Me, Hisako (Armor), Laura, Santo (Rockslide), and the Cuckoos. That was the team I requested to follow up on casing the site of Jay's abduction. I hoped my roster selection worked out, but there were more important things to think about.
I turned to my right, where Laura was seated in the co-pilot position.
The last time I figured there hadn't been a real need for her nose, since I figured we'd just go there, see Jay, and talk to him. I didn't think there'd be a hours-long search. This time, I went in knowing we'd be looking for something, so I brought someone who could find just about anything.
That, and a little sample of the green goo so Laura had a scent to base her search off of.
"I can't believe Jay ran away to the boonies," Rockslide complained loudly from one of the seats behind mine, "I mean, Tennessee? Seriously? He could have picked somewhere cooler to get himself kidnapped, like Tijuana."
He'd been talking about whatever took his fancy from the minute we took off. I didn't remember him being so talkative when I worked with the Hellions in California. Then again, I also had rage-induced tunnel-vision that day, so who knew, really?
Everyone else on the team was much better at tuning him out. I, though, felt the need to constantly engage. Mostly because flying a plane was boring as fuck once you got past the novelty of it.
"Eh, I've been to Tijuana already," I glanced at Laura from the corner of my eye, remembering our adventure, "Besides, this isn't a vacation or something. We're supposed to be tracking stuff."
"If we're tracking, why isn't Wolverine here?" Rockslide shot back.
"Because he's not on the roster for me to choose from," I said, rolling my eyes, "...Also, he's probably not very happy with me right now."
Rockslide grinned and snickered at the thought of Wolverine being pissed off, "When is he ever happy with any of us? Why's he mad at you, Sol?"
"Don't worry about it," I told him, before seeing a curious glint in one of the Cuckoos' eyes. Of course, they were paying attention now. I turned to address them, just in case, "Girls, don't start digging," All three of them pouted at not getting any gossip from me.
Rockslide's reaction was much more dramatic, "Come on!" He complained, like a big, jagged, rocky baby, "You have people mad at you all the time! Why can't you just tell me why?"
I felt like banging my head on the console. He was way too big to be whining, "Mind your own business. Why do you even want to know?"
At that, he calmed down and divulged his reason, "Because I want to laugh."
Well, at least he was honest.
"It's not my place to talk about on my own," I said, hoping that would be the end of it. It wasn't. At that point, the Cuckoos all started giggling to themselves. I didn't need any guesses as to why, "Hey, I told you not to dig into my head!"
"But Bellamy, we didn't take a look into your head," One of them defended for the three of them
The Cuckoos all wore the same black and yellow uniform as the rest of us. However, I'd interacted with them enough to be able to figure out certain personality tells to distinguish between the three of them.
Mindee was traditionally the nicest of the three. Celeste kind of didn't like me and thought the least of me. Phoebe was okay with me, but she was also the smartass - therefore, she was the one that had answered me.
I looked next to me at Laura sitting in the passenger's seat, the only other place they could have possibly gotten the information from. The devious fucks. How did they even know to check with her? Perhaps we weren't as subtle about hooking up as I thought we were. Oh well. It wasn't like I'd really been trying to hide it. It was just my standard operation procedure to try and be a gentleman by practicing discretion.
Laura didn't seem that bothered by it, aside from the fact that her mind had been read. Then again, what did I know? She had a really good poker face, and due to flying the plane, I didn't have the time to read her expression and body language thoroughly.
Thankfully, for the sake of my patience, it wasn't too long of a flight.
We all disembarked and got our bearings. It hadn't been that long since I'd last been there, so I was ready to begin searching around almost immediately. The Cuckoos, Laura, Hisako, and Santo all took a moment to stretch their legs first.
"Aww, man," Santo complained, "This isn't what I was expecting."
I was almost afraid to ask, fortunately, Hisako, my conscience, asked for me, "And what were you expecting?"
Santo shrugged as he stood and looked around, "I dunno. Some deep, dark woods, Wrong Turn, Deliverance, kind of stuff."
Thankfully, Laura approached at that point to occupy my immediate attention. Her hand was extended expectantly, "Bellamy, do you have the cybernetic material?"
I produced some of the green goo that had come out of Jay's ear, set aside neatly in a small vial. Personally, I would have been more hesitant to open it and take a deep smell of it, but compared to some of the things Laura had seen and done, I imagined that this was nothing in comparison.
I let Laura be while she adjusted to the scent, and went to address everyone else, "Alright, we've got no senior X-Men safety net on this one. It's just us. So, let's try not to fuck it up, team!" I finished enthusiastically.
