Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Psychotic America ❯ Home On The Range ( Chapter 16 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Manga-Chick 
Trouble blooms for the boys; Wufei is bothered by a 'niggle'...
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Hentai / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.20.2005 | Pages: 4 | Words: 8.0K | Visits: 346 | Status: Completed
Trouble blooms for the boys; Wufei is bothered by a 'niggle'...
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Hentai / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.20.2005 | Pages: 4 | Words: 8.0K | Visits: 346 | Status: Completed
Alternate Universe, fusion, out of character charas, very disturbing information and scenes and Pairings: 1x4, 2x5 3(?)
Standard Disclaimers Apply: Don’t own Gundam Wing nor X-Men
Notes: Some stuff was changed around, here. I deleted some stuff, added some stuff, so it’s still the long winded, pompous bag that ya’ll are familiar with–just with some differences.
O0o0o0o0o0oO means scene change
Chapter Sixteen:
Home On The Range
The door burst open, startling four of the boys as three mutants walked in, Alex assuming front position. “All right, you little shits,” he snarled. “Listen up. We’re here for two of you, today, and I don’t feel like playing nice with the lot of you. I just want to do my business and get going.”
“What the fuck?” Duo exclaimed, looking at the three men with surprise on his face.
“Who the fuck are you?” Heero snarled, turning away from Trowa and Quatre. Then his eyes widened as he recognized Alex. “Wait a second–!”
“It don’t matter who the hell I am!” Alex snapped. “You two! Front and center. And make it quick, boys. If needs be, I’ll use force to get what I want.”
“What the hell–?” Duo exclaimed as he turned out to be one of the two Alex requested.
“This isn’t a request! It’s an order!” Alex growled, sweeping his bangs from his forehead. “Let’s go!”
Wufei moved in front of Duo with a shake of his head, vowing to let no one take off with any member of their team. Alex shook his head in disgust, and glanced at the mutants he was working with.
“You guys know what to do,” he said, stepping back. “Make it messy, if you have to. But don’t hurt the two pretty boys. They’re the ones he wants.”
Wufei’s mind processed this comment, furrowing his brow as one of the men moved toward him. He was tall, with a rangy set of muscles, and dressed down in low hanging jeans, giving him the impression that he wasn’t a professional. Another glance at the other two men gave him a definite idea that they could win if they used their combined teamwork against hem.
The mutant, a multi-pierced young man with wild hot pink hair gave a smirk as his arms suddenly shifted into twin bolts of energy. Wufei could smell the ozone flavor of this energy, the heat causing his skin to prickle. To fight fire with fire, he let his own fiery energy flame into his closed fists. From the corner of his eye, he could see the other four moving into position, with Heero aiming for the other mutant.
Suddenly, as one, everyone’s mutant energy simply disappeared. The two new mutants looked confused, and Wufei moved in as soon as he saw this. He had his left foot slamming heel first into his opponent’s face, the young man’s head snapping back. Already concentrating on his opponent, knowing that he had no worries for his friends, Wufei then followed that kick through with a quick elbow jab into the man’s exposed stomach. As the mutant doubled over in pain, Duo was there to slam Wufei’s forgotten dinner dish over his head. The mutant was down in an instant, Wufei moving in to render him unconscious with a touch.
Looking up, he saw that Heero had already taken down the other mutant by roughly slamming his face into the coffee table, and Trowa running after a suddenly fleeing Alex.
“They severely underestimated us,” Wufei growled in insult, clenching his fists. “How annoyingly weak of them.”
“I’ll say, shit!” Duo chimed in, frowning as he watched Trowa dive-tackle Alex to the floor. “I had thought this would be more of a fuckin’ better ass fight!”
Wufei blinked at the oddly word sentence, and all jumped at the loud, ear piercing sound of a gunshot. Turning alarmed eyes in Trowa’s direction, they all saw the tall boy jump up in surprise, holding his hands up in a placating gesture, Alex hurrying to his feet and holding a Magnum before him.
Wufei heard Quatre give a small sound of distress, but didn’t look back at him as Trowa moved away from Alex.
Then, he turned, looking in confusion to his leg. Wufei saw then the widening of a blood spot on his upper thigh, and the ugly wound that had trails of his jeans material sucked within. Trowa paled, in stunned shock over the situation as Alex raised the gun again, his face taking on something dark and angry. Trowa collapsed suddenly, gripping his leg with both hands, still in shock that he’d been shot.
“STOP!” Quatre shouted, his voice breaking the stunned silence that everyone was caught in. Alex looked over in his direction, and Heero made his move, hurling himself over Trowa and tackling Alex to the floor. There was a rapid burst of gunfire from the Magnum as they struggled, Wufei hurrying over to assist.
Glass shattered violently, Duo whirling around to see two more mutants climbing in through the other living room windows. They were holding automatic rifles, their crazed sights locked on the two boys closest to them.
Wufei hesitated as he realized that Duo was in one of the mutants’ sights, and took in the design of the automatic that was being leveled at the both of them. He cursed underneath his breath, holding his hands up in defeat. Behind him, he heard Heero and Alex shift away from each other, the blond breathing heavily as he kept his gun leveled on the Asian.
“Now, then,” Alex panted, his wrist shaking as he glanced around. “We got what we wanted. Let’s go, boys. Load them up.”
“What for?” Wufei growled at him, never taking his eyes off Duo as both he and Quatre were forced to walk around the couch and toward the front door. “What are you going to do with them?”
“None of your business,” Alex said smugly, lowering his weapon and firing once into Wufei’s knee cap. The Chinese was knocked clear off his feet by the blast, agony racing up his leg. He heard himself give a cry of pain, both hands wrapping around his knee. Alex adjusted his trench, glaring over at Heero. “All of you, down on the floor. Now.”
Seeing that Heero was the only one standing, Alex leveled his weapon at him. Slowly, hate burning in his eyes, Heero moved to lay stomach first on the floor. He glanced briefly at the door as both Duo and Quatre were taken out of the house and into the night, then back up at Alex.
Alex smirked, then leveled his last shot into Heero’s head. At the explosion of blood and skull, he laughed, reloading his weapon. Looking over at Wufei, who was staring over at Heero with a stricken expression, he commented, “it’s no big deal, eh? I mean, it isn’t like anyone’s gonna miss you all.”
Wufei turned his fiery hate onto the man, growling, “We’ll find you.”
“I’m sure you will. But how can you do that when you’re dead?” Alex asked, aiming and firing once.
At Wufei’s still form sprawled out on the carpet, he turned to Trowa, who simply frowned at the state he was in, and that his jeans were getting bloody. Alex studied him for a few moments, then shook his head in disgust.
“Pathetic,” he muttered, turning and walking out from the house. He made sure to slam the door shut as he stepped out into the snow, lighting another cigarette. He’d just killed his match when the metallic clink of bullet sliding into chamber caught his attention–as well as the familiar feel of a nozzle against his temple.
“You’ve gone and fucked up, richie,” Ralph growled.
“Where have you been all this time, Kurt?” Alex asked, ignoring the uneasiness he felt at being held in this position. “Treize called off the search. Couldn’t reach you.”
“I’ve been performing surveillance on them all this time!” Ralph snapped. “I know their weaknesses and strengths! And you’ve gone and fucked things up with this stunt!”
“Well, it ain’t like the first time this happened, man,” Alex commented, shoving the gun from his head. “You work too slow, Kurt. I made off with the prize. Take your sorry ass out of here and cry somewhere else. Let’s go, boys! Treize is waiting on us...”
Ralph lowered his gun, scowling at Alex as the other man walked through the snow toward the awaiting SUV. At Alex’s cocky grin, the mutant growled deep with his throat, his hand trembling with his fury. He watched the SUV maneuver through the snow and slowly head down the slippery path leading away from the cabin.
Cursing, he turned and began jogging his way back to his own concealed vehicle, certain that Alex had performed his very last mistake.
O0o0o0o0o0oO
Trowa sighed in boredom as he kept his wound covered with the palms of his hand. The cabin was utterly silent and still, and the stench of blood, so strong and familiar, seemed to burn his nostrils. Lifting a hand, he begin licking his hand clean, eyeing the very still form of Heero nearby. He was pretty sure the guy was dead–but there was a sound coming from the bubbling gore visible to him. Trowa was pretty sure that Heero’s brain bits were tasty in a sense if he found himself hungry, but there wasn’t the stench of death on him. His fine-tuned animal senses gave him that stamp of finality as he licked his own blood from his fingers. His leg was burning with pain, and his mind was slightly cloudy, rendering him more than fuzzy with confusion and apprehension, but he could detect that Heero still lived.
Glancing over at Wufei, he wondered if he were faking his death as well.
“Wufei, do you have your powers back?” he asked, applying more pressure to his wound, and lifting his other hand to his mouth. His blood tasted metallic and thick, and there was a sense of rot within him that made him question whether his sanity was in place.
Wufei groaned as he sat up, rubbing at his left ear. The heat of the bullet as it zipped past him, scorching his sensitive skin and singing his tightly pulled hair, had rendered a slight buzzing in his ear. He faked his death, counting on his reflexes and Alex’s own sight–and luck. If Alex had followed up his shot with another, he would have realized that he’d missed Wufei’s head by scant inches.
The Chinese quickly moved, wincing as he moved his knee. Panting heavily as agony caused his body to tremble violently, for his breath to quicken, and for his thoughts to become fuzzy, he looked over at Heero.
