Chapter 127: Fighting a Gambit
1st March 2006, New York City
(Wanda Maximoff POV)
Wanda was somewhat dubious in accepting Jean’s request.
“Jean, you’re the one who agreed to go with him, I don’t see how I have to ruin an entire night because of it.”
The telepath had, for some reason, accepted to meet with an old friend of Scott the previous night when she came back from Sayre manor. Apparently, she was too tired and wanted to just go to sleep while Scott Summers kept droning on about something, so she just said yes so that he would leave her alone. And now, she was stuck with him for a night, with no way out.
The redhead shook her head, “I just have a bad feeling about this.”
Kitty giggled at this, “If you didn’t want to go, you shouldn’t have said yes.”
“Again, I wasn’t in my right mind. I just wanted him to stop whining and go away.” Jean protested.
Wanda interjected, “Look, just go to the damn thing and leave as soon as you can.”
“I’m going, but I just can’t shake this gut feeling that something is wrong.”
Kitty replied, “Jean, we all know that Scott is a creep, but I don’t see him actively try to hurt you or something. If he actually does something, you could easily kick his ass. You don’t need us there.”
“Please, guys. I’ll feel a lot better if I know you’re around.” Jean practically begged.
Kitty and Wanda looked at each other and then nodded, “Alright, Jean. But you owe us big time.”
Jean leapt and hugged both her friends. Wanda sighed internally, they were just gonna stand there and do nothing but watch Jean and Scott for a few hours in some Café. Sounds like fun. Note the sarcasm in her mental voice. But she couldn’t hang her friend out to dry just after a few weeks of friendship. This is gonna suck.
And suck it did. They spent almost an hour looking at the window of a coffee shop, watching Jean and Scott talking and laughing with an older man.
“Is it just me, or do they look like they’re on a date?” Kitty asked, breaking the silence.
For some reason, this question made Wanda uncomfortable, “She does look happy. Doesn’t she normally hate the guy?”
“Yeah, she does. But the guy has redeeming qualities, if you’re looking for them.”
Wanda frowned, “Like what?”
“He’s charismatic when he needs to, he’s a good leader to the team and he takes it very seriously. He can be very kind. For some reason, all of these traits disappear the second Jean is involved. It’s like he becomes a different person altogether. He also absolutely freaks out if she so much as gets a papercut. This annoys the hell out of the rest of us, especially if she gets hit during training. The guy just loses it. It’s a shame you never saw him without Jean being there because he’s a lot more agreeable then, and he’s actually kinda nice, you know, for an angsty teenager who bemoans the fact that he could only see the world in shades of red.”
Huh, Wanda couldn’t see it. She had automatically categorized the boy as a hostile when he yelled at her mother and agreed with the bald man to send her back to a mental assignment. Looking at the boy, now, he was grinning, laughing alongside Jean, who had a genuine smile on her face. It was a carefree smile, one without any burden or hidden sorrow. It was the smile of a typical teenaged girl on a date.
No, Jean had suffered too much to actually smile like that. She would never be this carefree, especially when she was nervous getting in. There was something wrong there. The picture didn’t make any sense.
Stretching out her senses, she tried to see if there was something in the Café that shouldn’t be there. She found something. There was a small amount magical energy surrounding the building. Wanda wouldn’t have been able to see it without actually looking for it. It was very well hidden.
She decided to analyze the magic. It was familiar somehow. Oh, it was an illusion. She had just started to learn how to cast them with Jasmine and it was growing to be one of her favorite fields of magic. Thank God, that Jasmine had first taught her how to see through illusions before her casting any. Apparently, many wizards and sorcerers ended up stuck in their own illusions with no way out, trapping them until their inevitable demise, where they usually die from either thirst or starvation. A very bad way to go in Wanda’s opinion.
Carefully, she broke through the illusion to see whatever was being hidden. There was nothing sinister going on; it was pretty much the scenario as what was happening but without any customers outside them and Jean’s face was a lot more guarded. Wanda didn’t know if the teenagers were meeting a mutant or wizard that really liked their privacy or if there was a malicious plan in place.
The teenaged witch quickly told her teammate, “Kitty, Jean was right. Something isn’t right. There’s someone putting an illusion around the coffee house. Outside this Nate guy, Scott, Jean and the baristas, there’s no one there. Nothing has happened yet, but be ready to attack at a moment’s notice.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Wanda tried to send a telepathic signal towards Jean to warn her, but there was some kind of shield stopping it. It wasn’t natural though. It felt crude and strange. It was like there was a machine stopping it, not another telepath.
The teenaged witch continued, “I can’t get in touch with Jean. Whoever did that, made sure that telepathic probes can’t get in or out of the building. I think there might be some sort of scrambler, to fool Jean in the fact that they’re alone in the shop.”
Suddenly, Jean was struck with some weird tranquilizing bullet. Scott moved to fight the man, Nate. It’s nice to see that Scott was actually played and did not intend to betray his teammate.
“Kitty, they’re under attack. We need to move, now.”
They ran towards the entrance of the shop, but were stopped by three attackers, waiting in front of the door.
One of the men was holding a staff and playing cards for some reason, but from the way the others were looking at him, he was obviously the leader of this little team, “Mes chers, I’m afraid that I cannot let, even beauties like yourselves through. Orders are orders, after all. Leave, this will be your only warning.”
