[Cable & Deadpool] Let Slip the Dogs of War - Part 7
Title: Let Slip the Dogs of War
Summary: War wasn't telling the whole truth about what happened to the Deadpool of his universe.
Characters/Pairing: Cable/Deadpool, guest staring the New Avengers
Chapter: 7 / 8
Word Count: 2280
Rating: R
Warnings: Not explicit, but contains references to torture, non-con and assorted other Evil Overlord AU-related staples. Also: Contains Deadpool.
Previous Parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
The first to react was Luke Cage. “You sick motherfucker!” he yelled at the top of his lungs and launched himself at Deadpool before War had even reached full view. Inches away, he froze in mid-air and was thrown flying as if he weighed no more than a baseball. War lowered his hand.
“Hey!” Deadpool protested. “I could have taken him!”
“You can play with him later,” said War, as all of Tony's proximity alarms began wailing at once. “I want to savour this moment. The rage, the betrayal - in all of their minds - such a pity you cannot enjoy it likewise.” War laughed aloud. “You truly gave none of them the slightest notion of what they had in store, did you?”
“Wade,” yelled Cable, horror in his every feature, “what have you done?”
“Preeeeetty much just what it looks like, Nate,” Deadpool called back. “'S called 'being a backstabbing bastard', but we experts like to call it 'siding with the winning team'.”
“Like looking back in time,” mused War, meeting Cable's eye, though the comment was directed more at Deadpool. “To think I was ever so foolish as to believe you could be tamed with no more than sentimentality and good will.”
“So Nate, you are gonna, like, run and fight and stuff instead of just flopping around like a beached fish, right?” said Deadpool, waving his gun. “'Cause thanks to you guys I finally got the leverage I needed to get War here to let me out, but I haven't had a whole lot of exercise lately and I'm feeling the need to do something kinda special to celebrate.”
The change in Cable's face was short and terrible, shock giving way to rage line by line, teeth clenching in time with his fists. Cable's gun was in his hands and levelled at Deadpool almost too fast to see - but barely a split-second faster, a glob of webbing hit Deadpool right in the mouth. Spider-Man wasn't far behind it.
“Grmmmmph!” exclaimed Deadpool, flailing backwards. Two bullets passed harmlessly through the space Spider-Man had occupied slightly too many seconds before and landed in the rubble beyond. War rolled his eyes.
“Hey Deadpool, I'm sure you hear this a lot,” said Spider-Man, following the first stream of webbing with a second, “but no-one has ever wanted you to shut up as much as I do right now.”
“Mmph!” Flailing turned into a tumble turned into a crazily gymnastic back-flip and ended with a catlike three-point landing. Somewhere in the process, whether more by method or madness, he moved far enough that Spider-Man's shot went over his shoulder without connecting. With some effort, Deadpool wrenched the webbing off his face, taking a lot of his mask with it.
“What the hell, Spidey?” he complained. “Me and Cable were having a moment there, do you mind?”
“Are you kidding, that was me doing him a favour!” said Spider-Man. “Friends don't let friends fight drunk. Or when it's so personal they can hardly see straight.”
“Aw, Cable's your friend now?”
Spider-Man looked back guiltily. “Considering I just left him to deal with War on his own, I don't know if he's going to see it that way...” The sentence ended a wall away from where it began; the first wall ended up far richer in lead for the meagre crime of offering Spider-Man a few seconds of support.
“Okay, new rule,” said Deadpool crossly, leaning down on both his triggers at once. “Spider-sense is out of bounds or I'm telling War you're not playing fair.”
“How do you even say 'playing fair' without exploding from hypocrisy? Serious question!”
“Don't suppose I could convince you I'm planning on triple-crossing War any second now?”
Deadpool dodged the stream of webbing before it reached him, but not all his equipment was as lucky.
“Yeah,” said Deadpool, trying and failing to extract his second-favourite gun from where it was now webbed to the side of a building. “I wouldn'a believed me either.”
***
After the third beam from Cable's gun dissipated harmlessly against War's telekinetic shield, he gave up wasting battery power. Weighing his other options just didn't turn up anything better.
War watched with dry amusement. “This is what you're reduced to. How the mighty have fallen - I might be disappointed - had I not so long fantasised that some day I might show my prior self the depths of his foolishness. For that, you'll suffice.”
Captain America's shield actually made it within a foot of War's body before it halted in mid-air, but that was probably just War showing off.
