The Irish mutant paced down the corridor where Wisdom was supposed to be. After flying back up the elevator shaft that Maverick had inadvertently sent them down, Siryn had gone back to find Wisdom and warn him. Things were never as they seemed in their line of work.

“We’re being sniped, Wisdom!” she continued to cry, even though she was beginning to fear the worst.

“You don’t know the half of it sister.”

Siryn spun toward the voice but was tackled around the waist before she could see who it was. Her attacker wrestled her to the ground, pinning her shoulders down.

“Doesn’t all that hair get in your way?” the woman asked, revealed to be the mutant member of Team X called Shard.

“Better than a butch-cut like yours!” Siryn shot back.

Shard scrunched the dark skin of her face together in disapproval, obviously annoyed at the catty response. Pulling her fist back, she built up the bubbling energy inside of her for release, relishing the anticipation of shutting Siryn’s mouth for good.

The mouth in question opened again, this time unleashing a powerful sonic assault that rocked Shard back and forth, forcing her to grip her ears from the pain. Siryn seized the opportunity and slid back, bending her legs to position them in front of Shard’s chest. Exhaling, Siryn jettisoned the dark woman off of her.

“What the hell has crawled into your arse?” Siryn demanded upon standing. “We used ta be friends! Remember joining X-Force and going on dangerous missions together? Now’s no different! We’ve got a job ta do!”

“I’ve got my orders,” Shard shot back. She regained her footing, too, although Siryn’s attack had obviously upset her equilibrium. “Team X has been assigned to bring you down.”

“You have ta let us do what needs done or the Byrons will never be stopped,” Siryn pleaded, almost begging. After everything they had gone through the last thing she wanted to do was fight a former teammate. “Please.”

“You know something?” Shard began. “I never really bought into all your mutant/human crap. Sure, it’s a dream worth having. But I’m not my brother so you’re preaching to deaf ears. Surrender and I promise not to bruise your face.”

Siryn, virtually shocked at Shard’s response, finally realized that things would never be like they had been. Old friends were new enemies and vice versa. The glory days of rampaging around the planet, righting wrongs and working toward a unified goal… The world had always been gray but now it was a deeper shade of it.

Siryn had always been a resilient woman, believing that each person had at least some good in them. Her first doubts in that philosophy had crept up when she discovered her father, Sean Cassidy, was not only aiding the Byron Agency but was also an important executine in their organization. She had witnessed firsthand the power of redemption…but for her father, excuses couldn’t be made. Now, a former colleague threatened her freedom against what they both once stood for. Things had gotten out of hand.

Siryn gathered all of her fear and resentment, squashing them together to feed her strength. She took in a deep breath and Shard centered her stance in anticipation of another sonic attack. Raising her clenched fists, Shard struck preemptively, scorching the air between them with her plasma blasts. Focusing her vocal folds Siryn parted her lips and screamed, Shard’s eardrums again vibrating at painful frequencies.

The maelstrom of pure sound ripped into Shard’s energy attack, splintering the plasma bursts and defusing them in midair. Siryn was safe but Shard collapsed to the ground in a heap, her ears bleeding profusely. The Scottish mutant finally cut off her sonics when Shard sprawled on the floor, unconscious and defeated.

“Daft…” she mumbled between breathes. “Thas wha ya are…”

“Terry!”

Siryn’s psyche sprung back into focus upon hearing her name. She looked up and passed Shard’s body to the end of the hall where a welcome sight greeted her. He was bruised, battered, and limping…but Wisdom had never looked so good to her.

“Pete!” she called back.

Wisdom made his way to her, leaping over Shard. He grabbed her shoulder, quickly assessing her condition and realizing that the mission was practically over. If they bumped into anymore problems they might as well give up.

“Can you run?” he asked.

“I’m just a bit winded,” she replied. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks, luv. Nice to see I’m fairing better than Shard, though. We need to find the others and get out of this pit. We’ve been set up. Again.”

“Almost a running gag with this lot, eh?”

“Almost,” Wisdom said, turning to continue back down the hall. Siryn took one final look at her former friend and followed her leader.

