Here it is. The Epic and Exciting conclusion! Enjoy!
Nataku's Wrath
The Big Fat Kill
"The Big Fat Kill"
-X-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Storm screams in agony as steel fingers push and prod and dig into her neck, cheeks, and face.
She's tied to a wooden chair in an abandoned warehouse and Colossus, the giant mob enforcer, is standing behind her, torturing her with his massive hands. His steel fingers dig into her flawless skin, terrorizing her nerves while leaving her beautiful face unmarked and unblemished.
Twice she tried to use her elemental powers, but couldn't summon the concentration and focus to produce more than a little bit of static electricity and several flakes of snow.
Across the room, a pair of small time goons watched the torture like it was a Saturday afternoon movie.
"Yeesh…Do we gotta just stand here and watch this?" Manny, a short, fat man in desperate need of a shower and shave, asks his companion.
"You kidding, man?" says his tall, bald companion named Stuka. Stuka is a Neo-Nazi; he has a swastika tattooed in the middle of his forehead. "I could watch Piotr do his thang all night long and not get tired of it. The man's an artist. Just look at how that sweet, wide mouth of hers has gone all twisty and quivery…" he shivers in sadistic pleasure as Colossus digs his fingers deeper into Storm's checks.
"AAAAAAAAAA!" Storm screams again. Colossus pauses in his torture and leans his head down to Storm's ear.
"He's right, you know," he says. "I'm an artist. Can't you tell? Only an artist should be allowed to touch skin as beautiful as yours." He resumes his torture, spearing his steel fingers into the sensitive nerves in Storm's neck. "It takes an artist, just using his hands and not leaving any marks. And I didn't leave any marks on you at all. You're just as pretty as you were when you got here." He clamps down on her neck and Storm slumps forward in her chair. She doesn't pass out, but comes close.
"So now you see what I can do. And that's just using my hands," he chuckles to himself. "I haven't even opened my toolbox yet."
A door opens at the end of the empty room, casting a harsh light in the dark warehouse.
"Just give them what they want, Storm. I can't stand seeing you like this," says a soft, feminine voice from the doorway.
The voice pulls Storm out of the pain filled haze. "Huh? Kitty?" she questions, completely and hopelessly confused.
"It's over Storm," Kitty says coldly as she walks up to where Storm is tied up. "There's no fighting them. Those Irish soldiers called in, like, less than an hour ago. Gambit's dead. They got what's left of that cop we killed. The mob's gonna turn it over to the police chief. The cops are gonna mow us down. Piotr promised to cut us a deal."
Storm's eyes flash with anger. "Kitty. It was you! You little bitch! It was you! You sold us out!"
"I had to!" Kitty shouts right back. "I like didn't have any choice! They were going to hurt my mom! Don't make this any worse on me than it already is."
"Breaks yer heart, don't it?" jokes Manny as he and Stuka share a chuckle from the corner.
"I know you're mad at me, Storm. I know you're really sore," says Kitty honestly and meekly. "But what's done is done and there's nothing nobody can do about it. You gotta be reasonable. You gotta cut a deal with these people."
Kitty gets right in Storm's face and her voice takes a hard edge to it. "It's selfish, you holding out like this," she scolds Strom. "You're gonna get a lot of girls killed and for no good reason."
Storm's blue eyes faded into pure white orbs of barely contained fury. Sparks of electricity dance from her eyes and cackle in front of Kitty's face.
"Storm—damn it—you stop staring at me like that!" she screams. "I can't stand it, you staring at me like that! You know how much I love you and the other girls! You're like sisters to me! But it was my mom! They was gonna hurt my mom!"
"You're so full of shit," growls Strom. "We could've protected your mom. You know that. It was the money. You sold us out like Judas, you little bitch. I'll kill you!" Storm lashes against the ropes pinning her against the chair. Kitty jumps back, retreating to the protective arms of Colossus. Storm forgets about using her powers; she wants to rip Kitty apart with her own two hands. But the ropes hold her tightly and she soon tires herself out. She looks at Kitty and Colossus, at how close the two are, and it all clicks in her head.
"So how much money is your Communist boyfriend paying you?" asks Storm with a hint of laughter. "Is he paying you for sex or just to sell us out?"
