Back to Gatefold#16 - "Civil Unrest - Part IV"
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This story may contain scenes of graphic violence and sexual situations. It is recommended for mature readers.
In Case You're Just Joining Us: In response to The Fallen Angels' kidnapping of the French prime minister, and Magneto's continued insistence that his country has nothing to do with the terrorists, France sends a fleet of warships to Genosha. Meanwhile, terrorist bombs continued to wrack Hammer Bay. Sunspot was delivered to the hospital after being near the first blast, and Gomi was trapped beneath the Symkarian Embassy by another explosion. Siena Blaze decided to forego her psychiatric session and visit the ravaged downtown area instead. As of yet, Magneto has failed to make an appearance in response to all of this.
"I don't need your civil war."
- Guns N' Roses
'Gomi' had been his name for so long that he barely remembered what the one on his birth certificate had been. At first it had just been a nickname, given him by his brilliant but utterly whacked-out older brother. Gomi had accepted the name proudly for weeks, helping his brother and his brother's best friend in their cybernetic research on the shores of Maine. It had been a while before one of them let it slip that 'gomi' was Japanese for 'garbage'.
But the fun hadn't stopped there, oh no. The same brother and friend-of-brother duo had chloroformed him and installed cybernetic parts in him in an effort to duplicate the telekinetic powers of the X-Man called 'Marvel Girl'--no, don't ask--and they'd partially succeeded. Except that instead of the nicey-nice, elegant, pick-up-things kind of telekinesis, Gomi had ended up with the battering-ram, destroys-everything-in-its-path kind.
The powers had ended up being a blessing, he supposed. And certainly, without his brother's research, he never would have met Bill the Lobster, but Gomi had finally come to the conclusion not so long ago that his brother really had been a monumental dick. Therefore, a lot of who he was and how he acted was predicated on <i>not</i> being like his brother.
He thought of this as he looked at the pile of rubble that had once been a stairwell leading out of the basement of the Symkarian Embassy in Genosha. There'd been some kind of fighting going on topside all day, but someone had finally gone ahead and blown the embassy up.
Leaving Gomi and Bill the Lobster trapped in the basement, with no way to call for help and no way to tell if there was even anyone up there who could help them. Oh yeah, and their only companion in all of this was the Prime Minister of France, who had been kidnapped and imprisoned by the Fallen Angels for France's questionable stance on certain mutant issues. Gomi had been down here threatening the man's family when the explosion had hit.
Which brought him back to what he'd been thinking about his brother, and how he didn't want to be like him.
Gomi looked at the blue-shelled lobster sitting on his shoulder, its giant cartoon eyes narrowed in frustration. "Come on, Bill. We've got an apology to make. And then we've got to figure out how we're going to get that man out of here."
Shatterstar paced in front of the trucks that would ferry the magistrates and their families to the evacuation point. The first wave was being loaded, even though it was barely four in the morning, and Shatterstar couldn't quite fight down the jitters he was feeling. (His tired mind, reverting back to its old television rhetoric, thought of these jitters as 'static'.)
He wanted to get this over with. Once the civilians were safe, his commitment here would be finished, and he could return to the surface and find out what was going on in Hammer Bay. France had apparently declared war on the tiny island nation of Genosha, and Shatterstar wanted to rail at his inability to do anything about that when he still had so much to do here.
"Shatterstar," a familiar voice said, and he turned to find Talib Singh Chauhan, aged Magistrate and the man who had won his trust back when this all began, approaching him. Talib was slight and dark-skinned, with a white beard that dropped below his collarbone. He put a hand on Shatterstar's shoulder and gestured back in the direction he'd come.
"A final look at the maps, and then a toast for luck," the old man said.
Shatterstar nodded--even though he'd already looked at the maps until their images seemed burned into his retinas, and that he had no intention of drinking anything even remotely mind-altering today. He followed the man back to the makeshift map/council room.
The maps tracing the trucks' escape route were still spread out across the worn tables, and Shatterstar rubbed his eyes wearily as he entered the room directly behind Talib. What was that old commercial Meltdown always quoted? Time to make the donuts...
He sensed the attack a moment before the blow landed, but he was far too tired and taken far too expertly by surprise to avoid it. A fist the size of a Christmas ham smashed into the right side of his head and sent him sprawling across the room. He slammed shoulder-first into the wall and slid down it, reaching--feebly and much too slowly--for the swords crisscrossed over his back.
"Unh-uh," came a deep bass rumble that was depressingly familiar. The same hand that had sucker-punched him seized his groping hand by the wrist, and its mate wrapped around his index and middle fingers. The hand tugged and there was a snap, Shatterstar grunted in pain, cradling his hand, and only dimly aware of someone removing his swords from his back.
"Take these," the bass rumble said, and its owner handed the swords and bandolier to Magistrate Chauhan.
"Bastard..." Shatterstar groaned, swiveling his eyes up toward Talib. "I helped you. Why...do this?"
"Because the stakes are such that we dare not take any chances. And, frankly...I have not been entirely honest with you about our intent." The old man snapped off a salute that wasn't at all sarcastic. "My comrades and their families thank you for all your help, Shatterstar. None of us will be slaves to Magneto's will any longer.
"Make it quick," he said to the room's other occupant. "We owe him that much at least." Then he turned and slipped out the door, closing and locking it behind him.
"Oh, I owe this punk alright." Shatterstar was seized by the collar and pulled upright, right into the wide, grinning face of the mercenary Harrier named Axe. The man put his free hand up in 'Star's face, displaying the bandage and splint encapsulating his index finger.
"Remember this, you prancing little homo? I do. Time for you to feel the pain."
Talib Singh Chauhan finished locking the door behind him and regarded the swords he was carrying. Carelessly, he tossed them aside and looked into the faces of the men that had gathered outside the room while he'd been inside.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes" drifted up from a dozen different mouths, but one voice dissented.
"Must we let that behemoth beat him to death?" Magistrate Henri Diesing growled. The wooden legs he'd been wearing the day before had been replaced with sturdier, metal ones, and he had a plasma rifle shouldered on one arm.
"If it makes the mercenaries happy, then yes," Talib replied.
"He is a good man, he deserves better."
Talib's eyebrows flicked upward in amusement. "How you've changed your tune since I first introduced you, Henri!"