“Is he dead?” he gasped, trying to drag himself over to his friend.
“I don’t know. He don’t smell dead,” Trowa mumbled, bending close enough to his wounded leg to lick tentatively at his wound. Wufei hesitated in continuing forward, eyeing the green-eyed man with something short of disgust. “This hurts. I don’t think we have band-aids big enough to cover this thing. I think the bullet’s still in there...”
Wufei wondered if the man was in shock, or if this was just Trowa’s normal way of reacting to pain. He forced himself to look away from him, and struggled to crawl over to Heero. Reaching out, he gripped the muscled mutant’s shoulder, using Heero’s stability to pull his body close.
Panting, Wufei stared at the damage done to Heero, and tentatively reached down to his neck to feel for a pulse. He found one–it was miraculous, and it caused a frightened urgency within him to ‘husk’ him. Sitting up, he curled his fingernails into Heero’s skin, and began scraping away at the top layer. Trowa paused in licking himself, and frowned over in his direction. Blinking as he realized what Wufei was trying to do, he stretched himself out, shifting into a placid Bengal. His back left leg went dead, sending the large cat sprawling onto the floor with an annoyed growl. Huge paws reached out, claws extending to drag down Heero’s body, providing the tears Wufei needed to husk Heero out of his damaged skin.
Wufei tore through the sticky outer layer rapidly, his superspeed flaring to life. Skin flew in every direction as Trowa resettled himself, licking delicately at his wound in his new form.
Once Wufei revealed undamaged perfection, he paused, reaching over to find a pulse. Heero’s ability to heal himself was a strange one–the mutant himself didn’t understand it. But Wufei had to wonder–from damage that severe, was he still able to survive? Even if he had ripped away the damaged outer layer of Heero’s skin, had this same trait applied to his insides? If his brain was cut from oxygen, would a new form reveal an undamaged brain? Or not? Would he suffer some sort of brain damage?
Heero blinked sleepily, Wufei pulling his hand back as he watched the mutant recover. Cobalt eyes rested on the floor for several seconds, then muscles bunched as he pushed himself up, obviously more than dazed by the situation.
Trowa growled from his position as Heero moved too close to him, and Wufei warily watched the Bengal, hoping that Trowa wouldn’t attack or something just as foolish as they tried to recover from their wounds.
His own continued to terrorize him, and he felt his stomach jerk as he grew entirely nauseated. Shaking hands covered his destroyed kneecap as Heero rose to his feet, hand to his head.
“Yuy?” Wufei questioned from the floor. “You all right? You know what happened?”
Heero gazed blankly at him, then looked away, taking a few steps from the pair. Then, confused, he glanced around, his eyes momentarily resting on the Bengal nearby. He started to walk into the kitchen, his hand slipping along the wall as he steadied himself. Wufei watched worriedly, panting lightly as he tried to control his pain. Heero then froze within the kitchen, staring almost blankly out into the living room.
Trowa rose from his position, his back leg dragging as he crawled toward the front door. Wufei watched in surprise as the Bengal settled himself before the door, growling low in his throat as he continued licking at his wound. Heero eyed him undecidedly, reaching up to touch his forehead in confusion.
Wufei heard himself groan as he tried moving once more, agony causing him to stay in one place. Trowa was growling again, a dangerous sound that caused Wufei’s arm hairs to rise straight up. He looked over at the Bengal once more, blinking fuzzily as he tried to assess Trowa’s reasoning for taking that position against the door.
There was a turn of the knob, and the door was shoved inward, stopping short as Trowa’s form prevented the complete action.
“What the hell?”
Trowa was growling again as Wufei recognized that voice. “Dr J? Dr J, is that you?”
Heero narrowed his eyes, shaking his head to try and clear his mind as the door banged repeatedly against Trowa’s prone form.
“Let me in, you cur! It’s freezing out here!” Dr J complained, and Wufei heard the accompanying voices of two other men, and Sally. While his heart cried out in relief, something niggled at the back of his mind. The pain from his knee kept him from truly focusing on this niggle, relief flooding his entire system as he thought of Sally’s healing powers.
“Trowa, move! It’s the doctors!” he ordered, using the broken coffee table to help push himself off the floor.
Trowa growled once more, flashing his fangs in his direction before returning his attention to his leg.
“Barton, you freak,” Dr J growled from behind the door. “Let us in! My dentures are completely frozen and are quite uncomfortable.”
“Trowa, move!” Heero ordered, finding his voice. He walked over threateningly to remove the Bengal from the doorway, but Trowa glanced over him. He snapped his teeth in his direction, and moved on his own.
The door opened, admitting only Dr’s J, O, and G, Sally walking in right behind him, carrying bags of groceries and supplies.
Seeing Wufei, she gasped in alarm, dropping everything to hurry over to him.
“Say...what happened, here?” G asked curiously, noting the sectional, broken windows, and for the fact that Trowa and Wufei were bleeding all over the place.
“Heero?” Dr J asked, looking at his designated mutant, who was still more than confused as he glared at the older man. “What is going on, here?”
“We were attacked!” Wufei supplied with a grimace as he sat down at the edge of the couch, Sally working hurriedly to remove the remnants of the bullet from his knee, and to repair the extensive damage done. With each touch on his broken skin, he winced, feeling relief as more and more pain was ebbed from her healing. “They found us...they found us, and they attacked. They took Duo and Quatre with them.”
Heero looked sharply in his direction, Sally and the doctors looking at in him surprise.
“What? What the hell happened?” O demanded. “What for?”
“He didn’t say exactly,” Wufei said, wincing as Sally forced cartilage and muscle back together. “But he mentioned that ‘he’ wanted them. For whatever reason, I don’t know. They took them by gunpoint. If I can get healed fast enough, I can run after them. I can stop them.”
“How could you all have lost to them?” O cried. “You’re mutants! Trained to overcome any obstacle! And you let them cart your weak friends away?”
“Our powers were temporarily missing,” Wufei explained, dropping his head in shame. “We had everything under control, but he had men we didn’t know about...and weapons. Those two aren’t experienced enough to defend themselves properly, otherwise we would have...turned the tables.”
O speared Dr J with a look, one that the elder doctor ignored. “Who’s ‘he’?”
“I assumed he was talking about Trieze, as he was the one that attacked us last time,” Wufei answered. “The one...the vampire one. The one that switches off powers.”
“Alex and Mueller,” G said thoughtfully, stroking his nose. “Interesting...”
O glanced at Dr J. “Treize would...send him to do his bidding? I thought he wasn’t trustworthy.”
“Who knows what Treize is thinking, old man,” Dr J answered, shaking his head.
That niggle persisted in the back of Wufei’s mind.
Dr J turned to Heero. “You! Status report!”
Heero gazed blankly at him, then shook his head. “Unable to report.”
“He was shot in the head, sir,” Wufei said as Sally finished up her work. “He’s still more than confused.”
“Unacceptable, Yuy,” Dr J muttered, frowning at the boy. “I demand that you overlook your confusion and tell me what you remember.”
Heero frowned at this, Wufei giving the doctor a curious stare as he expected the impossible. Sally pushed herself up from the floor, gazing over at Trowa.
The Bengal lifted his head and growled in her direction. She lifted her hands in defeat, then nervously shifted away from Wufei to pick up what she’d dropped.
“Unable to report,” Heero finally said, shaking his head again.
“Unacceptable. Well, then, Chang,” Dr J said, turning to face him. “We have to rely on you. Considering the training that had been performed in the last two weeks, what do you think of our two newest members?”
“They...they’ve improved considerably with their abilities, sir, but they aren’t perfect,” Wufei admitted, more than uncomfortable with this reporting position. It was Heero’s position to report, not his. “They... they show considerable promise. Maxwell...Maxwell has learned intangibility in certain areas. And...he may have telekinetic abilities, as well, but those hasn’t been sorted out.”
“And the other?”
“Has reached his limits in terms of his empathy, sir. He can only focus on one person at a time, and for a limited amount of time. But his telekinesis abilities far exceed anything that I’ve seen before. He can...he can do many things with it that I’ve never...seen before.”
O grunted, rolling his hateful eyes, while G pondered the meaning of a cluttered kitchen nearby.
Dr J nodded. “Do they look worse than before? Or the same?”
“I...I don’t understand...”
“Their health, Wufei,” Sally interjected. “Have they gained weight? Look healthy?”
“Maxwell has. But...Quatre, he...still looks the same. Sally, I don’t think he should be involved with this,” Wufei then said, looking at her. “I think he needs psychiatric help, just like you said, and–”
“Well, hopefully, we won’t have to go that far,” O interrupted. “Maybe Treize will destroy the whelp and save us the trouble.”
Wufei found himself glaring at the older man. “It isn’t a matter of weakness, instructor. It’s just a matter of finding the best way of getting him mental health services to repair–”
“That’s not our worry, right now, Chang,” Dr J intervened. “Right now, we’re assuming our two new boys are in Treize’s clutches, for whatever reason. We need to know why. They both have potential, and that makes them dangerous to us.”
“How can that weakling be ‘dangerous’?” O cried. “Hopefully, he’s destroyed when Treize realizes his worth!”
“O has a very unhealthy fixation on the boy,” G wondered out loud. “Could this be repressed homosexuality, or a question of concern in that he actually gives a fig for the kid?”
“Why, you–!!”