Kitty left Colossus' side and slaps Storm in the face as hard as she could. The slap echoes through the empty warehouse and a red handprint begins to grow on Storm's already aching cheeks.
"Sure there's money!" Kitty shouts, her high-pitched voice reverberating throughout the room. "Like, a whole lot of money! Sure you coulda protected my mom! Sure! You could have moved her into Old Town and let her know her daughters a goddamn whore!"
Colossus slowly walks behind the still screaming Kitty, his skin returning back to normal flesh instead of steel.
"Piotr offered me what you couldn't never offer me!" shouts Kitty, pointing at Colossus. "He offered me a way out! He cares for me, he loves me! He doesn't use me like you use all the girls in Old Town! He offered me a way out and I took it!"
Kitty balls up a tiny fist and hits Storm again. A dull, wet packing sound fills the room. "Maybe that makes me a traitor or something, but I didn't have any choice!" she shouts and hits Storm a third time. "I hadda watch out for my own neck!" she screams, her face inches away from Storm's.
"Your neck your neck your precious scrawny little neck…" Storm roars and she snaps her head forward, stretching her long neck, and sinking her teeth into Kitty's soft neck.
CHOMP!
Storm's sudden attack catches Kitty off guard and gives Storm a chance to inflict real damage on Kitty before she could use her powers. Storm's teeth cut deeply into Kitty's white throat before Kitty phases away.
WHAM!
Colossus' massive fist slams into Storm sending her flying across the room. Kitty stumbles to the ground, holding her neck, blood seeping through her fingers.
"Crazy. You're crazy! Coulda ripped my throat out, you crazy whore!"
"You'll get worse. I swear it. You little bitch!" hisses Storm from the floor, Kitty's blood dripping from her mouth.
"ENOUGH!" bellows Colossus as his flesh transforms back into organic steel. "Manny—fetch my tools. Stuka—kill this one," he gestures to Kitty.
"NO!" she screams in terror and confusion.
"Stupid bitch," cries Storm almost triumphantly. "You deserve worse."
"But I was promised…Piotr…you said you loved me…that you'd take care of me!" Kitty wails to Colossus.
"Forgive me, Katya. I lied," Colossus sneers coldly. "Stuka."
Stuka pulls a large revolver out of the waistband of his leather pants. "I knew there was a reason I got outta bed this morning!" he cheers. "Mind if I take her someplace private?" he asks Colossus as he cocks the gun. "Ain't everyday a fella gets an opportunity like this dropped in his lap."
He levels the gun at Kitty, her eyes wide in terror.
THUNK!
Out of nowhere, a purple arrow crashes through the window and pierces through Stuka's chest.
-X-
Outside in the pouring rain…
Psylocke stood unmoving, letting the rain wash away the leftover tar from her skin and wash the stench of the sewer off her kimono. She looks down from her perch atop a nearby rooftop into the abandoned warehouse. She saw Kitty hitting Storm and Storm biting Kitty back. She wants to run down the building and into that warehouse when she saw Colossus hit Storm across the room.
But she waits. She waits for Gambit's signal.
A playing card, pulsing with kinetic energy, floats up to the rooftop and explodes in a puff of harmless smoke.
Psylocke reaches down and picks up a powerful short bow from the ground. Drawing back an arrow, purple energy races up and down Psylocke's arm and into the arrowhead.
She lets go.
The psychic arrow flies through the air with a high-pitched whistle and spears through the warehouse window and pierces through Stuka's chest.
THUNK!
"Hey…" he yelps in surprise.
Colossus' hired goons scramble to the windows, looking for the shooter.
"Nobody! I don't see nobody!"
Stuka was still standing, inspecting the arrow in his chest.
"Will ya look at that? It's right through me," he says in shock. "Guys. Look. It cut a hole right through me."
Manny walks towards Stuka, staring at the wound. "There's something wrapped around it," he calls out. "Some kind of note."
"Give it to me," orders Colossus. Manny quickly unties the note from the arrow and hands it to Colossus.
"Guys. This is starting to really hurt. Just look at it. It's poked right through me." Stuka looks around the room, but no one was paying any attention to him. "Guys?"
Colossus ignores Stuka and unravels the note attached to the arrow.