“Captain, good of you to join us,” said War, looking over his shoulder so that one glowing eye stared Cap right in the face, “and I must say, looking much better than when than when last we met. The sight of your mangled body at Apocalypse's feet is one I have long savoured, but to claim the privilege of finishing you myself will easily surpass it.”
“We came here to correct our failings in this world,” Cap yelled, “not repeat them!”
“Don't I warrant so much as the infamous Avengers' battle cry?” War laughed. “Or does that become somewhat trite when you're the last to arrive - when you find yourself reduced to ambushing your opponents? Come now - tell me how much I'm going to regret this. Offer me the chance to surrender. Or at the very least...” The shield rotated vertically in the air, blocking both of Iron Man's repulsor beams before they could get any closer, “...verbalise that instruction to 'fire now' you're thinking at your comrade so very hard.”
The voice distortion of Iron Man's helmet did little to muffle the sound of him screaming as every piece of armour was torn from his body, the human within tossed ragdoll-like to the ground. War turned his attention briefly to the building beyond, and the alarms coming from within shut off abruptly to the sound of metal and wire twisting in on itself. Cap and Cable could only watch in horror.
“Not so threatening without it, are we, Stark?” War crowed. “I've heard tell you built your first suit from no more than spare parts in a desert cave. Shall we see what you can do here, left to your own devices for a month? For two?”
The shield twirled again and flew - right back at its owner. Cable moved to intercept, and succeeded only in taking the blunt of the blow to his metal arm, the clang of organic metal on vibranium alloy piercing enough to echo for miles. Cap leapt after the shield as it ricocheted away and caught it before it could land, only to feel it wrenched upwards in his grasp by an irresistible force. His grip held, but he was left dangling uselessly in mid-air, War's hold on the shield too strong.
“Truly, words cannot express my gratitude to you all,” said War, “Just as this world was becoming tiresome - its last echo of resistance crumbling beneath my heel - here you are. What better means could Wade have found to prove his loyalty than by handing me the Avengers? And to show my appreciation, I am going to make this last. I shall take the greatest of pleasure in hunting you down, one by one.”
“War - Nathan!” yelled Cap, and War twitched at the sound of his human name. “We know this is Apocalypse talking. Not you!”
“Well, at least you joined in for the chorus,” mused War, dryly. “But the tune grows old. The debt I owe to Apocalypse is more than I can repay, but to reduce me to no more than his mouthpiece? You have no idea how far you fall from the truth.”
With a frantic wrench from Cap the shield came free, both weapon and owner suddenly suspended by nothing more than air. Cap landed on his feet with little more than a grunt, and with a roar of battle he charged War, shield in hand.
“Captain,” said War, holding him off at arm's length with little effort, “I had hoped your men might offer me at least a diverting challenge, but the belief you can distract a psion with a frontal charge is...” War broke off, hesitating as something registered in the psychic equivalent of peripheral vision.
Thrusting Cap away from him, War moved almost too late to avoid a glowing blade that had pierced straight through his shield. The weapon caught him on his right shoulder, the armour offering little resistance against it, but it barely more than grazed the skin beneath before War had caught the shaft with his other hand. Cable glared at him from across the blade, gripping the weapon double-handed, every muscle straining to move against War's influence.
War dropped his gaze to examine what he'd caught, eyebrows raising just a little as he identified it. “A new psimitar? Now that is inspired. I'd go so far as to extend the compliment, had you not just used a weapon made to amplify latent psionic ability...” War's voice rose to a roar even as his grip on the psimitar tightened, “against a psion a million times your power!”
The entire length of the psimitar glowed, and Cable had just time to give a yell of pain before War wrenched it from his grasp altogether. He took a moment to appreciate the make of the weapon, then cast it aside. The psimitar came to rest several feet above the ground, well out of anyone's reach, and hung there.
War's grin was vicious as he approached where Cable lay, defiant but half-stunned and left trying to pick himself up on his forearms, hands raw and steaming. A half-gesture from War - not quite mimicry of grabbing an opponent by front of his shirt - took over the job for him, dragging Cable upwards. War rose with him, high enough to give himself height advantage even as Cable's feet dangled above the ground.
“Already done? What a shame,” said War. “Shall I finish you myself? Or shall I call Wade over to do the honours?”
Cable twitched at the name, and his teeth ground. War smirked, pleased by the response.
“I haven't forgotten meeting your Wade, you know. A shame our acquaintance was cut so short. How do you suppose he will celebrate when you do not return?”
Suspended by the front of his shirt and head thrown back, Cable could do nothing but laugh silently through clenched teeth, beyond caring what War might read from his mind - half-mad gallows-humour of the condemned.
