I feel as if I have earned the write to call the story, and the characters it spawns, my own?' Truly a ponderous thought. And for the sake of legality, no I do not own the companies that own Marvel/Spiderman/X-men or Naruto, nor do I own the franchises themselves.
Line Break
The following day found Naruto mapping out the tunnels around their home again. It was a defensive habit that he remembered Iruka pushing on him back in his academy days.
'If you stay in one place for any long period of time, there are naturally going to be more enemies that find you, more people will know you are there, and the more that they know about the area you are in.' He quoted mentally, sticking as close to the original as he could remember. 'But you have to keep one step ahead of them. If you plan to stay in that spot, learn all of its ins and outs, and learn it so well that you can walk it in your sleep. Any enemy you can fight on a ground of your choosing is one more where you have the advantage.'
It was one of the few real lessons he had learned from his teacher, aside from other 'cooler' ones regarding techniques. The only reason for that though, was for his prank war with the chunin and jonin lounges. He'd put glue in their filters, they would chase him through the city to a place where he had stocked a few distraction traps, then while they were blinded and confused he would grab some chameleon paper and blend into a fence or the side of a building, and then get caught by Iruka while gloating over his victory.
'Good times' Naruto thought, marking another fork in the sewers on his make shift map. As he had no real way of measuring the tunnels, the distances on the piece were a little confused, but it served well enough just to know what went where and connected to what else.
"I oughtta look into that chameleon paper again though." The blonde thought aloud. "That was damn useful. But how is it even made? Maybe I could use the transformation technique and mimic the wall behind me? But that would change whenever I moved…"
He trailed off that line of thought, when he started hearing splashing sounds coming up the tunnel behind him.
Never one to miss out on a prank, he wore a foxy smile, and whispered to himself. "No time like the present."
Jumping up on the ceiling, and sticking there, he took a moment to survey the spot before closing his eyes in concentration, forgoing hand seals, and whispering again a small "Henge".
The illusion was poor, the blocks on the other side of 'him' were too large, and at the wrong angles, but there was the beginning of something worthwhile there.
A few sends later, Callisto came marching down the tunnel, arms wrapped underneath her leather jacket to fight off the chill.
"I thought I just heard him down here…" The brunette said in confusion, walking right past his hiding spot. "Where the hell is that kid..?"
Not one to miss an opportunity, Naruto stood right behind her head, and dropped his technique.
"RIGHT HERE!"
"JESUS CHRIST!" She screamed, whipping a dagger, out from underneath her jacket and throwing it through the space where Naruto's head formerly was.
Now we has rolling around on the ceiling, howling in laughter.
"GOD DAMNIT KID!" Calisto shouted, trying to get her racing heart under control. "I coulda killed you!"
Naruto was too busy laughing to respond, but her statement, instead of having the sobering effect Callisto had desired, instead only set him off harder.
"You and Sarah both…" She grumbled under her breath, waiting somewhat impatiently for the blond to wind down.
Giving a few more petering laughs, the blonde dried his eyes and let go his connection to the ceiling, hopping back to the floor with a splash.
"So aside from getting pranked hard, what brings you out my way…again?" Naruto tilted his head to the side. "Seriously, you just got over your injury, and you old people are kinda flimsy. You sure you wanna be pushing yourself here."
"Who are you calling old, pint-sized?" Calisto thundered stormily, her brow creasing angrily.
"Who are you calling pint sized?" Naruto shot back, getting right in her face. "And on a not unrelated note, what the hell is a pint."
Callisto snorted, trying to maintain her angry look, but falling apart in a wave of chuckles. Naruto smiled back just as easily.
"Seriously, though, what couldn't wait until I got back?"
"Right," The brunette cyclops said, blowing out a sigh, "I want to talk about something that you may or may not like. And if we end up shouting I'd rather do it out here than upset the kids."
Frowning, Naruto asked her to continue.
"I want to talk to you about opening up the Haven for more people." Callisto said in a rush.
He paused for a second going over what she had just said. "What, exactly, do you mean by that?" Naruto spoke in a slow measured tone, completely unlike his lighter normal voice.