The young man scowled and leaned against the wall so he could rub the point where his fleshy knee met his metal calf. "If there's one mutant we owe allegiance to, it's that man in there."
"Unfortunately, that's not an option," another of the magistrates spoke up. "Or do you suppose he'll sit idly by while we storm the streets of Hammer Bay?"
"And we simply can't take the chance that he'll escape. The lives of our loved ones depend on us, Henri. Will it be them or this mutant?"
Henri was silent for a time, not quite able to look his comrades in the face. Finally he straightened and unslung his rifle, dropping it into both hands.
"Let's go."
The first cargo truck trundled up the ramp and stopped at a hand-signal from a beefy white man wearing thick glasses. He checked his watch, then slowly pushed one of the double-doors that blocked the truck's path open to take a look outside.
After a moment, he returned and moved to the cab. The driver gave him a thumbs-up, and he continued around to the back. There were five more trucks waiting on the ramp behind this one, plunging backward into the earth.
"Any problems, Shotgun?" the woman with the closely-cropped hair said. She was hanging onto the back of the truck, which appeared to otherwise be empty.
"Nope, no problems," the man with the glasses said. He had a thick accent, native to the US South. "You're good to go."
"See ya then."
"Be careful, Blindside."
"Always."
Shotgun moved back up to the front of the column and shoved the other door open. Overgrown, grassy plains spread out before the lead truck. Shotgun put up a hand to the lead truck driver, stepped outside to have one more look, then went ahead and waved the truck out.
Slowly, the first convoy of human refugees exited the Genoshan underground through a tiny hillside to the west of Hammer Bay. In single file, each of them turned onto the western road and began their slow trek across the island.
The recently-completed commerce district in Hammer Bay had stopped burning less than an hour ago, and a thick pall of smoke still hung over the streets as mutants moved through them, helping the injured and carrying away the dead in equal measure. The new medical facility--little more than a MASH unit in an old schoolhouse--was filled past capacity, and its staff was already uniformly exhausted. Mutants with no medical training but whose gifts could be of some help to the rescue effort were being enlisted to assist both at the hospital and in the streets.
And above it all, Magneto continued to sit atop his tower.
Siena Blaze stood at the southeastern edge of the commerce district, ignoring the agony around her as she gazed up at Avalon Tower. She didn't give much of a shit about the people who were dying, and she sure didn't care that Magneto hadn't descended to help them...but it did make her curious. She would have thought Mags would either be down here ripping the demolished buildings apart to find survivors, or somewhere else wreaking vengeance on whoever had done this. But he did neither. He just sat up there. What was he doing? What was he waiting for?
And why was she bothering her head about it? Yeah, okay, Mags was sorta sexy in a daddy kinda way...but, y'know, what the fuck? Why was she even hanging out here? It was getting to be a drag.
She began walking in the general direction of the Tower, not in any particular hurry as streams of people rushed past in either direction. She began making vague plans to take one of the state's shuttles off somewhere. The psychiatrist wouldn't be happy with that, but she could kiss Siena's silky white--
She paused. A familiar face had just moved past her, heading back toward the commerce district. She turned and followed him with her eyes. What was his name...Darden? Dent? Delgado? Yeah, that was it. Harry Delgado. The psychiatrist had told her about him. He'd been one of the first people on the scene when Mother of Hope was destroyed. Former Acolyte. Nice ass and gorgeous eyes, but wound a little too tight for Siena's taste. She was about to turn away from him when she saw another former Acolyte--Kleinstock something-or-other--head Delgado off. The two men talked heatedly for a moment, Delgado seemingly in a hurry to be on his way to the disaster zone and Kleinstock apparently with other ideas. Delgado said something, swiping a hand angrily through the air, but whatever it was Kleinstock said to him in reply gave him pause. He sighed, his shoulders slumped, and he nodded. Then he followed Kleinstock down a side road, away from the destruction.
Siena smiled. Two former Acolytes--Magneto's forsaken worshippers--running off to have a private powwow in the middle of Armageddon. Looked interesting. And what the hell, it wasn't like she had anything else to do.
She turned back and followed them.
"Ai... This is not good."
Rictor and Meltdown stood before the pile of smoking rubble that had, until about an hour ago, been the Symkarian Embassy to Genosha. The building was brand new, and had come to represent Magneto's fledgling efforts to reach out to the rest of the world. It had been a surprising step for the man, surely not an easy one. And now it was moot.
The rescue workers moved along the outskirts of the structure. The building hadn't been occupied yet, but the blast had been sufficient to kill every unprotected mutant within half a block, and to grievously injure a whole bunch of people beyond it. As far as most of Genosha was concerned, there were no bodies to be found in the collapsed embassy.
Rictor and Meltdown knew better.
"He's gone," Meltdown said, shaking her head. "No way he survived that blast."
"We stashed him in the sub-basement. It's possible the structure didn't collapse that far."
Meltdown started to disagree...but then she remembered who she was talking to. Rictor was the resident expert on knocking buildings down, after all. "So what do we do?" she asked.
"We start digging."
Meltdown shook her head. "No. Forget it. There are mutants who need our help back in the commerce district. I'm not going to leave them so I can dig some fat-ass, garlic-smelling, bigoted Frog out of a hole in the ground, especially when he's most likely dead already."
She started to turn away, but Rictor grabbed her arm. "Tabby, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Nothing's wrong with me. The guy's dead, Ric! And I've got more important things to deal with."
He snarled and let go of her arm, shoving her a little as he did so. She stumbled backward, her mouth falling open in surprise. "More important things? We put that man down there! And it doesn't matter that he's the prime minister of France or, or that he's a prisoner. We. Are. Responsible. For. Him!"
Tabby gaped at him, her expression twisted somewhere between shock and rage.
"And if you disagree," Rictor hissed, "than go ahead and run back to Bobby. Or to Magneto. Or to any of the other people who let this place turn them into assholes."
He spun around and began working his way toward the center of the rubble. Tabby stood there, her jaw working but no sound coming from her throat.
"Ric," she started, taking a step toward his retreating back.
"What's the matter, Boom Boom? He hurt your feelings?"
Tabby spun around, and found herself facing a crouching orange she-tiger. She drew in breath in surprise and took a quick step backwards, very nearly generating a plasma bomb to defend herself with before she realized it wasn't a tiger at all. It was Feral, just Feral. But the way she'd been holding herself, the arch of her back...for just a second there--
"What're you looking at?" Feral demanded.