The monitor array before him was patched directly into the building’s security feeds, giving him a bird’s eye view of the entire complex. From their mobile headquarters inside an average looking big rig, the entire battlefield could be controlled. X-Force had proven to be more difficult in boxing in than he gave them credit for, however. He respected them as trained weapons but his respect ended there. The team had personally embarrassed him in front of his superiors and he would not allow that to go unpunished.

Marcus Raven had dropped off the grid, which wasn’t a total surprise considering his background. But Wisdom had gotten the best of Bishop, Shadowcat had failed to report in, Siryn had taken down Shard, and now it appeared as if Lydia Del Ruiz and Maverick had barricaded themselves in a computer room.

“X-Force is an effective unit,” Nick Fury, acting Director of SHIELD said, “but they’ll be apprehended soon enough.”

Meyer slammed his fist down on the console, causing a brief fit of static to splash across the monitors. “Don’t act like you aren’t pissing yourself from being overjoyed. You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“Now why would you say that?” Fury asked as he took another puff from his signature cigar.

“You had a hand in training these people, Fury. They were some of your best SHIELD operatives before they became terrorists.”

Fury simply smirked. He may be forced into working with Meyer but he didn’t have to make his job any easier, especially when he was trying to take Fury’s position within SHIELD. General Meyer may be a dangerous opponent but Fury was better at the spy game. Much better.

“Team X isn’t doing jack-shit,” Meyer finally blurted out. Reaching for the transceiver, Meyer pressed the button to switch communications on with his field agents. “Alpha Unit, move in on the subjects in sector A-19. Blast the damn wall out with shaped charges if you have to. I want these mutants captured.”

“What are you doing?” Fury asked.

Meyer had slipped off his trenchcoat revealing the gleaming exoskeleton he wore underneath. The silver and green body suit was sporadically covered with wires and metal shards, the functions of which granted him an impressive personal force field. Fury met Meyer’s gaze and wasn’t sure if he was actually pleased or not at what he saw. He wanted General Meyer to go down in flames but desperate men do desperate things.

“Taking matters in my own hands,” Meyer stated.

The General checked the settings on his exoskeleton before leaving the truck and motioning for a contingent of Byron soldiers to join him. Fury watched helplessly, unable to do anything else for X-Force than what his current plan already had done. 

He and Lydia had holed themselves up in one of the many computer workrooms inside the Byron Agency’s intelligence routing complex. The information they needed was there, they just had to figure out how to extract it. Lydia hovered over one of the terminals, desperately trying to sift through the security programs while Maverick finished pushing the rest of the furniture against the sole entrance.

“This seemed a lot easier when we were just talking about it,” Lydia commented as she rubbed the bridge of her nose in frustration. “This software is a little out of my league. I can do it…there’s just no telling how long it’s going to take me.”

“Take your time.” Maverick checked his ammunition and cocked one of the obscenely large rifles he had vindicated from a guard. He knew patience was a virtue but his virtues were beginning to wear thin. They needed to either complete the mission soon or abort it altogether. “No one will be coming through that door.”

In several flashes of light reminiscent of Star Trek, half a dozen SHIELD agents teleported into the center of the room.

“Oh, for crying out--!” Maverick complained before his own rifle erupted with gunfire. Two of the SHIELD agents buckled immediately after their kneecaps had been blown out by Maverick’s assault, their own gunfire spraying wildly into the ceiling.

Lydia sprung into action, her superior strength overpowering the padding the agents wore as protection. Her hands were a blur of chops and jabs, disabling three agents before they knew what was happening. Maverick rushed the remaining targets, his own fierce attacks rivaling that of Lydia’s. In less than the time it took to pour a glass of water the fight was over, the two members of X-Force barely breaking a sweat.

“Those cheaters,” Maverick exclaimed, “using HERMES to ‘port in. I swear, it’s like the more work I put into something the less it takes to circumvent it.”

“Take their weapons and tie them up…or something,” Lydia said. “And quit whining, too. You’re starting to sound like Peter when he doesn’t get his way.”

Maverick slung the rifle over his shoulder, attempting to retain his dignity. The SHIELD agents were unconscious and proved easy enough for the veteran workhorse to pile in the corner and out of the way. He had been through more wars in more countries than most people were even aware of. Acts of aggression and hostility came naturally when he needed to do what he did. Taking down a host of government agents that were just doing their job, however… SHIELD was still fighting the good fight, Fury was making sure of that.