THE COP'S HEAD FOR THE WOMAN, OUT BACK.
Your pal,
Gambit
"Gambit. You fool," Colossus mutters under his breath.
"Guys? Don't you think maybe somebody oughtta call a doctor for me or something?" asks Stuka, a hint of worry creeping into his voice. "This isn't the kind of thing you just ignore, guys."
"Out back. Everyone. Bring the women," orders Colossus. The troops quickly filed out of the room, heading for the back alley. Manny grabs Kitty roughly by the arm and half-drags her away. Colossus casually grabs the back of the chair Storm is tied to and carries her out with him.
"Uh, hello?" Stuka whimpers all alone in the abandoned room. "Guys?"
Outside, Psylocke watches the troupe of mob goons and enforcers stomp out of the warehouse. A small smile creeps across her tight lips.
Turning her attention back to the empty room, Psylocke notches another arrow and leaps from the rooftop.
KTANGG!
The arrow flies through the air, crashes through another window, and pierces through Stuka's neck.
"Urk…" he utters before falling to the ground.
-X-
Out Back.
Dozens of them file out of the warehouse.
Dozens of them. All armed to the teeth.
I wait for them at the end of the alley, standing on a pile of old junk metal, Jackie-Boy's head in my hand.
I'm outnumbered.
Outgunned.
But the alley is crooked. Dark. And very, very narrow.
Funneled into it, they get in each other's way. They can't surround me. Their numbers don't count for so much.
Sometimes you can be the odds—with a careful choice of where to fight.
I hold Jackie-Boy's head up like a trophy; duct tape wrapped around the asshole's mouth.
Colossus and his men reach the end of the alley and a dozen guns cock all at once.
"Y'all can have Old Town. Gambit don't care. Just give Gambit de woman," I shout.
"Mmmmmmmph mmm mmmph…" Jackie-Boy tries to say something beneath the duct tape.
"You shut up, Jackie-Boy," I whisper to the head.
"Remy—don't do this…" shouts Storm.
"Of course, Gambit," interrupts Colossus. "A fair trade. She's all yours."
Colossus motions to one of his goons and he unties Storm. She tries to run to me, but Colossus grabs her arm, stopping her.
"The head," he orders.
I hand Jackie-Boy's head to another mob soldier and Colossus lets go of Storm. She runs up the pile of assorted junk I'm standing on and dives into my arms. The feel of her body so close to mine stirs feelings inappropriate for a man and a woman with a few dozen guns trained on their faces.
Kitty is standing off to the side, still with Manny. She watches as the head passes by her.
"Wait a minute…something's not right…" she says.
"Shut up or I'll plug ya," threatens Manny.
The soldier carrying the head steps away from me and presents the head to Colossus. The big Russian smiles as he pulls two ridiculously large handguns out of his jacket.
"Thank you," he smiles as he levels the guns at Storm and me. "Now perhaps you'll explain why it is we shouldn't blow you both to pieces?"
Storm looks up at me and I can see the first sign of worry and fear in her eyes.
"Remy—what have you done?"
"Everything I had to, Ororo. Every step of the way."
The man with the head walks past Kitty. She stares closer at the head, the phases out of Manny's grip. She runs towards Colossus and grabs onto his massive steel arm.
"No! It's not right, Piotr! Like, there wasn't any tape over his mouth! How come there's tape over his mouth?"
Colossus looks at her and then at the head. Then he notices the faint red light blinking underneath the tape. He turns back to me and raises his guns to fire.
Too late.
It was a good trick, the one that Irish terrorist Sean used on me. Hide the grenade and conceal the remote. No one saw the remote in my hand.
Not until I hit the trigger.
Click!
BOOM!
Jackie-Boy's head explodes in a gooey messy of eyeballs, bone, and very little brains. The only thing remaining of the goon carrying it was a pair of sneakered feet.
The powerful explosion rocks Colossus and all his men. The big Russian is covered in blood and bits of pink matter.
"A cute trick, Gambit, but it will do you no good." He levels his guns at us again.
I raise a finger and point up at the rooftops behind him. Colossus turns and the steel orbs serving as eyes open wide.
"NO! GAMBIT, YOU SHIT!"