“Men, men,” Dr J sighed, Sally staring in disbelief at the pair of them. “We must work on a solution–”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Heero interrupted, his cold voice startling them all. He eyed the doctors and woman suspiciously. “We weren’t notified of your arrival...and the communicator you’ve given us was crap. How is it you’ve arrived here without noticing the others leaving?”
“We thought they were tourists, getting lost in the snow,” G answered, frowning at him. “What are you implying?”
“It’s too big of a coincidence that you’ve shown up, not even forty-five minutes from what happened,” Heero growled, eyeing Dr J suspiciously.
“Are you implying that we’re involved with Treize?” Dr J asked, peering at him curiously. “Because if you are, Yuy, I might suggest that you watch your tone. You tread dangerously with us by suggesting this implication.”
Heero snapped his mouth shut, but his eyes flit over to Wufei. Wufei felt himself still as he realized that Heero also felt the niggling.
“Heero...they wouldn’t do this to us,” he said carefully, his eyes locked on the Japanese. He hoped that Heero, by some luck, would understand what he was saying by look alone. “They’re the only ones we can trust. You’re just...confused. From your head wound. You’re not thinking clearly.”
Heero frowned, but looked over at Dr J, who was frowning down at him. He nodded slowly, as if apologizing for his outburst. Wufei eyed each doctor with calculating thought, then looked at Sally–and didn’t miss the sweat that beaded lightly on her brow.
He turned to Trowa. “Come back to us, Barton. Sally needs to heal that wound of yours before it gets infected,” he commanded, turning his back to the woman.
The Bengal growled low in its throat, eyeing him suspiciously. But he shifted back into human form, his mouth smudged with his own blood.
“That boy is simply disturbing, O,” G muttered.
“I’ll say. Gives me the creeps.”
“Men!” Dr J turned to them. “We’ve got pressing issues to discuss...I will call the others and alert them of the situation–”
“If I go now, Dr J, I can find that vehicle and stop them!” Wufei interrupted, moving toward the door. O stopped him.
“Even if you managed to locate their vehicle, what can you do to distract them? It’s a complicated situation. Six against one...considering that the other two don’t know very much of what to do. You lost to them with your teammates’ help...what can you do on your own?”
Wufei stilled, his shoulders locking. But he nodded to show that he understood. Frustration and anger was evident in his features as he watched Dr J leave the cabin, cursing about the size of his cellphone as he dialed a number.
He glanced over at Heero, who exchanged a glance with him. Wufei understood that Heero was now clear on the ‘niggle’.
O0o0o0o0o0oO
Duo glanced over at the man that sat to his right, and then at the one at his left. The handcuffs holding his slim wrists together were locked tight and he had no idea how he was going to pop out of the situation unfolding before him. He was curious as to why he and Quatre were so interesting to whomever this ‘he’ was, and wondered if this ‘he’ were Treize. And if that was so...what was with deal? The SUV was morbidly silent, and he glanced around him just to size up the scene. That hot pink haired guy was driving, continuously rubbing the back of his neck, with Alex sitting up in front.
In the first bench seat, Duo sat with two men on either side of him. Quatre sat in the same position behind him. Duo’s mind was racing as he tried to think of a way to escape this situation. He curled his toes and rubbed his feet together–he hadn’t expected to be attacked and kidnaped tonight, and was just wearing a pair of worn jeans, a Black Sabbath tee, and his usual messy braid. Quatre was in the same state, but at least he was wearing a sweater over his tee. As it were, Duo was freezing.
Returning to the situation on hand, he didn’t want to know what he was ‘wanted’ for...it seemed ominous and truly un-fun, and he was pretty sure Quatre felt the entire same way.
He swallowed hard, staring out the windshield. It was snowing once more, and they were driving slow through slick roads. The windshield wipers scraped noisily against the glass, providing the only source of sound within the crowded vehicle.
He eyed Alex again, burning holes through the man’s neck, and wondered what Wufei would do in this situation. He was pretty sure he’d heard gunshots while he and Quatre were being firmly settled within the SUV, but he refused to think that anyone was hurt. Not those three. Those three were invincible and could do anything.
He swallowed hard, furrowing his brow as he wiggled his wrists within the cuffs. Alex shifted then, turning to look back at him.
“You’re really not anything to look at,” he said with a sneer, adjusting his slim glasses. “Both of you. How could the pair of you be very valuable?”
“Hey, when we get paid?” one of the men in back asked.
“When we get there,” Alex snapped. Duo frowned at him, thinking that the man better learn respectable manners for the guys he was working with. Some guys didn’t like being bossed around in that manner.
Then, before Duo’s eyes, the man’s face shifted into something sincere and apologetic. “I’m sorry. We agreed to pay the lot of you for your work as soon as we turned these two over.”
“Seems to me that’s a pretty bum deal,” the first guy grumbled, and Duo perked. Discontent among workers was good! He wished he were able to look back at Quatre. “I mean...we worked hard. Jimmy and Darrell got their fuckin’ asses kicked, man.”
“We didn’t have them ‘kicked’,” the one named Darrell snarled from the driver’s seat. “I just wuzzn’t expectin’ my powers to be gone!”
“What’s up with that man? If’n we din’t have our fuckin’ autos, we wouldn’t have gotten this far,” the other man in back complained. “They were fuckin’, pullin’ all this karate bullshit on their asses and shit.”
Alex was back. “I let you men know that my partner’s ability to take away powers were to be used for our advantage! That’s why you were instructed to use your weapons!”
“It’s five against one, guys,” Duo murmured. “Are you really going to trust him to pay you when you got us delivered?”
“Shut up, you little homo shit!” Alex barked.
“Say hey, man...he’s right,” the man on Duo’s right said, sniffing as he shifted in his seat. “Make sure we be gettin’ paid, Darrell. This ain’t no freebie.”
“We want our money up front,” Darrell commanded, looking over at Alex every so often. “Like...now. And in cash. We don’t do no checkin’ bullshit.”
“You’ll get your cash when we get there,” Alex growled between clenched teeth, blue eyes flashing dangerously. “I just want to make sure this job is done right before you get your reward...”
“Hey, he’s fuckin’ lying to you all,” Duo complained, shrugging. “He’s making you guys do something without being paid. He’ll fuck you all over.”
“I said SHUT UP, you little cretin!”
Darrell huffed as he glanced over at Alex. “Where’s the cash, man?”
“Why take his word for it?” Duo asked. “He’s lyin’ to you all.”
“Don’t listen to him!”
“Cash up front, man. Or else...we ain’t doing shit!” Jimmy said, cackling from beside Duo.
“What the fuck?” Alex cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Fine. What the hell.”
Suddenly, he had his Magnum out, and he plugged a bullet through Darrell’s head without any warning. As the mutant’s body slumped over the wheel, and the SUV swerved to the side, Duo moved quickly. He turned in his seat and knocked his heel into Jimmy’s face, knocking him against the door. There was a cacophony of yells as Alex fought to regain control of the SUV, Duo kicking at Jimmy repeatedly as his other captor struggled to get out of his seatbelt and try to help his buddy.
Quatre stared wide-eyed at the scene, his two captors shouting and waving guns around as they swung helplessly in the back seat. The SUV suddenly turned violently, the snowy and slick road carrying them off the pavement and into some dense brush. It was only a matter of moments before they made connection with a tree.
He struggled out of his seatbelt and made himself as small as possible to fit himself underneath the bench seat, the two men shouting as the SUV lurched out of control.
The impact with an unmoving tree had everyone bolting forward. Alex slammed into the dash, Jimmy knocked his head against the front passenger seat, Duo found himself in a heap between the two front seats, and his other captor had slammed into his door, cracking the glass.
Quatre’s two captors knocked against their doors, their seatbelts holding them into place. Moments after impact, airbags deployed with violent bangs.
The SUV was in chaos as Duo struggled to his feet, finding himself wrenched between both front seats as enraged male shouts crowded the air.
Alex fell over him, his gun landing somewhere on someone, and Jimmy’s partner attacked him.
In the confusion and chaos, Duo tried to ignore that Alex was stepping all over him, and his nuts were moments away from being crushed by the struggling men.
“QUAT!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, wondering where the other boy was at.
In that moment, the SUV exploded–not in a fiery explosion, but in the fact that doors exploded off hinges; the ceiling crumbled and blew straight upward; the dash and front of the SUV curled completely around the tree, and the very back of the SUV blew straight back. Even the tires blew out of place, dropping the heavy floor of the SUV onto the snow.
Free from his awkward position, Duo stumbled to his feet by using the hugging metal around the tree, and searched the darkness for his friend. He couldn’t stare too long at the telekinetic blast that had destroyed the SUV, as he saw the telltale white of his friend’s hair bobbing toward the back.
Gunshots were fired randomly, and he ducked, dropping to his knees. His bare feet were practically frozen as he sank into the snow.
If power was used to knock the surrounding walls off the SUV–he looked down at his wrists, and concentrated. He’d found, during training, that if he focused his power completely onto himself and teleported himself rapidly, in a repeating loop that instantaneously rendered his body in an intangible form within the shadow, he was able to ‘phase’ himself into intangibility mode for short periods of time.
The handcuffs fell from his wrists, and he jumped to his feet, avoiding Alex as he fired round after round into the body of a discontented henchman.
Quatre had released himself as well, and was busily fending off one of his captors that welded a steel body. Alex, with a frustrated snarl, reared up and fired repeatedly at Jimmy, taking him out easily. He maneuvered the gun at the steel mutant, and the man found himself in normal human form, enabling Alex to shoot him repeatedly as well.
