Chapter 1
Gunpowder and Lead
(A/N: "Killers By Choice" is the sequel to "Killers By Trade", and takes place roughly eight months after the finale. Reading its predecessor isn't necessary for understanding the story, but it will be helpful in better understanding just who exactly Laura Kinney is in this continuity, as well as her relationships with Gabby, Jubilee, and Kitty Pryde, as well as her archnemesis, Kimura. Just like its predecessor and the comics they're inspired by, "Killers By Choice" contains mature themes and content, but while reader discretion is advised, I don't believe it quite warrants a Mature rating. I hope you enjoy, and God bless)
Black water churned in the dead of night as a speedboat raced toward a cargo ship without making even the faintest sound. In the driver's seat, Laura was occasionally glancing up at the massive ship, watching for guns pointed in their direction, while her sister Gabby checked over their weapons, ammunition, and utility belts one final time.
"Remember, no killing until we're sure this is the right ship," Laura said. "And bullets only."
Gabby chuckled. "Won't hear any complaints from me. You're the one that prefers stabbing people and cutting their heads off."
Laura ignored her and brought the stealth craft to the side of the ship and locked it in place with magnetic cables. Leaning out of the boat however, she accidently caught sight of the deep water and quickly looked away.
"Ready?" she asked, trying to keep from sounding nauseous. She didn't get sea sick, nor was she afraid of water, but when it came to swimming, she would've gladly traded her adamantium bones for concrete shoes any day.
"Locked and loaded!" Gabby handed over Laura's utility belt and rifle which she slung over her shoulder, followed by a ski mask that left only her eyes visible, which she further obscured with orange tinted sunglasses.
Gabby quickly did the same, and besides being a couple inches shorter and less filled out, appeared to be an exact copy of her sister except for her sunglasses having pink frames.
"No offense, Laura," she said, her voice slightly muffled, "but while this special forces assassin stuff is fun and all, I'm getting really tired of it. I miss being a superhero."
"Too bad. We're about to piss off a LOT of powerful people from around the world, and the harder it is for them to track us down, the safer Meg, Debbie, and our friends will be."
Gabby sighed and nodded, but after aiming the grappling gun and getting a secure line on the first try, her years of training kicked in and she was once more an experienced soldier doing what she was bred for.
Laura grabbed the line and climbed to the top in seconds with Gabby behind her, weighed down only slightly by her body armor, loaded for bear utility belt, assault rifle, comfort shotgun, and oversized backpack.
Her sister was already providing cover at the top, listening closely while pointing her rifle in the direction of the nearest footsteps. It was a sentry guard by the sound of it, keeping a watch for pirates and the US Navy which were known to patrol these waters.
They didn't bother cutting the line as the sound it'd make hitting the water could alert the guard, and so long as nobody looked too closely over the railing, nobody was likely to notice their stealth boat on a night as dark as this. And if everything went according to plan, the guards wouldn't be alive long enough to notice it anyway.
Laura gave a hand signal for her to follow, and the pair began moving between shipping containers, checking each one's scent and listening closely. They dodged a couple more guards, none of them taking their jobs all that seriously, and Gabby would've been impressed by their gear had they been kids playing airsoft instead of being a billionaire's personal security force.
They finally stopped at an otherwise innocuous-looking shipping container. "Padlock," Gabby said. "Either the boss doesn't trust the guards, or-"
"-or this is the right ship," Laura finished. She shouldered her rifle and extended a single adamantium claw from between her knuckles. She broke the lock without effort or sound, but winced as she pried open one of the doors with rusty hinges.
Inside were several dozen half-starved and filthy children huddled amongst themselves in the dark. Without a word Laura dug into Gabby's backpack and began distributing bottles of water and food, and checked a few for injuries, finding only bruises from what she assumed were regular beatings.
"It's going to be alright," Laura said in English before switching to Cantonese when she saw a handful of confused expressions. "Help is on the way. You're safe now, but we need you to stay quiet."
The children all looked as though they had already shed a lifetime's worth of tears and had none left, but being given the faintest glimmer of hope for the first time since any of them could remember, many began to weep. Laura didn't trust herself not to join them if she stayed too long, so after sending out a distress signal to the US Navy with their current coordinates, she hurried back outside and focused on remembering the exact layout of the ship.