The rest of them just looked at me strangely.
While two of the three Cuckoos just giggled at my half-assed excuse for a speech, Celeste, hands on her hips, spoke up, "...I'm sorry, was that supposed to be some kind of pep talk?"
Hisako nodded, answering for me, "'Don't fuck up' might as well have been one of the Paladins' official mottos," She said with a grin.
I agreed. It should have been, and I defended myself as such, "I mean, yeah. Nothing motivates me more than the thought of, 'Don't fuck up,'" I said, looking around at my unimpressed audience, "No? Not doing it for you? Alright. I'll work on that."
"Oh, I don't know," A female voice with a Russian accent got everyone's attention. We all looked to see a lithe girl that couldn't have been much older than any of us sitting on top of the Blackbird, "I'm pretty sure something like that would have worked for me."
She had short, black hair and wore a dark-colored leotard. She had sleek black cybernetic legs below her thighs. Below her elbows, there were two large black needles in place of the rest of her arms.
I had a bad feeling, but outright attacking new people was something that psychopaths did. I wasn't that far gone mentally just yet, "And you are?"
Before I could get an answer, Laura popped her claws free, taking this individual as a threat. I immediately took up a defensive stance of my own. I felt her judgment was trustworthy enough to heed without a second thought.
Laura quickly backed up my trust in her with a succinct explanation, "She smells of the substance you gave me. Strongly."
Why, hello there, red flag.
The girl stood up on the top of the Blackbird walking around gracefully on her toes, "It looks like the doctor was right," She remarked, "You would come back after all."
And now she was admitting a connection with whoever was behind what happened to Jay. That was the only excuse I needed, "Cuckoos, would you mind?" I asked.
My request had already been processed. Those girls didn't need any permission to probe someone's mind. The problem was that they hadn't been seeing any results, "Bellamy," They all said as one, "We're getting... interference."
What did that mean? Like, another telepath was shielding her or something?
The girl on top of the Blackbird twirled to a stop and smirked down at us, "You can call me Fault Zone," She held up one of her needle arms, making it a point to smirk at Santo as she identified herself, "I think you and I will get along very well."
Santo just blinked vacantly before moving over and nudging me with his rocky elbow, "Psst. Sol. Is the bad guy chick hitting on me?" He whispered with no sense of subtlety whatsoever.
His question was answered when Fault Zone took the tips of her needle arms and stabbed them down into the hull of the Blackbird. The metal jet shook violently before tearing apart from the point of contact. Our method of transportation had been destroyed right before our very eyes.
A high-pitched scream came from Santo's mouth, now realizing what Fault Zone had been getting at before. I couldn't blame him at all. If she could do that to a jet, what could she do to his rocky body? Sure, even if his body was made of Limbo rock now, that just meant he was resistant to magic. He could still be torn apart like conventional rock.
That being said, it was still four-on-one in a physical sense. Between me, Laura, Hisako, and Santo, we would have been fine. The problems really reared when a barrage of plasma bolts blasted into what was left of the plane.
I turned to find the source of the attack, and saw a shirtless Frankenstein's monster of a man, well over seven feet tall, with no matching body parts whatsoever. He had massive cybernetic arms, even more massive than the torso they were attached to. When those arms started to glow, I quickly realized that the plasma bolts were formed through whatever machinery was in those limbs.
...Mostly because this time, he aimed them at us. I was faster, though.
As he fired at us, I sent a blast at his head. Normally that would have been enough to turn any target to pieces, but the giant guy just tanked the shot. He didn't even leave his feet. He only stumbled just enough to knock his shots off-target. Other than that, he didn't budge.
Santo fancied his chances against the giant mishmash of human body parts better than he did against the quick, tiny girl who could crumble him to dust with a touch. I didn't blame him on that front. Santo let out a roar as he charged the bigger of our two enemies.
I caught a glimpse of the surreal sight of our resident man made of rock slug away at something that was even bigger than he was. Something that could stand up to his offense. The man stood his ground and hardly took steps back from being hit.
When he decked Santo back, chunks of rock were knocked off of him. He may have been able to take it; he may not have been. It wasn't the point. Slugfests were never my first option.
"Cuckoos!" I barked at our resident psychics, "Can you take him down?"
It was worth another try. We were a team, so why not try and use all of our strengths to bring the behemoth down quicker and easier.
The telepathic triplets focused as one and tried to pry into the giant's mind as he and Santo set to work trading haymakers that could demolish a house.