KRA-KOOM!

Maverick instinctively rolled to one side, whipping the rifle around and falling into a prone position. The doorway he had so carefully barricaded had exploded into thousands of pieces, a result of the miniature battle-wagon now treading through the wall. Soldiers bearing the symbol of the Byron Agency piled in around the armored vehicle, weapons drawn. To make things worse General Meyer himself was leading their entrance.

“A tank,” Maverick said, dumbfounded. “They have a fucking tank. Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they have a goddamn tank?”

“Move!” Lydia ordered. The terminal she had been hovering over had cracked in half from the explosion, merely a shell now and totally useless. She dove behind a worktable that was bolted to the wall, swearing all the while.

Bullets peppered the opposing wall as the Byron soldiers mercilessly opened fire. Maverick hugged the floor, waiting for the customary cease-fire to occur. This display of fire power was just that, a display. Meyer probably wanted to bully them into giving themselves up. Before long he would offer them a chance to surrender.

“Hold your fire!” Meyer ordered, his men quickly complying. “Mr. North! Ms. Del Ruiz! My orders are to bring you in dead or alive. You’ve caused quit an uproar within the Hierarchy not to mention the SHIELD council. Hell, even the U.N. wants your heads on a platter and they’re the most apathetic pack of fools I’ve ever seen.”

Maverick aligned the sights of his rifle. It was a bit bulky for his tastes and probably less accurate than a standard garrand, but at such a close range he wouldn’t complain. Meyer’s ugly, wrinkled face came into the center of his vision, the perfect smug target.

“As you’ve probably guessed by now I’d rather bring you in on a slab. I could say it’s nothing personal but we all know that’s a load of hogwash. Maybe if you--AH DAMMIT!”

Maverick’s bullet slapped against Meyer’s force field, ricocheting harmlessly into the ceiling. His aim had been perfect but it had only succeeded in aggravating the General. Meyer, cursing profusely, yanked a rocket launcher off of a nearby soldier, aiming it haphazardly into the room.

Maverick jumped into a crouch and blasted the General with a wave of kinetic force, rocking him off-target even further. The force of the virtual punch caused Meyer to grip the launcher tight enough to pull the trigger.

FHHH-BOOOM!

Lydia gripped her head until the newly formed hole in the wall beside her finally stopped raining down plaster. Seeing her one chance to escape, she leaned hard into the table, snapping the bolts out of the wall. Her augmented strength hefted the worktable into the air and fired it off, crashing into the stunned pack of Byrons.

“Go, go, go!” Maverick yelled as he continued his energy assault.

The mutants vaulted through the hole and into the following hallway, Meyer and the accompanying Byrons unleashing their own destructive assault. Bullets and plasma blasts whisked by them, chipping away at the corridor. Meyer’s exoskeleton provided him with offense as well as defense and he managed to catch Maverick’s leg in the shuffle. Searing pain jabbed into the veteran’s leg as Meyer’s crimson energy stabbed into him.

“Bastard!” Maverick called out. He dove through the hole, spinning midair in true Hollywood fashion, his rifle discharging on full-auto. He landed in a pile, Lydia backing up beside him.

“We’re being flanked, c’mon!” she screamed over the roar of gunfire spilling into the hall.

Maverick twisted to see what she meant, immediately feeling both relief and disappointment. At the end of the hall they had just barged into stood Peter Wisdom, wrestling with a SHIELD agent. Behind him Terry Rourke kicked a Byron soldier in the knee, following it up with a jab to his windpipe.

“Shit…” Maverick muttered. “Where’s Raven?”

“Don’t know,” Lydia answered while she helped him to his feet. “We’ve got to--”

KRA-KOOM!

The tank plowed through the hole, widening it and nearly running over the pair. The mutants ran down the hallway as General Meyer stepped through, his dark red force field covering his broad smile.

{{ You bet we are, }} Brian Braddock replied, his voice sporadically seeping through the static of the speaker phone. {{ Moira is setting up the patch to our contacts now to distribute the intell as soon as the upload is complete. }}

Marcus sighed in relief. He had been looking over Kitty’s shoulder while she hacked through the Byron security net, not once relaxing. They were so close to exposing the Agency. Given X-Force’s luck, however, he knew that counting his eggs before they hatched was a bad idea. Now that Kitty had begun the upload all of the information necessary to expose the Byron Agency’s plot to take over SHIELD he finally allowed himself a moment of pride.