Tabby didn't bother to answer. She let the breath she'd been holding out in a relieved <i>whoosh,</i> and glared at her teammate. "Don't you have something better to do?"
"Sure. But I wanted to talk to you for a minute." Feral drew back, rising to her full height--Tabby was surprised to realize she'd come to think of Feral's legs as her 'back' legs--and stepped right up into the other girl's face. She sniffed her, then seemed to search her face. Tabitha took a step backward.
"What the hell are you--"
"Did you set the bombs?"
"What? What bombs?"
"Did you set the bombs that have been tearing the fucking city apart for the last 2 hours, princess?"
Meltdown's eyes narrowed. "Of course not." A beat of silence. "Just what the hell are you trying to say?"
"Somebody set the bombs."
"It was the magistrates."
Feral shrugged. "Yeah, probably. Kinda funny how they managed to sneak so many past us though, huh? Almost like they had somebody on the inside."
Meltdown flapped a hand at her. "Whatever. I suggest you take a step back, Feral. This is no time for this shit."
"Says you," she replied with a little smirk. But she stepped back anyway. Then, with a flick of her tail, she darted around Meltdown and followed Rictor's path toward the center of the rubble.
Tabby shook her head in disgust, mouthed the word "Bitch," and began walking back toward the commerce district.
<"Vice-Admiral, we have arrived.">
Vice-Amiral LaPointe nodded in acknowledgement, not bothering to turn from his view of the tiny island nation of Genosha, visible through the glass wall of the command deck. The island loomed up before the leading edge of the French war fleet, immense only in beauty and significance.
It troubled LaPointe that they hadn't been challenged yet. Even with the UN's incomplete knowledge of Genoshan citizenry, experts had calculated that at least half-a-dozen mutants with the power to single-handedly challenge a naval fleet lived on the island, up to and including Magneto himself. LaPointe's fleet had drawn right up to the mouth of Hammer Bay, making an open show of force and aggression. Why hadn't Genosha responded in kind?
<"We will blockade the harbor,"> LaPointe said to the young officer who had spoken. <"Have communications managed to make contact with anyone in Genosha yet?">
<"No sir.">
<"Tell them to continue. If we hear nothing within a half hour, we will begin to move into the harbor in formations of--">
"Vice-Amiral!"
LaPointe turned toward the technician, another young man stationed at one of the comm-ports. <"Sir, there are reports of a woman appearing on the flight deck.">
<"A woman? What do you mean 'appearing'?">
<"She seems to be a teleporter, sir. She's surrendered to the SP's, but she says she's looking for y--">
There was a flash of light on the deck in front of them, and one of his officers was instantly shoving LaPointe to the ground. The light passed and, when LaPointe looked up, he found half his command staff pointing their sidearms at a beautiful woman with red hair and hard eyes.
"Amelia Voght, advisor to Magneto, I presume," LaPointe said, rising to his feet and brushing off the attempted aid of his subordinates.
A smile flicked at the woman's lips, but her voice was all business. "You are commanded by order of Lord Magneto to leave Genoshan waters immediately, Admiral. Any delay on your part will result in aggressive action from Genoshan forces."
There was a beat of silence until LaPointe said, "And that is all? You do not wish to parlay?"
"Don't treat me like an idiot, Admiral. You do not bring a fleet of warships to parlay."
"Granted. But I'm afraid we can't simply turn around and leave. Your countrymen are holding our prime minister hostage."
Voght gritted her teeth. "Genosha had nothing to do with those terrorist acts."
"So you say. And yet you can see by our presence here that we don't quite trust the word of Magneto or his confederates."
Voght nodded. "Let me speak plainly, Admiral. Genosha has mutant defenses that would turn this entire fleet into scrap metal in less than an hour. Alternatively, if I wanted to, I could teleport away at this moment and take your head with me. Please reconsider this course."
LaPointe shook his head, his hands crossed casually behind his broad back. "I will speak plainly as well, Mademoiselle Voght. There are nearly 100 ships in my fleet. Fully one third of them are armed with thermonuclear devices."
Despite her iron control, Voght's jaw dropped open. "Nuclear--are you mad?"
"In a sense, yes. We are very 'mad' that one of our leaders has been abducted from our own soil by a nation not then willing to stand up and admit its crime." He spread his hands. "We have very little in the way of defenses against the power at Magneto's disposal. We know this. But we can ensure that, should we die, at least one of those devices will detonate and take your capital with it."
Voght was quiet for a moment. "I can't believe the UN approved that."
"Who said anything about the UN, young lady? This is a French matter, and is being dealt with in a French manner." When Voght didn't reply, he continued. "We hear all the Western jokes, you know. About how we are trying to make up for certain...personal deficiencies with our perhaps overzealous nuclear testing. Now Genosha will find out once and for all just how overzealous we can be."
Voght's eyes narrowed. "Is that the message I'm to take back to Magneto?"
"Oui. At your pleasure, mademoiselle."
Voght nodded curtly, and in another flash of light, was gone.
Beside LaPointe, his aide holstered his weapon while the other officers who had drawn did the same. <"What now, admiral?"> the younger man asked.
<"We move into the bay, five at a time. And pray that Magneto doesn't think we are bluffing. Give the order.">
<"Aye, sir.">
"I got no problems with mutants, per se," Axe said, swinging Shatterstar around and slamming him bodily into the unforgiving stone wall of the map room. 'Star slid down it, nearly senseless as Axe strode across the floor toward him. "I don't want you to think this whoopin' is racially motivated or nothin'. As an African-American, I feel for your plight as an oppressed minority." He stomped Shatterstar's sternum into the wall, blowing out what little air was left in his opponent's lungs. Something cracked inside Shatterstar's chest cavity.
"It's just you I don't like," Axe finished, crouching down and poking Shatterstar roughly in the chest. He let out a groan.
Axe sighed and stood up. "Still...fun as this's been, I'll be needed up topside here PDQ, so I guess we better just get this over with." He reached behind him with his uninjured hand and pulled free the enormous battleaxe that was his namesake. Then he kicked Shatterstar over onto his side. Still gasping, blood still pouring from his mouth and nose, 'Star managed to prop himself up on his hands.
