(A/N) Hey all, time for the next update in X-Ray and Vav! We're only three days away from the end of this fic, so I hope you're all hyped to see how this'll go, and how the animated series will turn out! This chapter is one of mine, and is one of the longer chapters that have been in this fic, so I really hope you'll all enjoy it!
Once again, I'd like to remind you that we're currently looking for writers for our Avengers/Hunger Games fic, In the End, You Always Kneel. We've had a lot of great apps, and we'll be closing apps soon, so if you're interested you should head on over to our forum ASAP, or send me a PM for more information.
christopherweeblingjr: I'm certainly going to be interested in seeing how the animated series deals with that, but since Clark Kent just needs to put on glasses to become unrecognisable, I think Vav and X-Ray can hide their identities with capes and bright colours! But you know what, you've just given me an idea for a joke, so keep an eye out for it in this chapter!
Enjoy!
Chapter Forty – Attack the Tower
Ray Narvaez Jr / X-Ray
Written by NicKenny
"Is that it?"
"No. That's a wall."
"It could be disguised."
"You're not very good at looking for things, are you?"
"I'm good at looking for walls. Look, I found another one."
― Derek Landy, Kingdom of the Wicked
X-Ray fidgeted uncomfortably next to Vav, as they waited a few blocks away from the Tower of Pimps, standing as inconspicuously as they could manage at the corner were Dame Street intersected Wall Street, keeping an eye out for the arrival of the FBI that would herald their assault on the Tower.
"What's taking them so long?" Vav asked, and X-Ray glanced at him for a moment before shrugging.
"I'm sure they'll be bringing a lot of men – can't be easy, coordinating something like this. We need to hit them with everything we've got, right?" he offered, and leant back against the wall behind him. Several pedestrians walked by, looking intrigued by the heroes' presence, but each time someone came up to ask for an autograph or a selfie X-Ray waved them away, telling them they were on the job.
Suddenly, the roar of police sirens began to sound in the distance, and the heroes glanced at each other, aware that this might well be their signal to move. A minute or two later, the first of the police cars began to fly past them, standard police cruisers, closely followed by dozens upon dozens of SWAT vans, and then more of the police cruisers, in a seemingly unending stream.
"Is this our cue?" Vav asked quietly, as SWAT van after SWAT van pulled up, and armed men and women began to pile out, swarming the area outside the building and shepherding the civilians away.
X-Ray looked at him and raised an eyebrow in disbelief, before shaking his head slightly and walking forward towards the Tower. Vav stared at his back for a moment before shaking himself and following his partner, running for a moment in order to catch up, and the pair of heroes entered the swarm of black-clad SWAT officers, who parted before them.
"Mogar and Iron-Ryan are approaching from the rear entrance!" yelled Agent Burns, appearing suddenly from the heart of the crowd, a navy bullet-proof vest with the letters FBI stamped across the front pulled on over his cobalt shirt. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, and he had a toothpick in his mouth, chewing it as he spoke. "We're going to maintain a perimeter around the building, and prevent any escape attempts. We've got birds in the air, just in case they try that route. There's a couple of ways in, but there's no way out."
"We've got you covered," a familiar voice confirmed over their earpieces, and X-Ray glanced up towards the sky, where seven or eight helicopters hovered above them, surrounding the top floor of the Tower. With his enhanced vision, he could just make out the familiar grim-faced pilot who had taken them after Iron-Ryan, back when he had just turned up as the Community's latest weapon against the heroes. "Now take that son of a bitch down, once and for all!"
"Got that, Ms. Eddy," he replied, smiling slightly as Agent Burns rolled his eyes. "We'll do our best not to break your chopper this time round."
He sensed that the pilot was preparing a retort, but whatever she was going to say was cut off when Agent Heyman appeared, similarly clad in an FBI stamped bullet-proof vest, his tie flapping wildly in the wind.
"Are they ready?" he asked Burns, breathlessly, who simply shrugged and glanced over at the dynamic duo.
