Sarah Connor is cursed to be ever vigilant (ever_vigilant) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-07-12 16:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, neena thurman (domino), pete wisdom, wade wilson (deadpool) |
Edna, we might have some issues with the holidays, this year...
Who: Wade Wilson, Domino, Pete Wisdom
What: Rescue mission gone bad. Awesomeness, Feels, and Trauma
When: A few hours after this log, Midnight Thursday.
Where: Somewhere in Bryce Canyon
Ratings/Warnings: I'm going with R. Bombs, guns, death.
Status: Complete, part 2 in the epic 'Lazarus Mission' series!
It was just after midnight when they reached their ambush point. It was a stretch of dirt road through which their intel indicated the convoy would travel. There was no moon and the whole area had a foreboding feel to it, as though the land itself was angry. Wade had found a good perch with his night vision goggles, setting up Betsy (because any good sniper rifle should be called Betsy), and then heading down to the road to set the EMP charges. They were designed to be directional, so as to not knock out their own equipment.
Romany had said that the convoy would travel anywhere between midnight and the next afternoon, but the intel they'd picked up made Dom confident that they'd arrived just on time. Detonator in hand, she set up close to the ground in a trench alongside the road, and motioned for Pete to take the other side. She'd blow the charges as the trucks were hitting the center. That was everyone's cue to be weapons ready.
On the other side of the road, in a trench, wearing a trenchcoat...Pete gave her a nod and was ready. Dom was the field leader, so he had but to wait for the go signal.
It took half an hour, but the convoy finally approached. Wade signaled their approach, "Thundercats...thundercats...thundercats HOOO!"
Right as he got to the 'HOOO!' part, Dom detonated the EMP charges alongside the road. The charge hit the lead truck first, sending out showers of fireworks that looped out from underneath it. The other one hit the back car, to similar effect. Dom pulled out her pistol as the fireworks started to dull down, safety off immediately. One of the drivers had gotten out of the lead truck to see what had happened. A bullet greeted him in the back of the skull. "Lead driver's down. Go," She said, over the comms.
Humming the rest of the theme song to Thundercats, Wade opened fire, another man's helmet exploding from the impact. Krraackpow! He spotted two roughly escorting a bound person towards the south, "Herman, they're coming your way and they're bringing you a present!"
Yet more fireworks. They were so festive! Well, naturally, Pete had popped up when they had their green light go, and had gotten the rare pleasure of shooting someone, when he heard Wade saying that there was a present. When he saw what the situation was, however, and the hostage was out of the vehicle, he called out, "Edna, we might have some issues with the holidays, this year...!"
Wade slung Betsy onto his back and started skidding down the hillside.
"Oh what, did they reschedule the boating regata?" Dom snarked, while heading over to Pete's side of the road. She shot two people trying to tail her as she went, then tried to spot what Wade had been talking about. She squinted ahead of them and clicked the zoom of her contact on, "Fuck, I really hate the Hendersons, their plans always go tits up."
"They always have tag alongs," Pete was saying, as he glanced over, took aim, and fired at a straggler. A now dead straggler. "Suggestions on how t'shuffle around the seating arrangements at the table, m'dear?"
"Oh I don't know, why don't you go ahead and talk to the one on the left. You can pretend you care about his big fat paycheck he's always bragging about. I'll get the guy on the right, because I'm such a charmer." She aimed her pistol for the man closer to Lazarus, nodded at Pete, and fired.
"You always leave me with the ruddy household drudge work, an' the small talk at the table. Dessert better be good t'night, or m'not shagging you dusty an' senseless." Pete grinned and aimed for the one on the left, and fired as well. Those problems dealt with, he shrugged and glanced over at her, explaining, "I really can't stand bragging."
Lazarus stumbled to his knees. His arms were bound behind his back and a sack was over his head.
"I hope you're ready to have kids, dear. I know I am." A few more men headed on their way to collect the boy, and she shot one.
"Hopefully he grows up t'be a doctor an' takes care of us in our old age," quipped Pete, staying close behind Dom and shooting at the men, both guns drawn. He was staying close to her while following, to make sure her butt was properly covered while she got the boy.
Lazarus tried to get to his feet. He picked a direction and started to run.
"Shit," Dom muttered. She twisted her arm behind her and shot a guy trying to get up, then holstered her pistol and started running after him, "Lazarus! We're friendly!"
"Tell that to the next idiot!" Lazarus got his hands free, making his way to cover.
"Don't worry, we're with Area Fifty-One. Stay down, you," Pete was saying as he shot another guy, and a bullet whizzed harmlessly through his coat sleeve, nicking the cloth. "M'going to round you all up, have an alien probe you lot, an' make you all do target practice until you learn t'aim!" And another hole in the hem of his coat as he chased after Dom, turning and shooting when necessary, so she could catch their not-a-kid, really. "...bloody kid..."
Dom glanced at Pete and got Wade on the comms as she pulled one of her knives from her thigh holster and turned to toss it at a guy's neck, "Wade, we're going to need to approach the present slowly, can you give us some suppressive fire here?"
Somewhere nearby, something exploded.