"Hold that pose," Axe said, and brought his weapon whistling down...right onto the stone floor where Shatterstar's neck had been a second earlier. The impact against the unforgiving rock sent a shockwave up the handle and into Axe's arm that almost made him drop the weapon. He cried out, "Whu--?"
Shatterstar drove his head forward like a battering ram, right into the black man's groin. Axe cried out in surprised pain and stepped backward, letting go of his weapon with one hand to reach down for Shatterstar's topknot. In his haste, he used his injured hand--under normal circumstances it was his strongest--and when that hand came within Shatterstar's grasp, the mutant bit down on the splinted finger.
Axe positively howled, and in desperation--no way was this punk beating him after he'd been pounding on him for an hour, no way--swung his axe down clumsily with one hand. But Shatterstar was moving faster now, gaining momentum and clarity by the moment. He moved inside the swing, let go of Axe's finger, pivoted, and swept the giant's legs out from under him.
The big man went down with a thud, still managing to hold onto his weapon...but that did him no good as Shatterstar relieved him of it a moment later, his knee pressed to Axe's throat.
"And now," Shatterstar said, leaning in close. His face was a riot of purple-black, swollen and bleeding. One eye was nearly shut, and the first two fingers on his right hand were bent backward. And none of this made a difference because Axe was screwed anyway. The little bastard had him.
"And now," he repeated. "Tell me what the Magistrates are planning that I might have interfered with."
"Go...to...hell," Axe managed to squeak out.
"They're going to storm Hammer Bay," Shatterstar said with dead certainty. "And you Harriers are going to help them."
"Man, kiss my--"
There was a whistling sound, and the klang of metal striking stone again, and Axe felt an odd tugging sensation on his right hand. He looked over--unaware that he was already going into shock, and saw his own axe buried in his hand. The blade had cleaved the first two fingers and part of the palm free. The tug he'd felt had actually been the rhythmic jets of blood pulsing out of his half-stump.
Axe began to scream, but Shatterstar increased the pressure on his throat and it stopped him.
"I don't have time to play 20 Questions with you," the mutant hissed--or tried to, it was hard to hiss effectively with his face so swollen. "Tell me what's happening, what I'm walking into. Do it now before I cancel you."
"The...the magistrates--the ones who were actually part of the Genoshan forces--they're making a suicide run on Magneto."
"Why? What purpose does it serve?"
"Man...I don't--"
Shatterstar lifted the axe again, giving Axe an unobstructed view of the displaced portion of his hand. "Hazard a guess."
"This...this is their country, their home. You know how they are--proud. Can't just walk away from your home."
"Then why the ruse with the trucks, with the evacuation?"
"No trick, man. They're evacuating their families. They know they don't have much chance...even--even after softening Hammer Bay up with some bombs, man. They know..."
"Bombs?"
"We...helped them...plant bombs all over the city. Got access through the tunnels...and they got another mutant contact on the inside. I didn't--"
Shatterstar put a finger to the man's lips. Then, very slowly, he rose to his feet. Axe started to follow him, but Shatterstar put a boot on his chest and shoved him back down.
"I estimate you have nearly two minutes left before you've lost a critical amount of blood. If you can stay conscious long enough to fashion a tourniquet, you should make it. However, I guarantee that if you try to stand right now, you will pass out. And you will die. So stay on the ground."
Tears were starting to form in the big man's eyes--from pain, no doubt. Shatterstar was amazed he'd held onto himself for this long. "Get you...you fucking--"
But Shatterstar stopped listening. He lifted his foot from the Harrier and moved quickly and silently to the door. After a moment of listening at the door--made longer by the interfering grunts and tearing of cloth from Axe--he opened it and stepped out into the corridor.
He was alone...and his swords were lying on the floor to his left. Discarded carelessly. Shatterstar leaned against the wall to catch his breath before picking them up.
Those fools. Those amazing fools. And they had tricked him so utterly.
No, he realized. Not tricked him. They were getting their families off of the island, the evacuation was happening as he stood here. The innocents--that girl, Caroline--they would all be safe.
Before he could think about it too much, Shatterstar wrapped his left hand around the two fingers axe had snapped and, with a grunt and the scrape of bones, straightened them. The pain was incredible, worse than when they'd been broken, but he bore it, and he kept his voice down.
He squatted, picked up one of his swords, and placed it in his injured hand. Then he undid the tie holding his hair in a ponytail and, using his good hand and his teeth, lashed the sword hilt to his hand. He still wouldn't be much use with that hand, but at least he wouldn't drop the sword.
Scooping up the other sword, Shatterstar rose to his feet and hurried off quietly down the stone corridor. He had no idea what he could do to curb the bloodshed that was probably even now engulfing Hammer Bay. He knew only that he bore grave responsibility in this matter, and his warrior's heart would not let him rest until he had tried.
The lead truck came to the cliffs in the late morning. After the appropriate signals were given to assure that neither the convoy nor the outpost had been compromised, Blindside hopped down off the lead truck and hurried toward the cliffs to meet her approaching teammate, Lifeline.
"Are we ready?"
Lifeline gave a thumbs-up. "No trouble getting here?"
"None so far, but this is just the first convoy. What about you?"
"Good to go. We've got local cloaking devices on the lifts. We can lower the refugees down the cliffside to the beach twenty at a time. How many you got with this load?"
"Two hundred fifty."
"Right. We better get to work then. Get 'em out here."
Blindside signaled to the driver of the lead truck, and one-by-one, the small holographic cloaking devices concealing the refugees behind barriers inside the trucks deactivated, and a flood of humanity began to pour out onto the grass.
"We will suffocate soon."
Gomi looked up, startled. The prime minister hadn't said a dozen words to him since he'd come back into the cell, and Bill was ever-silent, so he'd started to fall into a light doze while they waited for someone to come dig them out.
Someone would come, he was sure of this.
"We won't suffocate," Gomi said.
"I think we will," the prime minister returned. They were both sitting in his cell now, though Gomi had left the door propped open should the man get an irresistible itch to walk to the end of the corridor or something. Neither of them could go any farther than that.
"You think the embassy collapsed and made a perfectly airtight seal over us?"
"Perhaps not perfectly so, but close enough. Tell me you do not feel that the air is getting stuffy in here."
Gomi frowned. He was right. It was getting stuffy. And hot. And if the other man had happened to doze off like Gomi had, he thought it possible--maybe even likely--that neither of them would have ever woken up.
