X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

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1X09 – King of Hearts – Act II

Scott, Jean, and Logan ran through the hotel, ignoring the shouts of the desk clerk and one of the hotel security guards. The elevators were out of question, they would take too long, so they hit the stairwell and raced up the steps to the fourth floor.

When they got into the hallway, Scott looked left and right, trying to figure out which way to go.

“This way,” both Jean and Logan said, heading down left.

…

Cedric Doosan hid in the bathroom of his suite, crawling into the bathtub as if that would somehow save him from whatever was happening outside. All he could hear was gun shots and lots of furniture breaking.

Then the door was punched, tearing the hinges from the frame, falling with a crunch.

A woman with purple streaked hair and a menacing disposition stepped up onto the wooden door that was off-kilter due to the knob keeping it from laying flat on the floor, “Cedric Doosan?”

He tried to maintain his composure, this wasn’t the first time he had a gun pointed at him… only… she didn’t have a gun. The woman wasn’t wearing special armor or holding any tools. Did she literally knock that door down with her bare hands?

“Our boss sends his regards,” she lifted her hand and he got the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

With her arm halfway raised, the woman jerked as if she suddenly couldn’t move. Her facial expression went from confused to dread when her body was wrenched backwards, flying into the main room.

…

Logan went straight after the big bald guy when they entered the room. Scott was right behind Jean when she grabbed the mutant who was attacking someone who was cornered in the bathroom, presumably Mr. Doosan.

The woman landed on her back at Jean’s feet, but instead of having the wind knocked out of her, she quickly lifted her hand and some kind of blast hit the telepath and sent her into a settee.

“Jean,” he shouted but realized the mutant was getting to her feet.

Jumping forward, Scott grabbed the dark haired mutant from behind, going for her forearms. Whatever her mutation was, it seemed to be focused through the hands, or at least that is what he was going with until proven otherwise.

“Get off,” she screeched, bending over at the waist and aiming her hands at the floor, she used ability to propel herself into the air. Scott hit the ceiling with such impact that he let go of her and they both fell back to the floor.

Managing to keep his feet under himself, he ducked just in time to avoid a punch. On instinct, he reacted with an elbow strike under her guard, hitting her just under the rib cage. He threw a few more punches. While she did back off, she grinned at him.

“That all you got?” she mocked him.

This might be a problem.

Scott was just about to decide what he was going to do when the woman flew backwards and was pinned against the wall by an invisible force. Her muscles twitched as she tried to move against whatever was holding her.

Turning his head, he saw Jean standing behind him with her hand out as she concentrated. Off to the side of the room, Logan was straddling the other mutant, punching him squarely in the head and knocking him out cold.

Standing in the doorway of the room was one of the hotel security guards… his face a blank stare at the scene before him.

This might also be a problem.

…

And page two hundred scanned.

Gambit confirmed that the last image had been taken and was stored successfully before putting the file back into its archive box. After safely stowing it away, he made his way out of the room, avoiding the cameras as he went.

Getting to the entrance he pushed it open, staying just outside the camera’s optical range. With a flick of his wrist he sent a Jack of Spades in a half crescent motion, the laminated paper once again exploding in front of the camera and giving himself enough time to walk out without having to worry about being caught on film.

Now all he had to do was catch up with the big kitty and collect his pay.

“You do realize it’s a Saturday, right?” a male voice echoed down the storage shelves.

“Is it?” the woman from before asked, “it doesn’t matter, you have to see this.”

Jumping up, Gambit hid himself on top of one of the shelves and started to move towards the exit.

“See, no forty-six,” she told the other employee, “and this isn’t the only artifact missing.”

“It isn’t?” the man asked and the tone in his voice caused Gambit to pause.

“I’ve gone over the shipping lists, manifests, entry logs,” she went on, oblivious, and Gambit moved across the shelves to actually get a look at the scene.

The woman had her tablet in her hand, flipping through pages as she told the guy about how things weren’t matching up. He wasn’t really paying attention to her, instead, he was typing on his phone, sending an email or text.

“We need to take this to the deputy director,” she finally looked up at her colleague.

“No,” he frowned at her, “no, I don’t think we should.”

“Someone is either misplacing valuable Mesoamerican artifacts,” she really couldn’t see what was happening, “or worse, stealing them.”

“And they really wouldn’t want to get caught,” he told her, “now would they?”

“Jack…” now it was dawning on her.

“You should learn to stay out of things that aren’t your business, Sekh,” Jack grabbed her by the arm and started to drag her down the aisle, much to her shouting.

Gambit watched the scene unfold, able to see the exit sign for the storage area from where he was perched.

“Don’t draw attention to yourself, Remy,” he muttered under his breath, “no one is supposed to know you’re here,” he added, “the job comes first…”

Yeah, who was he kidding?