“Really?” said War. “How tragic. Do you still believe it was the humanity - the weakness - within him that called to you? Even now?”
And there Cable's head snapped back upright, human eye blazing almost as bright as the other.
“You have the - the nerve to speak of weakness when you gave in to the tyrant I dedicated my life to defeating?” Cable seethed. “Was it so easy to forget - how many years have we fought? How much have we sacrificed? All for what, to become the very thing we hated most? You accuse me of weakness?”
But War's grin only widened. “In the single day you've been here, hasn't it occurred to you to wonder where my lord and master” War spat the words, “has been? Apocalypse is no more.”
War paused to dedicate his full attention to the reaction his pronouncement created; and Cable's eyes widened as the meaning of his words sank in.
“As I told your Captain,” War went on, “I owe Apocalypse a great debt - the freedom, the release, you cannot even imagine - and what better way to thank him than to demonstrate how far I have surpassed him? I succeeded where you failed, because you were not prepared to sacrifice enough.”
Cable stared at War in disbelief. “Millions of lives,” he breathed, “all to become the very thing you struggled against?”
“Millions were only the beginning. In thanks for this power I would gladly sacrifice far more - starting,” War gloated, raising a hand, “with my own.”
Following War's statement several things happened in quick succession. Cable realised, to his confusion, that his feet were touching the ground again, and War was sinking, making the same realisation as Cable a few seconds later.
The next thing was the sound of a high-pitched beeping noise, as a small device which had gone on happily flashing its lights even after being thrown from Cable's lap finally found something to report. The noise served as little more than a wildly inappropriate backing track to the sight of something the armour covering War's left arm could no longer contain beginning to writhe like a mass of snakes as the effects of the Façade Virus - at long last - took hold.
War's telepathy lasted just long enough to give him an explanation that was no comfort whatsoever.
“YOU!” he roared, the fingers of his metal hand closing around Cable's neck before the latter regained enough equilibrium to defend himself; but his movements were halting, the grip not nearly so strong as it would have been had motor control not been so rapidly escaping him.
Cable reacted on automatic, both hands closing on War's arm despite the pain of the burns, too shocked to decide which out of the hand or the horribly familiar tendrils of unconstrained T.O. mesh was the greater threat.
“Hey Nate,” said someone neither had noticed approaching them. Both 'Nates' looked up in unison.
Deadpool had a gun in his hand, and the sweet glow of victory in his eyes.
“Wishing we'd talked about safewords now?” he crowed, and emptied the entire clip of bullets into War's head.
Part 8
Summary: War wasn't telling the whole truth about what happened to the Deadpool of his universe.
Characters/Pairing: Cable/Deadpool, guest staring the New Avengers
Chapter: 7 / 8
Word Count: 2280
Rating: R
Warnings: Not explicit, but contains references to torture, non-con and assorted other Evil Overlord AU-related staples. Also: Contains Deadpool.
Previous Parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
The first to react was Luke Cage. “You sick motherfucker!” he yelled at the top of his lungs and launched himself at Deadpool before War had even reached full view. Inches away, he froze in mid-air and was thrown flying as if he weighed no more than a baseball. War lowered his hand.
“Hey!” Deadpool protested. “I could have taken him!”
“You can play with him later,” said War, as all of Tony's proximity alarms began wailing at once. “I want to savour this moment. The rage, the betrayal - in all of their minds - such a pity you cannot enjoy it likewise.” War laughed aloud. “You truly gave none of them the slightest notion of what they had in store, did you?”
“Wade,” yelled Cable, horror in his every feature, “what have you done?”
“Preeeeetty much just what it looks like, Nate,” Deadpool called back. “'S called 'being a backstabbing bastard', but we experts like to call it 'siding with the winning team'.”
“Like looking back in time,” mused War, meeting Cable's eye, though the comment was directed more at Deadpool. “To think I was ever so foolish as to believe you could be tamed with no more than sentimentality and good will.”
“So Nate, you are gonna, like, run and fight and stuff instead of just flopping around like a beached fish, right?” said Deadpool, waving his gun. “'Cause thanks to you guys I finally got the leverage I needed to get War here to let me out, but I haven't had a whole lot of exercise lately and I'm feeling the need to do something kinda special to celebrate.”
The change in Cable's face was short and terrible, shock giving way to rage line by line, teeth clenching in time with his fists. Cable's gun was in his hands and levelled at Deadpool almost too fast to see - but barely a split-second faster, a glob of webbing hit Deadpool right in the mouth. Spider-Man wasn't far behind it.