Wanda sent a telepathic probe towards Kitty, ‘I’ll hold them off, try to sneak in and get Jean and Scott.’
Kitty nodded and ran back to do her part of the plan. Meanwhile, Wanda responded to the annoying man with the French accent by sending telekinetic blasts towards him and his teammates. These blasts did not reach them, as they were interrupted by the playing card the staff wielding man was holding. They intercepted her attack at the speed of a bullet and exploded. The concussive force was able to overwhelm her attack.
The man sighed in disappointment, “I did warn you, I’m sorry about what’s to come,” he then looked at the woman in his left, “you’re up Polaris.”
The woman nodded and started to slowly levitate. Wanda tried to use a telepathic attack but was rebuffed by the mechanical psychic shield she found when trying to contact Jean. It seems like the entire team was somehow protected from telepathic attacks.
The woman, Polaris, raised her hands and the lamp posts around Wanda started to bend, and started attacking her. Wanda dodged using telekinesis and with a burst of energy, she leapt into the sky and banished the woman away. The woman couldn’t do anything to protect herself and was sent flying away.
As Wanda landed, she didn’t have time to celebrate, as she was being immediately attacked by some weird man animal hybrid. The teenaged witch created telekinetic shield around her and then immobilized her attacker with her telekinesis.
She then kept sending blast after blast at the beast’s head, but the thing wouldn’t just go unconscious. It was so annoying; the thing’s head was pretty much bashed it, but it healed almost immediately. Then, one of the blasts, caused some sort of electrical sound. Huh, there was something behind the thing’s ear that kept sparkling. Maybe that was the telepathy blocking machine?
Wanda attacked the thing telepathically once more and easily found her way through. She didn’t have time to rummage through the thing’s mind, but she had more than enough time to force her attacker to sleep.
Alright, that was two down, one to go. She looked at the French guy with a raised eyebrow. The man wasn’t looking as playful as he was a minute ago.
“Well, you’re a very impressive girl, ma Cherie, but I’m afraid you have to deal with the gallant Gambit, now.”
The French man, Gambit, held three playing cards who then started to glow and flew towards her. Wanda was able to create a telekinetic shield in mind, but the explosions on their impact send her flying back.
Getting up, she could barely dodge the glowing end of the staff that came towards her. She sent herself in the air, but was then bombarded with playing card. She couldn’t sustain her flight with a permanent telekinetic shield at the same time, so she was sent flying once more because of the impact.
Righting herself in the air, she was able to land properly and was able to dodge the incoming strike from the staff wielding mutant. What were his powers, anyway? He could make things go really fast and explode.
Wanda dodged another strike which gave her an opening and sent a telekinetic blast at the torso of her opponent. While the strike itself was somewhat blocked, the French man was still banished a few feet back. Wanda wanted to capitalize by sending even more telekinetic blast at her but they were, again, intercepted with the exploding playing card.
The man grinned at her, “You’re a, exceptional fighter, ma Cherie, may I have the honor of your name?”
Was he trying to flirt with her? She so didn’t have time for this; she had a friend to save.
“Get out of my way, I’m going to get my friend back, whether you like it or not.”
The man gave her a smug smile, “You could beat me, that’s fair, girly. But if you think for a second that you have a chance with Monsieur Sinister, then you’re delusional. Whether you beat me or not, doesn’t matter; you have already lost.”
Wanda responded to the man, “I don’t care. Let me through, now, this is my final warning.”
Gambit grinned at her, “Funny, I was about to say the same thing. Don’t worry about your friend, now, you should worry about your own life, after all, it going to be ending soon. A shame, you were so young, with so much potential.”
Wanda asked confused, “What…?”
Before she could finish her question, a giant metal spike impaled her from behind. It went through her chest. The witch looked back and saw the woman she had beaten before, Polaris. She was bleeding from her head and her outfit was ripped all over.
The man looked genuinely sad, “You should never take your eyes off your opponent, ever.”
Wanda smiled at him while coughing out blood, “I was about to tell you the same thing.”
Suddenly, a spike went through the man’s chest from the back. The man looked disbelieving for a second, not registering the attack. Wanda’s figure then started to turn into some sort of red energy and an invisible Wanda appeared behind him.
“Gambit,” Polaris exclaimed.
Distracted, the metal wielding mutant didn’t see the telepathic blast coming which hit her head and broke her neck.
Wanda didn’t have time to deal with the fact that she has just killed her first man. She had a friend to rescue. Slowly walking towards the entrance, the witch composed herself and found an unconscious Kitty near the entrance. There was no sign of fights which meant that there was some sort of trap against her phasing. Jean woke the girl up with her telepathy, ‘Kitty, get up; we need to get Jean now!’
The catholic girl stirred and suddenly jumped up, “What happened?”
“Anti phasing trap, I’m guessing. You sure you’re up for this, apparently, this guy is no joke?”
Kitty glared at the witch, “I’m not gonna abandon my friends, Wanda.”
Wanda nodded and the walked forward but were interrupted by some sort of force field.
The witch was starting to get angry, “I’m starting to get angry at those damn things.”
Wanda gathered what must be her most powerful telekinetic blast yet and threw it at the entrance. It obliterated the force field along with the entrance. Slowly, both mutants walked inside the Café and saw the man, Nate, carrying Jean, preparing to get out.
Wanda spoke to the man, in a threatening voice that even frightened herself, “Put down my friend if you know what’s good for you.”