It wasn't like Fault Zone was going to just let us do as we liked, though. She attempted to exploit her speed edge and attack the Cuckoos while they were focusing on Santo's opponent. I fired at her, and while I couldn't hit her, I corralled her away from the Cuckoos and into the path of Laura and Hisako. Despite working together, the girls had trouble landing a blow.
Even as measured and precise as Laura was in a fight wasn't enough to allow her to slice into an enemy that moved with the grace of the highest-level ballerina, only with cybernetic legs grafted onto her. Whether it was her background or the green goo that pumped Jay up, she managed to pull it off.
...And if she was on it, there was no doubt in my mind that the other guy was too.
"Bellamy!" The Cuckoos called out to me, still trying to pry into their target's mind, "We... subdued one of his minds."
One of his minds?
"What do you mean, 'one mind'?" I shouted back to them.
Fault Zone blocked a strike from Laura's claws with needles on the ends of her arms and kicked her away into Hisako, who armored up to catch her safely, "Brigade has the mind of 100 soldiers, all fused into one. Good luck getting all of them to shut down before you die here."
That opened up an entire list of questions that I wasn't in a position to get an answer to. Chief of all concerns was, where did these people come from? But more importantly, I had a decision to make.
Our force had effectively been split into two, with Laura and Hisako fighting Fault Zone, and Santo taking on Brigade while the Cuckoos tried to disable him mentally. Because I wasn't Jamie Madrox and couldn't split myself in two, I had to join one battle or the other.
At the end of the day, Santo couldn't die, and if Brigade destroyed his body and turned his attention onto the Cuckoos, they knew well enough to bail out of their telepathic attack and turn diamond in order to defend themselves. But if he could drop Santo, there wouldn't be much of anything to keep him from blasting away at everyone fighting Fault Zone from afar.
To hell with that, I figured, so I decided to help Santo first. Hisako had her psionic armor to protect her, and I believed in Laura's fighting ability enough to let them to it. Santo's biggest asset was his size and strength, and against Brigade, he was outclassed in both of those categories.
Credit to him though, even though he had been left alone for a bit, he'd done his best to give as good as he gave. Still, he hadn't managed to get Brigade off of his feet, and it was clear which one had been winning when I made my choice.
Santo had his arms wrapped around Brigade's body, his head at the side of his hip as he tried to muscle him off of the ground. Brigade dug his boots into the ground, a trail being created as Santo drove him back while wrestling for leverage. Brigade reached down and wrapped his arms around him, lifting him upside-down.
For someone as big as Santo, being in the air, and not of his own volition, was a very unwelcome experience, "Whoa-whoa-whoa!" Out of his element, the poor guy flailed his arms and kicked his legs helplessly.
Brigade lifted him up over his head, and before he could drive him down into the dirt, I jumped right in Brigade's face and blasted him at as close a range as I could without blowing my own arms off.
He stumbled back, but neither fell nor dropped Santo. When the smoke from the explosion cleared, there was barely a mark on him. His focus was now on me, and he had a Santo-shaped projectile set to launch at me.
"Fire in the hole!" Brigade shouted, throwing Santo at me with one arm. With his other, he took aim at Santo and shot him with a plasma blast. The blast hit before Santo got near me, and the impact of it sent me flying. It was a better alternative than getting hit with all of Santo's body weight.
I sat up off of the ground, wondering why I didn't have an 800 behemoth with metal arms pummeling my brain into the dirt. Brigade seemed to be having a bit of a mental episode, holding his head and writhing around. The Cuckoos must have been doing their job well trying to deal with all of his minds, because he ripped a tree out of the ground and hurled it at the girls.
I blasted the tree out of the air. It showered them in debris, but they didn't have to turn to diamond to protect themselves. If the Cuckoos used their diamond forms, they lost their telepathic abilities, and risked erasing all of the progress they made on whittling Brigade down. They were our best chance to stop him, because there was no way he was going to give me the time to charge a decent Lux Bomb.
Santo and I didn't quit though. We both got up and rushed Brigade while we had the chance. To cover the slower Santo, I threw light blades at him. They cut into him a bit, but didn't Santo got behind him and wrapped his arms around him, lifting him off of the ground and slamming him on his neck. I boosted myself above them and jumped down on his head, stomping as hard as I could.
"Santo, hold him down!" I yelled, trying to take advantage of any opening we could take.
Santo scrambled into a position to pin the man-monster down. While he did so, I formed light blades and kept hurling them at the spot where his arms connected to his torso. It was like trying to cut through the armor on a tank. It took five hits in the same spot just to leave a real mark.
