Klaue raised a hand and fired a beam of kinetic energy at me. I leaned to the side to dodge and opened fire with Ebony and Ivory. My fingers blurred, unleashing a wave of energy bullets. Ten splashed harmlessly on his armor, while two hit the crown on his head. The impact unbalanced him and tore deep grooves in the psychic inhibiter, giving me the opening I needed to use Ophion to retrieve the contraption and mentally crush Klaue.
I bombarded him with memories of Phoenix fire burning me and watched in surprise as he crumbled to the floor, screaming.
"Oh wow," I said, stepping over to him. "I thought you'd last longer with your whole discount Captain Jack Sparrow bit, but I guess Phoenix Fire pretty much humbles everybody."
I squatted down to his level and touched his head to stop the memories. Vulnerable and still recovering, it was easy to power down his armor and strip him for critical information—which he had plenty of.
Klaue was unofficially a billionaire with his hands in the cookie jar of the world's underbelly. He had hundreds of safehouses, weapon lockers, and Vibranium caches on all continents.
It was enough that I could give T'Chaka everything we found here directly, buy goodwill with Fury, and still have enough left over to build a Vibranium Twilight Sentinel and Adamantium weapons.
To walk away with all of that money and resources, I had to destroy all of Klaue's drives and wipe his memory, but I knew that wouldn't be enough to fool somebody like Fury.
He was too paranoid and understood how twisted minds like Klaue's work.
He would expect hidden caches, and that's why I had to make sure he didn't see me coming. While I was at it, I could also get on Stark's good side and expose Fury's hypocrisy.
All I needed was a good trap.
I pointed my gun at Klaue's chair and shot through it, destroying his drives in the process. I also scanned his mind to make sure he didn't have any foreign server bays or leaked the details of what happened here to anybody.
Once that was taken care of, I continued my mental dive into Klaue's memories.
The one bit that interested me the most was that Kaecilius was the mystery sorcerer who made Klaue's inscriptions for him. He was apparently cutting black market deals and gathering resources in preparation for some operation.
That didn't surprise me much.
During the dive, I learned all about Klaue's tower and the massive bullet we dodged by starting at the ground and top floors. The middle floor was where all of the madness was.
He spared no expense making sure they were impenetrable, not that it would've stopped me.
However, I was most impressed by his lengths to protect his hoard.
It turned out, the madman had two vaults.
One in a hidden wall behind a statue I passed on the way to his room. That contained about a quarter of his total Vibranium haul, while nearly half was stored on a hidden floor that was outside the construction plans of the building.
Klaue had apparently murdered everyone, from the architect who made minute modifications to every floor to ensure the mystery floor existed to the team that constructed said floor. It was enough Vibranium to build several fighter jets, and I planned to hand over every last bit, which amazed Klaue.
It didn't take him long to figure it out, though.
"You're after the foreign caches aren't ya?" he chuckled as he strained against his shackles. "Aren't ya supposed to be one of the good guys?"
"I thought the mental torture and executing your best mutant mercenaries would've given me away."
"God, I hate Telepaths."
"They don't like you much either," I said as I cuffed him to a railing when we came to the closet where I'd stuffed Lady Mastermind.
I stepped in and placed a phone call to Jean.
"I'm going to need an evac for a little present I found taking down Klaue."
"Present? Don't tell me it's a weapon?" she asked. "I've noticed a theme with all of your gifts."
"It's not a weapon," I defended. "It's a person?"
"Huh?"
"I found a Telepath I know you'll love interrogating. She has some information about Domina's new partners and might be the best illusionist I've seen."
"That's not the flex you think it is," she said. "You've only seen one."
"If you count Xavier, it's technically two, but my point still stands," I said. "She can make you feel pain by tricking your brain."
"Wow… that's—"
"I know," I said. "Hurry up. I want her out of here before we call for the extraction team. Fury can't know about her."
"You have something planned for her, don't you?" Jean asked. She was familiar with my methods.
"I think you'll approve this time," I smiled. "When you're done embedding her; neither her or Emma Frost will see you coming."
"Who's that?" Jean asked.
"An opportunist with a moral compass, sometimes," I said. "She may side with us or Shaw, depending on which side has the better offer."
"Sounds like we're better off taking her off the board," Jean pointed out, surprising me a fair bit. I knew I shouldn't be complaining. I was the one who encouraged her to be more ruthless, but I didn't want her killing a potential asset before we even had a conversation with her.
"Maybe," I said. "But she has a lot she could teach you and me. I'm not sure we should jump the gun quite yet."
"Alright," she said. "Just send me a picture, and I'll be right there."