In Case You're Just Joining Us: In response to The Fallen Angels' kidnapping of the French prime minister, and Magneto's continued insistence that his country has nothing to do with the terrorists, France sends a fleet of warships to Genosha. Meanwhile, terrorist bombs continued to wrack Hammer Bay. Sunspot was delivered to the hospital after being near the first blast, and Gomi was trapped beneath the Symkarian Embassy by another explosion. Siena Blaze decided to forego her psychiatric session and visit the ravaged downtown area instead. As of yet, Magneto has failed to make an appearance in response to all of this.
"I don't need your civil war."
- Guns N' Roses
'Gomi' had been his name for so long that he barely remembered what the one on his birth certificate had been. At first it had just been a nickname, given him by his brilliant but utterly whacked-out older brother. Gomi had accepted the name proudly for weeks, helping his brother and his brother's best friend in their cybernetic research on the shores of Maine. It had been a while before one of them let it slip that 'gomi' was Japanese for 'garbage'.
But the fun hadn't stopped there, oh no. The same brother and friend-of-brother duo had chloroformed him and installed cybernetic parts in him in an effort to duplicate the telekinetic powers of the X-Man called 'Marvel Girl'--no, don't ask--and they'd partially succeeded. Except that instead of the nicey-nice, elegant, pick-up-things kind of telekinesis, Gomi had ended up with the battering-ram, destroys-everything-in-its-path kind.
The powers had ended up being a blessing, he supposed. And certainly, without his brother's research, he never would have met Bill the Lobster, but Gomi had finally come to the conclusion not so long ago that his brother really had been a monumental dick. Therefore, a lot of who he was and how he acted was predicated on <i>not</i> being like his brother.
He thought of this as he looked at the pile of rubble that had once been a stairwell leading out of the basement of the Symkarian Embassy in Genosha. There'd been some kind of fighting going on topside all day, but someone had finally gone ahead and blown the embassy up.
Leaving Gomi and Bill the Lobster trapped in the basement, with no way to call for help and no way to tell if there was even anyone up there who could help them. Oh yeah, and their only companion in all of this was the Prime Minister of France, who had been kidnapped and imprisoned by the Fallen Angels for France's questionable stance on certain mutant issues. Gomi had been down here threatening the man's family when the explosion had hit.
Which brought him back to what he'd been thinking about his brother, and how he didn't want to be like him.
Gomi looked at the blue-shelled lobster sitting on his shoulder, its giant cartoon eyes narrowed in frustration. "Come on, Bill. We've got an apology to make. And then we've got to figure out how we're going to get that man out of here."
Shatterstar paced in front of the trucks that would ferry the magistrates and their families to the evacuation point. The first wave was being loaded, even though it was barely four in the morning, and Shatterstar couldn't quite fight down the jitters he was feeling. (His tired mind, reverting back to its old television rhetoric, thought of these jitters as 'static'.)
He wanted to get this over with. Once the civilians were safe, his commitment here would be finished, and he could return to the surface and find out what was going on in Hammer Bay. France had apparently declared war on the tiny island nation of Genosha, and Shatterstar wanted to rail at his inability to do anything about that when he still had so much to do here.
"Shatterstar," a familiar voice said, and he turned to find Talib Singh Chauhan, aged Magistrate and the man who had won his trust back when this all began, approaching him. Talib was slight and dark-skinned, with a white beard that dropped below his collarbone. He put a hand on Shatterstar's shoulder and gestured back in the direction he'd come.
"A final look at the maps, and then a toast for luck," the old man said.
Shatterstar nodded--even though he'd already looked at the maps until their images seemed burned into his retinas, and that he had no intention of drinking anything even remotely mind-altering today. He followed the man back to the makeshift map/council room.
The maps tracing the trucks' escape route were still spread out across the worn tables, and Shatterstar rubbed his eyes wearily as he entered the room directly behind Talib. What was that old commercial Meltdown always quoted? Time to make the donuts...
He sensed the attack a moment before the blow landed, but he was far too tired and taken far too expertly by surprise to avoid it. A fist the size of a Christmas ham smashed into the right side of his head and sent him sprawling across the room. He slammed shoulder-first into the wall and slid down it, reaching--feebly and much too slowly--for the swords crisscrossed over his back.
"Unh-uh," came a deep bass rumble that was depressingly familiar. The same hand that had sucker-punched him seized his groping hand by the wrist, and its mate wrapped around his index and middle fingers. The hand tugged and there was a snap, Shatterstar grunted in pain, cradling his hand, and only dimly aware of someone removing his swords from his back.
"Take these," the bass rumble said, and its owner handed the swords and bandolier to Magistrate Chauhan.
"Bastard..." Shatterstar groaned, swiveling his eyes up toward Talib. "I helped you. Why...do this?"
"Because the stakes are such that we dare not take any chances. And, frankly...I have not been entirely honest with you about our intent." The old man snapped off a salute that wasn't at all sarcastic. "My comrades and their families thank you for all your help, Shatterstar. None of us will be slaves to Magneto's will any longer.
"Make it quick," he said to the room's other occupant. "We owe him that much at least." Then he turned and slipped out the door, closing and locking it behind him.
"Oh, I owe this punk alright." Shatterstar was seized by the collar and pulled upright, right into the wide, grinning face of the mercenary Harrier named Axe. The man put his free hand up in 'Star's face, displaying the bandage and splint encapsulating his index finger.
"Remember this, you prancing little homo? I do. Time for you to feel the pain."
Talib Singh Chauhan finished locking the door behind him and regarded the swords he was carrying. Carelessly, he tossed them aside and looked into the faces of the men that had gathered outside the room while he'd been inside.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes" drifted up from a dozen different mouths, but one voice dissented.
"Must we let that behemoth beat him to death?" Magistrate Henri Diesing growled. The wooden legs he'd been wearing the day before had been replaced with sturdier, metal ones, and he had a plasma rifle shouldered on one arm.
"If it makes the mercenaries happy, then yes," Talib replied.
"He is a good man, he deserves better."
Talib's eyebrows flicked upward in amusement. "How you've changed your tune since I first introduced you, Henri!"
The young man scowled and leaned against the wall so he could rub the point where his fleshy knee met his metal calf. "If there's one mutant we owe allegiance to, it's that man in there."
