Issue #11 by D. Golightly
April 2023 Cypher
Daken
Xorn
Morph
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"FOLLOW THE MONEY"Somewhere in Canada
A modified Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave heavy-lift helicopter throttled back as it ascended over a mountain ridge, its belly barely brushing by the tree line. Three members of the Mutant Response Team, which was now under the watchful eye of the X-Factor Sanction Enforcement branch of the U.S. government, watched silently as the borrowed pilot took them deeper into the Great White North. It was the same vehicle they had commandeered to take them into Russia on their pursuit of Professor Power, a madman that was slicing up the mutant genome to make Omega-level soldiers. Power had gotten away from them, but thanks to the shape-shifter Morph, they had a solid lead of tracking him down again. Morph pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had the most experience butting heads with Power over the years, so even though he knew this was their best chance at locating him, he still had his doubts. The man was slippery, proven by the fact that even though he had made bids for domination at least twice, he still held sway in multiple government agencies. “Anything?” Cypher asked, breaking up the monotonous tone of the chopper blades. The omnilinquist was biting his bottom lip and had been for most of the flight. Morph shook his head and glanced back down at the laptop unfolded on his thighs. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m tracing the funds as Power transfers them. We know they are ultimately headed for this province in Canada, but it’s not like a GPS. I can’t give a specific location until the funds stop bouncing around.” “No quips?” Xorn, the third and final passenger inquired. “Nothing about follow the bouncing dollar signs, penetrating their fiscal lines…nothing?” Morph didn’t even look up when he replied, “Not when it comes to Power.” Cypher traded a look with Xorn, or at least he believed he had. His mutant powers allowed him to read body language, so he knew that Morph was frustrated and anxious, and that Xorn was concerned given his behavioral norms, but with Xorn’s helmet on Cypher was cut off from half of her non-verbal cues. Since discovering that she was a Lorna Dane from another dimension, or Lorna Summers as a matter of fact, Xorn had been relaying mixed singles through her proxemics and other non-verbals. He knew she was relieved that her identity had been revealed to her teammates, but at the same time worried that the knowledge would lead someone else to her. A very bad someone from her dimension that wanted to use her incredible mastery over the entire electromagnetic spectrum for their own purposes. “And nothing on Daken, either?” Cypher asked, turning his attention back to Morph. Morph rolled his eyes. “That ungrateful Wolverine wannabe abandoned us back at the Archive. Again. Who knows where he went? Or why? Or how? Or when? Or what? Or other questions that I honestly don’t care about anymore. The XSE should put a collar on him.” Morph leaned into his laptop, muttering, “A flea collar.” “Maybe he’s gone back to the Archive, looking for us,” Cypher offered. “Maybe—” “Maybe he’s a selfish jerk that doesn’t care about being on a team,” Xorn said as she crossed her arms. She would have rather been flying under her own power, but respected the fact that their ultimate destination was still unknown. “Face it, Doug. We aren’t anything like the X-Men. This isn’t a family. This is a government sanctioned, but disavowed team that even Havok lost control of when the XSE came in. And now we’re crossing international borders to find a criminal figurehead that may or may not actually be on site.” She was right. It had been a long time since Doug had run with anyone even remotely like the New Mutants. He sat back down next to Xorn and rubbed his right leg, which had been replaced by a techno-organic prosthetic of unknown origins as part of being brought back to life by the Resurrection Wave induced by a mutant called Wicked. His life barely made any sense, and he hadn’t gotten any closer to discovering anything about his rebirth since joining the Mutant Response Team, which was what Havok had promised him in the first place. And now, to Xorn’s point, Havok had been cut out of the picture completely. He found himself wondering what the point of any of this even was anymore. “Found it!” Morph cried out. He leapt up and dashed to the cockpit, relaying coordinates to the pilot, an XSE wing jockey that Abigail Brand had agreed to loan them. The chopper suddenly veered to one side, building g-forces in the cabin. They leveled out quickly and the pilot threw as much speed as he could into their approach. Morph spun around, mashing one fist into the other as he nodded his head. “The trace completed?” Cypher asked. “It took a billion hours for Power to stop