"Of course," she mumbled to herself, and shook her head, "Man that guy. He's always overdoing it and showboating all over our parade."
"Well, actually," Pete said with a shrug, "That worked well enough? I got you, luv. Just get your kid, cos Herman insists that it's your kid today."
Still shooting, Pete nodded to let her know he was following her, while Wade went apeshit kaboomy all over the place.
"He's always Edna's kid when he's in trouble. Edna doesn't think that's fair at all, really." Dom quipped, while making her way over to Lazarus. Milo walked on the other side of her, appearing out of nowhere, and seemed to reach out for her arm. She ignored it - he wasn't really there, and she couldn't feel him touching her, either - and cautiously approached the cover Lazarus was hiding in, "Listen Kid, I know you got a raw deal and I dropped you off at that church, but I thought you were safe there."
The kid pulled off the sack on his head, and looked back at her. He was definitely the spitting image of his sister, "You left me!"
Pete got close enough to glance back, over Dom's shoulder, and look at the kid. They did look alike. And since Wade had their cover fire down, he was putting one gun away as well, so that he could light a much needed cigarette. "Aww, he has yer eyes, Edna. M'so proud. Now you can talk 'im out of 'is tree, maybe."
He left that to Dom to reassure the kid they were there to save him and not hurt him. To Pete, the kid just seemed harmless and scared, if not a little cranky. He was going to keep covering her back though, and he was keeping an eye out for anyone Wade was missing.
"I know. I suck. I'm a horrible sister," Dom admitted, while inching closer to him, "I didn't know what to do, I just wanted you to be taken care of. I'm not good at taking care of people, but Father Rudolpho is. He took care of me when I was your age, and I wanted you to have a normal life."
Lazarus didn't trust her. He couldn't trust her. And everything he'd been told, and prepared to do, made him suspicious, "Well he's with God now."
A suggestion became planted in Pete's mind. That something needed doing, and that something was pointing a gun at Domino.
One second he'd been about to make a snarky comment about smart arse kids, and the next it was basically wiped out before the words ever reached his tongue. The cigarette was clamped down hard between his lips. It was as though a dark veil descended over his entire mind, and he was set back to where he was resigned to doing what he had to do. And what he had to do, was kill a whole lot of people and distance himself from it, like he was watching it through some other person's eyes. Except he wasn't really watching. He was more or less not there, and there was only that suggestion, and the barrel of a gun pointed at Domino's head.
He didn't blink, or flinch, or show anything else.
Not even a drag off the cigarette.
This was the absolute worst time to get jangle-spine, but there it was. Painfully there, twitching repeatedly like little pulses from her neck to her tailbone. She winced and fought the feeling, while she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. The gun was pointing at her head, and she moved a bit to the side while pulling her own pistols out of their holsters. The sinking pit in her stomach would have to wait to be dealt with until after Pete was done going crazy, "Let him go. You don't have to do this, just to prove some point to me. I know I made a mistake. I know what he did to you. I got you out of that as soon as I could."
Lazarus looked at her, "You don't understand. I'm on a mission for God. We have to stop the Reapers."
"Lazarus. Your mission for God has nothing to do with using your powers against Pete. We aren't the Reapers. We can help you," Dom wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose, but she had guns out, and they were pointed at Pete. She looked at him, not sure if he was even awake in there, "Pete... Let's all just be rational here..."
Someone's finger barely twitched over the trigger and seemed to freeze, but otherwise, that was the only sign that someone might have heard her. Somewhere and somehow. Faintly. His eyes remained hardened and cold and his face was a blank canvas, like someone who knew what he had to do. After all, it was as he always said: it needed doing.
What needed doing now, was convincing Domino to stand down. To help them. To save the world by burning it, cleansing it. A reckoning, and a culling.
He didn't want to kill his sister, if he didn't have to. The ten year old boy that remembered his savior, who'd prayed she would come back for him still cared.
"...drop your weapons," Pete stated in a low, dangerous mumble around his cigarette, the ash of which was burning further and further down, as if it were some sort of timer to doomsday. Or lung cancer.
"... only if you drop yours," she whispered. She wasn't sure what the intent was, but she sure as hell wasn't going to stand there and let them take her in somewhere, or kill her. That wasn't what they came here for. She glanced at Lazarus again. This was her fault, somehow. She never should have just dropped him off somewhere, "Let him go. Stop this."
"...we're going t'help them," Pete was saying, somehow mumbling so low that the ash on his cigarette wasn't even falling as he spoke. He even mumbled all that about a reckoning and a culling. Still blank faced. Still with hardened eyes. Still apparently very much under suggestion.
"Listen to him, sister." The suggestion was hard to hold. Pete was strong willed and he'd only lucked into the right sort of suggestion for a man like him. He simply wasn't far enough along to maintain this for much longer, "Listen to him, before we have to kill you. I loved you."
"I never stopped," The usual mission-ready face that Dom liked to sport in the field - the one that came with no emotions, because emotions got you killed - was starting to crack, and her voice was cracking with it, "All of the choices I made were because I love you. I made mistakes. If you make him kill me, you'll be making a bigger one."