Where to fight. It counts for a lot.
But there's nothing like having your friends show up with lots of guns.
-X-
Sudden thunder.
The girls of Old Town all now the score. I made it plain as hell to Yukio when I called her and she passed it on. They know what we gotta do.
No escape.
No surrender.
No mercy.
We gotta kill every rat bastard one of them.
Every last one.
Not for revenge. Not because they deserve it. Not because it'll make the world a better place. There's nothing righteous or noble about it.
We gotta kill them because we need them dead.
We need a heap of bloody bodies so when The Kingpin looks over his charts of profits and losses he'll see what it cost him to mess with the girls of Old Town.
The girls with guns unload on the alley, spraying everything that moves with bullets. The girls with powers unleash a torrent of fireballs and energy beams and everything else you could think of at the mobsters.
I charge entire decks of playing cards, turning them into handheld bombs, and spray them all over the alley. Explosions of kinetic energy maim and kill goons left and right.
As soon as the firing started, Manny lets go of Kitty and worried more about the rain of death coming down from above. Kitty runs for cover, phasing through bodies and bullets and balls of fire. She nearly makes it to the far wall when exhaustion racks her body. Losing focus for just an instant, a bullet tears through her arm. Fiery pain shoots up and down her arm and she falls to her knees. Crawling, she manages to find a small alcove to hide in. In too much pain to phase through the wall, she watches the blood bath.
Some of the mob soldiers in the back were able to avoid the initial massacre and had the good sense to run while they had the chance. Dropping their guns, they turn and run back towards the empty warehouse.
Psylocke is waiting for them.
With a snap-hiss, her psychic blades erupt from her hands and she cuts a bloody swathe through the men, hacking and slicing and killing. She dodges bullets and throws razor sharp shuriken stars.
She gets her practice in.
Colossus stood tall amidst the piles of broken and bloody bodies; bullets and energy blasts bouncing harmlessly off his steel skin.
"Hey Tin Man!"
He turns his attention to the Goddess at my side and trembles.
Storm's white eyes dance with electricity and she holds her hands skyward. She calls lightning down from the skies and shapes it into a ball over her head until that ball is as massive as the piece of shit T-Bird those dizzy dames pinned on me earlier.
"Do you know what happens when lightning strikes a massive steel conductor?" she laughs at the Russian. She hurtles the ball of lightning at Colossus and smiles gleefully as the lightning ball strikes him in the chest, burning away his steel flesh as if it was paper. A high-pitched scream fills the air as Colossus burns to a crisp.
The thunder doesn't stop. We fire and attack and fire and attack and watch their heads explode from playing cards or lightning bolts and watch their guts fly like butchers scraps and the alley walls get caked with wet wads of skin and meat and the smokes gets so think that the things we're all pumping bullets and energy blasts into are nothing but twisted toppling screaming smudges of movement.
The Valkyrie at my side is shouting and laughing with the pure hateful bloodthirsty joy of the slaughter and so am I.
And when all the killings done, I grab her around the waist and press my lips onto hers, blasting away all the blood, all the pain we've built up over the night. Sparks of pink kinetic energy and white lightning dance across our lips. Like fire.
She'll always be mine.
My warrior woman, my Valkyrie. She'll always be mine; I'll always love her, even though I never will. Always and never.
The fire, baby. It'll burn us both. It'll kill us both. There's no place in this world for our kind of fire.
Always and never.
-X-
It's almost dawn by the time I crawl back to Rogue's apartment. I'm dog tired and dirty, covered in tar and sweat and the stench of sewage and blood, but I'm alive.
I raise my hand to knock on her door when it flies open and a hand grabs me by the collar of my duster and yanks me inside. She's still just wearing one of my shirts and a pair of panties. This time I take the moment and think about how sexy she looks in them.
I open my mouth to say something, but Rogue's lips mash into mine before any words come out.
Heaven. Not like my Valkyrie's fire, but better. It's deeper, stronger than any inferno of raw passion. It wipes away all the terrible memories from the night: talking to Jackie-Boy's head, drowning in the Tar Pits, getting shot up blown up and smashed, and having to kill a whole lot of people. She takes it all away with one long kiss, wiping it away like it was a bad dream.