playing fast and lose with his illegal transfers, but yeah, he finally bottlenecked the cash.” Morph twisted his neck back and forth, cracking the malleable bones. “We’re close, too. Should be just over the next few ridges.” “Okay, good.” Cypher bounced up and started stretching, working the kinks out of his joints after sitting in the chopper for what seemed like forever. “Remember the plan. We get dropped a mile from the destination in as much cover as possible. We’ll have to think of an inception point on the fly. Xorn can scout ahead and tell us any blind spots in their security. You and I can use subterfuge to gain entry. Xorn, you just be ready on the outskirts and be backup. Once we figure out if Power is on the premises or not, we’ll call you in to start dealing damage.” Morph slid open the cabin door, shifting the pressure, but not enough to do more than blast them with freezing wind. He stretched his neck, elongating it to be more like a giraffe than a human, and tried to get a look at their destination. “Oh,” Morph said, yanking his own head back into the chopper. “Crap. We should abort. Like, now.” “What?” Xorn said, standing up. “Why? What is going—” Proximity alarms started to blare, accompanied by red flashing lights. The pilot yelled back for them to brace themselves and the chopper veered again, this time much more aggressively. A soft blue field of energy encircled Xorn, lifting her off the cabin floor so that she wasn’t shifted like Cypher and Morph. She launched herself out of the open side door to get a look at what they needed to brace for and was surprised to see two LAMs* ripping through the skyline toward them. Their grey warheads sliced through the air, matching the choppers trajectory. She had seconds to act before Morph, Cypher, and the pilot were obliterated. * [land-attack missiles] Like lightning, she shot herself in between the chopper and the missiles, extending her gloved hands toward them. The sockets of her eerie metal helmet burned a brilliant cobalt as she summoned her power, bending the ripples of magnetic force that blanketed the entire planet. Twin streaks of energy lanced out from her palms, slamming into the warheads and bombarding them with various kinds of radiation and electromagnetic power. The outer shells melted instantly and the explosives housed within had no choice but to absorb the deadly and incendiary force. KRA-BOOM! The concussive force from the dual explosions tilted the chopper on its side, sending it barreling down to the ground below. Xorn shouted at her teammates and dove after them, but her head was spinning from being so close to the missiles detonating and her flight path was curved and sporadic. She would never reach them in time. A hundred feet before impact, a massive green thing with leathery wings and a snout birthed out of the side door, clutching Cypher in one massive claw and the pilot in the other. Its green wings flapped wildly at first to right them, but after a moment seemed to get its bearings as the chopper continued to descend beneath them. It hovered and glanced down at the crashing vehicle, watching it smash into the side of a rocky outcropping in the landscape. Sparks and smoke both erupted from the wreckage, and the noise had nearly been deafening, but they had gotten out alive. Xorn rushed to hover next to the flapping beast. “Morph?” she asked. “Are you okay?” The creature’s mouth twisted in an odd way to enable it to speak. “Let’s get them down. Cypher is good, but the pilot may not be.” They descended a few dozen yards from the wreckage and once Cypher could touch the ground again, Morph’s beast form let him go. Cypher rushed to the pilot’s side and helped Morph set him down as comfortably as possible on the ground. “Call for medevac,” Cypher said, and Xorn nodded, grasping a radio clipped to her belt. Morph’s green dragon shifted and contorted, shrinking down until it had the chalky features and yellow and blue X-Men uniform they were used to seeing. “We should all evacuate,” he said. “We’re on the brink of an international incident. We should stabilize this guy and start running. Now.” Xorn turned her attention to the direction they had been headed, using her powers to see the various electromagnetic signals and webs covering the area. Her eyes flashed blue and she rose into the air above the tree line, saw what the energy webs were focused on, and lowered down to her teammates again. “We’re about two miles out from a lone white building with a stylized Canadian symbol on the side of it,” she reported. “Lots of troop activity and I can see the ion trails from the rockets. They came from that facility. They’re taking in a lot of power. A lot. Whoever they are, they’ll be here in minutes and we are not prepared to take them on.” “They don’t have Department H on your world?” Morph asked. “Department H?” Cypher blurted out. “Are you serious? As in, the Canadian government’s