I took a picture of the closet I was in, and Jean appeared through a portal of swirling golden and red energies, dressed in black fatigues.
"You bring me to the most interesting places," she teased with a smile, and I grinned.
"You wouldn't have any fun if I didn't."
We'd both been crazy busy these past few weeks; her with the kids and portaling, and me with the training, smithing, plotting, and everything else, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't notice that she'd been coming onto me a little bit.
Her twentieth birthday was coming up, and though we hadn't exactly spoken about it, she got the sense that I perceived her as a child, even though we were basically the same age and would live equally as long.
Although my skills didn't exactly say it, I knew ageless immortality was not that far off, and Jean was the avatar of the Phoenix. She was probably going to survive the heat death of the Universe.
From her perspective, there was no reason why we shouldn't get together.
In my opinion, we could still use some breathing room.
"Don't do this," Regan started to speak immediately. "You have no idea who you're messing with. Ask about Sebastian Shaw. He's—"
"The Black King, owner of a multibillion-dollar company, and an Alpha-level mutant with the ability to absorb all form of energy and use it."
Her eyes went wide. "Even I don't know about his mutant ability. Just who are you?"
"Would you believe him if he said he's Clairvoyant?" Jean teased.
"Hey!" I said, mock offended. "That's my line."
"It's not my fault that you're too slow," she chuckled.
Regan's eyes rapidly switched between us. "What the hell is going on?"
"Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about," I smiled as Jean flicked her finger. A portal opened below her, swallowing the started Telepath and depositing her in one of the many cell rooms in Kamar-Taj.
"One last bit before you go," I said. "It's about our Vibranium hoard. I need you to delete some memories from Klaue's head."
"What do you have in mind?"
I grinned. "You'll absolutely love it."
---
Klaue was weak at the knees when I popped out of the closet.
He frowned when he saw me but shook it off, and together, we made our way down to the fourth floor, where Natasha and Rin faced down Klaue's mercenaries.
The elevator door eased open to reveal a floor in chaos. Rin was firing beams from one hand and blocking attacks with the other while Natasha assisted with cover fire and precision shots. Anyone who paid too much attention to Rin took a bullet to the face.
Still, they should have made more progress. The mercenaries wore a steel version of Klaue's power suit, which not only provided surface coverage over all major organs but also considerable physical strength. Some of them were going toe-to-toe with Rin, albeit at slower speeds. He ducked and weaved through most hits, tanked a few to bank power, and unleashed kinetic punches that decimated whoever was unlucky enough to be in his way.
Of the twenty they started the fight with, only fifteen remained, half of whom looked my way when the elevator door opened. The bullet fire came before I could even speak and would've ripped Klaue apart had I not acted.
Aquila manifested in my hands.
I felt somewhat nostalgic wielding the weapon. It'd been a while since I'd let the weapon purr. I swung out, creating four sets of teal shurikens. They flew as fast as the bullets and attached themselves to four unlucky mercenaries.
The blades spun in tight rotations, eviscerating the howling men.
That drew the attention of the rest of the mercenaries.
Moment of the Sage activated when the bullets came close enough to do damage, and I activated Gust at max to give me a 70% speed boost, which I stacked on Density Cloak. I opted for Density Decrease, which increased my speed by 40%.
The skill stacking effectively doubled my speed stats, and I made great use of it. My hands blurred as I fired off Round trip after Round trip, flooding the entire room with them. Dozens intercepted the bullets aimed at me mid-air, rooted and eviscerated them in place, while the others latched onto the rest of the mercenaries. When the three-second boost faded, the world caught up, and I pulled with Aquila, yanking all of the mercenaries in one direction.
They didn't come flying to me, however.
I nodded at Rin, and he acknowledged the assist. His gauntlets warped with crimson light as I lobbed the hapless screaming mercenaries at him, and he let a rip.
Blood, shrapnel, and body parts scattered in all directions, but me and Klaue were spared from it. I raised my energy shield just in time.
Natasha and Rin got their shields up as well.
"Holy shit boss!" Rin roared as life energy flooded him. "That was some rush."
"Glad I coud help," I said offhandedly.
"Couldn't you have just shot them?" Natasha asked with a scrunched nose as she surveyed the carnage.
"And deny Rin a chance to literarily explode people with his fist?" I joked, but there was a greater reason why I was doing this. Rin and I needed experience pulling off cooperative moves. I was going to be relying on him a lot more going forward.
Klaue whistled. "And they say I'm twisted."
"The upper floors are clear, and I've secured access to the vault," I said with a suggestive tug of Klaue's cuffs. "What do you say we call in the extraction team and head home."
---
The next chapter is on Wednesday, and it will be 3k words long. You're going to love it.