The Preserve, Thursday Afternoon
Sitting down at the mouth of the relatively deep hole in the ground, legs crossed demurely, Mary tossed pebble after pebble down at the pair at the bottom. "Wakey, wakey boys."
Cable's techno-organic mesh was spiking high up above his head, the stretch of living metal nearly claiming one of his eyes already. Whatever Typhoid had done, it had irritated the T-O symbiote to the point that it was, again, trying to devour its host.
His eyes opened. The left one flashed. It was the only sign of any emotion on his part. "Typhoid." he said, his voice calm. Controlled. "You'll regret this."
Arashi was a little bit slower with waking as he blinked and looked around. Finding he was tied up was not making the situation any better. Worse yet to find that he was tied up to Nate as far as he could tell.
"...Am I missing something here?" he frowned.
Mary responded by tossing another pebble at Cable, aiming for the T.O. mesh. "Wanna play story time, Cable? Let blondie here know he doesn't stand a chance?"
Cable's eye flashed with mild annoyance. The T.O. crawled merrily along his cheek. "Mary Walker, also known as Typhoid Mary," he said, mostly for Arashi's benefit, "Telekinesis. Pyrokinesis. Psychopathic murderer. A former friend of Wade's."
His eyes flicked up to meet hers. "We're not playing this game, Typhoid."
Arashi sighed and rolled his eyes. "Great, at least I don't have any of my old friends showing up to kidnap people," he muttered under his breath.
"Look lady," he growled. "You're making a big mistake."
....Shush, it sounded corny but he was still kind of out of it.
"Am I?" Giggling, Mary chucked a pebble at Arashi's face. "They way I see it, you two made the mistake."
"I can't say I missed this part," Cable informed Arashi dryly.
His breath was coming a little more shallowly than it should, but his voice held steady. "Excuse me if I don't particularly care how you see it," he told Mary.
Arashi winced as another pebble hit him in the face. "That is getting particularly annoying," he frowned.
He struggled against the ropes and tried to call on his chakra, but the drugs were still too strong in his system. "Is there a point to all this?"
"What Nathan here left out, babe, is that Red was mine long before either of you got your claws in him," Mary replied, hopping down into the pit with them. "Back when he wasn't tricked-" She kicked Cable in the ribs sharply. "-into denying himself."
An audible wince - at Mary's blow, and the spike of metal that solidified in his right shoulder at the same time. That wasn't good. That wasn't good at all.
On the other hand, Cable had a useful wildcard strapped to his back. Concentrate.
Distract Mary. Get her to leave.
"Funny," he said, keeping steady even through the pain, "Here I thought he came to me..."
Arashi, unlike the other two, did not have any psychic type powers and had no idea what the other two were thinking.
"I'm not your 'babe'. So stop calling me that!" He frowned more. "If you can't get over Wade leaving you maybe you should get professional help."
Another sharp kick to Cable's ribs and one to Arashi's as well made her feel so much better before replying. "He didn't leave me, he was taken," She hissed, crouching down to get eye level with Arashi and Cable. "Neutered by Cable here. How'd you do it? Those little mind powers of yours? Like with the Dark Sisterhood?"
The ninja grunted and coughed a moment, before looking up at Mary and staring her down.
"Funny, he didn't seem neutered to me when we were in bed the other night."
Cattiness. Right. If there was ever a moment Cable wanted to roll his eyes, this would be it.
"Wade is and always has been his own man," he said mildly. If there was the slightest hint of steel underneath the veneer, then so be it. "But I wouldn't expect you to understand. You've wasted your chances, Typhoid."
Practically hissing with rage, Mary grabbed Arashi by his pretty blond hair and slammed his head back against the side of the pit.
"You expect me to believe that, Cable? I know what you did in Rio. Think that wouldn't get around?"
Ow. Okay, he wasn't doing that again.
Arashi's vision blacked out for a moment and then spun with lights and colors.
Rio was a long time ago."
And he wasn't about to let the memory spike him in the chest like it would love to, either.
...
That was the T-O's job. He lurched forwards for the tiniest of a moment.