superhuman affairs branch? As in, Alpha Flight?” Morph nodded and leaned down to assess the pilot. “Recognized the building from when Xavier used to send me there to spy on them.” “Why is Power sending money to Department H?” Cypher asked. “Don’t know; don’t care.” Morph shape-shifted his arms to wrap around the unconscious pilot, binding him in layers of chalk-white flesh. “Lorna’s right. We are not prepared to take on Department H. Power is one thing, but if he’s really involved with Canada’s answer to the Avengers, there is no telling what we’re stepping in the middle of. We have to leave. Now. Call the XSE. Call the X-Men. Hell, I’d even settle for the Great Lakes Avengers right now.” No sooner had Morph hefted the downed pilot off the ground than several hovercraft vehicles burst free from the woods and terrain, surrounding them. Soldiers wearing red and white uniforms leveled weapons at them, and nearly all of them were yelling for the team to stand down. Cypher weighed their options. It was possible that Xorn could open up a path for them, but that might mean aggressively moving against the Canadian government. Whatever was happening here, they didn’t have enough information. They had seconds to figure out if they were going to hit and run, or just get down on their knees. “I can see you weighing your options,” a familiar voice above them said. Cypher looked up to see another stylized hovercraft lowering toward them, tipping forward so they could see a uniformed pilot at the helm and a man draped in golden armor standing behind him – Professor Power. “Let me take that weight off your shoulders,” Power said with a sneer. “Stand down or my men will open fire.” Xorn began to power up, her hands flashing a searing blue, but a motion from Cypher made her let the energy dissipate just as quickly. Cypher said, “No, they’ll kill the pilot, too.” Power chuckled, and then said, “How noble. But you’re right. These men are mindless automatons in my thrall. They’ll do exactly as I say and what I say is to kill any of you that don’t immediately get on your knees.” The sound of various weapons cocking erupted all around them from the dozens of guns pointed at their heads. Morph ground his teeth, but couldn’t see a way out. Cypher dropped to his knees and said, “You knew we were coming.” “After our first encounter in Russia, yes, I figured you would come for me again. So, I baited the trap and watched you dive onto it. Predictable.” Power stepped out of the hovercraft and clasped his hands behind his back. He looked at each of them in turn, relishing that he had duped his assailants into playing right into his hands, and they hadn’t even been the wiser. He stepped in between Xorn and Cypher, looking them up and down hungrily. “Now,” he said, motioning back to the hovercraft, “let’s bring the whole gang together, shall we?” Another passenger just out of view on the hovercraft stood up, raising a semi-automatic assault rifle onto his shoulder as he stepped down to the earth. His partially shaved head cut a striking, if not familiar, image in the afternoon sunlight. “Daken,” Cypher said. The assassin’s proxemics were all off. Cypher was used to reading Daken’s body language by now and he could tell that something was different about him. He didn’t know what was different precisely, but something had changed within the mysterious mutant. “Yes, your fellow Mutant Response Teammate,” Power said. “A perfect pawn under my control. When I helped create the mutating process that enhanced his abilities in accordance with Department H’s guidelines, it was child’s play to implant adherence protocols in his subconscious. It was dumb luck that brought him onto the same team as you, Morph. A stroke of wonderful, perfect, dumb luck.” “You created him?” Xorn asked cautiously. “For Department H?” “I have super soldier contracts with many governments. Daken was previously just a mundane soldier. Well, perhaps that isn’t fair. He was exceptional, but not the best at what he did. Enter me and Department H’s desire to mimic the work they had done with Wolverine. The gene bonding process was magnificent. And now he’s here, a loyal dog at my side.” “He’s been working for you this whole time?” Cypher asked. “No, not precisely.” Power’s craft lowered and he slipped down into the field, mere yards from the mutants. Daken stepped down beside him, his gaze trained on Cypher. “It was happy circumstance that he ended up being recruited by Havok. When I realized that your group would be meddling with me, I activated Daken’s protocols.” He petted Daken on the head like a puppy. “Now he’s as docile as I need him to be.” “Did you review their team files that I provided you?” Daken asked as he leveled his weapon at Cypher. “Yes, in detail,” Power replied. “Interesting reading, although I’m not sure it provides much insight into Havok’s intentions.” “Did you review the first mission? The one in