…

Doctor Sekhmet Conoway, Ph.D., was being dragged down the aisle, yelling, only belatedly realizing that almost no one was there at that time of day on a Saturday to even hear her.

“You can’t be doing this,” she told Jack as she tried to get out from his strong grip, “you’re better than this.”

“Really,” he stopped and looked at her like she had two heads, laughing, “you really think so? There are artifacts in here worth thousands and they just sit in pine wood boxes like it’s a bleating cemetery. At least with collectors they will be appreciated for their art and history.”

“And you’ll line your pockets with cash,” she gave him a disgusted look.

“Everyone wins,” he was clearly unashamed of what he was doing.

“Certainly seems that way,” a man magically appeared behind Jack, “don’t it?”

“Who the…?” Jack turned quickly, only to have a fist be brought across his face, knocking him back and onto his knees, letting her go.

“What…?” she barely had time to say before the mysterious man grabbed her wrist.

“This way,” he told in a South Louisianan accent, the th sounding more like a d. He was wearing an employee smock but she had never seen him before and she thought she knew everyone. But she was in no position to argue, and was definitely glad to be away from Jack whose intentions towards her were clearly not friendly, and so she let herself be dragged down the aisle towards the exit.

They managed to get two aisles, the actual exit in sight, when four men came through it and they didn’t look like they were employees. The man who had saved her skidded to a stop and reached into his pocket.

“Stop them!” Jack yelled and she looked over her shoulder to see Jack standing, holding his bloodied nose.

The four men blocking their way didn’t have to be told twice and pulled guns from under their jackets.

Sekhmet was about to scream when the Cajun flicked what looked to be playing cards in the general direction of the gunmen. Seconds later, the cards, if that’s what they were, exploded in a bright magenta light at the men’s feet. This made the men back up and shield themselves as bits of concrete were thrown up from the impact of the explosion. It had rocked the shelves, causing at least one smaller box to fall down.

More playing cards appeared in the Cajun’s hands and this time she did scream, “The artifacts!”

He paused in mid-flick, the cards not leaving his fingers.

With a frustrated sigh, he grabbed her arm again and ran down the cross-aisle, turning between two of the shelves and heading in the direction of the loading dock. He nearly dragged her but she managed to keep up, glancing back to see the men race around the corner and follow them.

The open area of the loading dock made them easy targets, she could figure that one out on her own. But he didn’t break stride, trying to get to the door before the men were able to get a clear shot. When they got the door, he practically pushed her through it as he hit the fire alarm on the wall near the exit.

Gun shots rang out, just loud enough to be heard over the alarm, but the Cajun dodged outside onto the dock with her. He shut the door then must have put something on the lock as it began to melt and jammed.

“That should hold them for a minute,” he told her and then led her down the dock, pulling off his employee smock and throwing it behind one of the large electrical generators which were situated next to the building, “yours too,” he gestured to her smock.

“Ah, okay,” she pulled it off and tossed it, but not before removing her badge and slipping it into her pocket, “who are you and where are we going?”

“To answer your second question,” he guided her around the building where people were filing out of an emergency exit, “we’re following the crowd.”

“Right,” she blended into the group with him, “but that doesn’t answer my first question. Where did you come from?”

“Louisiana,” he answered her and directed her towards the bus stop.

“Wait, wait,” she stopped just as the bus was pulling up, “my coworker just tried to kill me,” she said those last few words quietly, “and you appear out of nowhere and just expect me to follow you when I should be running straight to the cops,” the events were starting to sink in, “and you won’t even tell me who you are?”

People had filled off the bus and now it was loading, if they didn’t move now they would miss it, but she wasn’t going to move until she had a good reason to.

“Simple, chere,” he grinned and there was something about it that reminded her of classic black and white films where the heroes really had class, “I’m your knight in shining armor.”

Sekhmet stared at him blankly for a moment, then said, “Okay,” and followed him onto the bus.

…

Sabretooth found himself being pushed by the crowd as they dutifully exited the building. Annoyed, he tried not to rip a few heads off as he finally made it outside.

There were a lot of people, a few thousand variations of perfumes and aftershave, but after a few sniffs in the air he was able to find the Cajun’s distinctive scent. Detaching himself from the crowd, he avoided the security guards and tracked the man down.

The feral mutant managed to spot Gambit just in time to see him board a bus, a brunette woman in tow.

This couldn’t be part of the plan.

…

“I think we’ve contained this,” Agent Duncan said as he entered the smashed up hotel room with two other Homeland agents flanking him.

Scott looked over from where he was standing next to Cedric Doosan who was looking a little worse for wear, “You spoke to the first responders?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, seeing the closed door to the bedroom where the two would-be mutant assassins were being held, “they didn’t see anything but two men with blunt force trauma and a whole lot of damage.”