“As soon as this is done we’re going to vamoose,” Shadowcat said. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, the tension finally beginning to break.

{{ We’ll be forwarding these Byron Indentures to virtually everyone we know. Political affiliates, military police, Interpol…hell, even the U.N.’s medical staff. We owe you big for this one, Kate. }}

“Thanks, but we aren’t out of the woods yet,” she responded. “Just as soon…what was that? Marcus?”

“Ah heard it, too,” the southern mutant said. “Sounded like someone said ‘clear’?”

Beep Beep – SHOOM SHOOM SHOOM!

Miniature explosions erupted along the edges of the door, blasting it off its hinges. A thin layer of smoke billowed through the opening as four Byron soldiers leapt into the room, their green body armor reflecting the fluorescent ceiling fixtures.

Marcus instinctively raised a telekinetic shield in front of them just in time to repel the hot lead the soldiers had shot. “Keep the upload going!” he called over his shoulder before charging the four antagonists using his TK shield like a battering ram.

“Telepathic scramblers in those helmet, eh?” he commented. “Can’t say Ah’m not disappointed. Have to do this the hard way now.”

Marcus pushed his TK shield into the closest solider, bowling over him and one other. He kicked the midsection of a third and grabbed his neck in a reverse headlock, smashing the crown on his head into the cold floor. The fourth soldier moved in to knock Marcus out with the butt of his rifle but found another TK shield in place around him, halting his progress.

“Yes!” Shadowcat yelled in triumph. “We got it Marcus! The upload is--”

B-BLAM!

Kitty froze, the gunshot resonating in her ears. Directly in front of her and three inches from her nose, were five bullets hovering in the air and spinning counter-clockwise. She adjusted her focus to see Marcus reaching out toward her with his hand, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. His other arm was extended back and pointed at the soldier who had fired the bullets, now trapped by Marcus Raven’s telekinesis.

“Take…take him out, Kitty!” he muttered, the exhaustion almost overwhelming him.

Marcus suddenly spasmed violently as another plethora of bullets bore into his lower back. The gunman behind him fell to the floor, his TK shield now rendered inert. Shadowcat, horrified, phased into intangibility just in time as the bullets Marcus had been stopping regained their velocity. She watched in ghostly incapacitation as her teammate and friend fell forward, the gun in the hand of the soldier behind him still smoking. Blood began pooling under Marcus, a sure sign that Shadowcat’s fears were coming true.

“Marcus!” she cried, tears beginning to swell in her eyes. She charged forward, all further opposition futilely passing through her. She phased pieces of her body in and out of corporal form, viciously kicking one soldier in the head and another in throat. The soldier who had shot Marcus wasted his ammunition until the gun clicked dry, which prompted Katherine Pride to pull out her own weapon.

There were no clever words to say, no one-liners appropriate for the death of her friend. She simply pulled the trigger and killed the man who had murdered Marcus right in front of her eyes. There was also no final feeling of retribution or completion; Marcus was dead.

She dropped her weapon and fell to the floor beside Marcus, cradling him in her arms. She gripped his aged hand and squeezed. It was already beginning to grow cold.

“I’m so sorry…” she told him. “But it worked. We did it. You and me. The Byron Agency has been exposed, Marcus…”

She gently rocked back and forth, holding close the man who had taught her so much. All the training in the world couldn’t help with the initial shock of losing someone she respected so much. She clung to the small amount of levity that was provided by the act Marcus had died for. The enemies he had fought so boldly against would finally burn down in the flames of their own making. The Indentures were out there…it was only a matter of time now.

Shadowcat’s earpiece warbled with the sound of Nick Fury, screaming for an update of the current situation. He barraged her with questions and concerns, even warning her of imminent danger now that General Meyer had personally stormed the complex.

She let go of Marcus just long enough to remove the earpiece and drop it to the floor. She wrapped her hand back around the southerner’s head, holding him as tight as she could and burying her face in his soft, white hair. Her tears mixed with his blood, leaving indents in the crimson pool under them both.