Exiles : Worlds on Fire (Chapter 4)

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Kairan1979

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#1  Edited By Kairan1979

  CHAPTER 3
 

  Mazes and Monsters

  Part 4.

    A nearly silent whoosh of air, and Darwin was hit by three small darts. Mutant clamped his mouth shut to keep from crying out. Nightblade rushed to the injured teammate to try to help him.

  Darwin mumbled, "Need to… catch a breath," he leaned against the rocky wall and slowly pulled the darts out of his body, hissing from pain.

  "Poison," said Nightblade in disgust after sniffing the tip of the dart.

   "Don’t… worry for me," Darwin got up slowly. His body already built immunity to neurotoxin and started to seal the wounds.

  "You are tougher than you look," admitted Nightblade when his companion straightened up.

  "I… died once. Don’t want… to do… this again… Find... what triggered the trap..."

  "It was a pressure plate," feral man studied the floor with mild interest. "Never saw this particular design before. Next time I won’t miss it, I promise".

  "Can I write this… down?" said Darwin while doing a poor impersonation of Arthur Dent.

  "Ha-ha, very funny".

  "Too bad I’m not one of your soldiers. I haven’t been to Subterrania for years".

  "I could take one of them," agreed Nightblade, "but decided against it. Now keep quiet and move quickly. We don't have much time," he commanded in a hushed tone, and nodded in approval when the footsteps of adaptoid mutant faded to nothing.

  If Darwin's ego was as big as Captain Spider’s, he can probably start bitching about Nightblade not being fair and using him as a mine detector. That as the leader of Exiles he must stay with his people. But Darwin knew enough about the war to recognize a natural born strategist when he saw one. Nightblade thought about everything, including Darwin’s personal problems.

  Tallus was a huge responsibility and Darwin wasn’t sure if he was up to it. He wasn't a big gun when it came to mutant powers. If he hoped to win a respect of all the Exiles, he needed an edge, something more than just survival skills. Timebroker could give him Tallus as a sign of his new status, but there’s a gaping chasm between an appointed leader and a true one. Nightblade knew the difference too, so he gave Darwin an opportunity to prove his value to the team by taking him to Mole Man’s kingdom.

  Adaptoid hoped that Exiles can survive the trial by fire without him.

  The next three traps were too oblivious - infrared sensor and two tripwires. Jason warned Darwin to move with extreme vigilance - he started to suspect that they were just distractions from the real trap. He stopped abruptly as the new scent assaulted his nostrils.

  "The guards are coming! Find a place to hide quickly!"

  Darwin grew the suction cups on his fingers and palms and quickly climbed the ceiling. Jason stepped into a natural orifice in the wall and faded from view.

  Six Moloids armed by spears passed not noticing the heroes. When they were gone, Darwin climbed down and Nightblade reappeared.

  "Interesting ability," commented Darwin.  

  "I’ve got it from my mother. She was a shapeshifter," answered Nightblade in a flat tone. "Let's go".

  Adaptoid mutant thought, Jason doesn't look like a man whose childhood was all fun and games. I wonder if there is place in the Omniverse where Mystique can get Mother of the Year award, or it’s easier to find the world full of flying elephants. He immediately chided himself. Your curiosity can wait until this mission over. Assuming he wants to talk about his mother.

    Nightblade found three more pressure plates. Darwin’s skin was turned into armor as he disarmed them.

  " Fire, noxious fumes and darts again? Where’s the special trap you warned me about?" asked Darwin.

  "I could overestimate Mole Man".

  Two hours, five nasty traps and two successfully avoided patrols later the mutants reached their goal - main entrance to the vast system of tunnels and caverns that Mole Man claimed as his kingdom, completely ignoring the opinions of Morlocks and Terrax.

    * * *

    Meanwhile, back at Morlock's tunnels, Crimson Dynamo felt a tremendous amount of distress for she was not nearly as prepared for an attack as she thought before Darwin’s departure.

  Her eyes found Nico. The witch sat silently with her face in shadow, eyes closed, and magical staff on her knees, ignoring the surroundings

  Operation Gungan. What a wicked sense of humor!  