“And hotel security?” was the other possible issue.

“Very glad to be able to say they didn’t see things they couldn’t explain,” Duncan sighed, “and I have a guy scrubbing the video. Thankfully, this time of day, even though all the rooms were booked, barely anyone was actually in the hotel. No one on this side of the floor so they are all buying our ‘prank gone wrong’ story.”

“Prank gone wrong?” Scott raised a brow.

“Wanted to go with natural gas explosion but the hotel director of operations didn’t want the bad press,” he replied wryly.

“Right,” the optic mutant couldn’t argue with that, as long as the story was covered up.

“Now, Mr. Doosan,” Fred turned to the executive, “you want to tell us why someone wants to kill you?”

“Like I told this guy,” Doosan gestured towards Scott, “I have no idea. I own research firms, and not even the controversial ones, like stem-cell research.”

Scott frowned, “You call harvesting captured mutants for their DNA… non-controversial?”

“The only mutants I had heard of until today were in comic books,” Doosan argued, but tilted his head towards the closed door. “That woman, the red head, she’s a telekinetic, right? That’s a real thing?”

Fred glanced at Scott who continued to frown, how much had they misjudged the situation?

“Doctor Rowland, your employee,” Fred tried a different direction, “had four individuals locked up in the sub-basement of your facility, and you’re telling me you don’t know anything about it?”

“Listen,” Doosan was frustrated and nearly pleaded with them, “a year ago, Rowland came to me with a proposition. I let him use the Bella-Agra research laboratory for work that was not illegal… technically. In return, he would ensure an eleven percent rise in revenue,” he shook his head, “Rowland helped to discover a variation of maze that can survive lower temperatures and be harvested late in the season. It was worth millions so I let him do whatever as long as he kept that kind of results coming. I had no idea he had people down there.”

“You seem like an intelligent man, Doosan,” Fred couldn’t help the sarcasm that filtered through his tone, “but what part of ‘secret lab’ didn’t tip you off that something not strictly speaking legal was going on?”

“Do you know how cutthroat the research and development industry is?” Doosan argued, “And filled with scientists and engineers who are as brilliant as they are insane and socially awkward?”

Scott shook his head, “I’m sure if we did we still wouldn’t justify Rowland’s actions.”

The man looked like he wanted to argue but laid his head in his hands instead. Fred glanced over at Scott and gestured towards the bedroom, “Let’s see if the others are more cooperative.”

They walked over to the bedroom, the other agents keeping an eye on Doosan. Scott opened the door and let Fred walk in first. He first noticed the big block of ice that was sitting in a plastic kiddy pool next to the window. Even stranger still was the man sitting inside the ice.

“Won’t he, um, freeze to death?” unfortunately this wasn’t the strangest thing Fred had ever seen.

“Nah,” Bobby was sitting in a chair across from him, “his skin and tissues are super durable, invulnerable even. It won’t kill him but it will slow him down.”

“You can’t keep me in here forever,” the bald man snarled.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Bobby said with relief, “because to think I’d have to sit here watching you the rest of my life, what did I ever do to deserve that punishment?”

No one was amused, except Bobby of course.

“And her?” he turned to the woman, tied up in a chair with her arms across her chest so if she tried to use her sonic wave ability she could only directed it at herself.

“She’s a barrel of sunshine,” Jean-Paul was standing next to her, a none too happy look on his face. Apparently he showed up late to the party, but now Fred noticed the other Canadian was gone.

“Her name is Arclight,” Jean stepped up, pointing to the woman before then gesturing to the man, “and that one is Blockbuster. Their job was to come in and eliminate Doosan.”

“Who sent them?” Fred asked, “Magneto?”

“They have training to block telepaths,” the woman explained, “I can’t get more without doing some morally apprehensible things I don’t want to do,” she was quite adamant about that, “but they aren’t Brotherhood, I can tell you that much for sure.”

Fred frowned, “If they aren’t Brotherhood then who are they?”

“Independent contractors?” Jean-Paul suggested.

“Great, that’s all we need,” Fred shook his head, “mutant assassins for hire, the Council will love to hear that.”

“Logan is seeing if he can trace where they came from,” Scott told him, “maybe we can learn something that way.”

“I hate it when people talk about me like I’m not in the room,” Arclight rolled her eyes.

“Maybe if you told us what we want to know,” Scott turned to the woman, “then we wouldn’t have to.”

“What incentive do I have to tell you anything, Summers,” she spoke his last name mockingly.

He tilted his head in confusion mixed with curiosity, “You know me?”