"I am talking about potentially making Haven a home for all of those spurned by the surface." The cyclopean brunette stated. "Look, what you said yesterday got me thinking. About protecting the kids, yes, but also about the rest of us. Sarah, Nick, the blockhead back there, that's all a start, but they are by no means the only muties having it rough out there. They ain't the only ones that can't fit in on a count of how they look. There are probably thousands all over the globe, millions maybe. In New York alone we are talking likely dozens of people who can't get by because of how they are treated by the humans."
"So, what?" Naruto spoke in a hard tone, interrupting her. "We say 'come one, come all'? The only reason that we get by down here is because, 1, I steal what we need, 2, I buy what I can't steal using stolen money, and 3, because we are small enough as a group that we don't really attract that much attention!"
"Don't you though?" Calisto shot back. "Because I seem to recall you turning up in a few papers I read with the word 'crime spree' on them. I also remember you changing appearances before heading to buy the things ya say we need, but tell me why would you do that if you weren't afraid of someone recognizing you?"
Naruto ground his teeth for a few seconds before Calisto carried on. "So if people can recognize you and can follow you for the rep that you already built, then when they find you, tell me. Would it be better if it was just you defending three kids, or if they found an underground society, the likes of which no one would approach incautiously? Tell me what happens to Sarah, and Sydney, and Nick in the first scenario?"
"That's low." Naruto growled harshly.
"Yeah," She admitted, "But it's something that's possible, even likely if we stay here long enough. So we can either deny, or we can prepare. So we draw in the mutants with nowhere else to go, draw in all of the down and outs, and we have them come here. In a defensible position with people who we've done a good turn to at our backs, we can hold against whoever is hunting you."
Naruto had more than a few doubts about the plan, and stated as such. "First off, if we get a whole bunch a mutants here, we start attracting a whole new breed of problems. All the people they had a problem with them before start looking for them, and because they are here, us."
"Out of sight, out of mind," Calisto quoted with a smile. "If they aren't there, most humans don't have a problem with mutants. And those that continue to have those problems will find a lot more mutants here than they would like to handle. Strength in numbers, after all."
"OK, what about our supply situation?" Naruto listed out another one of his doubts. "If we get dozens of more people, we would have increase our nightly excursions to the point where there is no way that people wouldn't notice. And that would paint a big ol' target on the whole place!"
"Not as much as you think," She returned immediately. "You see I've been around this place somewhat, and there are a LOT of empty rooms in here for some reason. And I've got a friend who grew up on a farm and was most of the way Biology major before some stuff went down and she found out she was mutant and got kicked out of college and right now I think is on the streets with about four kids. So she'd would be down here in a heartbeat, so what we really need is some startup funds and equipment to gets some greenhouses going, and get this place actually independent."
"That might cover some of our greens and grains, but not our meats." Naruto said after a moment.
"Yeah, and for that we can either go one of three ways. A, we keep hitting the atm's but now use those funds exclusively on equipment and meat provided by wholesalers, B, we hit trucks heading from grocery stores to the local dumps salvage what's good and edible, before heading on our way, or C, we set up a charity to donate specifically to down and out mutants, and we use that to get all the discounts government enforced, and then we buy wholesale, which covers kind of a lot of our food. Or we could even mix and match if any one proves not to be enough."
Naruto was silent for a moment, regarding the leather clad woman in front of him.
"You kind of thought a lot about this, huh?"
"I have an MBA in Business management, and a minor in Business Law." She retorted smugly.
Upon seeing Naruto's dumbfounded look though, she rolled her eye. "Yeeah, I know. People take one look at the leather pants and figure I must be some sort of lowlife."
"No lots of people wear leather in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, heck, some people even wear practically nothing, like this one lady just went around in fishnets and a big coat all the time which I guess is a bit weird." Naruto trailed off before shaking his head. "Point is, the leather is fine, I just have no idea what and MBA is."
"Right." Calisto acknowledged with a nod. "From pseudo-Japan, I keep forgetting. Anyway, it means I'm very educated when it comes to business, trading and such, and the laws that regard and govern trading and such."