It was then that she realised she was going to have to take some action. The discussion from the other evening ran through her head. 'I don't want you t'do it. Ok? Please. Just don't. If it comes down t'that. Not unless there's no other choice. Like if I'm out of the picture. An' Wilson's torn up. An' mailed half t'Hong Kong an' half t'the Congo. Then an' only then would I say yes. B'cos I love you an’ don't want you t'go through that. Promise me,' he'd whispered.
She hadn't wanted to make that promise, but he'd begged her, and she'd said yes. Now, here they were. Wade was off making booms. Pete was under someone else's control. She turned one of her pistols on Lazarus, "Don't make me do this."
Truth be told, Pete might be stubborn, but there was a whole lot of fodder that could be used and manipulated. For a fleeting couple of seconds, Pete's eyes changed to something a bit confused and fearful, before they went hard and cold as ice again. His arm looked like it was bracing itself to fire the gun, just as the ash finally fell from his cigarette. It tumbled down over his tie, leaving little light grey silty splotches as it went.
There was a gunshot, and Lazarus' head split open. As his body slumped to the ground, Wade stood behind him, glock still smoking. There was a sad look in his eyes, as he lowered the weapon.
"You never would have forgiven yourself." There were no hearts, no yellow boxes, just the sad, honest truth. "Or him."
He holstered the gun, and then walked off, back towards where they'd concealed their truck. He tossed an info packet he'd discovered amidst the wreckage of the convoy onto the driver's seat. Then he climbed into the back of the truck and sat, folding his arms.
He'd seen three solutions to the Lazarus problem watching the scene. Domino shooting him. Wisdom shooting him. Wade shooting him. He didn't much feel like PB&J right now. He felt rather sick.
And just like that, it was gone. After standing stock still, Pete blinked a few times, staring at Dom with steadily widening eyes and letting out a slow breath. He didn't move from where he stood, only slowly moved both hands down to his sides, taking his finger off the trigger as he did so. He did glance over, though, for a moment, to see what had come of Lazarus, before focusing on Dom's face and whispering a lame apology under his breath.
There were a few splatters of blood on Domino's cheek. One of her guns still stayed on Pete, but the one that had been trained on her brother slowly slipped out of her hand and hit the ground, harmlessly. She'd never even clicked the safety off. She stared at Lazarus's body, at the hole in his head. Wade's words were ringing in her ears along with the gunshot. She could barely hear Pete's apology. Nearby, just out of sight, Milo stood, shaking his head at her.
"Fuck you," she whispered angrily at him, "Fuck you. You could have warned me better. He might as well join you now."
"Neena..." Pete's voice was softened, there was no trace of snark or sarcasm or quipping. There was nothing other than a lot of regret, even as he looked off in the direction she was staring off in, and knew that she was talking to...something...again. Even so, they couldn't stick around. "Neena? M'sorry. But we've got t'go."
There was still the matter of leaving Lazarus' body there and, quite frankly, with all the talk of medical testing and torture going on, the last thing he wanted to do was leave them a body to extract DNA off of. "We've got t'do summat about him though...we can't leave 'im 'ere."
The last thing he wanted was some crazy scientist to get ahold of the body and start pulling DNA off it, to produce and manipulate more kids. Kids that they could test on, and twist, and turn into material things that others wanted for nefarious reasons, rather than treating them than people. He considered calling Wade over, but Wade probably needed...some time to process. And Neena didn't need to do it. That was why Pete took off his coat and tossed it down over the body. She didn't need to be staring at that, anyway.
The safety of her gun clicked ominously as Pete spoke and she followed him with her pistol as he dropped his coat down over the body. It fluttered into place, and she watched it fall. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to hear any of it, even though she knew it was true. She felt older than the world when she finally clicked it back on, and holstered it. They still had work to do. Lazarus was... well he wasn't there. That wasn't him. Her brother was gone, and the body could wait, "We'll carry it to the back of the truck for now. There's a job still to do. We can take care of it later."
"I got it," he said softly, bundling the body up into his coat, and picking it up.
He walked over in silence, nodding at Wade and mumbling "You did wot you had t'do" under his breath, as he pushed the body into the back. There wasn't much more to say than that, because he knew she was right and they still had things left to take care of. "Wilson. You ready t'go?"
Wade was wiping his mouth, "I barfed in the sandwiches.."
"It's ok, Taco Princess'll make you s'more," Pete said, patting a hand on Wade's shoulder. "You made me IOU list, for...yer immortal? For as long as I live."
By the time Dom made it back to the truck, it was like the events of the past several minutes had never happened. She climbed in, and nodded at the two men, "Go through the front door. Use our last EMP charge on their communications. Look for someone in charge that I can press for answers. Pete takes intel for his case. We leave scraps behind to keep Nick Fury happy and off my ass. I'll call him as we're leaving."
"Found the location." Wade pointed at the intel packet on the seat.
"Got it," Pete replied, and it was obvious he was driving again. So away they went, with a body in the back. Hi, location. Prepared to get drove into. Probably literally. If anyone was in the way? Hell with them. They got ran over.
Hey, at least he didn't back up and then run them over again. He might've thought about it.