"I don't know – I'm not their mother! Are you ready, or would you like us to hold your hands through this?" he asked the heroes sarcastically, before beginning to cough after almost swallowing the toothpick that he was chewing. He eventually regained his breath, taking the toothpick put for a moment and eyeing it critically before beginning to chew it once more.
"We're ready!" Vav proclaimed confidently, and X-Ray nodded affirmatively next to him.
"We're X-Ray and Vav," X-Ray said, beginning to smile. "We were born ready for this shit!"
"X-Ray?" Vav murmured behind him, as they crept up the stairs of the Tower, the building now eerily quiet after most of the people had been evacuated from the building. The higher floors would probably have more people on them, they knew, but down here it was just X-Ray and Vav.
"What?" he replied, glancing back at Vav before resuming his scanning of the next few floors. X-ray vision certainly came in handy for breach-and-clear missions, because he felt anxious enough without having to go through the uncertainty of wondering whether or not he was about to activate a booby-trap, or be ambushed by a squad of hired thugs.
He shook his head, knowing that his paranoia didn't make any sense. Thousands of people worked in this building everyday – the only chance of coming across booby-traps would be on the last floor, where the Corpirate's lair was located, if they could trust their intelligence. And since their intelligence in this case was the FBI, X-Ray felt as though he could reasonably put a fair amount of faith in them.
"Do you think we'll be able to take them down, if they're all up there, waiting for us?"
X-Ray paused for a moment, considering his friend's question. He could just make out the forms of Iron-Ryan and an untransformed Michael seven floors above them, and began to pick up his pace slightly before he replied.
"I don't know, Vav," he said slowly, his brow furrowing as they crested the next floor. "I mean, there's four of us, and Mogar and Iron-Ryan are pretty powerful. We've got the FBI backing us up, and Ryan's got tons of his golem-things out there with them, if things go south. At the same time, though, we were lucky to get the drop on the Corpirate before, and we've never stopped the Enderdragon, or whatever that thing is called – Mogar just hurt it a bit. And we don't know who else they have with them, but they're not alone in this, I know that."
Vav grew quiet behind him, and X-Ray himself turned into his own thoughts as they made their way up those last few floors, until they finally came across Iron-Ryan and Michael waiting for them on the fifteenth floor.
"What took you bitches so long?" Michael asked, crossing his arms cockily as he leant against the nearby wall. "We've been waiting for the last couple of minutes."
"We were waiting on the feds," Vav replied, by means of explanation. "They've got this whole place surrounded – there's no way the Corpirate's getting out of this one, not even if he's got the Enderdragon with him."
"Unlikely," Iron-Ryan replied. "The Enderdragon took a serious, if non-life-threatening, wound from Mogar in our last bout. Even if he has an enhanced healing factor, which I'm not convinced he has, I doubt that he will be battle-ready at this point in time. However, it is always best to take every possible outcome into account, so I have placed several dozen of my iron golems on the roofs of the nearby buildings. If they do attempt an escape by air, and evade the FBI's blockade of helicopters, my golems will take them down."
"I guess we've got everything covered so," X-Ray replied, taking the lead. He could see Vav smile in his peripheral vision, used to his friend taking the lead, but ignored him. Of course he took the lead – he was the one that knew best. "We've gotta search every floor from here to the top – thankfully my x-ray vision will come in handy there, and I'm sure Ryan has something that'll have a similar function – until we find this dirtbag."
Iron-Ryan brought his fists together and cracked his metal knuckles, creating a noise that sounded like two iron girders attempting to mate. "I'm currently monitoring every camera within this building, and not just the security cameras, but also the webcam of every phone, tablet and laptop in the Tower. I have currently detected the presence of about two-hundred and fifty seven individuals within the building, all apparently hard at work and clearly unaware of the fake inspection that is supposedly being carried out. I'm going to trip the fire alarms now, and hopefully that'll clear the rest of the innocent ones out. The only problem would be-"
"Do it," X-Ray said interrupting him. "Get them out of the way as soon as possible, makes it easier for us."