"Aren't people like that generally wealthy?" Naruto asked not quite rhetorically. "What is someone like you doing in a sewer?"
Calisto stared at him for a few seconds before sighing. "Story for another time, and we're getting off track. Look what do you think about the idea?"
Naruto huffed a breath. "It's not that bad, but I'm still uncomfortable with it, and I'm not just going to let total strangers into our home."
"They wouldn't be total strangers, not to start with." Calisto quickly interjected. "I've been around, and Calliban and I know some folks that can help set this up. Good people. Fathers, Mothers…children."
She caught Naruto's eye. "The exact kind of people who would be just right for a burgeoning village, and sit right in the sight of any mutant hating asshole above, the regular yokels or your mad scientist types."
Naruto knew she was manipulating him, at least a bit, but damn if she didn't have some good points to do it. And he thought about the kids then, and what would happen to them if by some chance the goodly doctor found him again. What that monster would do to him. What he would do to Sarah.
"Fine." He ground out at length.
She sighed, giving her head a tired jerk, almost not catching him continue.
"But I've got some conditions."
Her one eye met his two. "For starters?"
"I meet everyone who walks through that door, before we tell them about Haven. I get a read on them, know them a bit, and only then do I give a yes or no on whether they know about it, and whether or not they get in. And if I say no, I mean no. OK?"
"You got it." She said immediately.
"Good." He nodded, and he began pacing up the wall, the chakra use having long since become second nature to him. "Next we need to start small, a few people, the ones we need to start things up. A guy who knows where we can pick up some quality furniture so that we don't have people sleeping on the ground in the muck, food so we don't have them starving, and where to find enough money to buy the stuff we need for the long term. A big guy who can help pick that stuff up and move it with ease. Your friend with the green thumb. And that's only the people off the top of my head."
Calisto pondered that for a bit. "We are also going to need someone to help wire something to solve our electrical problems long run. You seem pretty handy, but someone who knows what they're doing-"
"-Wouldn't be a bad idea to have around." Naruto completed.
A lull in the conversation had Calisto turning to look up at the kid. "So is that it? We're agreed?"
Naruto nodded. "Let's set us up a Haven.
Line Break
It had been almost a month since Calisto had made her recovery, and their subsequent talk. Three weeks and four days since the first of her friends started showing up.
The very first was a balding older man whom Calisto had stated she had known from 'Way Back'. Sunder, as the large man had first introduced himself, was a kindly older gentleman, Naruto estimated late 40's, but he couldn't be sure. He was a strong, tough guy, though, and exactly what they needed to move large amounts of equipment back to the Haven. Naruto had given him a pass.
And after him came another guy in a robe of all things, though later Naruto saw it was just to conceal the vaguely cancer like boils covering his body. He was bit quiet, but introduced himself politely as Masque, and was vouched for again by Calisto, having looked out for each other in the past, and his working knowledge of the supply situation in the city would prove invaluable to set up their little village. He struck Naruto as a little off, but he gave him a pass.
Then it was like the dam had broken, because over the next few days Naruto had seen so many. An older redheaded woman named Annalee, who had five children, not just the four Calisto had thought, but another adopted child, who named himself Leech. Then came a tall, dark haired, former cosmonaut (a term which again Calisto had to explain to him) who was a genius when it came to electrical engineering, named Mikhail Rasputin.
Of course, all of this rapid expansion necessitated heading out almost every other night for more supplies. For more wire, more nutrient rich dirt, more metal to work into secure barriers, more furniture to make things a bit more comfortable, and more wood and tarps to keep things a bit more private as the main area started to get a bit crowded.
Even as Naruto was at that second, laying wide awake in bed after a successful take from another warehouse along the dock section of the city, thinking of all the changes that had taken place over last month, and kept awake by the sounds of the children starting to get up, he couldn't help but think of the next thing they had to do. The next project.
After a high pitched giggle made it through the poor sound proofing, 'One more project', Naruto resigned himself to getting no sleep that night and rolled out of bed.
