IRRATIONAL CHOICES

Part II: Things Heat Up

By Brent Lambert

Elena moved through the woods with a speed that Vargas had never before witnessed from her. She was running like Wilma Rudolph to whatever her destination was. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure how he ended up out here. The last thing he remembered was fighting Bengal and the other escaped criminals. Obviously, he was going to have to catch up on a few things, but he wouldn’t be able to do so until Elena slowed down to take a breath.

The Spaniard knew better than to call out for her though. Elena was moving with a purpose and he would just keep up with her. Besides, no matter how fast she ran there was no way she could exhaust him. He had been trained to run for miles without tiring. Elena’s outburst of speed wouldn’t affect him.

Branches slapped across his black outfit and tugged at his cloak. That soon came to a halt as Elena began to blast away the branches with mystical bursts of glowing green fire. Something was truly disturbing about Elena’s behavior, but once again Vargas knew not to make an issue of it until they had come to a stop. So he continued to follow her through the evergreen forest until they reached a large circular clearing. The stench was immediately recognized by Vargas. Human death.

The bodies were littered across the clearing like discarded rag dolls and the tiny cabins that they had been occupying were up in smoke. Elena dropped to her knees and covered her face with trembling hands. Vargas moved forward and knelt on the ground with his lover. Wrapping his large, but gentle arms around her he asked, “What’s wrong Elena? Where are we?”

It was a few moments before Elena answered him. “My brother. He lived here. A coven of witches who had separated themselves from society. I felt him die as we lay in the hospital.”

Vargas’ face was twisted by confusion. “Hospital? What is going on Elena?”

Elena dug her face into Vargas’ neck and he began to stroke her hair. He could feel her warm tears trickling down. Between sobs, Elena managed to speak. “You were injured badly by those villains you fought. They nearly killed you. And me…I was captured by Pierce. He…changed me.”

Those last words sounded like pure agony and for the first time Vargas took notice of Elena. The whole confusion of the situation had thrown off The Spaniard’s observational skills. He noticed the cold chill he felt from her left arm, which rubbed against his torso. He saw the circuitry streaming upward from her right hand. Squeezing Elena tighter he said, “Dios. I’m sorry Elena. I should have been there. Oh God why wasn’t I there?”

Lovers were suddenly bound together by their tears of grief as death surrounded them. Vargas could only hold onto Elena and Elena could only think of her brother’s lifeless body out there in the clearing. Picking up her head from Vargas’ shoulder she looked at him with sorrowful and hateful eyes. “We have to find who did this. I swear they have to be made to pay for this.”

The two stood up and Vargas’ kept his hands on Ms. Witch’s shoulders. “We will. I promise. X-Factor has resources.”

“No X-Factor!” Elena exclaimed. “Just me and you. If Valerie had let me come here sooner like I wanted we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

You don’t need X-Factor! You never have! All they’ve done is lie to you! Reveal all their lies! You have the power!

Ms. Witch had almost hoped that the voice had gone away, but for once she couldn’t argue with it. She didn’t need X-Factor and she most certainly had the power to reveal all their lies. Elena was almost scared to find out what she would discover. Nonetheless, she had to convince Vargas that they would be better off on their own.

“What Elena? What’s wrong?” Vargas asked. His girlfriend appeared to suddenly fly off into space and just as suddenly had the look of someone who had to sit next to a dirty old man on a subway.

Elena sighed. She was going to have to do this. She had to. “Give me your hands Vargas. I think it’s time we both find out some things.”

“Okay,” Vargas said giving her his hands in lovesick obedience. “I trust you.”

“At least that makes one of us,” Elena weakly smiled as blue mist began to gather at the two mutants’ feet. Closing her eyes with careful effort, she began to mumble incoherently. As the mist neared their shoulders she said, “Show us the lies that have been told to us. Reveal to us truths unknown.”

The mist cracked with blueblack lightning. Their bodies grew cold and images began to flood through their minds. Images of what really was. And what they saw would forever turn them against X-Factor.

Coney Island

Ruby Claw had not been with X-Factor long, but that did not mean she was unaccustomed to engaging fellow mutants in combat. She had been trained from a child by The Red Diamond Syndicate to fight with the best. Marcus Tsung had been proving himself a worthy adversary thus far with his invisible bullets, which were absolutely impossible to dodge. Thankfully, Ruby Claw’s current abilities afforded her with diamond hard skin. The invisible bullets only served to put a few cracks into her armor.