  As a part of the Winter Guard Yelena Belova knew what it’s like to be in charge. But her subordinates were the groups of Spetsnaz or the local militia units that held too much respect for the Soviet super-soldiers to disrespect their orders. She never had to deal with a ragtag bunch of costumed heroes who barely knew each other. Too many questions unanswered, too many unknown factors at play. Why she had a feeling that Raza and the Morlock in boar mask are keeping something important from her? What was the meaning of Nico’s ritual - meditation or something more? Was it really necessary to perform all these tests on drill machine, or it was Rockman’s way to calm himself?

   And Captain Spider wasn't helping by putting foot into his mouth again.

  "That's the best you could come up with for me? Babysitting an old geezer?" It never occurred to him that insulting a Morlock in front of his fifty heavily armed friends is not the brightest idea if you want to come away with your head intact. "Why can’t you just tell the truth that you want to keep me away from the fight?"   

  "Why would I want to do a thing like that?"

  "Because you have a grudge against me, just like the Goth chick!"

  "Healer is one of the oldest and the most respected Morlocks," explained Yelena, summoning the rest of her patience. Mental images in her head pictured various ways to dispose of the obnoxious wall-crawling menace – from simple choking to disemboweling and incinerating – and it was too tempting.   "Technically you were asked to become a bodyguard of Vice President, so there's no reason for you to feel insulted".

  "Wait, isn't Nightblade the Vice President?" asked Captain Spider, ignoring a slight tone of anger in her voice.

  "No, Nightblade is Commander-in-Chief," they were joined by Dave Landers. In addition to the guns, mechanic was armed with a double-barreled shotgun. "And Healer is one of his best friends," he smiled malevolently, "Aha! NOW you seem worried, don’t you, Spidey?"

  "He IS worried," confirmed Yelena. "And I think he owes Healer an apology. Right?" she asked commandingly looking straight at the masked face of Flash Thompson.

  "My Dad always told me, "Never apologize unless you mean it," Captain Spider stared back, lifting his chin defiantly.

  Healer who overheard most of the conversation responded solemnly. "He is young, He’ll likely learn manners sometime…, or not".

  "Don’t worry, old man, I’ll behave myself. Can’t speak for them, though," Flash motioned at the armed Morlocks.

  "I hate to agree with him, but he is right," Nico said not opening her eyes. "There is so much tension in the air you could cut it with a knife".

  Rockman, totally oblivious to the conversation on the other end of the tunnel, kept inspecting the giant-sized drill machine.

  "Razorback and his merry band are giving you evil eye? Don’t take it personally. They saw too much pain from the "surface dwellers". They are prejudiced against all of you, and they need a lot of time to trust anybody from the surface " .

  "But Raza seems to have no trouble getting along with them".

  "Yes, because he is an alien " .

  Healer bowed his head sadly, " I’m afraid my people are not as open-minded as I wish sometimes. It could be easier if your mutant stayed with us " .

  "Can’t argue with this," replied Crimson Dynamo. "But your Commander-in-Chief has different plans for Darwin".

  Yelena Belova acknowledged that her wish to see Darwin wasn’t selfless. She wanted to be able to step aside and let the mutant deal with Captain Spider and his antics. T he robots from her Sentinel squad were following orders, not whining half of the time.

  That was irresponsible. Training with Winter Guard deeply ingrained in her head that you don’t skip the tasks because they are unpleasant, that wishful thinking is not going to make the problem go away.

  So there’s no reason to start now.

  "What about your plans, Lena? Can you and your Tin Squad take on an army of Moloids?"

  "I hate to disillusion you, Dave, but I’m not a powerhouse of my team that you think I am. First of all, my specialization is aerial combat, and this is Subterrania".

  "The same disadvantages as the tanks in the city?"

  "Worse. I had to turn off all the big guns. It’s too dangerous to use them in the tunnels".

  "But I thought your weapons are more precise than theirs".

  Yelena sighed heavily, "Precision doesn’t mean so much when you are surrounded by tons of rock".

  "Are there more last minute complications I must know about? Rockman is going to start digging, better not to waste any time if we can fix something".

  "There IS a complication. And it can't be fixed in a minute or two".

  "Now I’m scared. What’s wrong?"

  "I only tested control interface with the groups of three or four Sentinels. I can’t predict what happens if I establish the link with all the robots simultaneously. The feedback can overload suit’s central processor. Then I’ll get stuck in the armor, and just as useful in the battle as a statue".

  "Can't you set all of them up on autopilot?"

  "Too risky. Sentinels are too primitive for the best versions of AI programs I had in store. The one I've installed isn't complex enough for the battles that don't require maximum overkill", explained Yelena. "Left to their own devices, the robots can kill all the Morlocks and leave Moloids to run free".   "So don’t expect too much".