To give them time to escape, Duo dive-tackled Alex into the snow, hearing Quatre race over to help. The blond dislodged the gun from Alex’s hand, and Duo punched the man’s face in repeatedly to ensure a stunned state.
“HA!” he yelled, gripping the front of Alex’s coat, and slamming his head repeatedly against the snow. “We’re stronger than we fuckin’ look, you fuckin’ dick! How dare you fuck around with us? How dare you underestimate us? Fuck you, you fuckin’ prick!”
“Get off me!” Alex growled, using his body to throw Duo off him. Quatre brought the gun up, leveling it at him, and the man hesitated as he saw this. Breathing heavily, blood dripping down his nose, Alex paused in mid-rise, staring at the gun, then at the boy holding it. Quatre wasn’t sure how to use a gun, but he wasn’t about to back down as Duo picked himself up, wiping himself off.
“You guys all right?” Someone shouted from the road, where a couple of cars and a snowplow were parked. There were a couple of men climbing down the embankment to make their way over to them.
“He’s got a gun!” Alex shouted. “Help me! He’s got a gun, and he killed all the others!”
“BULLSHIT!” Duo screamed as the rescuers hesitated. One man even turned and ran the way back to his car. “He’s lying! He’s lying! Help us!”
“HE’S GOING TO SHOOT ME!” Alex cried, crazed as he gestured wildly at Quatre.
Quatre panicked, realizing he was being blamed for the murders of the five men, and tossed the gun away from him.
“Come back!” Duo screamed at their rescuers, who were quickly leaving the scene. Alex saw the toss of the gun, and dove after it, Quatre realizing again his mistake.
He used his telekinesis to destroy the thing, rendering the metal into a rolled mass as Alex grabbed it. In frustration, Alex hurled the useless thing away from him, and began to run.
Duo saw this, and turned, running after him.
“Let’s get the fucker, Quat!” he yelled, chasing after Alex. Despite the fact that he was barefooted, Duo made quick gain on the fleeing man, and tackled him to the snow once more. He heard Quatre racing after him, and yelled over his shoulders to get something to tie Alex down with.
Alex turned, and Mueller regained control. His hands shifted shape, and applied themselves to Duo’s neck, the open mouths immediately latching onto Duo’s tender flesh with a relish. Duo squirmed, trying to back out of the grip as Mueller panted heavily, enjoying what he was taking from the struggling mutant.
Quatre was racing back, and when he saw what was happening, he gasped, and used his telekinesis to rip Mueller’s hands away from Duo’s neck. He tossed the man away from the downed mutant. Duo was gasping, crawling in agony along the snow as he clamped his hands against the massive puncture wounds along his neck. Quatre dropped beside him, trying to assess the damage as Alex rose from the snow, growling angrily.
“You’re pissing me off!” he screamed, taking a few steps forward. “I’m going to rip you both apart, you little shits!”
Quatre tore off his sweater to try and staunch the blood that pumped from Duo’s neck, and looked at the advancing mutant in terror. He narrowed his eyes to destroy the annoyance when someone touched his bare shoulder. Looking up in surprise, he saw Ralph Kurt frown at Alex, then look down at him.
The blond found himself lifted forcefully away from Duo, and tossed like nothing into the snow. Before he even had a chance to recover, he was lifted up once more, and slammed hard against a couple of trees. Duo looked up, seeing the new mutant, and managed to teleport away from the scene.
Ripping Quatre’s sweater from his neck, he faced Ralph fiercely, using his necromancing powers to rise the dead nearby. Ralph looked momentarily surprised at the sight of broken and dead men moving into sprints toward him, and Duo hesitated for a brief moment. Ralph had one of Quatre’s expressions, his brown eyes widened and reflecting what Quatre would look like in his surprise.
The dead men faltered, and Ralph turned back to Duo, wide eyes narrowing. Duo felt his face scrunch up with bewilderment as he faced a man that looked nothing like Quatre, but held the blond’s posture, expression, and hurried breathing.
Duo found himself slammed hard into the tree behind him, his head snapping back against the bark with a crack. He fell to the snow, dazed and stunned. Trying to crawl back to his feet, he heard the crunch of snow as Ralph approached him. That low hum of energy greeted his ears as he was picked up from the snow, a forceful pressure around his neck.
“Cooperate, now,” Ralph commanded, his voice reminiscent of Quatre’s softer tenor. “I would hate to hurt you even more.”
“Fuck–you!” Duo growled, clawing at the invisible force that held his neck. He teleported away from Ralph once more, appearing on the road, where the small gathering of spectators were standing. Coughing and gagging, he sent a few men scattering from his mere appearance. He raised his hands, commanding the dead men to rise again. Two of them immediately took over Alex, sending the man screaming in alarm as he was pulled down into the snow.
Ralph turned and saw this, then whirled around to face Duo. Duo heard a sudden metallic creak, and looked up to see a car being flung right at him. He teleported safely out of the way, reappearing once more to slam his fist across Ralph’s face.
The man sprawled out onto the snow, but he took the punch with more grace than Duo had hoped. When the man turned to face him, Duo was stunned to see one of his own expressions mirrored on the man’s face.
“Bad idea, kid,” Ralph spit, in a growling pitch similar to Duo. “Touching me’s a bad idea...”
Duo started to teleport again when Ralph appeared before his face, slamming a hard uppercut against the stunned boy’s chin. Duo felt himself lift into the air, stars blazing across his vision before sprawling bonelessly into the snow.
The men crowding Alex fell dead once more, atop of the struggling man as Duo lost consciousness.
Turning, Ralph faced him angrily.
“Great job, rich-boy!” he snarled in Duo’s voice. “You just had to make it fucking worse!”
“Fuck you,” Alex panted as he rose from the snow. “I had things under control until those fucking slags opened their mouth...”
“Just admit it! You fucked up!” Ralph shouted, bending to toss Duo over his shoulder. “We can’t just leave them here. And taking them back to Treize is a bad idea! They wouldn’t go along with his ideals when they have you here to fuck things over!”
“Treize’s cronies have mind powers!” Alex shouted, trying to find his glasses. “They can use that!”
“Why are you so dead set in continuing this failed mission?” Ralph cried, using his stolen gift of teleportation to take Duo to his car parked along the embankment. He tossed the unconscious mutant into the backseat, and took a few moments to use plastic cuffs to hog tie the boy. After that was through, he began looking for Quatre.
“Treize wants these two, whether or not he says he does!” Alex insisted, his face growing red with his humiliation and thoughts of what could happen if he failed the man once more. “They could be useful to him. He just–he just needs them to know.”
Ralph looked at him, shaking his head. “You’re stupid, man. Very stupid.”
“I may be, but I’m looking out for his better interests.”
“You’re not doing a thing to save face!” Ralph snarled, spotting his victim lying in the snow. He hurried over, hoping the police were coming as he scanned the area for any more possible troubles. He had just reached the boy’s side when Alex suddenly gave an agonized scream.
Straightening, he turned and saw that Alex was missing. But the area in which he had been standing was splattered with darkness and lumpy objects. Catching his breath and adjusting his vision to the darkness, Ralph realized that what he was seeing were Alex’s insides on display. The natural shape of his human form was laying in random lumps where he’d last stood.
Stunned, unsure of how that had happened, Ralph scanned the darkness for another opponent, and heard the soft shift of snow against skin.
Using Duo’s talent of phasing, he rendered himself intangible, feeling a momentary brush of power against his very insides as he did so. He whirled to see that Quatre was rising from the snow, staring at him with a determined expression. Ralph narrowed his eyes, continuously rendering himself intangible as he faced off with the blond.
Unsure of how to treat this situation while he was in an intangible state, Ralph slowly backed away from the blond, all his senses on alert. After studying all of them during their stay out in the woods, Ralph knew of the blond’s powers, and of his insecurities and doubts. He knew all of the boys. Which rendered him dangerous to them all.
“You can’t win this fight, kid,” he whispered, keeping his eyes on Quatre and keeping himself intangible–and in shadow to perform this feat. “You’re proved your worth a few times over, but you can’t hang with the bigger boys in this world.”
“You can’t keep doing that for long,” Quatre said quietly, tensing himself and waiting for the moment to attack. “Duo can’t do it for very long.”
“You know what I can do?” Ralph asked, searching for something to win. He knew if he gave the blond a chance, Quatre could easily take him out the very same way he did to Alex. He didn’t want to give him that chance. But he was beginning to feel the effects of the continuous loop of teleportation.
He teleported out of the boy’s sight, hoping against hope that the boy couldn’t touch him as he performed the feat. He appeared once more, swinging hard. Quatre saw his fist moving, eyes widening moments before Ralph made contact with that thin face. The blond crumpled to the ground as easily as Duo had earlier.
As Ralph retained the powers he’d stolen from that single touch, he steadied himself within the snow, trying to adjust to the rapid assimilation of memories that he’d absorbed. Licking his lips, trying to concentrate on the here and now, he turned, gazing around himself in tired victory.
Alex was put down, as well as his men. He wasn’t going to screw up anything more...but the fact that he’d come this far with these two boys made Ralph more than wary. He was pissed that Alex ignored his surveillance tactics and went straight out for this approach. He was convinced that such things would drive the two away from Treize, rather than agreeing to joining.
During his stay with the boys, watching and studying them and their individual characteristics had provided him with more than enough material to use against them should the case arrive. But for Alex to storm right in and ruin things–!