“Keep coming at me like that and I’ll shatter you into a million pieces,” Tsung said as he lobbed bullet after bullet at the charging Ruby Claw. His black hair flung in the wind as he did so and served to temporarily mask the fearful expression on his face.

“I think by the time I get to you, it’ll be game over for you anyway. So keep up your little façade of hope for the few more seconds it’ll last,” Ruby Claw replied as she rammed her shoulder into Marcus’ abdomen. The Chinese man was flung backwards and landed on a mangled dead body with a thud. He had been knocked out cold by Claw’s tackle.

Forge walked up behind his newest teammate. “Looks like you didn’t need my assistance after all.”

“No. I ate people like him for breakfast at the age of ten. The Red Diamonds didn’t play nice with us.”

Taking a gulp, Forge said, “I’m sure they didn’t. So that just leaves Polaris handling New Son. I’m not sure if I even want to get involved in that fight.”

Ruby Claw looked up at the sky where green clashed with blue to equal effect. It created a false Aurora Borealis that could probably be seen for miles around. “From the looks of things they appear to be at a stalemate. We may have no choice, but to interfere.”

Forge bit his bottom lip and said, “I don’t know. I have a feeling us interfering might make things more difficult for Lorna.”

Will O’ the Wisp landed next to Forge. “Nonsense. We’ve got him outnumbered big. We need to take advantage of that fact. I wasn’t sent here to sit around and look at a battle unfold.”

Red Lotus walked over to the gathering with Shard and added, “I gotta go against you on this one Forge. We need to get up there and fast. I saw Lorna and she was acting irrationally. New Son is playing on her emotions and she’s bound to give him an opening soon.”

Forge looked up again at the barrage of sparks and waves of light that were coming from the aerial battle. He had confidence in Lorna, but if Red Lotus was calling her hot-headed…

“Okay. We get up there and end this fight now. Will O’ the Wisp you’re our only flyer at the moment. I need you to get Shard up close and in New Son’s face,” Forge commanded then he turned to the former XSE agent. “Then you hit him in the face with everything you got. Hopefully, Lorna will take advantage of the distraction and do some sort of finishing move on New Son. If not, Will O’ the Wisp will be there to intercept you.”

“Then what?” Red Lotus asked hoping he would get some participation in Plan B.

Forge sighed. “Hopefully by then the Fantastic Four will be on their way.”

Department K

Seated in the conference room were four people who had been having a great deal of influence on recent affairs in the lives of X-Factor. They were Fontanelle, Director of the Department K program, and her second in command, Quiet Bill. Fontanelle was at the head of the rectangular glass table they all were seated at. Quiet Bill was on her right and true enough to his name he had remained dead quiet throughout the meeting thus far. Skip a seat to the left of Fontanelle and you had Mr. Slade, an agent of Durklan Inc. Next to him was Carlton Beatrice, another associate of the highly influential Durklan Inc.

Fontanelle was in her early 40s, but still retained a very youthful aura about her. She was as vibrant as any of her junior scientists and worked twice as hard. Working under Durklan Inc. required one to have a certain drive especially given the position that she was in. Her partner in crime, Quiet Bill, was half her age and his looks said more than his words ever could. A life in the streets of New Orleans had given him a thick skin and an affinity for talking only when it was needed. The two of them kept the growing engine of Department K running at a speed that was optimal for Durklan’s needs.

Mr. Slade served as a messenger for Durklan and had already had a sound beating given to him by Thomas Fireheart aka Puma. The nicely tanned, former Abercrombie model hadn’t expected his job to be quite as rough as it was turning out, but the money made it all worth it. Besides he had always wanted to be a superhero when he was growing up. The next best thing was to be a villain. Of course he’d never tell anyone he worked with that he looked at his actions as wrong. That’d earn him a meeting with the Board of Directors and they could be particularly unfriendly.

“The assassin completed her mission and Elena’s brother has been eliminated from the picture,” Slade informed with a smug smile.

The immaculate businessman, Beatrice, rubbed a hand through his blonde hair and said, “Brilliant! Now it’s only a matter of time that they discover the truth of Vargas’ poor dear mother.”

“Who Ch’Vayre so graciously disposed of for us,” Slade added.

“You talk about killing old women a little too eagerly,” Fontanelle said lacing her words with disgust. She hated the little shit, but he was whom the Board sent so she had to deal with him.

Carlton smiled at Gloria’s reaction to Slade and said, “Either way things are starting to fall into place for us. Soon everything we will be exactly where we need it to be.”