“Yeah, we know all about your little X-Men club,” she nearly laughed, “and can we talk amateur hour. Running around like children with wooden swords, pretending like you might actually slay a dragon,” then her lips took on a sinister grin, “you keep your killing machine on a leash, and your telepath,” her eyes darted at Jean, “hides her inadequacy behind ‘moral obligation’.”

“Inadequacy,” Jean was offended, walking around the woman, “do you want to spend the rest of your life thinking you’re a six year old girl, cause it can be arranged.”

“Jean,” Scott warned the red head.

Arclight laughed darkly, “Oh, come on, I wanna see her try.”

“You realize if she decides to fry your brain,” Scott was only half sure that Jean was just posturing for effect, “I can’t stop her.”

“She won’t dip her so nicely manicured fingers into my brain,” the shock mutant spoke with distaste, “you’re all so very… tame. I bet you tell Mr. McSpeedy-pants over here that he has to obey the speed limit too. Pathetic.”

Bobby raised his hand, “Can you insult me next, cause I’m kinda feeling left out here.”

The woman glanced over at him with one raised brow, looking him up and down, “Too easy.”

“Now that just makes me feel cheap,” the Iceman frowned.

Scott shook his head and turned towards Fred, leading him back out of the bedroom to talk to him, “I hate to say it, but they are kinda right. I’m not going to let Jean compromise her morals, nor will I let Logan torture them.”

“Wars weren’t won by being nice,” Fred frowned at him.

“We shouldn’t even be at war,” Scott countered with a determined set to his jaw.

“Let’s look at the facts,” the agent glanced over at Doosan sitting impatiently on the settee, “that man lets a mutant scientist run amok, keeping other mutants prisoner for their DNA. Said scientist kills himself rather than be captured. Then more mutants come to try to take Doosan out as some kind of loose thread,” he rubbed his chin, “and the only connection to the Brotherhood is that they got here first to stop him. Does that about sum it up?”

Scott sighed, “I’ve come to the same conclusion.”

“Have you now?” Fred raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not just us, the Brotherhood, and a scattering of independent mutants,” Scott said the words like he didn’t want to believe them, “but there is another group out there, another faction, and they are possibly more dangerous than the Brotherhood  could ever be… and we don’t know a single thing about them.”

…

Sekhmet found herself sitting at a booth in a little café, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. Once she was finally able to take a moment and breathe, she got a good look at her rescuer. Shaggy brown hair just long enough to run your hands through, perfect amount of five o’clock shadow on his chin to have that ‘just rolled out of bed’ glam, a grin that was downright criminal, but she had to wonder why he insisted on wearing his sun-glasses.

“So,” he smiled at her, “Doctor Conoway, do you have a first name?”

“Ah, Sekhmet,” she looked down to try not to stare and instead got a good look at his arms, lean and muscular.

“Sekhmet?” he said with a touch of surprise.

“My parents were hippies,” she shrugged, deciding to go for the sugar at the end of the table, “they thought giving me the name of the Egyptian warrior goddess would somehow make me into one, but all it did was get me interested in archeology.”

“It’s a pretty name,” he told her and she melted a little, it wasn’t often she had the full attention of someone who she was pretty sure was out of her league.

“Thank you,” she blushed.

“Now, my warrior goddess,” he leaned forward just a little, “tell me what happened back there, who was that guy and what was he stealing?”

“His name is Jack Linton,” she adjusted her glasses and pulled her tablet over in front of her, it was a miracle she had kept a hold of it, “he’s one of the restoration specialists. Items were being processed through the restoration department and then shelved, only they never made it to the shelves.”

She brought up a picture of one of the missing items and he nodded at it thoughtfully, “Olmec jade mask with ceramic inlay, late period, 700 BCE or there abouts?”

Sekhmet blinked, “725 BCE actually, how did you know, are you an archeologist?”

That elicited a chuckle, “I just have a fine appreciation for art.”

“You know,” she studied him again, this time critically, “I’ve never seen you at the museum before. What were you doing there?”

“I work over at Air and Space,” he replied easily, “was supposed to meet a friend, got turned around.”

“Yeah, I don’t buy that,” she crossed her arms and sat back.

He tilted his head and judged her for a moment, then held out his hand, “Name’s LeBeau, Remy LeBeau,” she reached out to shake his hand, only to have him turn her wrist and bring the back of her hand to his lips, “and I’m a professional thief.”

At first she was taken aback by the classy gesture, then his words registered in her brain, “A professional thief?”

“Oui,” he smiled that entirely took charming smile, “but don’t worry non, I have nothing to do with your artifact problem, and I didn’t steal anything else either.”

“You’re a professional thief,” she repeated, “who broke into the Smithsonian… and didn’t steal anything.”

“Technically,” he admitted.

“Oh,” she tried to keep a straight face even though inside she wasn’t sure if she should scream or cry, “technically… how good for you.”

Could this day get any worse?

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