Walking out into the main area, he saw the kids were arraigned on the couch in front of the television (recent acquisitions he and Sunder had picked up about a week ago), and Calisto standing behind them with a small smile on her face as the kids argued about who could play a game on the tv first.
Calisto looked over to him and grimaced a bit.
"Sorry if we woke you."
Naruto shook his head in denial. "Couldn't sleep anyway. What's going on here?"
"Oh the ususal, you missed the kids arguing about what to call ourselves before being distracted by flashing lights." Calisto grinned.
Naruto frowned, however, confused. "Wait, are we supposed to have a title? Is that something that I wasn't told about?"
"HaHA! Told you!" Came the accusatory shout from Sidney, still playing with the others.
Naruto rolled his eyes in a manner almost practiced to death after almost every time Sydney opened up his gob. Calisto for her part just smiled indulgently, before looking back at Naruto. "So I take it you haven't thought of a name for our little clique yet?"
"No, the kids were kinda insistent about it right around when we picked up Masque and actually started becoming a group." Naruto groused, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. "But the best we could come up with was the Omega's."
Calisto stared at him for a moment before giving a great belly laugh. "That's TERRIBLE!"
She continued laughing over Naruto's pout.
"It sounds like you're a bunch of DOGS!"
Naruto's pout deepened, sending Calisto into fits of giggles.
"What's wrong with dogs?" Nick the wolf boy growled back indignantly from over the couch."
"Oh god!" she said through the tears. "God it hurts!"
Naruto had finally had enough. "Look, I know it's not the best name, but it's the best we could come up with!"
"It's ok." The one eyed woman said, patting Naruto on the head. "It's ok, I'm done."
"Well what would you call us?" Naruto said with no small amount of childish pique.
"Well, you all live underground. Why not something about that?"
Naruto frowned again. "What, like the Tunnelers? The Rats? The Moles? The Architects?"
Calisto narrowed her visible eye in thought. "Architects isn't bad, but it sounds too much like the Masons to fly."
"Who are the masons?" Naruto asked with what seemed to be fast becoming a permanent frown on his young face.
"Don't ask, it's a long story." Calisto said, tilting her head back to the ceiling, eye closed in apparent thought.
Waiting a minute, and with seemingly no answer forthcoming, Naruto thought the conversation was over, and turned away from the kids, intent on finding Mikhail and seeing if they couldn't do something the noise echoing in the main chamber.
"What about 'the Morlocks'?" Came the rough voice from behind him.
Naruto turned back around to look into Callisto's visible eye. "Sounds like it's from something..?"
Calisto waved a hand. "Race of disfigured subterranean creatures evolved from humanity living thousands of years in the future, taking what they want and need from the world above during the night. Kinda appropriate I thought."
"Kinda dark, but it does have a nice ring to it…"Taking a moment to think about it, Naruto simply shrugged his shoulders. "Meh. Good enough."
Line Break
Meanwhile to the northwest of Haven, a teacher was finishing his classes lecture on the properties radiation as it pertains to physics.
"So for next class, I want you to read Dr. Richards Treatise on the Many Forms of Radiation and their Effect on Inanimate Objects and Living Tissue, chapters 1-4. If any of you have any questions on the material I'll be in my office, normal hours."
A low chime filled the classroom and the students packed up their materials for the day. Exiting the class in excited bunches, Scott's eyes followed them to the door, where leaned a radiant, redheaded beauty.
"Hey, Jean," Scott said, with an easy smile. "What brings you to my humble classroom?"
"The professor wants to see you for a small trip to the city." The redhead responded with a simple smile, crossing the oaken floor to his desk, she leaned down, planting a soft kiss on his lips. "And I think I can get one of these out of my fiancé whenever I feel like it."
"Mhmm." Scott mumbled happily, closing the distance between them and capturing her lips in a kiss again.
Leaning back a bit and staring at her through his ruby tinted glasses. Beautiful, flawless, perfect.
"Well, I better go see what he wants before my next class starts." Scott said, untangling himself from his fiancé.
"I'll see you tonight." Jean whispered back, a smile foretelling a pleasant evening in a way completely unlike their companion could provide. And then she slipped out the door again.