The fire alarm suddenly began ringing, and the heroes could hear the sounds of the two hundred-and-odd people getting up from their desks and beginning to make their way to the emergency exists. At least they're out of it, he reflected, sighing internally. The last thing we need are civilians getting in the way, or being taken hostage.
"What were you going to say, Ryan?" Vav asked, as the sounds of thudding feet began to grow louder and louder.
The giant cyborg shrugged. "Well, I was going to say, 'the only problem would be that we would alert anyone unaware of our presence, and there are eighty-seven floors between us and the Copirate's alleged base of operations."
A moment of silence fell between them – well, they were silent, the fire alarm continued ringing at its full, ear-splitting, wail. "Oh," X-Ray replied, and glanced up at the stairs. "Well…I guess we better start walking so."
Michael snorted, and took a step forward. "I guess I better let Mogar take over, so. Can't let Joe Public work out who I am, can I? Especially if they're Community thugs pretending to be innocent."
Vav glanced at him, just realising that his friend had not yet transformed, given that he was so used to spending time in Michael's company as it was. "Why haven't you transformed already?" he asked. "The feds could have seen you head in, or you could have been caught on camera, or anything!"
"I don't like giving Mogar control for too long," Michael admitted, after falling silent for a moment. "Every time I do it, I get worried that I won't be able to rein him in. That's why we went in through the back doors – no feds at the time, just golems – and Ryan took care of the cameras for me. And hey, clearly people in this city aren't all that sharp anyway – you two haven't ever been recognised, and you don't even wear fucking masks!"
He threw his head back and began to growl as his limbs began to contort into unnatural positions and grow, with dark brown fur bursting from beneath his skin to cover his arms and shoulders, his eyes glowing a menacing red as his lips drew back into a guttural snarl, displaying his lengthening incisors. The other three heroes continued to stare at him until his transformation was complete, and, irritated, the beast snarled at them. "What are you looking at?"
Unperturbed, they continued to stare. "That will never not be incredibly terrifying," Vav stated, and frowned. "I am going to have so many nightmares."
"I thought your nightmares all involved wet bread," X-Ray joked, and Mogar glared at them, though something in his eyes displayed his confusion.
"You've really got to meet Gavin," he rumbled at Vav, drawing his sword from his belt which grew to fit snugly into his hand, its turquoise-aqua- sea-green-whateveryoucallit blade glimmering in the light. "You're just like him."
He turned and began to make his way up the stairs, followed closely by Iron-Ryan, who shot the dynamic duo a knowing look, just as the people who had been hard at work on the upper floors began to stream down past them, their eyes wide at the sight of the four heroes.
"After this, we've gotta start wearing masks," Vav muttered to X-Ray, who smiled in reply. He wasn't the one who was worried about his secret identity being uncovered, after all.
"Why the hell haven't we been doing that in the first place?"
"Door's locked," Iron-Ryan intoned, as they finally made their way to the final floor. "There are no cameras operating at this level. I have no eyes here."
X-Ray sighed, but nodded to himself. Of course not, he mused sourly, cursing the limitations of technology. That would have just been too easy, wouldn't it?
He activated his x-ray vision, looking through the door and around the frame of the threshold, making sure that no booby-traps awaited the heroes. However, he couldn't detect anything to raise his suspicions, so he merely shrugged and turned to the others.
"I think it's clear," he said in surprise, and the others shared similar feelings, judging by their faces. Well, okay, judging by Vav's face. Mogar was still in fully hulked-out beast mode, and Iron-Ryan was a cyborg with complete control over his emotions, if he even still had emotions. Their expressions didn't tell him much, but he assumed they were surprised. If not, they should be.
"You're sure?" Iron-Ryan asked, and here X-Ray detected a note of uncertainty. Clearly the cyborg was uneasy about not having all the relevant data, or whatever he would refer to being the problem in this situation.
"Yep, I'm pretty sure," he replied, and turned to the door, raising his hand to his glasses, and firing off an optic blast that knocked the door off its hinges.
The others stared at the now-empty threshold for a moment, before turning to him in evident disapproval.
