Laura Kinney (extwothree) wrote in no_good_deed, @ 2011-03-02 21:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | complete, x-23 |
The enemy of my enemy...
Who: X-23
What: Delivering a message.
When: Wednesday night
Where: A nondescript "shop" in center Westchester.
Rating: R for violence and gore
Notes:This will make the news by tomorrow (Thursday) morning and will definitely cause tension among the muties and the meat sacks.
The night Laura met Doug they'd talked briefly about the type of facility he'd been kept in and what had been done to him. The conversation only further added to her primal need to seek out her enemy and destroy it. The people that attacked Xavier's the very night she'd arrived at the school needed to be the first to pay. It wasn't as though she had any particular love or bond to any of them, but the school was the target of an attack against her kind in general. Someone was pulling the strings on the puppets and she was determined to hunt them down and exterminate them.
The very same night she met Doug, she'd walked him over to the secondary facilities and made sure he was all set before going back to the mansion ruins. The work that was being down was so expertly expedited that any evidence of what had transpired would soon be gone. She'd lose scent to paint and plaster. Blood would be cleaned up and taken away. Personal items would be lost to the construction waste in no time. She needed to collect what she could while it was still available to her.
The best thing she found was a wallet.
Sheila O'Brien must have dropped it in the chaos. Inside was about ninety dollars in cash (which she took for her own), worthless credit cards, fingernail clippers, a silver key, and a driver's license. With the cash and key in her pocket, Laura took the license and tossed the rest of the wallet away. After her encounter with Wolverine, she left.
Sheila was married and had two little girls. Laura found this out by dressing in a flattering skirt suit, putting her hair up in a twist and donning make up and heels before knocking on the front door of the house the woman used to live in. Dustin O'Brien was a good looking man, though clearly depressed. When Laura said she used to work with Sheila, she was invited quickly in. The girls, as it turned out, were sent out of state to live with relatives for awhile so Dustin could properly grieve.
Laura talked with Dustin for awhile and eventually learned he knew a good deal about his wife's after-work activities. Her murder at the Xavier mansion was actually what prompted him to join another underground anti-mutant cell that was being formed. Laura played politely stupid yet interested until she had all the information she needed. Then she popped her claws and stood over his body to watch the blood pour from his neck. Not even a fight. The surprise had been too great. It left her feeling completely unsatisfied.
Going through the files on the home computer, she found the address of Sheila's group and memorized it. The chances of anyone still being there were slim, but it was a start.
Before she left, Laura ripped open Dustin's shirt and carved, "You cannot defeat us" into his chest. Flash wasn't something she usually went for, but a point needed to be made.
She took her hair down and shook it out as she walked casually away from the house. Inside the car she'd borrowed from Xavier's, she quickly stripped and poured herself back into the black leather she was so much more comfortable in. Then, as calm as if she were out for milk, she drove downtown to where the address said something should be.
The shop itself was vacant, save the dust bunnies, a heavy file cabinet, and debris that had been left behind. There were fresh footprints on the floor, wet from tracking in the melting snow, and a mixture of scents in the air. Expensive cologne, cheap cigarettes, sweat. She followed the smell and the prints to a back room and right up to a locked door. The silver key from the wallet was pulled from her pocket and inserted into the lock. It turned, and the door opened.
No one saw her at first, no one even noticed she'd come in. This back room was like the bullpen of a police station with half a dozen conversations going on at once. People spoke to one another, talked on the phone, into mics stuck to their faces as they typed. And the words she heard made her sick. After that came a sense of rage so gripping that she literally lost control of herself.
Her claws shot forth with a sharp sound and she killed a man close to her without a sound passing her lips. But others noticed, and chaos broke out. Some fled, most tried to attack and protect the others. Laura lost herself and became the weapon. She was X-23, the little girl grim reaper who killed just to feel the blood running over her knuckles. It was the strangest sensation, like finding home after being away for so long. This anger and this violence was so familiar that she embraced it without thinking.
A woman came at her with an iron bar and X-23 shoved her claws through the woman's face. An older man heaved a computer monitor at her and she sliced his mid-section open so he could see his guts spill out. A young man, only a little older than she was herself, took a shot at her. Hit her in the side, too. With a roundhouse kick, she slit his throat before taking his head off completely.
Smoke reached her as the bullet was pushed from her skin and the wound healed. A fire had been started somewhere, either in the confusion or on purpose to try and destroy evidence. Thinking quickly, X-23 picked up the iron bar. She threaded it through the long handles of the back door and twisted it enough so that the doors wouldn't open. Then she headed for the way she'd come in. Once out of the bullpen, she dragged the file cabinet over to keep the door from opening.
As she drove away, she took a deep breath and felt like herself again. It was the first time in almost ten years that she'd felt so good.