"Unfortunately, that's not an option," another of the magistrates spoke up. "Or do you suppose he'll sit idly by while we storm the streets of Hammer Bay?"
"And we simply can't take the chance that he'll escape. The lives of our loved ones depend on us, Henri. Will it be them or this mutant?"
Henri was silent for a time, not quite able to look his comrades in the face. Finally he straightened and unslung his rifle, dropping it into both hands.
"Let's go."
The first cargo truck trundled up the ramp and stopped at a hand-signal from a beefy white man wearing thick glasses. He checked his watch, then slowly pushed one of the double-doors that blocked the truck's path open to take a look outside.
After a moment, he returned and moved to the cab. The driver gave him a thumbs-up, and he continued around to the back. There were five more trucks waiting on the ramp behind this one, plunging backward into the earth.
"Any problems, Shotgun?" the woman with the closely-cropped hair said. She was hanging onto the back of the truck, which appeared to otherwise be empty.
"Nope, no problems," the man with the glasses said. He had a thick accent, native to the US South. "You're good to go."
"See ya then."
"Be careful, Blindside."
"Always."
Shotgun moved back up to the front of the column and shoved the other door open. Overgrown, grassy plains spread out before the lead truck. Shotgun put up a hand to the lead truck driver, stepped outside to have one more look, then went ahead and waved the truck out.
Slowly, the first convoy of human refugees exited the Genoshan underground through a tiny hillside to the west of Hammer Bay. In single file, each of them turned onto the western road and began their slow trek across the island.
The recently-completed commerce district in Hammer Bay had stopped burning less than an hour ago, and a thick pall of smoke still hung over the streets as mutants moved through them, helping the injured and carrying away the dead in equal measure. The new medical facility--little more than a MASH unit in an old schoolhouse--was filled past capacity, and its staff was already uniformly exhausted. Mutants with no medical training but whose gifts could be of some help to the rescue effort were being enlisted to assist both at the hospital and in the streets.
And above it all, Magneto continued to sit atop his tower.
Siena Blaze stood at the southeastern edge of the commerce district, ignoring the agony around her as she gazed up at Avalon Tower. She didn't give much of a shit about the people who were dying, and she sure didn't care that Magneto hadn't descended to help them...but it did make her curious. She would have thought Mags would either be down here ripping the demolished buildings apart to find survivors, or somewhere else wreaking vengeance on whoever had done this. But he did neither. He just sat up there. What was he doing? What was he waiting for?
And why was she bothering her head about it? Yeah, okay, Mags was sorta sexy in a daddy kinda way...but, y'know, what the fuck? Why was she even hanging out here? It was getting to be a drag.
She began walking in the general direction of the Tower, not in any particular hurry as streams of people rushed past in either direction. She began making vague plans to take one of the state's shuttles off somewhere. The psychiatrist wouldn't be happy with that, but she could kiss Siena's silky white--
She paused. A familiar face had just moved past her, heading back toward the commerce district. She turned and followed him with her eyes. What was his name...Darden? Dent? Delgado? Yeah, that was it. Harry Delgado. The psychiatrist had told her about him. He'd been one of the first people on the scene when Mother of Hope was destroyed. Former Acolyte. Nice ass and gorgeous eyes, but wound a little too tight for Siena's taste. She was about to turn away from him when she saw another former Acolyte--Kleinstock something-or-other--head Delgado off. The two men talked heatedly for a moment, Delgado seemingly in a hurry to be on his way to the disaster zone and Kleinstock apparently with other ideas. Delgado said something, swiping a hand angrily through the air, but whatever it was Kleinstock said to him in reply gave him pause. He sighed, his shoulders slumped, and he nodded. Then he followed Kleinstock down a side road, away from the destruction.
Siena smiled. Two former Acolytes--Magneto's forsaken worshippers--running off to have a private powwow in the middle of Armageddon. Looked interesting. And what the hell, it wasn't like she had anything else to do.
She turned back and followed them.
"Ai... This is not good."
Rictor and Meltdown stood before the pile of smoking rubble that had, until about an hour ago, been the Symkarian Embassy to Genosha. The building was brand new, and had come to represent Magneto's fledgling efforts to reach out to the rest of the world. It had been a surprising step for the man, surely not an easy one. And now it was moot.
The rescue workers moved along the outskirts of the structure. The building hadn't been occupied yet, but the blast had been sufficient to kill every unprotected mutant within half a block, and to grievously injure a whole bunch of people beyond it. As far as most of Genosha was concerned, there were no bodies to be found in the collapsed embassy.
Rictor and Meltdown knew better.
"He's gone," Meltdown said, shaking her head. "No way he survived that blast."
"We stashed him in the sub-basement. It's possible the structure didn't collapse that far."
Meltdown started to disagree...but then she remembered who she was talking to. Rictor was the resident expert on knocking buildings down, after all. "So what do we do?" she asked.
"We start digging."
Meltdown shook her head. "No. Forget it. There are mutants who need our help back in the commerce district. I'm not going to leave them so I can dig some fat-ass, garlic-smelling, bigoted Frog out of a hole in the ground, especially when he's most likely dead already."
She started to turn away, but Rictor grabbed her arm. "Tabby, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Nothing's wrong with me. The guy's dead, Ric! And I've got more important things to deal with."
He snarled and let go of her arm, shoving her a little as he did so. She stumbled backward, her mouth falling open in surprise. "More important things? We put that man down there! And it doesn't matter that he's the prime minister of France or, or that he's a prisoner. We. Are. Responsible. For. Him!"
Tabby gaped at him, her expression twisted somewhere between shock and rage.
"And if you disagree," Rictor hissed, "than go ahead and run back to Bobby. Or to Magneto. Or to any of the other people who let this place turn them into assholes."
He spun around and began working his way toward the center of the rubble. Tabby stood there, her jaw working but no sound coming from her throat.
"Ric," she started, taking a step toward his retreating back.
"What's the matter, Boom Boom? He hurt your feelings?"
Tabby spun around, and found herself facing a crouching orange she-tiger. She drew in breath in surprise and took a quick step backwards, very nearly generating a plasma bomb to defend herself with before she realized it wasn't a tiger at all. It was Feral, just Feral. But the way she'd been holding herself, the arch of her back...for just a second there--
"What're you looking at?" Feral demanded.