It was hauling far less than a standard cargo ship, and was owned by a private shipping company mostly known for exotic goods, sometimes even animals, but Laura knew them to also ship guns, drugs, and humans as well, and operated extensively in Southeast Asia but also throughout the world.
"Gabby," she whispered when she wandered over, "you're in charge, and you have my permission to shoot and kill anyone you see." Laura didn't bother mentioning that she didn't plan on leaving anyone alive, but it made Gabby happy at least. "I'm going to search for the target. The Navy will be here within the hour. We'll move the kids before we leave, that way they're spotted immediately."
Her sister nodded, and took position just inside the cracked door while Laura got to work. There'd be more kids in containers both above and below deck, and probably adults as well, but as important as rescuing them was, the mission was to stop an entire human trafficking empire, and to find their list of clients. Laura already knew one of their names. Even if Kimura's organization wasn't calling itself Weapon X, its infrastructure was much the same, meaning all Laura needed was a paper trail and she'd be able to track her to hell and back.
The guard never saw her, nor did he feel the three bullets to his chest. He dropped to the ground immediately despite his bullet proof vest, but she put another in his head just to be thorough. It would've been sloppy of her otherwise, and she could hear her former mentor's voice scolding her just thinking about it.
While Gabby preferred bigger guns and bigger bullets just as a soldier might, Laura was first and foremost an assassin, and preferred something more subtle. Her modified MP9 with suppressor and subsonic ammunition was almost completely silent and could pierce most vests, and had been her preferred firearm since she was ten. She also carried a suppressed Beretta M9 as backup, but it rarely saw much use. Gabby made fun of her for both, but she was right. When given the option, Laura preferred cutting and gutting her targets.
She killed another guard on duty as well as a pair that appeared to be on a smoke break together, shooting them all in the head before reloading. She poked around a corner and cursed, a rifle already pointing in her direction, and quickly took cover around a shipping container. Another pair of boots were coming around the other side, and she shot the guard in the head when he foolishly peeked around the corner.
"G," she said, "we've been compromised. Five dead so far. About to be six."
"Roger that, L. Try not to have too much fun without me. I've gone nearly two weeks without shooting anybody, and I'm starting to get the shakes."
Laura took cover as she was nearly shot in the head by a fairly talented guard with what must've been either a night vision or thermal scope across the ship. "Make that soon to be seven." She quickly took care of the first guard before sneaking around the sniper. She assumed somebody must have found one of the bodies and radioed in, or perhaps they had heartbeat monitors on. It was bad luck either way, but it was the only kind Laura ever counted on.
The guard was looking in the direction she'd originally been and Laura took aim when her nose suddenly twitched, and she caught the scent of a little boy on him...
*snikt*
"Bastard!" she growled. The man spun and Laura cut the rifle into multiple pieces, taking with it several of his fingers, and kicked him between the legs.
He screamed into the night sky, and Laura removed her bloodied foot with its exposed adamantium claw which she dragged across his thigh. The guard immediately dropped to the ground, clutching what little was left of his manhood. Laura glowered over him, prepared to watch him bleed to death, wishing it'd take longer and thinking of how to make his suffering even more unbearable when she shook her head and cursed.
She drove a pair of claws through his heart, killing him instantly. "Stupid!" Laura cursed herself again and tossed the remains of his weapon overboard followed by him and his fingers. She mercifully didn't have to drag him far, but she was furious with herself nonetheless.
Not only had she wasted precious time and threatened to compromise the mission, but she'd broken one of her golden rules. She wasn't in the business of making people needlessly suffer anymore. When she killed people, it was as quick and painless as possible, no matter how badly they deserved to suffer. They were still people, and there was someone that had loved them, and probably someone to mourn for them as well. If they were meant to suffer, let them suffer in hell.
Laura pushed Kimura's laughter and praise away before taking a deep breath and hurrying toward the bridge. She estimated there'd be about a dozen men or more working the ship besides the guards. A delicate operation like this meant hiring as few workers as possible for secrecy purposes, which Laura was thankful for as it'd mean finishing the mission quicker and having to kill fewer people.
She raced up a flight of stairs, hearing three men arguing above her in the control room, and more down below in the crew's cabin. If there were seven guards working the night shift, she suspected there'd be at least another seven below, or perhaps twice as many if they worked three shifts instead of two.