He sighed, and bent, picking up the other kid. Well...might as well as bring things to a conclusion. Might as well as continue where Alex left off. If he let them go...there was no doubt that they’d run once more.
He’d lost him that one night, where Duo had simply teleported off with the lot of them, but he wasn’t going to make that same mistake again.
He would just take them to Treize, and if needs be, he’d be the one to put the bullet through their brains.
Standard Disclaimers Apply: Don’t own Gundam Wing nor X-Men
Notes: Some stuff was changed around, here. I deleted some stuff, added some stuff, so it’s still the long winded, pompous bag that ya’ll are familiar with–just with some differences.
O0o0o0o0o0oO means scene change
Chapter Sixteen:
Home On The Range
The door burst open, startling four of the boys as three mutants walked in, Alex assuming front position. “All right, you little shits,” he snarled. “Listen up. We’re here for two of you, today, and I don’t feel like playing nice with the lot of you. I just want to do my business and get going.”
“What the fuck?” Duo exclaimed, looking at the three men with surprise on his face.
“Who the fuck are you?” Heero snarled, turning away from Trowa and Quatre. Then his eyes widened as he recognized Alex. “Wait a second–!”
“It don’t matter who the hell I am!” Alex snapped. “You two! Front and center. And make it quick, boys. If needs be, I’ll use force to get what I want.”
“What the hell–?” Duo exclaimed as he turned out to be one of the two Alex requested.
“This isn’t a request! It’s an order!” Alex growled, sweeping his bangs from his forehead. “Let’s go!”
Wufei moved in front of Duo with a shake of his head, vowing to let no one take off with any member of their team. Alex shook his head in disgust, and glanced at the mutants he was working with.
“You guys know what to do,” he said, stepping back. “Make it messy, if you have to. But don’t hurt the two pretty boys. They’re the ones he wants.”
Wufei’s mind processed this comment, furrowing his brow as one of the men moved toward him. He was tall, with a rangy set of muscles, and dressed down in low hanging jeans, giving him the impression that he wasn’t a professional. Another glance at the other two men gave him a definite idea that they could win if they used their combined teamwork against hem.
The mutant, a multi-pierced young man with wild hot pink hair gave a smirk as his arms suddenly shifted into twin bolts of energy. Wufei could smell the ozone flavor of this energy, the heat causing his skin to prickle. To fight fire with fire, he let his own fiery energy flame into his closed fists. From the corner of his eye, he could see the other four moving into position, with Heero aiming for the other mutant.
Suddenly, as one, everyone’s mutant energy simply disappeared. The two new mutants looked confused, and Wufei moved in as soon as he saw this. He had his left foot slamming heel first into his opponent’s face, the young man’s head snapping back. Already concentrating on his opponent, knowing that he had no worries for his friends, Wufei then followed that kick through with a quick elbow jab into the man’s exposed stomach. As the mutant doubled over in pain, Duo was there to slam Wufei’s forgotten dinner dish over his head. The mutant was down in an instant, Wufei moving in to render him unconscious with a touch.
Looking up, he saw that Heero had already taken down the other mutant by roughly slamming his face into the coffee table, and Trowa running after a suddenly fleeing Alex.
“They severely underestimated us,” Wufei growled in insult, clenching his fists. “How annoyingly weak of them.”
“I’ll say, shit!” Duo chimed in, frowning as he watched Trowa dive-tackle Alex to the floor. “I had thought this would be more of a fuckin’ better ass fight!”
Wufei blinked at the oddly word sentence, and all jumped at the loud, ear piercing sound of a gunshot. Turning alarmed eyes in Trowa’s direction, they all saw the tall boy jump up in surprise, holding his hands up in a placating gesture, Alex hurrying to his feet and holding a Magnum before him.
Wufei heard Quatre give a small sound of distress, but didn’t look back at him as Trowa moved away from Alex.
Then, he turned, looking in confusion to his leg. Wufei saw then the widening of a blood spot on his upper thigh, and the ugly wound that had trails of his jeans material sucked within. Trowa paled, in stunned shock over the situation as Alex raised the gun again, his face taking on something dark and angry. Trowa collapsed suddenly, gripping his leg with both hands, still in shock that he’d been shot.
“STOP!” Quatre shouted, his voice breaking the stunned silence that everyone was caught in. Alex looked over in his direction, and Heero made his move, hurling himself over Trowa and tackling Alex to the floor. There was a rapid burst of gunfire from the Magnum as they struggled, Wufei hurrying over to assist.
Glass shattered violently, Duo whirling around to see two more mutants climbing in through the other living room windows. They were holding automatic rifles, their crazed sights locked on the two boys closest to them.
Wufei hesitated as he realized that Duo was in one of the mutants’ sights, and took in the design of the automatic that was being leveled at the both of them. He cursed underneath his breath, holding his hands up in defeat. Behind him, he heard Heero and Alex shift away from each other, the blond breathing heavily as he kept his gun leveled on the Asian.
“Now, then,” Alex panted, his wrist shaking as he glanced around. “We got what we wanted. Let’s go, boys. Load them up.”
“What for?” Wufei growled at him, never taking his eyes off Duo as both he and Quatre were forced to walk around the couch and toward the front door. “What are you going to do with them?”
“None of your business,” Alex said smugly, lowering his weapon and firing once into Wufei’s knee cap. The Chinese was knocked clear off his feet by the blast, agony racing up his leg. He heard himself give a cry of pain, both hands wrapping around his knee. Alex adjusted his trench, glaring over at Heero. “All of you, down on the floor. Now.”
Seeing that Heero was the only one standing, Alex leveled his weapon at him. Slowly, hate burning in his eyes, Heero moved to lay stomach first on the floor. He glanced briefly at the door as both Duo and Quatre were taken out of the house and into the night, then back up at Alex.
Alex smirked, then leveled his last shot into Heero’s head. At the explosion of blood and skull, he laughed, reloading his weapon. Looking over at Wufei, who was staring over at Heero with a stricken expression, he commented, “it’s no big deal, eh? I mean, it isn’t like anyone’s gonna miss you all.”
Wufei turned his fiery hate onto the man, growling, “We’ll find you.”
“I’m sure you will. But how can you do that when you’re dead?” Alex asked, aiming and firing once.
At Wufei’s still form sprawled out on the carpet, he turned to Trowa, who simply frowned at the state he was in, and that his jeans were getting bloody. Alex studied him for a few moments, then shook his head in disgust.
“Pathetic,” he muttered, turning and walking out from the house. He made sure to slam the door shut as he stepped out into the snow, lighting another cigarette. He’d just killed his match when the metallic clink of bullet sliding into chamber caught his attention–as well as the familiar feel of a nozzle against his temple.
“You’ve gone and fucked up, richie,” Ralph growled.
“Where have you been all this time, Kurt?” Alex asked, ignoring the uneasiness he felt at being held in this position. “Treize called off the search. Couldn’t reach you.”
“I’ve been performing surveillance on them all this time!” Ralph snapped. “I know their weaknesses and strengths! And you’ve gone and fucked things up with this stunt!”
“Well, it ain’t like the first time this happened, man,” Alex commented, shoving the gun from his head. “You work too slow, Kurt. I made off with the prize. Take your sorry ass out of here and cry somewhere else. Let’s go, boys! Treize is waiting on us...”
Ralph lowered his gun, scowling at Alex as the other man walked through the snow toward the awaiting SUV. At Alex’s cocky grin, the mutant growled deep with his throat, his hand trembling with his fury. He watched the SUV maneuver through the snow and slowly head down the slippery path leading away from the cabin.
Cursing, he turned and began jogging his way back to his own concealed vehicle, certain that Alex had performed his very last mistake.
O0o0o0o0o0oO
Trowa sighed in boredom as he kept his wound covered with the palms of his hand. The cabin was utterly silent and still, and the stench of blood, so strong and familiar, seemed to burn his nostrils. Lifting a hand, he begin licking his hand clean, eyeing the very still form of Heero nearby. He was pretty sure the guy was dead–but there was a sound coming from the bubbling gore visible to him. Trowa was pretty sure that Heero’s brain bits were tasty in a sense if he found himself hungry, but there wasn’t the stench of death on him. His fine-tuned animal senses gave him that stamp of finality as he licked his own blood from his fingers. His leg was burning with pain, and his mind was slightly cloudy, rendering him more than fuzzy with confusion and apprehension, but he could detect that Heero still lived.
Glancing over at Wufei, he wondered if he were faking his death as well.
“Wufei, do you have your powers back?” he asked, applying more pressure to his wound, and lifting his other hand to his mouth. His blood tasted metallic and thick, and there was a sense of rot within him that made him question whether his sanity was in place.
Wufei groaned as he sat up, rubbing at his left ear. The heat of the bullet as it zipped past him, scorching his sensitive skin and singing his tightly pulled hair, had rendered a slight buzzing in his ear. He faked his death, counting on his reflexes and Alex’s own sight–and luck. If Alex had followed up his shot with another, he would have realized that he’d missed Wufei’s head by scant inches.
The Chinese quickly moved, wincing as he moved his knee. Panting heavily as agony caused his body to tremble violently, for his breath to quicken, and for his thoughts to become fuzzy, he looked over at Heero.
“Is he dead?” he gasped, trying to drag himself over to his friend.
“I don’t know. He don’t smell dead,” Trowa mumbled, bending close enough to his wounded leg to lick tentatively at his wound. Wufei hesitated in continuing forward, eyeing the green-eyed man with something short of disgust. “This hurts. I don’t think we have band-aids big enough to cover this thing. I think the bullet’s still in there...”