  Dave Landers smiled, "Lena, I never thought of you as a powerhouse. And I promise I’ll be happy to help you out of the armor if you get stuck in it".

  "You sound too sure of yourself".

  "Once I had to help a girl that got stuck in the wedding dress with a hundred of small buttons. Now that's what I call a challenge. Your armor is a child’s play in comparison with that white lacy monstrosity".

  "You never told me that you were married".

  "I wasn’t," Dave answered giving Yelena a sly wink. The woman looked at him incredulously for a moment, and then burst out laughing helplessly.

  Rockman sat in the driver’s seat, put the key in the ignition and turned it on. Roar of the drill machine, loud as Tyrannosaurs’ scream, filled the tunnels.

    Crimson Dynamo made a decision that it was as good time as any for a stress test of the control interface.

  PROWLER UNIT #18777 – LINK ESTABLISHED.

  PROWLER UNIT #18530 – LINK ESTABLISHED.

  TRACKER UNIT #08243 – LINK ESTABLISHED.

  PROWLER UNIT #19002 – LINK ESTABLISHED.

  PROWLER UNIT #22040…

    * * *

    The combined efforts of two mutants allowed them to cross the borders of Mole Man’s empire unnoticed. It was naive to think that their luck could last forever. Jason Howlett wasn’t naive.

  "INTRUDERS!"

  Nightblade quickly silenced the loud-mouthed Moloid by slitting his throat.

  And that’s when all hell broke loose.

  Jason slashed and stabbed left and right with his daggers, taking full advantage of the enemy’s confusion while he can.   Darwin joined the fray, slashing the enemies with razor-sharp talons that were his nails two seconds ago. Massive Moloid with a halberd tried to cut him in two. Darwin sidestepped the halberd and slammed an elbow into Moloid’s face, breaking the nose.

  Vibranium daggers carved a bloody path in the ranks of Moloids. Nightblade crashed into several of them, killing two before they could regain a balance. A third one died when Jason stabbed him in the stomach.

  Darwin noticed that Moloid officers were armed with energy guns, and soldiers that surrounded Jason turned unintentionally into a living shield for him, so adaptoid turned his full attention to the officers. He stopped trying to control his mutation. He relaxed and allowed his body to react on the dangers and work on countermeasures instinctively.

  Breaking the trachea of the soldier, Darwin grabbed his spear and hurled it at the officer with the flamethrower with a precision and strength of Olympic gold medalist. An angry high-pitched scream was his reward.

  The element of surprise was taken away from them. Moloids kept coming through the corridors. Nightblade saw that he was one man against an entire squadron of enemy fighters – and welcomed the challenge.

  Any doubts Darwin could have about Nightblade's heritage disappeared. Only one mutant he ever saw displayed the methods of killing as swift, brutal and flawless as Jason Howlett. More and more Moloids went down, choking on their own blood. Jason was unstoppable.

  Darwin’s elongated arm picked up the flamethrower from the floor. He turned in on, and Moloids erupted into fire. Two groups of soldiers who tried to sneak on Jason were the next. They had no chance to retreat – Darwin fried them alive.  

  Only one Moloid was spared by flames. Nightblade threw a knife at him. The blade caught Moloid in the chest.

  "What are you waiting for?" asked Jason picking up his weapon. "Let’s go!" Darwin followed him, throwing away the empty flamethrower.

  Nightblade's nose led them to the dungeon.

  Jason felt a bit of relief that they met no Morlocks on their way down here. Moloids, fanatical soldiers of a mad dwarf, were a fair game, but he tried to avoid spilling the blood of his kin.

  "Her smell," whispered Jason. "The last cell on the left at the end of the corridor. She must be there".

  The prison cell was empty.

  "No," it was barely audible.

   The word hung in the air like a death sentence. They came so far; they stormed the enemy’s citadel - only to find out that they are too late. Callisto was already dragged away for execution.

  Everybody has a breaking point – and Jason Howlett has reached his.

  "No!" shouted Nightblade, not caring if the whole Subterrania hears him. "NOOO!"

  Earlier Darwin saw only the glimpses of Jason’s feral side through the calm facade. Now he was looking in the wild yellow eyes of the beast grieving the loss of his mate.

  And there was nothing Darwin could say or do to help him.

    To be continued…