Automatic gunfire shot through the glass windows of the bridge, and Laura fired back at stomach level semi-blindly. She took a faceful of glass and two bullets to the shoulder in exchange for two men dropping, wounded rather than dead, and Laura charged inside. Her instincts had been correct. The man who'd hesitated from damaging the ship had been the captain, and she took a couple more bullets for the sake of driving a knee into his sternum and knocking him unconscious with an elbow to the back of the head. If the man she was searching for wasn't on the ship, he'd have to do. Lucky him...
She put a bullet into the other men's heads and paused at the controls of the ship. She'd memorized all of the ship's complicated mechanisms before the mission since she couldn't rely on adamantium to get the job done, and shooting machines tended to be unreliable, and it took her a moment or two to properly turn off the engine. She then plugged in a special flash drive into the main computer. It immediately began downloading the ship's navigation, everywhere it had ever been even if its records had previously been deleted, as well as crew manifests and everything else her team would need to bring the empire down.
She heard voices and boots outside, perhaps half a dozen or more men climbing the stairs, and this time Laura knew she couldn't just blind fire. She'd have to be more careful, which probably meant more bullet holes since her targets wouldn't be nearly so considerate.
A head popped into view above the broken glass with a face she didn't recognize, and he immediately tumbled down the stairs with a bullet between his eyes. She wished more would've rushed her, tried to overwhelm her with numbers so that she could kill them quicker, but now they were cautious and very aware they were dealing with professionals rather than a rag-tag pirate crew.
Laura leaped over the control panel through the broken window, and took careful aim at four guards and two crew members she also didn't recognize. Bullets sped past her, none of them expecting their target to be suicidal, and she saved the crewmembers for last, figuring they'd be worse shots than the guards and less heavily armed. She was half-right, they were armed only with small caliber handguns, but one of them was a decent shot and caught her with a tight grouping to the chest. It barely staggered her however, and the final crewmember went down with an extra bullet to the head just for good measure.
She glanced around, making sure they were all dead before reloading and hurrying downstairs into the cabin. She killed a man in his underwear who'd clearly been rudely awakened, and took it as a sign that those remaining would probably be just as groggy and confused. The next two crewmates were even less prepared and died in their beds without ever waking. Another pair were even sharing a bed which was considerate considering she was on a time crunch.
The final crewmate dropped and she hurried down a long, cramped hallway, the scent of fear and overwhelming despair thick in the air, and finding its source, she kicked the door down only to discover the man she was looking for retrieving a pistol from the nightstand while a young woman laid in bed, looking as though she hadn't slept in ages, and watching the sudden disturbance with only mild interest.
Laura rushed him, covering her face with a forearm in case he got a lucky shot at close range, but he hadn't had time to rack the high-caliber pistol and he crumbled to the ground with a punch to the side of the head. It might've been enough to give him a mild concussion, but he'd probably sleep off the worst of it by the time they made it back to land.
She tied his hands and feet with zip-ties, keeping an ear out for anyone still alive that she had somehow missed, and glanced at the woman in bed, now watching her with a mixture of shame and confusion. Laura knew that look well enough, and did her best to keep her voice level. "Help is on its way," she said in English before switching to Cantonese. "You're going to be alright. You're going home. Just stay here under the covers. Nobody's going to hurt you any more."
The woman nodded, and as if realization finally came seeing the man responsible for her lifetime of hell lying unconscious on the floor, she began to cry for what Laura suspected had been the first time in a very, very long time.
Laura grabbed both the man and his suitcase before leaving. There wasn't anything more she could do for the woman, and she and Gabby needed to hurry. Under no circumstances could they be caught being there by the US Navy, especially now that they had what they came for.
"L to G," she said. "I've got our guy. I'm gonna finish sweeping the cabin before heading back to the bridge. Ten minutes at most. Have the kids waiting somewhere they'll be seen. We're getting the hell out of here."
"Aye, aye, Captain." That reminded Laura that she could kill the captain now that he had outlived his usefulness. If she left him alive, he'd likely squirm his way out of prison, pleading ignorance, or more likely, killed while awaiting trial in order to keep him quiet. It was a loose thread his employers couldn't afford.