Wufei wondered if the man was in shock, or if this was just Trowa’s normal way of reacting to pain. He forced himself to look away from him, and struggled to crawl over to Heero. Reaching out, he gripped the muscled mutant’s shoulder, using Heero’s stability to pull his body close.
Panting, Wufei stared at the damage done to Heero, and tentatively reached down to his neck to feel for a pulse. He found one–it was miraculous, and it caused a frightened urgency within him to ‘husk’ him. Sitting up, he curled his fingernails into Heero’s skin, and began scraping away at the top layer. Trowa paused in licking himself, and frowned over in his direction. Blinking as he realized what Wufei was trying to do, he stretched himself out, shifting into a placid Bengal. His back left leg went dead, sending the large cat sprawling onto the floor with an annoyed growl. Huge paws reached out, claws extending to drag down Heero’s body, providing the tears Wufei needed to husk Heero out of his damaged skin.
Wufei tore through the sticky outer layer rapidly, his superspeed flaring to life. Skin flew in every direction as Trowa resettled himself, licking delicately at his wound in his new form.
Once Wufei revealed undamaged perfection, he paused, reaching over to find a pulse. Heero’s ability to heal himself was a strange one–the mutant himself didn’t understand it. But Wufei had to wonder–from damage that severe, was he still able to survive? Even if he had ripped away the damaged outer layer of Heero’s skin, had this same trait applied to his insides? If his brain was cut from oxygen, would a new form reveal an undamaged brain? Or not? Would he suffer some sort of brain damage?
Heero blinked sleepily, Wufei pulling his hand back as he watched the mutant recover. Cobalt eyes rested on the floor for several seconds, then muscles bunched as he pushed himself up, obviously more than dazed by the situation.
Trowa growled from his position as Heero moved too close to him, and Wufei warily watched the Bengal, hoping that Trowa wouldn’t attack or something just as foolish as they tried to recover from their wounds.
His own continued to terrorize him, and he felt his stomach jerk as he grew entirely nauseated. Shaking hands covered his destroyed kneecap as Heero rose to his feet, hand to his head.
“Yuy?” Wufei questioned from the floor. “You all right? You know what happened?”
Heero gazed blankly at him, then looked away, taking a few steps from the pair. Then, confused, he glanced around, his eyes momentarily resting on the Bengal nearby. He started to walk into the kitchen, his hand slipping along the wall as he steadied himself. Wufei watched worriedly, panting lightly as he tried to control his pain. Heero then froze within the kitchen, staring almost blankly out into the living room.
Trowa rose from his position, his back leg dragging as he crawled toward the front door. Wufei watched in surprise as the Bengal settled himself before the door, growling low in his throat as he continued licking at his wound. Heero eyed him undecidedly, reaching up to touch his forehead in confusion.
Wufei heard himself groan as he tried moving once more, agony causing him to stay in one place. Trowa was growling again, a dangerous sound that caused Wufei’s arm hairs to rise straight up. He looked over at the Bengal once more, blinking fuzzily as he tried to assess Trowa’s reasoning for taking that position against the door.
There was a turn of the knob, and the door was shoved inward, stopping short as Trowa’s form prevented the complete action.
“What the hell?”
Trowa was growling again as Wufei recognized that voice. “Dr J? Dr J, is that you?”
Heero narrowed his eyes, shaking his head to try and clear his mind as the door banged repeatedly against Trowa’s prone form.
“Let me in, you cur! It’s freezing out here!” Dr J complained, and Wufei heard the accompanying voices of two other men, and Sally. While his heart cried out in relief, something niggled at the back of his mind. The pain from his knee kept him from truly focusing on this niggle, relief flooding his entire system as he thought of Sally’s healing powers.
“Trowa, move! It’s the doctors!” he ordered, using the broken coffee table to help push himself off the floor.
Trowa growled once more, flashing his fangs in his direction before returning his attention to his leg.
“Barton, you freak,” Dr J growled from behind the door. “Let us in! My dentures are completely frozen and are quite uncomfortable.”
“Trowa, move!” Heero ordered, finding his voice. He walked over threateningly to remove the Bengal from the doorway, but Trowa glanced over him. He snapped his teeth in his direction, and moved on his own.
The door opened, admitting only Dr’s J, O, and G, Sally walking in right behind him, carrying bags of groceries and supplies.
Seeing Wufei, she gasped in alarm, dropping everything to hurry over to him.
“Say...what happened, here?” G asked curiously, noting the sectional, broken windows, and for the fact that Trowa and Wufei were bleeding all over the place.
“Heero?” Dr J asked, looking at his designated mutant, who was still more than confused as he glared at the older man. “What is going on, here?”
“We were attacked!” Wufei supplied with a grimace as he sat down at the edge of the couch, Sally working hurriedly to remove the remnants of the bullet from his knee, and to repair the extensive damage done. With each touch on his broken skin, he winced, feeling relief as more and more pain was ebbed from her healing. “They found us...they found us, and they attacked. They took Duo and Quatre with them.”
Heero looked sharply in his direction, Sally and the doctors looking at in him surprise.
“What? What the hell happened?” O demanded. “What for?”
“He didn’t say exactly,” Wufei said, wincing as Sally forced cartilage and muscle back together. “But he mentioned that ‘he’ wanted them. For whatever reason, I don’t know. They took them by gunpoint. If I can get healed fast enough, I can run after them. I can stop them.”
“How could you all have lost to them?” O cried. “You’re mutants! Trained to overcome any obstacle! And you let them cart your weak friends away?”
“Our powers were temporarily missing,” Wufei explained, dropping his head in shame. “We had everything under control, but he had men we didn’t know about...and weapons. Those two aren’t experienced enough to defend themselves properly, otherwise we would have...turned the tables.”
O speared Dr J with a look, one that the elder doctor ignored. “Who’s ‘he’?”
“I assumed he was talking about Trieze, as he was the one that attacked us last time,” Wufei answered. “The one...the vampire one. The one that switches off powers.”
“Alex and Mueller,” G said thoughtfully, stroking his nose. “Interesting...”
O glanced at Dr J. “Treize would...send him to do his bidding? I thought he wasn’t trustworthy.”
“Who knows what Treize is thinking, old man,” Dr J answered, shaking his head.
That niggle persisted in the back of Wufei’s mind.
Dr J turned to Heero. “You! Status report!”
Heero gazed blankly at him, then shook his head. “Unable to report.”
“He was shot in the head, sir,” Wufei said as Sally finished up her work. “He’s still more than confused.”
“Unacceptable, Yuy,” Dr J muttered, frowning at the boy. “I demand that you overlook your confusion and tell me what you remember.”
Heero frowned at this, Wufei giving the doctor a curious stare as he expected the impossible. Sally pushed herself up from the floor, gazing over at Trowa.
The Bengal lifted his head and growled in her direction. She lifted her hands in defeat, then nervously shifted away from Wufei to pick up what she’d dropped.
“Unable to report,” Heero finally said, shaking his head again.
“Unacceptable. Well, then, Chang,” Dr J said, turning to face him. “We have to rely on you. Considering the training that had been performed in the last two weeks, what do you think of our two newest members?”
“They...they’ve improved considerably with their abilities, sir, but they aren’t perfect,” Wufei admitted, more than uncomfortable with this reporting position. It was Heero’s position to report, not his. “They... they show considerable promise. Maxwell...Maxwell has learned intangibility in certain areas. And...he may have telekinetic abilities, as well, but those hasn’t been sorted out.”
“And the other?”
“Has reached his limits in terms of his empathy, sir. He can only focus on one person at a time, and for a limited amount of time. But his telekinesis abilities far exceed anything that I’ve seen before. He can...he can do many things with it that I’ve never...seen before.”
O grunted, rolling his hateful eyes, while G pondered the meaning of a cluttered kitchen nearby.
Dr J nodded. “Do they look worse than before? Or the same?”
“I...I don’t understand...”
“Their health, Wufei,” Sally interjected. “Have they gained weight? Look healthy?”
“Maxwell has. But...Quatre, he...still looks the same. Sally, I don’t think he should be involved with this,” Wufei then said, looking at her. “I think he needs psychiatric help, just like you said, and–”
“Well, hopefully, we won’t have to go that far,” O interrupted. “Maybe Treize will destroy the whelp and save us the trouble.”
Wufei found himself glaring at the older man. “It isn’t a matter of weakness, instructor. It’s just a matter of finding the best way of getting him mental health services to repair–”
“That’s not our worry, right now, Chang,” Dr J intervened. “Right now, we’re assuming our two new boys are in Treize’s clutches, for whatever reason. We need to know why. They both have potential, and that makes them dangerous to us.”
“How can that weakling be ‘dangerous’?” O cried. “Hopefully, he’s destroyed when Treize realizes his worth!”
“O has a very unhealthy fixation on the boy,” G wondered out loud. “Could this be repressed homosexuality, or a question of concern in that he actually gives a fig for the kid?”
“Why, you–!!”
“Men, men,” Dr J sighed, Sally staring in disbelief at the pair of them. “We must work on a solution–”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Heero interrupted, his cold voice startling them all. He eyed the doctors and woman suspiciously. “We weren’t notified of your arrival...and the communicator you’ve given us was crap. How is it you’ve arrived here without noticing the others leaving?”
“We thought they were tourists, getting lost in the snow,” G answered, frowning at him. “What are you implying?”