"What?" he asked, shrugging slightly. "I was right, look, it wasn't booby-trapped!"
"Don't do that again!" Mogar rumbled, before squeezing through the door frame, his sword still in his hand, prepared for any attacks that might suddenly be launched against them.
Vav glared at him, before following his workmate, and he was left facing Iron-Ryan, as the cyborg gazed at him with an inscrutable look.
"What?" X-Ray asked, but the cyborg merely shook his head and turned after the other two heroes, leaving X-Ray standing in the landing alone.
"Why do people always give me a hard time when I do something stupid, yet Vav gets away with doing whatever he wants?" he wailed, until he realised that there was no one left to hear him, let alone give him an answer.
"You guys suck."
With that, though, he shouldered his sadness and walked in after the others, reactivating his x-ray vision to scan for other threats. He needn't have, though, for the rooms that they walked through were completely devoid of life, and judging by the dust and the cobwebs, they had been for some time.
"Clear!" X-Ray yelled, as he walked into yet another empty room, and shook his head. His x-ray vision only allowed him to see through to the next few adjoining rooms, but he was pretty clear that this floor was empty. There had been plenty of opportunity for the Corpirate to ambush them, if he so wished, and at this point all the hero could think about was how they were wasting their time.
The villain had obviously been tipped off, somehow, about their planned raid, which presented a whole host of new and troubling questions. If someone was a traitor, who could it be?
He immediately discounted Vav, knowing that the Brit would sooner die then betray their goal of protecting Achievement City from any and all threats, and after a few seconds he crossed Michael off his mental list as well. It wouldn't be his style to go for a sneaky or furtive betrayal – he would just bash their brains out on the street, or dice them up with his diamond sword.
Burns and Heyman, likewise, couldn't be considered – X-Ray and Vav had worked alongside them for years now, and even though he clashed from time to time with the former, he had grown to respect both agents and their dedication to their jobs.
Iron-Ryan though…Well, as much as X-Ray wanted to beli– No! As much as Ray wanted to believe that his former work colleague had really turned to the good, he couldn't help but acknowledge that the man's claim for turning against the Community was far weaker than Michael's. Michael had been transformed into a rage-monster, unable to control his actions, while Ryan…Ryan claimed to have had a chip embedded into his skull, controlling him, which had somehow short-circuited when Vav had crashed a helicopter into him, sending the cyborg plummeting into the sea.
What if that chip had never short-circuited? he mused to himself, troubled, and his heart leapt to his mouth when Vav let out a short, brief yell.
"Vav?!" he yelled, running in the direction of the yell, and as he neared the spot he heard the sound of two other, heavier, sets of feet running in the same direction. He blasted a door out of his way, bursting into a room, and there Vav stood, chest thrust forward triumphantly, while X-Ray attempted to work out why he had screamed.
A second later, Mogar literally burst into the room, having charged straight through the door and taken a decent section of the wall with him.
"WHERE IS HE?!" he yelled, brandishing his sword furiously. "TELL ME WHERE HE IS AND I WILL SMITE HIM DOWN! I WILL SMITE HIM GOOD!"
Another split-second passed, and then a boom rang out throughout the room, and a door flew by between the heroes. In the now-doorless doorframe, Iron-Ryan stood, his left arm raised upon which a small cannon lay, pointing in their direction.
"I heard a woman scream," he stated tonelessly, and X-Ray couldn't help but grin as he turned to Vav, who turned red and began to splutter in indignation.
Eventually, when the Brit settled down and Ryan conceded that it may have been a borderline-masculine scream, Vav showed them what he had found. There, on the table behind him, lay an old, disused laptop. It lay there, open, its screen cracked beyond repair, abandoned by the previous residents.
"Can you get anything off this, Ryan?" X-Ray asked, feeling slightly guilty about his suspicions when Vav had screamed, but at the same time they hadn't been entirely quelled. The Corpirate was certainly not here, after all.