the sewer?” “I already answered you,” Power said, irritated. “What does that particular mission matter?” “Because that’s the mission I received massive brain hemorrhaging, pretty much resetting my neural synapses.” Daken turned his weapon from Cypher to Power, digging the nozzle right into his face, the one place on his body not covered in golden armor. “And wiping out your pretty little protocols.” Power’s surprised expression was quickly wiped away when Daken pulled the trigger and a spray of blood erupted from the back of Professor Power’s head. The Department H contingent swarming around them unleashed hell on the mutants. Morph collapsed onto the human pilot, shifting and elongating his malleable body to protect him from the flying bullets. Cypher, having finally realized that Daken’s body language was trying to warn him of his future actions, sprung into the offensive first. The omniliguist mutant tucked and rolled under the firefight, springing up with a kukri knife slipped out from behind his back, driving it into the closest red-clad Canadian government agent. He sliced into his opponent’s side, dealing out enough damage to make him stop firing on his friends, but not enough to make him bleed out. He followed up the strike by placing his right heel behind the other’s leg and pushing him over in a strategic Judo-style hip throw. He clocked the man in the jaw with a downward palm strike and counted him as out of the fight, allowing him to move on to the next one. Xorn leapt straight up into the sky, her electromagnetic powers flourishing in abundance. She magnetically grabbed onto weapons of a dozen of her assailants, ripping them from their grasp, and then inversing her polarity to shove them each back half the length of a football field. Those whose trajectories were blocked by trees or vehicles were left wanting. Daken brandished his assault rifle in one hand for anyone too far away for the claws he had popped out of his another hand. He viciously slashed his way through ever-decreasing resistance, selectively sniping those who were turning away seeking safety. Within moments it was over. So sudden had the tide shifted that the Mutant Response Team was left standing on edge, not quite ready for the fight to be over. Their adrenaline was pumping and they were eager to push back anyone else that came at them, but the few soldiers that survived had fled. For the moment, they were safe. But that would change quickly, given how close they were to the Department H building. “Dammit, Daken!” Morph shouted as he scooped up the pilot. “What the hell, man? Why can’t you ever just, you know, be a normal team player?” “If I was a normal team player,” he shot back as he tossed away his emptied rifle, “you’d be dead. Or captured. Or whatever it was he had planned for you.” “And we’ll never know what that was, now will we?” Cypher cut in. “Honestly, Daken…you’re just reckless. You just destroyed all of the work that had led us up to this point. God, the Canadian government alone will probably make an international incident of this!” Xorn lowered herself to just a few feet over them, but her flight pattern was jerky, even hesitant. “Doug,” she said, trying to address Cypher. “Not to mention what the XSE is going to have to say,” Cypher continued. He got up in Daken’s face, his anger boiling over. “Doug,” Xorn repeated. “This is the second time you’ve just taken off on your own. If we weren’t stranded in the middle of whatever hell this province is, I would—” “Doug!” Xorn shouted, and she wobbled, falling to her knees next to them. His rage broken, Cypher quickly rushed to her side, supporting her torso so she wouldn’t fall over. “Are you hit?” he asked as he tried to check her over. “No,” she replied meagerly. She reached up, unstrapping the metal helmet that helped continue both her energy signature and her identity. It fell to the earth, revealing her cutback green hair. “Something worse. There’s a rip in the electromagnetic field. Someone…someone is punching between dimensions.” Morph stepped closer as he cradled the now unconscious pilot. “This guy isn’t going to make it long,” he said. “We need to hustle, people. We need a way out of here. Now.” Xorn screamed out, her head lashing back. A spike of energy rippled up through her, dispersing into the sky like a bonfire of blue power. Twenty feet away from their collective, a ring of similar power split open from nothingness. The ring quickly irised open, revealing a tall man in bulky, silver armor covered in spikes from head to toe. His helmet must have weighed fifteen pounds just on its own. When Xorn recovered from the outburst, she was breathing heavily. She slumped into Cypher’s arms, but when she saw who had arrived, she screamed all over again. “Hello, Lorna,” Stryfe said. “I’ve been looking for you.” NEXT ISSUE: Stryfe and his Acolytes take the team to another dimension and nothing will be the same! |