Continued from: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic/8/marvel-iron-age-the-x-faction-part-1/666067/ which will incorporate all of what did before he ninja'd off into the sunset, and taking this awesome team into cool new directions within the Iron Age.
Holo-diary entry
I have never been so sick in my life! That chlorine did a number on me. Thankfully Alyssa, Drake and Tank had my back. I lost like half my body weight and nearly died a few times but I got better, but now my powers are playing up. Oh well, what can I do? I’m glad I’m alive and that starking nutcage Exodus is out of our hair.
Since I’ve been about as useful as a wheel on a hovertruck, I don’t really know where we are. We were somewhere in Texas before I zoned out, three weeks of acute chlorine poisoning will do that to a person. But I caught a feed uploaded on the Kenosha attack…makes me want to try a run at Chicago
“Tank says, if you got energy to talk into that box, you got energy to walk fool!”
End holo-diary entry
Cam looked down on the huge, bald, muscular African American man named Tank who’d been carrying him. Cam cheekily smiled and patted him on the head before sliding down to the ground.
“You okay?” asked Alyssa giving him a hug and fussing over him.
Cam smiled “Better, much better. I can see you without squinting”
“Awwww isn’t that sickening!” groaned Drake pretending to vomit.
“Shut up” said Alyssa, her eyes focused firmly on Cam “Sure you’re okay”
“Might need some new clothes, but I’m good. So where are we?”
“Tank says twelve miles out from St Louis”
“How’d you know that?” asked Drake
“Tank can read fool!” and the big man pointed to the broken down sign lying beside an old tree.
“Okay, someone want to catch me up?” asked Cam
“You nearly died!” said Drake “We’ve walked, run and carried your lazy vomiting stark for the past three weeks. Alyssa bawled. Tank freaked when he saw a…” Drake stopped as Tank’s big hand landed on the back of his neck “Ahhh Tank’s good, um yeah, nothing happened, and um, we’ve avoided several patrols that have been trying to kill us!”
“Cool” Cam smiled at his team “So what do we need?”
“Everything!” said Alyssa “We’re running on empty because…”
“Of me!” said Cam, a little embarrassed.
“Because they tried to hem us in” corrected Alyssa “But we’re low on just about all of our supplies and ammo”
“Okay” Cam rubbed his chin “What do we know about St Louis?”
“Nothing!” shrugged Drake
“It’s busy” said Alyssa, her eyes gazing off
“Tank don’t like St Louis!”
“Why?” asked Cam carefully
“Tank grew up there! Tank don’t like St Louis!”
“Oh-kay!” laughed Drake nervously “So we going to visit Tank’s mo…” He words were caught short as Tank’s hand clamped around his throat.
“Tank don’t like people talking his momma!” snarled the big man.
“Easy big guy,” eased Alyssa as she placed her hand on Tank’s massive arm coaxing him to let go “He might be a stark, but he’s our stark”
“Sorry Tank, but we gotta go in.” said Cam apologetically “You can stay here, but since we’ve got nothing because of me, I got to go in”
“You’re only just standing, so I’m going with you” said Alyssa
“Well I’m not staying here!” stated Drake “Seriously, Tank will probably crush me before you guys get back because I said something ‘wrong’! I’m going!”
“Tank can’t let you fools wander around St Louis like three-legged dogs! Tank on point!” The big man hoisted his pack and marched off towards the city on the horizon at a cracking pace. The other three members of X-Faction scrambled after him.
St Louis
X-Faction waited in the massive queue to get into the walled city of St Louis. A virtual tent city sprawled around the outside of the city. A queue had formed as people tried to get into the city, one of the best kept cities in the states. The rigorous checking policy of entrants meant long queues because the Iron Hall here ran one of the tightest ships, even slight infractions or misdemeanours could send you to the back of the line.
“Make sure you have your I-Dent cards and form CC-DFP and CC-DPS filled in correctly!” barked an Iron Soldier as he walked down line “If you don’t you’ll just hold up the process!”
“This is starking ridiculous!” whinged Drake “This line is a kilometre long, four people wide and hasn’t moved in an hour! And we’re at the far end of it!”
Tank glared at Drake and spoke through his teeth “Tank’s gonna knock you out!”
“Easy boys” said Alyssa as she looked over the walls “I might have worked us out a way in”
Cam smiled “Really?”
“Not just a pretty face” laughed Alyssa “Let’s go, this queue isn’t movin!”
“You step out of line, you go to the back!” warned an Iron Soldier
“We forgot our, D…P…F-L seven form, sir” stammered Drake
“Pet license?”
“Yeah, silly me!” joked Drake “Even forgot the pet”
The Iron Soldier watched the quartet wander off into the tent city before turning back to the line “Make sure you have your I-Dent cards…”
Holo-diary entry
Alyssa’s plan involved Drake acting like a shuttle and phasing through the ground, taking us into the city via his intangibility. It was pretty dangerous since if he let us go we’d bond into the ground and probably die a hideous death. Plus we could die because you have to hold your breath for the trip and ‘swimming’ underground isn’t fast and kinda blind. But it worked, surprisingly well actually.