“It’s too big of a coincidence that you’ve shown up, not even forty-five minutes from what happened,” Heero growled, eyeing Dr J suspiciously.
“Are you implying that we’re involved with Treize?” Dr J asked, peering at him curiously. “Because if you are, Yuy, I might suggest that you watch your tone. You tread dangerously with us by suggesting this implication.”
Heero snapped his mouth shut, but his eyes flit over to Wufei. Wufei felt himself still as he realized that Heero also felt the niggling.
“Heero...they wouldn’t do this to us,” he said carefully, his eyes locked on the Japanese. He hoped that Heero, by some luck, would understand what he was saying by look alone. “They’re the only ones we can trust. You’re just...confused. From your head wound. You’re not thinking clearly.”
Heero frowned, but looked over at Dr J, who was frowning down at him. He nodded slowly, as if apologizing for his outburst. Wufei eyed each doctor with calculating thought, then looked at Sally–and didn’t miss the sweat that beaded lightly on her brow.
He turned to Trowa. “Come back to us, Barton. Sally needs to heal that wound of yours before it gets infected,” he commanded, turning his back to the woman.
The Bengal growled low in its throat, eyeing him suspiciously. But he shifted back into human form, his mouth smudged with his own blood.
“That boy is simply disturbing, O,” G muttered.
“I’ll say. Gives me the creeps.”
“Men!” Dr J turned to them. “We’ve got pressing issues to discuss...I will call the others and alert them of the situation–”
“If I go now, Dr J, I can find that vehicle and stop them!” Wufei interrupted, moving toward the door. O stopped him.
“Even if you managed to locate their vehicle, what can you do to distract them? It’s a complicated situation. Six against one...considering that the other two don’t know very much of what to do. You lost to them with your teammates’ help...what can you do on your own?”
Wufei stilled, his shoulders locking. But he nodded to show that he understood. Frustration and anger was evident in his features as he watched Dr J leave the cabin, cursing about the size of his cellphone as he dialed a number.
He glanced over at Heero, who exchanged a glance with him. Wufei understood that Heero was now clear on the ‘niggle’.
O0o0o0o0o0oO
Duo glanced over at the man that sat to his right, and then at the one at his left. The handcuffs holding his slim wrists together were locked tight and he had no idea how he was going to pop out of the situation unfolding before him. He was curious as to why he and Quatre were so interesting to whomever this ‘he’ was, and wondered if this ‘he’ were Treize. And if that was so...what was with deal? The SUV was morbidly silent, and he glanced around him just to size up the scene. That hot pink haired guy was driving, continuously rubbing the back of his neck, with Alex sitting up in front.
In the first bench seat, Duo sat with two men on either side of him. Quatre sat in the same position behind him. Duo’s mind was racing as he tried to think of a way to escape this situation. He curled his toes and rubbed his feet together–he hadn’t expected to be attacked and kidnaped tonight, and was just wearing a pair of worn jeans, a Black Sabbath tee, and his usual messy braid. Quatre was in the same state, but at least he was wearing a sweater over his tee. As it were, Duo was freezing.
Returning to the situation on hand, he didn’t want to know what he was ‘wanted’ for...it seemed ominous and truly un-fun, and he was pretty sure Quatre felt the entire same way.
He swallowed hard, staring out the windshield. It was snowing once more, and they were driving slow through slick roads. The windshield wipers scraped noisily against the glass, providing the only source of sound within the crowded vehicle.
He eyed Alex again, burning holes through the man’s neck, and wondered what Wufei would do in this situation. He was pretty sure he’d heard gunshots while he and Quatre were being firmly settled within the SUV, but he refused to think that anyone was hurt. Not those three. Those three were invincible and could do anything.
He swallowed hard, furrowing his brow as he wiggled his wrists within the cuffs. Alex shifted then, turning to look back at him.
“You’re really not anything to look at,” he said with a sneer, adjusting his slim glasses. “Both of you. How could the pair of you be very valuable?”
“Hey, when we get paid?” one of the men in back asked.
“When we get there,” Alex snapped. Duo frowned at him, thinking that the man better learn respectable manners for the guys he was working with. Some guys didn’t like being bossed around in that manner.
Then, before Duo’s eyes, the man’s face shifted into something sincere and apologetic. “I’m sorry. We agreed to pay the lot of you for your work as soon as we turned these two over.”
“Seems to me that’s a pretty bum deal,” the first guy grumbled, and Duo perked. Discontent among workers was good! He wished he were able to look back at Quatre. “I mean...we worked hard. Jimmy and Darrell got their fuckin’ asses kicked, man.”
“We didn’t have them ‘kicked’,” the one named Darrell snarled from the driver’s seat. “I just wuzzn’t expectin’ my powers to be gone!”
“What’s up with that man? If’n we din’t have our fuckin’ autos, we wouldn’t have gotten this far,” the other man in back complained. “They were fuckin’, pullin’ all this karate bullshit on their asses and shit.”
Alex was back. “I let you men know that my partner’s ability to take away powers were to be used for our advantage! That’s why you were instructed to use your weapons!”
“It’s five against one, guys,” Duo murmured. “Are you really going to trust him to pay you when you got us delivered?”
“Shut up, you little homo shit!” Alex barked.
“Say hey, man...he’s right,” the man on Duo’s right said, sniffing as he shifted in his seat. “Make sure we be gettin’ paid, Darrell. This ain’t no freebie.”
“We want our money up front,” Darrell commanded, looking over at Alex every so often. “Like...now. And in cash. We don’t do no checkin’ bullshit.”
“You’ll get your cash when we get there,” Alex growled between clenched teeth, blue eyes flashing dangerously. “I just want to make sure this job is done right before you get your reward...”
“Hey, he’s fuckin’ lying to you all,” Duo complained, shrugging. “He’s making you guys do something without being paid. He’ll fuck you all over.”
“I said SHUT UP, you little cretin!”
Darrell huffed as he glanced over at Alex. “Where’s the cash, man?”
“Why take his word for it?” Duo asked. “He’s lyin’ to you all.”
“Don’t listen to him!”
“Cash up front, man. Or else...we ain’t doing shit!” Jimmy said, cackling from beside Duo.
“What the fuck?” Alex cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Fine. What the hell.”
Suddenly, he had his Magnum out, and he plugged a bullet through Darrell’s head without any warning. As the mutant’s body slumped over the wheel, and the SUV swerved to the side, Duo moved quickly. He turned in his seat and knocked his heel into Jimmy’s face, knocking him against the door. There was a cacophony of yells as Alex fought to regain control of the SUV, Duo kicking at Jimmy repeatedly as his other captor struggled to get out of his seatbelt and try to help his buddy.
Quatre stared wide-eyed at the scene, his two captors shouting and waving guns around as they swung helplessly in the back seat. The SUV suddenly turned violently, the snowy and slick road carrying them off the pavement and into some dense brush. It was only a matter of moments before they made connection with a tree.
He struggled out of his seatbelt and made himself as small as possible to fit himself underneath the bench seat, the two men shouting as the SUV lurched out of control.
The impact with an unmoving tree had everyone bolting forward. Alex slammed into the dash, Jimmy knocked his head against the front passenger seat, Duo found himself in a heap between the two front seats, and his other captor had slammed into his door, cracking the glass.
Quatre’s two captors knocked against their doors, their seatbelts holding them into place. Moments after impact, airbags deployed with violent bangs.
The SUV was in chaos as Duo struggled to his feet, finding himself wrenched between both front seats as enraged male shouts crowded the air.
Alex fell over him, his gun landing somewhere on someone, and Jimmy’s partner attacked him.
In the confusion and chaos, Duo tried to ignore that Alex was stepping all over him, and his nuts were moments away from being crushed by the struggling men.
“QUAT!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, wondering where the other boy was at.
In that moment, the SUV exploded–not in a fiery explosion, but in the fact that doors exploded off hinges; the ceiling crumbled and blew straight upward; the dash and front of the SUV curled completely around the tree, and the very back of the SUV blew straight back. Even the tires blew out of place, dropping the heavy floor of the SUV onto the snow.
Free from his awkward position, Duo stumbled to his feet by using the hugging metal around the tree, and searched the darkness for his friend. He couldn’t stare too long at the telekinetic blast that had destroyed the SUV, as he saw the telltale white of his friend’s hair bobbing toward the back.
Gunshots were fired randomly, and he ducked, dropping to his knees. His bare feet were practically frozen as he sank into the snow.
If power was used to knock the surrounding walls off the SUV–he looked down at his wrists, and concentrated. He’d found, during training, that if he focused his power completely onto himself and teleported himself rapidly, in a repeating loop that instantaneously rendered his body in an intangible form within the shadow, he was able to ‘phase’ himself into intangibility mode for short periods of time.
The handcuffs fell from his wrists, and he jumped to his feet, avoiding Alex as he fired round after round into the body of a discontented henchman.
Quatre had released himself as well, and was busily fending off one of his captors that welded a steel body. Alex, with a frustrated snarl, reared up and fired repeatedly at Jimmy, taking him out easily. He maneuvered the gun at the steel mutant, and the man found himself in normal human form, enabling Alex to shoot him repeatedly as well.
To give them time to escape, Duo dive-tackled Alex into the snow, hearing Quatre race over to help. The blond dislodged the gun from Alex’s hand, and Duo punched the man’s face in repeatedly to ensure a stunned state.