Iron-Ryan nodded absently, extending one of the fingers on his left hand, which split at the top to form a USB jack, which he promptly shoved into the laptop's port. He stood there for a few moments, unmoving, before shaking his head wearily.
"There's nothing here that tells us where he went," the cyborg remarked, and this time X-Ray could hear the disappointment in his voice.
"Nothing at all?" he asked, and his heart fell when the cyborg shook his head again.
"It's all shipping manifests, a couple of emails to an "S", but nothing about their plans, or where any of them might be now."
X-Ray bit his lip, and turned away, an idea suddenly coming to mind. "Give me a minute," he said to the others, and then walked into the next room, pulling up the list of contacts embedded into his suits communication systems.
A couple of rings rang out before Denecour finally picked up the phone. "Who is this?" he asked, suspiciously.
"It's me," X-Ray replied, adding, "X-Ray," for clarity's sake. "We need some help."
"When don't you?" Denecour asked on the other side of the line, sighing. "What is it?"
X-Ray explained their situation, and as he did so he felt the other man growing more and more interested. "You're in the Tower of Pimps now?" he asked, delightedly. "You're up in the Corpirate's old offices, right this moment?"
"Yep," X-Ray replied, wondering what he was getting at.
"I think I might be able to help," the information broker replied, "but I'll need you to send over all the files you found on that computer. I'm sure there's something there, just let me take a look at it."
X-Ray frowned, and walked back into the room. "Ryan, I need you to transmit those files over my lines. I know someone who thinks he can help us, he just needs to take a look at those files first."
Iron-Ryan nodded, but then pulled up short. "I can't get a read on that connection," he murmured, confused. "I don't know who I'm sending it to, his side of the connection is protected by…by one of the most complex security systems I've ever seen. This is amazing," he noted, admiration clear in his voice, and X-Ray had to wave his hand in front of the cyborg to regain his attention.
"Just send it on, if you can," he replied, and Iron-Ryan, after a second, nodded.
"Done," he replied, and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. "What's your contact got for us?"
"Give him a minute," X-Ray replied, aware that the cyborg occasionally forgot that humans can't process information as fast as he could. About ten minutes later, he received a call from Denecour, and answered, hoping against hope that the information broker had come up with something.
"You got anything for me?" he asked, cutting to the chase, and Denecour let off a wry chuckle in response.
"I do indeed," he replied, evidently glorying in his success. "He abandoned those offices about a month ago, after hiring several groups of mercenaries. Must have thought it was a security risk, or something like that. Anyways, he purchased a yacht a few months back, and from what I could find, I think he may have been using it as his base of operations ever since."
X-Ray took in a deep breath. "You mean, after all this time that we've spent hunting for him, the son of a bitch is hiding on a fucking yacht?!"
The chuckle sounded out again, and X-Ray bit down on his irritation. "That's what it looks like," he replied, and then suddenly paused mid-chuckle.
"Did you hear that?" he asked, and X-Ray wrinkled his brow in confusion.
"What?" he asked, but Denecour wasn't listening.
"I…I thought I heard something," he eventually replied, and over the line X-Ray heard the sound of Denecour cocking his shotgun – Kdin, or whatever the hell kind of name he gave it. Would it killed him to have bought some vowels? "Jesus, I definitely heard something that time. I…I've gotta go, man. I–"
The line was cut-off, the sentence unfinished, and X-Ray broke the call off, troubled. However, he trusted that Denecour could handle himself, and they didn't have any time to waste if the Corpirate was really were Denecour had claimed he was.
"He's on a yacht," he said out loud, turning to the others. "He's been hiding out on a fucking yacht! It's docked in the harbour right now, just bobbing away while he sits back and sips daiquiris!"
Mogar straightened up, and waved his sword in front of him theatrically. "Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's take this sucker down!"
X-Ray nodded to him, and he saw Vav grin in the corner of his eye, and Iron-Ryan cracked his knuckles once more, the noise echoing throughout the room.
"Let's go catch ourselves a pirate," X-Ray said, and turned towards the direction of the stairwell. "Only a hundred or so storeys to go."