Tank knew his way around St Louis but he was really uncomfortable, I swear I heard him mutter like a normal person instead of in third person. We got food supplies pretty easily but ammo is going to be the problem. There isn’t like a gun shop or weapons depot the average citizen can just walk into. Drake’s suggestion of robbing the St Louis Iron Hall is looking better and better…
“Because it’s a good idea!” quipped Drake
End holo-diary entry
“Do you mind?” asked Cam as he closed his log.
“Not really” smiled Drake as he peered over Cam’s shoulder like a nosey child. “So we gonna do over the Iron Hall?”
“Might have to!” groaned Cam “But it seems kinda…hang on!” Cam looked up at the holo-screen flipping images of the most wanted: Anthony Salazar, Darius Stane, Carol Danvers, Dr Nathaniel Essex. “We need to tell the Iron Army one of those guys is here! We ambush them; take their stuff, knock’em around”
“Tank likes the plan!”
“Sneaky, very sneaky Cam” said Alyssa “So which one do we say is here?”
“Him!” said Cam pointing at the screen
“Cool!” said Drake “Can I be him?”
“Tank can’t be him! Tank’s too big, too black!”
“Sure, just remember, you asked to do this” warned Cam
St Louis Iron Hall
“St Louis Iron Hall, Captain Stryke Risman speaking” said the handsome young man with a perfectly trimmed goatee as he flipped through his data-feed on his days agenda.
“Oh my stark!” screamed Alyssa into the holo-phone “Salazar is here!”
“Please hold up your I-Dent card and prepare for facial recognition ma’am”
“He’s shooting arrows at me, you dumb stark!” screamed Alyssa “Anthony Salazar is in St Louis!” With that the holo-phone swung around to show a man standing in the street pointing a bow towards the camera. Suddenly the screen swung violently “Stark! He shot me! Oh my god help! Help me!” The screen went black.
Captain Risman punched in the name Salazar into his computer and alerts rang out. He slowly stood and flipped open a channel across the Iron Hall “Attention St Louis Iron Hall! We have a confirmed visual sighting of Anthony Salazar. Trace of call for co-ordinates coming in….Columbus Square, Salazar is at Columbus Square. Hunter Division, mount up to back up all available Iron Soldiers in the vicinity to head to Columbus Square. Lethal force is authorised!”
Elsewhere in St Louis
“… all available Iron Soldiers in the vicinity to head to Columbus Square. Lethal force is authorised!”
“Yo Scotty!”
“What is it Razor?”
“Iron Hall’s moving out on someone named Salazar, guy from the holo-feeds”
“Hmmm. We could use a guy like him. Where they headed?”
“Columbus Square”
“Get the others!”
Columbus Square
Drake stood in the street holding the makeshift bow “Did it work?”
“Stop talking to me Ghost!” snapped Cam from under the manhole “Just keep your eyes peeled so you don’t get killed”
“Isn’t watching Zephyr’s job!” replied Drake pretending to shoot another arrow into the air.
“Real funny” scoffed Cam “If this is going to work…”
“Nine soldiers on route!” said Zephyr through her comms into their ears “Scratch that, seventeen on route! This is getting...oh stark! Hunters on route! We should run”
“No!”
“What do you mean NO Ghost?” said Zephyr angrily “We had trouble with those Hunters in Cactus and there was only three of them. There’s seventeen soldiers plus…seven Hunters on route. Your starked! We’re all starked!”
“If this is going to work, we need to give Tank time” said Ghost as he breathed deeply to calm himself “Besides, we kicked the stark out of them guys in Cactus! We’re X-Faction, that’s what we do!”
“Tank’s out the front of the Iron Hall. Tank can see lots of fools headed Ghost’s way” said Tank via the comms.
“Let’em come Tank,” said Ghost as he saw a trio of soldiers flying in towards him “More on me, means less on you”
“Tank says less chatter!”
Ghost glanced around to see more soldiers flying in; an ever closing ring of iron came closer and closer. Ghost looked down at Cam “You ready Shocker?”
“Think so, just hope we wet the street enough” replied Cam as he went under the street. He fired up his hands, surges of electricity coursed through them but not the usual yellow colour, now a strange electric blue.
“Hey lightbulb?”
Shocker turned hands raised ready to fire when he saw a man with a toothpick in his mouth standing a few feet from him. Cam’s power was the only source of light, causing erratic shadows but enough light to see the man was smiling as he turned the wooden sliver over and over with his tongue. Behind him was a small boy no older than twelve and a girl with red hair carrying a tri-barrelled RPG.
“You’d best get out the way, we’re going up to rescue Salazar” he said as he tensed his body, blades popped out from his skin like a razor-bladed porcupine.
“What?” said Cam slightly confused as he opened his comm channel wide open to alert the others.
“Out the way kid!” snarled a voice from behind him “Or I’ll kill you”
***
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