Smiling the way a married man sometimes does, Scott Summers walked through Xaviers Institute for Higher Learning, to see what had the professor in a tizzy.
Line Break
Meanwhile, a much older man sat behind his expensive mahogany desk in the CEO office of Manfredi Industrial and Construction Tower, Midtown Manhattan, scowling over the apparent losses the company had been taking for the past month in an egregious amount of lost product.
The man, aside from the frown he presently wore, had a kindly almost grandfatherly way about him. Like the building in which he was residing at the moment, both seemed stately, with not a tarnish in sight.
On the inside, however…
'So who is it that seems so determined to step on my toes this month?' Silvio Manfredi thought to himself, peering over the report for any mention of calling card, or perhaps a method which might lend credit to one of his enemies. 'Who is it that wants war with the head of the Maggia?'
A low tune filled the office, and Manfredi pressed a button on his desk. "Yes, Mary, what is it?"
"A Parker Robbins is here to see you? Your 2 o'clock sir." A sultry female voice responded.
He glanced at the clock. 'Precisely 2. Good.' "Send him in Mary."
A handsome brown haired man in a finely tailored suit strode through the automatically opening doors.
"Silvio!" He said in a pleasant baritone. "Good to see you again."
Once the doors were closed, the silver haired man responded. "Always good to see Fisk's glorified messenger boy."
The younger man's smiled for a second before returning, just as bright. "Well you should know why I'm here then."
"You only ever come here for the one reason." Silvermane spoke, standing from his desk and making his way to a handy liquor cabinet. "So what mercenary do you believe will solve my present problem?"
"Well," The young brunette said with a pop, pulling a thick manila envelope out of his briefcase. "We recently acquired one, a mutant, several decades of combat experience, 12 wars, 3 toppled dictators, and four dictators instated."
"A powerful man then." Silvio said with a grunt, downing a potent glass of whiskey. "Why would such a man turn to a life of crime?"
"Apparently work became short for him after two failed missions in a row." The younger man rolled his eyes. "Well, failed in terms of PR anyway, the missions themselves were quite successful according to him."
Manfredi, stared at the younger man. "And 'according to him', why were they unsuccessful for PR?"
Parker sighed. "Because he said the fans didn't like it."
Silvio stopped for a moment. "Fans?"
"The second reason we were able to procure his services, for as little as we have." Robbins stated. "He is quite insane."
"And why would I choose such a man to take care of a mere rodent problem?" Silvio asked, waving a hand towards the open files on his desk.
Drawing a second envelope, he dropped it on the desk, stating with finality, "Because you have more than a rodent problem."
Adopting a curious expression, Silvio picked up the envelope, and took out several pictures within.
Peering hard at the face of a blond haired boy framing the first picture, Manfredi recognized the infamous thief that had been plaguing the NYPD for almost the past year. Flipping to the second picture, he saw the boy joined by several more figures, either too large to fit entirely in the frame, or too disfigured to recognize easily.
Parker slipped the heavier envelope onto the desk. And Manfredi picked that up, and started to look through the Mercenary's undoubtedly impressive accomplishments.
Almost as an afterthought he asked the younger man, "And when did you get the footage from my dock camera's Mr. Robbins?"
"My people were able to secure that two days ago." Parker said, with no small amount of smug satisfaction.
'How did he get the records from my cameras in my warehouses owned by my company before I got them?'
It took a few moments of thought, covered by reading the mercenaries dossier.
'Ahh,' Manfredi thought. 'A power play. He fixes my little problem, entrenches himself with me looks good for Fisk and everyone puts the victory on him. Works out even better for him because they are my warehouses; reinforces the idea that Fisk is the Kingpin, and that he is a burgeoning power himself.' A moment more of thought. 'I can risk it, but he had better deliver.'
"Very well." The Silvermane stated in a powerful voice more used to dealing with the underground than the public at large. "Tell Mr. Wilson he has a job, and three days to deliver."