“I don’t see how having a renegade Ms. Witch and Vargas helps our cause. They’ll be completely unpredictable and more than likely they’ll show up at that unexpected moment and ruin everything,” Fontanelle replied with bitterness.

Beatrice plopped both of his elbows on the glass table and folded his hands together. “You should have more faith Director. Leave Elena to me. I will make sure she and her lover play the role we need them to.”

Having to be satisfied with that answer, Fontanelle said, “So does this mean I get authorization to push forward with my projects?”

“Unfortunately, no. A new figure has entered into the picture and I’m afraid he’s complicated things a bit,” Beatrice explained as Slade slid a manila folder to Dayne.

Fontanelle angrily opened up the folder and saw the picture of scientist Rory Campbell. “I thought he went underground months ago. Just how is he a problem for us?”

“Recently, he’s undergone some cybernetic changes and has started calling himself Ahab. He’s instituted his own Hound program that could have potentially clashed with ours. Thankfully, Durklan intervened and made Ahab an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

Quiet Bill cut his eyes at Beatrice waiting for him to complete his explanation. Beatrice tugged at his tie a bit and said, “We’ve offered him the means to build his Hounds exponentially faster than he ever could have on his own. In fact, we’ve already established a base for him in Alaska to house some of his upcoming soldiers in. But, Durklan really only has one division at the moment with the availability to produce these Hounds for Ahab.”

Finally, Quiet Bill spoke. “That would be us.”

“Bullshit!” Fontanelle exclaimed. “I’ve been nothing but loyal to this company and now I have to sidestep my work just to give some upstart scientist room to do his!”

Beatrice shrugged. “Think of it as more time to refine your projects. Durklan simply refuses to have any loose elements hanging around. They’re having enough problems with the Hellfire Club, Black Womb, Psionex and Sinister as is.”

Gloria’s eyebrows perked up. “Sinister? I thought he was dead.”

“All of Durklan’s evidence points to the contrary. Unfortunately, that means more problems that the company will inevitably have to deal with,” Beatrice said as he and Slade simultaneously rose from their seats. “In the meantime your job is to entertain Ahab and his Hounds.”

Coney Island

“Just give it up already! I’ve got your number!” Lorna yelled as she enclosed New Son’s head in a magnetic field and began to squeeze.

New Son laughed at Lorna’s futile attack. “I thought you would have gotten it by now. I’m energy. Squeeze and stretch me all you like. I don’t give a damn!”

Lorna smiled. “Whoever said the point of the field was to squeeze you?”

Suspicious eyes pierced through Lorna and he followed her eyes upward. She was looking over him. At what? The Italian turned around just in time to see a determined Shard aim both of her fists at him. Photonic energy slammed into his face and sent Regalo del Ferro’s leader tumbling through the air.

A distraction! That bitch!

New Son was growing increasingly angry with X-Factor’s success against him and his team. Without Vargas and Ms. Witch the battle should have easily been won, but he hadn’t counted on the addition of Mongoose and Will O’ the Wisp. Those two bastards had somehow tipped the scale in X-Factor’s favor.

Shard’s beam of energy had rocketed New Son all the way to the ground. Where did the woman find the will to summon that much energy? He had underestimated her greatly. Surrounded by wreckage and dead bodies, New Son let out a guttural roar of frustration. Blue fire erupted from his body and lit everything that entrapped him in kinetic energy.

Lorna saw the spectacle from above and reached out to wrap her friends in a magnetic bubble. She had exhausted herself in the fight against New Son and she just hoped she could manage to pull off one last feat. If not, New Son’s blast was likely to kill all of her teammates on the ground.

“We gotta get down there!” Shard yelled as she was caught in the arms of Will O’ the Wisp.

“No way we could move fast enough! I gotta do this!” Lorna cried as she reached out and surrounded Forge and the others.

New Son’s rage blew forth and the blast covered nearly the entire island. Unexpectedly, Lorna had to surround herself, Shard, and Arvad in a magnetic field from the explosion. The strain of the battle and keeping up two magnetic fields against New Son’s blast was too much. After the energy had subsided she passed out in mid-air and flew towards the ground.

Regalo del Ferro’s leader looked upward and smiled. He propelled himself at nearly the speed of sound and caught the unconscious Polaris in his arms. With a dark scowl upward at his attacker, Shard, he vanished in a brilliant blaze of blue.

He was gone and he had Lorna in tow.