“HA!” he yelled, gripping the front of Alex’s coat, and slamming his head repeatedly against the snow. “We’re stronger than we fuckin’ look, you fuckin’ dick! How dare you fuck around with us? How dare you underestimate us? Fuck you, you fuckin’ prick!”
“Get off me!” Alex growled, using his body to throw Duo off him. Quatre brought the gun up, leveling it at him, and the man hesitated as he saw this. Breathing heavily, blood dripping down his nose, Alex paused in mid-rise, staring at the gun, then at the boy holding it. Quatre wasn’t sure how to use a gun, but he wasn’t about to back down as Duo picked himself up, wiping himself off.
“You guys all right?” Someone shouted from the road, where a couple of cars and a snowplow were parked. There were a couple of men climbing down the embankment to make their way over to them.
“He’s got a gun!” Alex shouted. “Help me! He’s got a gun, and he killed all the others!”
“BULLSHIT!” Duo screamed as the rescuers hesitated. One man even turned and ran the way back to his car. “He’s lying! He’s lying! Help us!”
“HE’S GOING TO SHOOT ME!” Alex cried, crazed as he gestured wildly at Quatre.
Quatre panicked, realizing he was being blamed for the murders of the five men, and tossed the gun away from him.
“Come back!” Duo screamed at their rescuers, who were quickly leaving the scene. Alex saw the toss of the gun, and dove after it, Quatre realizing again his mistake.
He used his telekinesis to destroy the thing, rendering the metal into a rolled mass as Alex grabbed it. In frustration, Alex hurled the useless thing away from him, and began to run.
Duo saw this, and turned, running after him.
“Let’s get the fucker, Quat!” he yelled, chasing after Alex. Despite the fact that he was barefooted, Duo made quick gain on the fleeing man, and tackled him to the snow once more. He heard Quatre racing after him, and yelled over his shoulders to get something to tie Alex down with.
Alex turned, and Mueller regained control. His hands shifted shape, and applied themselves to Duo’s neck, the open mouths immediately latching onto Duo’s tender flesh with a relish. Duo squirmed, trying to back out of the grip as Mueller panted heavily, enjoying what he was taking from the struggling mutant.
Quatre was racing back, and when he saw what was happening, he gasped, and used his telekinesis to rip Mueller’s hands away from Duo’s neck. He tossed the man away from the downed mutant. Duo was gasping, crawling in agony along the snow as he clamped his hands against the massive puncture wounds along his neck. Quatre dropped beside him, trying to assess the damage as Alex rose from the snow, growling angrily.
“You’re pissing me off!” he screamed, taking a few steps forward. “I’m going to rip you both apart, you little shits!”
Quatre tore off his sweater to try and staunch the blood that pumped from Duo’s neck, and looked at the advancing mutant in terror. He narrowed his eyes to destroy the annoyance when someone touched his bare shoulder. Looking up in surprise, he saw Ralph Kurt frown at Alex, then look down at him.
The blond found himself lifted forcefully away from Duo, and tossed like nothing into the snow. Before he even had a chance to recover, he was lifted up once more, and slammed hard against a couple of trees. Duo looked up, seeing the new mutant, and managed to teleport away from the scene.
Ripping Quatre’s sweater from his neck, he faced Ralph fiercely, using his necromancing powers to rise the dead nearby. Ralph looked momentarily surprised at the sight of broken and dead men moving into sprints toward him, and Duo hesitated for a brief moment. Ralph had one of Quatre’s expressions, his brown eyes widened and reflecting what Quatre would look like in his surprise.
The dead men faltered, and Ralph turned back to Duo, wide eyes narrowing. Duo felt his face scrunch up with bewilderment as he faced a man that looked nothing like Quatre, but held the blond’s posture, expression, and hurried breathing.
Duo found himself slammed hard into the tree behind him, his head snapping back against the bark with a crack. He fell to the snow, dazed and stunned. Trying to crawl back to his feet, he heard the crunch of snow as Ralph approached him. That low hum of energy greeted his ears as he was picked up from the snow, a forceful pressure around his neck.
“Cooperate, now,” Ralph commanded, his voice reminiscent of Quatre’s softer tenor. “I would hate to hurt you even more.”
“Fuck–you!” Duo growled, clawing at the invisible force that held his neck. He teleported away from Ralph once more, appearing on the road, where the small gathering of spectators were standing. Coughing and gagging, he sent a few men scattering from his mere appearance. He raised his hands, commanding the dead men to rise again. Two of them immediately took over Alex, sending the man screaming in alarm as he was pulled down into the snow.
Ralph turned and saw this, then whirled around to face Duo. Duo heard a sudden metallic creak, and looked up to see a car being flung right at him. He teleported safely out of the way, reappearing once more to slam his fist across Ralph’s face.
The man sprawled out onto the snow, but he took the punch with more grace than Duo had hoped. When the man turned to face him, Duo was stunned to see one of his own expressions mirrored on the man’s face.
“Bad idea, kid,” Ralph spit, in a growling pitch similar to Duo. “Touching me’s a bad idea...”
Duo started to teleport again when Ralph appeared before his face, slamming a hard uppercut against the stunned boy’s chin. Duo felt himself lift into the air, stars blazing across his vision before sprawling bonelessly into the snow.
The men crowding Alex fell dead once more, atop of the struggling man as Duo lost consciousness.
Turning, Ralph faced him angrily.
“Great job, rich-boy!” he snarled in Duo’s voice. “You just had to make it fucking worse!”
“Fuck you,” Alex panted as he rose from the snow. “I had things under control until those fucking slags opened their mouth...”
“Just admit it! You fucked up!” Ralph shouted, bending to toss Duo over his shoulder. “We can’t just leave them here. And taking them back to Treize is a bad idea! They wouldn’t go along with his ideals when they have you here to fuck things over!”
“Treize’s cronies have mind powers!” Alex shouted, trying to find his glasses. “They can use that!”
“Why are you so dead set in continuing this failed mission?” Ralph cried, using his stolen gift of teleportation to take Duo to his car parked along the embankment. He tossed the unconscious mutant into the backseat, and took a few moments to use plastic cuffs to hog tie the boy. After that was through, he began looking for Quatre.
“Treize wants these two, whether or not he says he does!” Alex insisted, his face growing red with his humiliation and thoughts of what could happen if he failed the man once more. “They could be useful to him. He just–he just needs them to know.”
Ralph looked at him, shaking his head. “You’re stupid, man. Very stupid.”
“I may be, but I’m looking out for his better interests.”
“You’re not doing a thing to save face!” Ralph snarled, spotting his victim lying in the snow. He hurried over, hoping the police were coming as he scanned the area for any more possible troubles. He had just reached the boy’s side when Alex suddenly gave an agonized scream.
Straightening, he turned and saw that Alex was missing. But the area in which he had been standing was splattered with darkness and lumpy objects. Catching his breath and adjusting his vision to the darkness, Ralph realized that what he was seeing were Alex’s insides on display. The natural shape of his human form was laying in random lumps where he’d last stood.
Stunned, unsure of how that had happened, Ralph scanned the darkness for another opponent, and heard the soft shift of snow against skin.
Using Duo’s talent of phasing, he rendered himself intangible, feeling a momentary brush of power against his very insides as he did so. He whirled to see that Quatre was rising from the snow, staring at him with a determined expression. Ralph narrowed his eyes, continuously rendering himself intangible as he faced off with the blond.
Unsure of how to treat this situation while he was in an intangible state, Ralph slowly backed away from the blond, all his senses on alert. After studying all of them during their stay out in the woods, Ralph knew of the blond’s powers, and of his insecurities and doubts. He knew all of the boys. Which rendered him dangerous to them all.
“You can’t win this fight, kid,” he whispered, keeping his eyes on Quatre and keeping himself intangible–and in shadow to perform this feat. “You’re proved your worth a few times over, but you can’t hang with the bigger boys in this world.”
“You can’t keep doing that for long,” Quatre said quietly, tensing himself and waiting for the moment to attack. “Duo can’t do it for very long.”
“You know what I can do?” Ralph asked, searching for something to win. He knew if he gave the blond a chance, Quatre could easily take him out the very same way he did to Alex. He didn’t want to give him that chance. But he was beginning to feel the effects of the continuous loop of teleportation.
He teleported out of the boy’s sight, hoping against hope that the boy couldn’t touch him as he performed the feat. He appeared once more, swinging hard. Quatre saw his fist moving, eyes widening moments before Ralph made contact with that thin face. The blond crumpled to the ground as easily as Duo had earlier.
As Ralph retained the powers he’d stolen from that single touch, he steadied himself within the snow, trying to adjust to the rapid assimilation of memories that he’d absorbed. Licking his lips, trying to concentrate on the here and now, he turned, gazing around himself in tired victory.
Alex was put down, as well as his men. He wasn’t going to screw up anything more...but the fact that he’d come this far with these two boys made Ralph more than wary. He was pissed that Alex ignored his surveillance tactics and went straight out for this approach. He was convinced that such things would drive the two away from Treize, rather than agreeing to joining.
During his stay with the boys, watching and studying them and their individual characteristics had provided him with more than enough material to use against them should the case arrive. But for Alex to storm right in and ruin things–!
He sighed, and bent, picking up the other kid. Well...might as well as bring things to a conclusion. Might as well as continue where Alex left off. If he let them go...there was no doubt that they’d run once more.
He’d lost him that one night, where Duo had simply teleported off with the lot of them, but he wasn’t going to make that same mistake again.
He would just take them to Treize, and if needs be, he’d be the one to put the bullet through their brains.