Line Break
Later on that night, Naruto stood outside of a fenced in area close to the docks of New York City. An untarnished sign above him proclaimed brightly that the area was owned by Silvermane Construction.
He was dressed up in his 'war gear' as Sarah liked to call it. Dark blue jeans and dark brown steel toe boots, with knee pads for his lower body. A bandanna covering his hair, and goggles for his head. And his chest was covered by a dark red sweater, with some logo on the front, and elbow pads and reinforced fingerless gloves along his arms. Underneath that sweater sat a refitted Kevlar vest and a pair of tonfa all looted during that whole crocodile/reptile/whatever incident more than a month ago.
Although, at the moment, he looked like a forty year old bald black man with a gut.
Hooray, transformation.
Across the street from him, Sunder and Masque were waiting for his signal, ducked behind a large dumpster next to a convenience store. It was a pattern they had used several times over the past month. More than a few of which took place right at these warehouses.
A truck passed in front of him, its headlights washing over him and the area around, and right then, he disappeared, transferring himself fifty feet skyward, well over the cameras guarding the facilities.
Transferring himself inside the compound, he set about the task of cutting all power lines to the exterior cameras all over the facility.
Once those were down, he went back to the fence near where he had entered, now in the guise of one of the local guards he had seen on a previous trip, and peeled back the chain link carefully disguised to look intact.
Sunder and Masque hurried over from across the street, desperate not to be seen.
"That time again." Sunder rumbled in a deep voice, shoving himself for the opening just a bit too small for him.
"Quiet!" Masque hissed. "This is the fourth time that we've hit these guys in the past month! They've probably upped their guard count since last time, and they are definitely going to be more alert!"
"Actually," Naruto interrupted. "I took a look. So far no ones moving. Not one flashlight in the warehouses, and all the usual guards on patrol are gone."
Silence met his observation.
"Isn't that good?" Sunder asked, a bit slow on the uptake.
"If someone was stealing from you, would you be more cautious or less?" Masque bit rhetorically. "I don't like this."
"It's a short trip." Naruto affirmed. "We get in, get what we need, and get out. The sooner we get the stuff back to Mikhail, the better, and with the stuff we're getting tonight, we might even be getting our own rooms pretty soon."
Masque looked at him, and then back to Sunder, and gave a nod. "Ok. Quick, quiet and cautious, and we should be fine."
"Great. Now then," Naruto turned to look at the third moderately sized warehouse from the left. "If I remember right, what we're getting should be in there."
The three crept along the seemingly abandoned dockside warehouses, silent as mice. But not one person aside from them were making any noise. Not the workers who were supposed to be here 24/7. Not the security which was supposed to patrol in the case of camera failure. The two men and teenager couldn't even hear any loud noises coming from the city, which was startling in itself. Even with Naruto's advanced hearing the only thing he could hear was the pounding in his ears, and the distant thrum of televisions and poor lighting.
Eventually, their journey through the empty yard was halted by a security door on their desired warehouse.
Sunder raised his hand to punch through it, but Masque held up his own, forestalling his friend. The cloaked man reached forward, turning the doorknob.
The security door opened smoothly on well-oiled hinges.
"This is too damn easy." Masque whispered, looking into the sparsely lit warehouse.
"Come on," Naruto urged. "It's almost over."
Masque stepped gingerly inside, followed by the others at a more brisk pace, and walked over to the inventory book near the main exit. A quick glance through and they had what they needed.
"We're looking for aisle sixteen."
The group started walking over, checking different aisles packed with different equipment as each was, it was hard to make out the numbers.
"Got it." Masque called out at length.
"And I've got you!" Responded a much louder man's voice.
A high pitched whistling filled the warehouse, and Naruto reacted on instinct, switching places with Masque and throwing himself farther down the aisle, still to be hit with a wave of hot concussed air. He was carried into the shelved equipment, hitting his back hard and dispelling his illusion.
"What's up, Bitches!?" The voice shouted through Naruto's ringing ears. "DEADPOOL IN THE HOUSE!"
AN
A little bit further on and we see some developments, along with the foundation for the morlocks being raised.
Felt a little rushed, if anything, but let me know what you think