But then she breaks it and puts on her gloves and I know I'm going to get it.
"Where in da hell have you been all night?" she shouts at me as she takes off her protective anklet.
"I…"
I didn't even form a full sentence before she rears back and punches me in the face. She pulls her punch, but not a whole lot. She settles for smashing in my cheek and bloodying my eye and nose instead of knocking my head clear off.
"First, ya let me get slapped around by Jackie-Boy and his pals, then ya scare them off and jump out mah window like you're Superman or something. Ya leave me here worryin' about ya all night long and then ya have the nerve to come back lookin' and smellin' like the swamp rat you are!"
"Remy's sorry, Chere," I tell her in the sweetest voice I can muster. "I didn't mean to worry you so. Remy think it's kinda sweet you worryin' so much bout him."
Rogue's fist pulls back to belt me again, but she stops and her hands drop to her sides.
"Oh, Remy," she sighs as she slips her anklet back on and takes her gloves off. "What am Ah gonna do with ya?"
I wipe the blood off my face and give her my most charming smile. "Why don't you take Remy back to bed and he'll tell you all about his little adventure?"
She smiles at me. "Oh no. There's no way Ah'm lettin' your smelly swamp rat ass back in my bed like this. You go get in the shower first."
"Care to join me, Chere?" I offer. Her push in the direction of the bathroom says no.
A hot shower can do wonders for a tired and aching body. Especially one that's had its ass kicked and did some ass kicking all night like mine. Especially when Rogue changes her mind, peels back the shower curtain, and steps in with me.
The End
--X--
Epilogue
"Yes. Oh Mom, don't go on like that," Kitty whines into her cell phone. She's walking down the hall of Basin City Memorial Hospital, her arm in a sling. The doctors did a good job patching up her arm, although she had to constantly stop herself from phasing out of the bandages.
"It's not the city," she tells her mom through the cell phone. "I could've gotten in a traffic accident anywhere." A lie of course, but far better than the truth. "Yeah, just a fracture. Doctor said it's a clean break. It should be right as rain in no time."
Kitty reaches the elevator and has to pause in her conversation to press the button.
A few seconds later, the doors open and Kitty steps onto the elevator. A young, handsome doctor is already inside, reading a file of some kind. Kitty presses the button for the ground floor, listening to her mother rant on how dangerous it is for her to be living in the city.
"Un-huh. Yeah Mom," she says into the phone automatically, not really listening to her mother rant about how bad her living the city was. Her eyes sweep over the doctor. Blonde hair, blue eyes under small wire frame glasses, athletically built, with the lightest trace of stubble on his cheeks. He was wearing one of those long white lab coats doctors always wear in hospitals. The coat seemed a little big for the doctor and it was all bunched up in the back.
The doctor looks up from his file and catches Kitty staring at him. She quickly faces front, going back to the conversation with her mom.
The doctor smiles and removes his glasses, tucking them into his pocket. He digs into the fold of his coat and produces an open pack pf cigarettes.
"Kitty," he says softly. She turns at the sound of her name and looks at him, confused.
"Care for a smoke?" he asks kindly.
Warning bells go off in Kitty's head.
'What kind of doctor offers cigarettes to patients inside the hospital? How does he know my name?'
She studies his face and figure again. He looks even handsomer without the glasses on. She concentrates so much on his looks she almost misses the single white feather falling to the elevator floor just behind his legs.
Good looks. White feather. Bulges under jacket back.
Terrible realization spreads over Kitty as she stares at the doctor.
Her mom repeats something over again on the cell phone. Kitty barely catches her mother's "I love you."
"I love you too, Mom," Kitty replies into her phone as heartfelt as she could make it.
Her cell phone closes with a sharp clink.
Phew!
The silencer makes a whisper of the gunshot. The specially made bullet is too dense for Kitty to phase through and it hits her in the center of her throat.
The doctor stands over her while she dies, watching as her bright blue eyes fade with death, ignoring her silent pleas for help and mercy.
When it's all over, the doctor removes his white lab coat and unfurls his large, angelic wings. Stretching them out as much as the small elevator would allow, he opens an escape hatch built into the elevator's ceiling. He climbs out and closes the hatch behind him.