Tabby didn't bother to answer. She let the breath she'd been holding out in a relieved <i>whoosh,</i> and glared at her teammate. "Don't you have something better to do?"
"Sure. But I wanted to talk to you for a minute." Feral drew back, rising to her full height--Tabby was surprised to realize she'd come to think of Feral's legs as her 'back' legs--and stepped right up into the other girl's face. She sniffed her, then seemed to search her face. Tabitha took a step backward.
"What the hell are you--"
"Did you set the bombs?"
"What? What bombs?"
"Did you set the bombs that have been tearing the fucking city apart for the last 2 hours, princess?"
Meltdown's eyes narrowed. "Of course not." A beat of silence. "Just what the hell are you trying to say?"
"Somebody set the bombs."
"It was the magistrates."
Feral shrugged. "Yeah, probably. Kinda funny how they managed to sneak so many past us though, huh? Almost like they had somebody on the inside."
Meltdown flapped a hand at her. "Whatever. I suggest you take a step back, Feral. This is no time for this shit."
"Says you," she replied with a little smirk. But she stepped back anyway. Then, with a flick of her tail, she darted around Meltdown and followed Rictor's path toward the center of the rubble.
Tabby shook her head in disgust, mouthed the word "Bitch," and began walking back toward the commerce district.
<"Vice-Admiral, we have arrived.">
Vice-Amiral LaPointe nodded in acknowledgement, not bothering to turn from his view of the tiny island nation of Genosha, visible through the glass wall of the command deck. The island loomed up before the leading edge of the French war fleet, immense only in beauty and significance.
It troubled LaPointe that they hadn't been challenged yet. Even with the UN's incomplete knowledge of Genoshan citizenry, experts had calculated that at least half-a-dozen mutants with the power to single-handedly challenge a naval fleet lived on the island, up to and including Magneto himself. LaPointe's fleet had drawn right up to the mouth of Hammer Bay, making an open show of force and aggression. Why hadn't Genosha responded in kind?
<"We will blockade the harbor,"> LaPointe said to the young officer who had spoken. <"Have communications managed to make contact with anyone in Genosha yet?">
<"No sir.">
<"Tell them to continue. If we hear nothing within a half hour, we will begin to move into the harbor in formations of--">
"Vice-Amiral!"
LaPointe turned toward the technician, another young man stationed at one of the comm-ports. <"Sir, there are reports of a woman appearing on the flight deck.">
<"A woman? What do you mean 'appearing'?">
<"She seems to be a teleporter, sir. She's surrendered to the SP's, but she says she's looking for y--">
There was a flash of light on the deck in front of them, and one of his officers was instantly shoving LaPointe to the ground. The light passed and, when LaPointe looked up, he found half his command staff pointing their sidearms at a beautiful woman with red hair and hard eyes.
"Amelia Voght, advisor to Magneto, I presume," LaPointe said, rising to his feet and brushing off the attempted aid of his subordinates.
A smile flicked at the woman's lips, but her voice was all business. "You are commanded by order of Lord Magneto to leave Genoshan waters immediately, Admiral. Any delay on your part will result in aggressive action from Genoshan forces."
There was a beat of silence until LaPointe said, "And that is all? You do not wish to parlay?"
"Don't treat me like an idiot, Admiral. You do not bring a fleet of warships to parlay."
"Granted. But I'm afraid we can't simply turn around and leave. Your countrymen are holding our prime minister hostage."
Voght gritted her teeth. "Genosha had nothing to do with those terrorist acts."
"So you say. And yet you can see by our presence here that we don't quite trust the word of Magneto or his confederates."
Voght nodded. "Let me speak plainly, Admiral. Genosha has mutant defenses that would turn this entire fleet into scrap metal in less than an hour. Alternatively, if I wanted to, I could teleport away at this moment and take your head with me. Please reconsider this course."
LaPointe shook his head, his hands crossed casually behind his broad back. "I will speak plainly as well, Mademoiselle Voght. There are nearly 100 ships in my fleet. Fully one third of them are armed with thermonuclear devices."
Despite her iron control, Voght's jaw dropped open. "Nuclear--are you mad?"
"In a sense, yes. We are very 'mad' that one of our leaders has been abducted from our own soil by a nation not then willing to stand up and admit its crime." He spread his hands. "We have very little in the way of defenses against the power at Magneto's disposal. We know this. But we can ensure that, should we die, at least one of those devices will detonate and take your capital with it."
Voght was quiet for a moment. "I can't believe the UN approved that."
"Who said anything about the UN, young lady? This is a French matter, and is being dealt with in a French manner." When Voght didn't reply, he continued. "We hear all the Western jokes, you know. About how we are trying to make up for certain...personal deficiencies with our perhaps overzealous nuclear testing. Now Genosha will find out once and for all just how overzealous we can be."
Voght's eyes narrowed. "Is that the message I'm to take back to Magneto?"
"Oui. At your pleasure, mademoiselle."
Voght nodded curtly, and in another flash of light, was gone.
Beside LaPointe, his aide holstered his weapon while the other officers who had drawn did the same. <"What now, admiral?"> the younger man asked.
<"We move into the bay, five at a time. And pray that Magneto doesn't think we are bluffing. Give the order.">
<"Aye, sir.">
"I got no problems with mutants, per se," Axe said, swinging Shatterstar around and slamming him bodily into the unforgiving stone wall of the map room. 'Star slid down it, nearly senseless as Axe strode across the floor toward him. "I don't want you to think this whoopin' is racially motivated or nothin'. As an African-American, I feel for your plight as an oppressed minority." He stomped Shatterstar's sternum into the wall, blowing out what little air was left in his opponent's lungs. Something cracked inside Shatterstar's chest cavity.
"It's just you I don't like," Axe finished, crouching down and poking Shatterstar roughly in the chest. He let out a groan.
Axe sighed and stood up. "Still...fun as this's been, I'll be needed up topside here PDQ, so I guess we better just get this over with." He reached behind him with his uninjured hand and pulled free the enormous battleaxe that was his namesake. Then he kicked Shatterstar over onto his side. Still gasping, blood still pouring from his mouth and nose, 'Star managed to prop himself up on his hands.