Brigade let out a manic scream and managed to get up off of the ground, even with Santo actively working to hold him in place. With Santo clinging to him like a backpack, Brigade reached over his head and pulled Santo over, slamming him to the ground. On the way down, one of Santo's flailing limbs caught me in the shoulder - just inches away from my head.
Brigade busied himself by beating Santo into the ground with repeated heavy punches that shook the ground. Every time Santo groaned, Brigade just hit him again. Eventually, he turned to look at what was left of the Blackbird, and must have felt inspired. He started lumbering over to the plane, and I didn't want to know what he planned on doing with it.
"Fuck this..." I muttered to myself, feeling my arm entirely out of socket. Looking over at Laura and Hisako, they were faring better, but were fighting to a stalemate instead of winning, 'Cuckoos... I know you can't read Fault Zone's mind, but could you still screw with her?'
There was a lapse of time between my loudly thought out request and their response. Either they were deliberating or found it hard to multitask.
'Screw with her how?' One of the girls eventually asked me.
I channeled a fairly strong explosive blast into the open hand of my good arm and started running over to the fight with Fault Zone, 'First, tell Laura and Armor to break off from her and come to me. Can you make her see something as something else?'
'An illusion? Yes, we should.'
Exactly what I wanted to hear. Laura and Hisako got the message as the started working their way toward me. I fired a blast near Fault Zone that kicked up a large amount of dust into the air, concealing her sight, 'If you can, make her see Brigade as Armor,' I requested, beckoning Laura and Armor to get as close to me as they could, "I hope this works..."
We all huddled together and I focused all of the energy in my body through mine and theirs. Using that light as a medium to bend around us, I made the three of us transparent. It wasn't perfect, but as long as we didn't move, Fault Zone wouldn't have seen us do it. And if the Cuckoos' illusion worked, she would have a more pressing issue to concern herself with.
When the dust around Fault Zone cleared, she looked around, only to find Laura and Hisako nowhere near her. Instead, she focused in on Brigade getting a good grip on the Blackbird to start lifting a piece of it off of the ground. When she rushed him, I couldn't help but grin.
"Oh, no you don't," I heard her say as she dashed at her own comrade. Brigade never saw it coming when she rammed her seismic needles right into his back.
We all then got to watch a man be torn apart. Or, a man comprised of 100 other men. Either way, it was gross. I'd seen people be dismembered before. I'd seen Laura cut off arms and legs. I'd blown off people's arms and legs. This wasn't as clean as that.
When blood splashed and meat chunks hit Fault Zone in the face, she snapped out of it. The girl stepped back, staring at the standing cadaver that she had created. Her face quickly turned from one of shock to anger, and she whipped around to face us.
It was now all of us against just her. Had she not just minced her walking weapon in Brigade, those might have been odds she could deal with. Without him, she wouldn't last long against us, and she knew it.
"Dr. Roekel said the adult X-Men were the ones who were dangerous. Not the children," Fault Zone said, slowly backing away as we all started to get closer, "This was not how this was supposed to go."
Hey, underestimate us at your own peril. We didn't break into someone's wardrobe to get our uniforms. We earned our stripes.
"That's on you," I said, trying not to jostle my dislocated shoulder as we bore down on her, "You can just quit. Make it easier on all of us."
She didn't quit. She didn't surrender. But she didn't fight either. She turned and ran. On those legs of hers, we didn't have anyone fast enough to catch up to her, so we just let her go. It wasn't like we had the jet to use against her either. The Blackbird was destroyed.
Hisako walked up to me and scowled at the sight of our wrecked ride, "Do you think any of the equipment in there still works?" She asked, "If not, I'm pretty sure the map said it's ten miles to the nearest town... and phone."
"What do we do with that?" Laura asked, pointing in the direction of Brigade's scattered remains.
The Cuckoos all turned to get a good look and let out a loud, "Ewwww!" in unison. Clearly, gore wasn't their thing. To be fair, Hisako and Santo didn't seem to be that great with it either.
I sighed and went off with Laura to check on the Blackbird, "There better be a big-ass tarp or something to bag this guy up in," I said.
As morbid as it seemed, there was probably a lot that could be learned from Brigade's body, and if we didn't leave with it, it would probably be gone by the time someone got back to pick it up.
Santo heard me and called out before we went inside the jet, "Are you gonna make me carry him?"
I stopped and turned around to take at Santo, then at the mess spread out across the ground, "I have one good arm right now, and you can lift a building, so yeah," I'd probably help him bag it though.
"Aw, man," Santo complained, "This mission sucks, Marcher."
Yes. Yes, it did.