Ding!The elevator doors open and he hears a woman scream at the sight of Kitty's bloody body. He smiles inside the elevator shaft before flapping his wings and soaring up to the roof.
"Another day, another dollar," Angel says as he flies away, laughing to himself.
Author's Notes:
There it is, "The Big Fat Kill" is officially finished. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Up next my X-Men/SIN CITY universe: "A Dame to Kill For." I've already started to cast it and have begun writing out the first chapter. I'll be posting it in a separate story entitled "A Dame to Kill For" so watch for it or just get one of those author alert thingies for me set up. Hopefully, I'll have the first chapter posted before school starts in a few weeks. After that, the continuation of Scott Summer's story: "That Yellow Bastard" will be under this title. So keep your eyes open and, as always, read and review!
Until then,
Nataku's Wrath
Reviewer Shout-outs!
DarkWolfBlade: I also loved that scene with Psylocke in the sewers. It was so merciless and badass. I hope you like my ending and that you read my next installment as well.
Coldqueen: I'm glad you noticed that I wasn't making Gambit an all-Ororo guy, my dear queen. The idea was that Rogue was his current love and Ororo was an affair from the past. So while he loves Rogue very much, he also has all these past feelings for Ororo that get dragged back to the surface when he encounters her in Old Town. I felt it necessary to make sure that Gambit went back to Rogue at the end of the story. Yeah, he may wander a bit every now and then, but his heart truly belongs with Rogue. I hoped you enjoyed the ending, darlin', and I hope you keep reading my work. Means a lot to me.
Johnny Be Good: I'm glad you like the casting. It was always the hardest part, making sure I got characters to fit in the right roles, although I did play around with one or two just for fun, like Colossus.
CatLadyinTraining: Sorry bout your cat. Colossus was my first pick for Manute just based on looks. Aside from being black, Colossus is almost a dead ringer for Manute in size and strength. The inner good-guy he has was another reason I chose him. I like taking good guys and making them bad, like I did with Xavier in "The Hard Goodbye." I knew people, well at least most people, would never see Colossus coming. Plus I wanted to do the whole Kitty and Piotr love/betrayal scene. I never really liked them as a couple, well I never really liked Kitty at all. As far as Sean AKA Banshee, I never even thought about making people's heads explode. That might have been fun. Maybe I should have done that to Dani…
NoOo NoOo Lebeau: Did Remy come out as Prince Charming? I hope so. Hope you liked my ending and thanks for reading and reviewing.
Burningnostalgia: I'm glad you enjoyed me showing the softer side of Gambit when it came to his concern over others. I tried to make sure I balanced it out with Psylocke just being a hardcore badass.
BlkDiamond: You know there's a really good song by KISS called Black Diamond. Just thought I'd throw that out there for shits and giggles. Glad you like the fic, keep on reading and watch for my next one.
The Frog Prince of Crime: I felt a little bad, killing off Dani without ever giving her much pull in the story, but tough luck right? Sean was a bit tough since I had very little experience with him in any form of the X-Men be it comics, movies, cartoon, whatever. Basically I knew he was the screaming guy. But I'm glad you think I did a good job. Thanks and keep on reading and reviewing.
Retrimesuroth: Every time I type your penname, I have to check it 2-3 times to make sure I spell it right. Glad you're "Lovin'it" (now I sound like a McDonald's comerical lol). I hope you went out and bought the SIN CITY dvd. I would recommend spending the extra bucks and getting the extended edition. The additional scenes and all the documentaries and special features stuff are worth it. I'm sorry to say that the rest of Summer's story won't be written until after I do "A Dame to Kill For". I guess you could say I'm on a Remy kick right now or something. But I promise it will be good so check it out once I post it.
Elfkid: Thank you for the wonderful reviews. I'm very happy and quite honored you feel so highly of my humble work. I too have had problems with the whole email alert system and find it often unreliable. My only recommendation is to check the profile pages of your favorite authors often, I check them almost daily to see if any new work has been posted. This can sadly be a bit disappointing, as it seems most authors don't post as often as I check, but I never miss an update on my favorite stories now. Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you again in Dame.
To all my readers, those who review or not, I thank you all for reading my work this far and hope to see you all soon.
Nataku's Wrath