"Hold that pose," Axe said, and brought his weapon whistling down...right onto the stone floor where Shatterstar's neck had been a second earlier. The impact against the unforgiving rock sent a shockwave up the handle and into Axe's arm that almost made him drop the weapon. He cried out, "Whu--?"
Shatterstar drove his head forward like a battering ram, right into the black man's groin. Axe cried out in surprised pain and stepped backward, letting go of his weapon with one hand to reach down for Shatterstar's topknot. In his haste, he used his injured hand--under normal circumstances it was his strongest--and when that hand came within Shatterstar's grasp, the mutant bit down on the splinted finger.
Axe positively howled, and in desperation--no way was this punk beating him after he'd been pounding on him for an hour, no way--swung his axe down clumsily with one hand. But Shatterstar was moving faster now, gaining momentum and clarity by the moment. He moved inside the swing, let go of Axe's finger, pivoted, and swept the giant's legs out from under him.
The big man went down with a thud, still managing to hold onto his weapon...but that did him no good as Shatterstar relieved him of it a moment later, his knee pressed to Axe's throat.
"And now," Shatterstar said, leaning in close. His face was a riot of purple-black, swollen and bleeding. One eye was nearly shut, and the first two fingers on his right hand were bent backward. And none of this made a difference because Axe was screwed anyway. The little bastard had him.
"And now," he repeated. "Tell me what the Magistrates are planning that I might have interfered with."
"Go...to...hell," Axe managed to squeak out.
"They're going to storm Hammer Bay," Shatterstar said with dead certainty. "And you Harriers are going to help them."
"Man, kiss my--"
There was a whistling sound, and the klang of metal striking stone again, and Axe felt an odd tugging sensation on his right hand. He looked over--unaware that he was already going into shock, and saw his own axe buried in his hand. The blade had cleaved the first two fingers and part of the palm free. The tug he'd felt had actually been the rhythmic jets of blood pulsing out of his half-stump.
Axe began to scream, but Shatterstar increased the pressure on his throat and it stopped him.
"I don't have time to play 20 Questions with you," the mutant hissed--or tried to, it was hard to hiss effectively with his face so swollen. "Tell me what's happening, what I'm walking into. Do it now before I cancel you."
"The...the magistrates--the ones who were actually part of the Genoshan forces--they're making a suicide run on Magneto."
"Why? What purpose does it serve?"
"Man...I don't--"
Shatterstar lifted the axe again, giving Axe an unobstructed view of the displaced portion of his hand. "Hazard a guess."
"This...this is their country, their home. You know how they are--proud. Can't just walk away from your home."
"Then why the ruse with the trucks, with the evacuation?"
"No trick, man. They're evacuating their families. They know they don't have much chance...even--even after softening Hammer Bay up with some bombs, man. They know..."
"Bombs?"
"We...helped them...plant bombs all over the city. Got access through the tunnels...and they got another mutant contact on the inside. I didn't--"
Shatterstar put a finger to the man's lips. Then, very slowly, he rose to his feet. Axe started to follow him, but Shatterstar put a boot on his chest and shoved him back down.
"I estimate you have nearly two minutes left before you've lost a critical amount of blood. If you can stay conscious long enough to fashion a tourniquet, you should make it. However, I guarantee that if you try to stand right now, you will pass out. And you will die. So stay on the ground."
Tears were starting to form in the big man's eyes--from pain, no doubt. Shatterstar was amazed he'd held onto himself for this long. "Get you...you fucking--"
But Shatterstar stopped listening. He lifted his foot from the Harrier and moved quickly and silently to the door. After a moment of listening at the door--made longer by the interfering grunts and tearing of cloth from Axe--he opened it and stepped out into the corridor.
He was alone...and his swords were lying on the floor to his left. Discarded carelessly. Shatterstar leaned against the wall to catch his breath before picking them up.
Those fools. Those amazing fools. And they had tricked him so utterly.
No, he realized. Not tricked him. They were getting their families off of the island, the evacuation was happening as he stood here. The innocents--that girl, Caroline--they would all be safe.
Before he could think about it too much, Shatterstar wrapped his left hand around the two fingers axe had snapped and, with a grunt and the scrape of bones, straightened them. The pain was incredible, worse than when they'd been broken, but he bore it, and he kept his voice down.
He squatted, picked up one of his swords, and placed it in his injured hand. Then he undid the tie holding his hair in a ponytail and, using his good hand and his teeth, lashed the sword hilt to his hand. He still wouldn't be much use with that hand, but at least he wouldn't drop the sword.
Scooping up the other sword, Shatterstar rose to his feet and hurried off quietly down the stone corridor. He had no idea what he could do to curb the bloodshed that was probably even now engulfing Hammer Bay. He knew only that he bore grave responsibility in this matter, and his warrior's heart would not let him rest until he had tried.
The lead truck came to the cliffs in the late morning. After the appropriate signals were given to assure that neither the convoy nor the outpost had been compromised, Blindside hopped down off the lead truck and hurried toward the cliffs to meet her approaching teammate, Lifeline.
"Are we ready?"
Lifeline gave a thumbs-up. "No trouble getting here?"
"None so far, but this is just the first convoy. What about you?"
"Good to go. We've got local cloaking devices on the lifts. We can lower the refugees down the cliffside to the beach twenty at a time. How many you got with this load?"
"Two hundred fifty."
"Right. We better get to work then. Get 'em out here."
Blindside signaled to the driver of the lead truck, and one-by-one, the small holographic cloaking devices concealing the refugees behind barriers inside the trucks deactivated, and a flood of humanity began to pour out onto the grass.
"We will suffocate soon."
Gomi looked up, startled. The prime minister hadn't said a dozen words to him since he'd come back into the cell, and Bill was ever-silent, so he'd started to fall into a light doze while they waited for someone to come dig them out.
Someone would come, he was sure of this.
"We won't suffocate," Gomi said.
"I think we will," the prime minister returned. They were both sitting in his cell now, though Gomi had left the door propped open should the man get an irresistible itch to walk to the end of the corridor or something. Neither of them could go any farther than that.
"You think the embassy collapsed and made a perfectly airtight seal over us?"
"Perhaps not perfectly so, but close enough. Tell me you do not feel that the air is getting stuffy in here."
Gomi frowned. He was right. It was getting stuffy. And hot. And if the other man had happened to doze off like Gomi had, he thought it possible--maybe even likely--that neither of them would have ever woken up.