Mary laughed, falling back gracelessly to lean against the other side of the pit. "Was it really? Once a monster, always a monster, sweetheart. Can't hide from that."
"You're a fool, Typhoid," and Cable's eyes moved to her with slow deliberance, "You list off factoids of the past as if they mean anything at all, but you don't understand a single thing about me."
His eye flared underneath metal growing haphazard. "Or Wade, for that matter."
Arashi slowly came back to and groaned slightly, but kept his mouth shut for the moment.
Mary's grin dropped, leaving an ugly and angry look on her face. "I know him as well as you do, Nathan. Probably better than either of you. He was mine willingly, not out of desperation-" She sneered at Arashi. "-and at least I accepted him as he was."
Cable followed Mary's movements with an unreadable expression - radiating the slightest twitch of menace, just enough to keep him humming with presence as familiar hurts crawled around in his stomach. "Past tense, Typhoid," he said. "Get with the times."
"Someone who lives in the past has no future," he mumbled and moved to sit up straight.
"You'll want to let us go before this ends any more badly for you than it already is."
"Lectures are so boring," Mary said with a sigh. "Don't you think?"
The smile was back as she pulled a knife from her boot. "And who says this'll end badly for me? Once he's back, I'll let him take care of both of you." She stood, smirking down at Arashi. "Maybe he'll keep you as a pet, pretty boy."
"You're in for a rude awakening, Mary," Cable spoke, voice lying heavy in the deep dank darkness of the pit. "All the world's hopes and all you can focus on is dead bodies and the past - it's pathetic. A farce. Just one more in a long line of sad psychopaths with failed nightmares of glory."
It was now that he missed his telepathy; he willed Arashi to be quiet, but doubted it would make much of a difference.
Arashi just rolled his eyes, saying everything he needed to in that one look.
He realized that he'd just be wasting his breath anyways.
"You say that now," Mary replied, chin raised haughtily. "But I'll prove you wrong."
She hopped up, digging her fingers into the earth as she pulled herself up and out of the pit.
Arashi craned his neck to watch her leave the pit and sighed. "This is going well," he mumbled and struggled with the ropes again.
Cable expelled a breath of air.
It sounded a hell of a lot like he was in a lot more pain than he'd let on.
"You okay?" he asked, the steady note fading momentarily out of, then back into his voice.
"I've been worse, I can't think of a moment right now... But I know I have," he sighed attempting to make a joke. "I can't access my chakra."
Cable would have nodded, had he the mobility right now. "Can you move?" It was a gauge of his ability right now.
"Yeah, I'm getting there," he said as he winced and pulled at the ropes around his hands. He'd be a pretty sad ninja if he couldn't get out of standard tying knots. "You okay?"
"I'm fine." If there was ever a definition of not fine, Cable would be it. "But immobile. I'll keep her distracted if she comes back."
"Yeah.." Arashi knew that kind of fine, but didn't say anything about it as he moved his hands, having to dislocate his thumb to get out of the knots. It wasn't something he'd done in a while so it hurt, but at least he had a hand free.
"Okay, almost there," he whispered as he undid the other knots, trying to quickly free himself and Nate.
Any answer that might have been given was drowned in a grunt of pain. The techno-organics in Cable's back started pushing outwards; he reached out for the few tattered stretches of his telekinesis and pulled them back. "She seems pretty--" he felt something slithering under his forehead, "--well-researched."
It was a warning.
Great. Just great.
Arashi frowned deeply and quickly moved to finish untying Nate. "Let's get out of here quickly then. I'm sure I have a few tricks she doesn't know about."
Once he could use his chakra again that is.
There was the muffled crack of a gun being fired and a dart appeared in Arashi's arm.
"Did you think it'd be that easy boys?"
Well. There was a ninja that just went down like a lead balloon.
"Of course not," Cable muttered to himself. And really did pull a face this time. A resigned 'duh' face, to be exact.
With extra deadpan eyeroll.
The dart didn't hurt much... but Arashi winced because they'd been caught.
"Damn you people and your guns," he mumbled before starting to black out again.
[[OOC: NFB or Interaction, pre-played with the crazy fabulous spring_lost and konoha_flash.]]