Laura silenced the captain forever with a bullet to the head while he was still unconscious after tossing the crew's quarters. She didn't have much left to do on the bridge besides grabbing a few papers and making sure the US Navy was in fact on its way, which she could tell just by listening. She could hear a helicopter in the distance, and she sent another vague message about needing emergency medical assistance before hurrying back onto the deck.
"I'm on my way," she said breathlessly, fireman carrying the man over her shoulder while dragging a suitcase stuffed with papers and anything important-looking behind her. She was in peak human conditioning and her muscles almost never tired due to her regenerative powers, and she could push them far beyond their normal limits with tears healing almost instantly, but he was still twice her size and it had been a very long day.
She didn't allow herself to think too far ahead of the current objective, that being to escape into open ocean unnoticed, but she did wonder in the back of her mind what the US government's response would be. Laura would be sending all the information she gathered tonight to certain government individuals the X-Men trusted in order to make sure something was done legally, but those investigating the ship would have access to most of the very same information, as well as first hand accounts. She couldn't help but wonder who all would try covering it up, and if she'd be paying them a visit anytime soon. She reminded herself however that wasn't her current mission, and that the night was still far from over.
Laura found Gabby and the children gathered above their state of the art speedboat, explaining to them its capabilities in detail despite few if any being able to fully understand English, and Laura couldn't help being the least bit annoyed with her sister. The less the kids knew about them the better. Now they'd know what kind of boat they had taken and what direction they were headed, and that a young woman had single handedly killed a couple dozen armed men, most of whom were well-trained and better armed.
Also, the bullet holes in Laura's clothes were rather conspicuous now that she thought about it. She'd have to have a talk with her sister when this was over, and be even more clear with her instructions next time.
She handed the suitcase to Gabby before telling the kids to not to wander off and wait for the Americans before wrapping a hand around the grappling wire and repelling herself down followed by Gabby, who waved to the kids and cut the line with a bone claw. Thankfully it was too dark for them to notice, and Laura decided against telling the kids not to tell the Navy about who had rescued them and killed their captures. In her experience, kids keeping a secret was next to impossible, and they'd understandably be telling this story for the rest of their lives.
She unceremoniously tossed the middle-aged man into the back of the boat where groaned and began to stir. In response, Gabby covered his mouth with duct tape while Laura detached them from the cargo ship.
"Hi, Mr. Harken!" Gabby said cheerfully. "We've been looking everywhere for you. Human trafficking is really naughty, but you've also been known to sell kids to Weapon X. That's where we come in." She removed her sunglasses and mask, and Adam Harken's eyes widened when he saw her face. "Don't worry, I'm not the one you should be afraid of."
She gestured toward Laura who had since removed her own disguise, and besides the facial scarring on Gabby's face, looked exactly like her sister, just a few years older and without the permanent smile plastered across her face.
"That's Laura," she said. "You probably know her better as X-23. I'm Gabby, X-23-G. You probably don't like us very much, but don't worry, you're really not gonna like us by morning."
"Gabby," Laura sighed, starting the engine, "kidnapping and interrogating him for information is strictly business. Having to listen to you talk nonstop for the next three to four hours is cruel and unusual punishment."
Her sister laughed and pulled a bag over Harkin's head. "Don't worry," she whispered. "Laura's a professional, and she's really good at her job. She won't have to interrogate you for very long..."
(A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. This story was originally going to be Chapters 11 and beyond of "Killers By Trade", and I was on the fence about it even while writing this chapter, but eventually I came to the realization that it just made more sense to start with a clean slate. This chapter for example while outlining it just seemed like a really good introduction to Laura and Gabby as characters, and I always enjoy getting to see superheroes doing something more "mundane" compared to fighting supervillains and petty crime. Here, the sisters are basically operating as Seal Team 6, except even scarier, which was Weapon X's original purpose for them in a lot of respects. They're soldiers, and it's not the lives they end that matter, but rather the ones they save.
If you enjoyed my portrayal of Laura and Gabby and would like to read more, check out the story's predecessor, "Killers By Trade", as well as my one-shot titled "Skeletons in the Closet", wherein the sisters have a heart-to-heart after a fight, and Laura finally reveals to Gabby their birthday, how their mother died, and why Laura is the way she is.
The cover image of "Killers By Choice" comes from Fallen Angels (vol. 2) #1.
All credit goes to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has blessed me with this story and all of you wonderful readers. God bless)