“Grmmmmph!” exclaimed Deadpool, flailing backwards. Two bullets passed harmlessly through the space Spider-Man had occupied slightly too many seconds before and landed in the rubble beyond. War rolled his eyes.
“Hey Deadpool, I'm sure you hear this a lot,” said Spider-Man, following the first stream of webbing with a second, “but no-one has ever wanted you to shut up as much as I do right now.”
“Mmph!” Flailing turned into a tumble turned into a crazily gymnastic back-flip and ended with a catlike three-point landing. Somewhere in the process, whether more by method or madness, he moved far enough that Spider-Man's shot went over his shoulder without connecting. With some effort, Deadpool wrenched the webbing off his face, taking a lot of his mask with it.
“What the hell, Spidey?” he complained. “Me and Cable were having a moment there, do you mind?”
“Are you kidding, that was me doing him a favour!” said Spider-Man. “Friends don't let friends fight drunk. Or when it's so personal they can hardly see straight.”
“Aw, Cable's your friend now?”
Spider-Man looked back guiltily. “Considering I just left him to deal with War on his own, I don't know if he's going to see it that way...” The sentence ended a wall away from where it began; the first wall ended up far richer in lead for the meagre crime of offering Spider-Man a few seconds of support.
“Okay, new rule,” said Deadpool crossly, leaning down on both his triggers at once. “Spider-sense is out of bounds or I'm telling War you're not playing fair.”
“How do you even say 'playing fair' without exploding from hypocrisy? Serious question!”
“Don't suppose I could convince you I'm planning on triple-crossing War any second now?”
Deadpool dodged the stream of webbing before it reached him, but not all his equipment was as lucky.
“Yeah,” said Deadpool, trying and failing to extract his second-favourite gun from where it was now webbed to the side of a building. “I wouldn'a believed me either.”
***
After the third beam from Cable's gun dissipated harmlessly against War's telekinetic shield, he gave up wasting battery power. Weighing his other options just didn't turn up anything better.
War watched with dry amusement. “This is what you're reduced to. How the mighty have fallen - I might be disappointed - had I not so long fantasised that some day I might show my prior self the depths of his foolishness. For that, you'll suffice.”
Captain America's shield actually made it within a foot of War's body before it halted in mid-air, but that was probably just War showing off.
“Captain, good of you to join us,” said War, looking over his shoulder so that one glowing eye stared Cap right in the face, “and I must say, looking much better than when than when last we met. The sight of your mangled body at Apocalypse's feet is one I have long savoured, but to claim the privilege of finishing you myself will easily surpass it.”
“We came here to correct our failings in this world,” Cap yelled, “not repeat them!”
“Don't I warrant so much as the infamous Avengers' battle cry?” War laughed. “Or does that become somewhat trite when you're the last to arrive - when you find yourself reduced to ambushing your opponents? Come now - tell me how much I'm going to regret this. Offer me the chance to surrender. Or at the very least...” The shield rotated vertically in the air, blocking both of Iron Man's repulsor beams before they could get any closer, “...verbalise that instruction to 'fire now' you're thinking at your comrade so very hard.”
The voice distortion of Iron Man's helmet did little to muffle the sound of him screaming as every piece of armour was torn from his body, the human within tossed ragdoll-like to the ground. War turned his attention briefly to the building beyond, and the alarms coming from within shut off abruptly to the sound of metal and wire twisting in on itself. Cap and Cable could only watch in horror.
“Not so threatening without it, are we, Stark?” War crowed. “I've heard tell you built your first suit from no more than spare parts in a desert cave. Shall we see what you can do here, left to your own devices for a month? For two?”
The shield twirled again and flew - right back at its owner. Cable moved to intercept, and succeeded only in taking the blunt of the blow to his metal arm, the clang of organic metal on vibranium alloy piercing enough to echo for miles. Cap leapt after the shield as it ricocheted away and caught it before it could land, only to feel it wrenched upwards in his grasp by an irresistible force. His grip held, but he was left dangling uselessly in mid-air, War's hold on the shield too strong.
“Truly, words cannot express my gratitude to you all,” said War, “Just as this world was becoming tiresome - its last echo of resistance crumbling beneath my heel - here you are. What better means could Wade have found to prove his loyalty than by handing me the Avengers? And to show my appreciation, I am going to make this last. I shall take the greatest of pleasure in hunting you down, one by one.”
“War - Nathan!” yelled Cap, and War twitched at the sound of his human name. “We know this is Apocalypse talking. Not you!”
“Well, at least you joined in for the chorus,” mused War, dryly. “But the tune grows old. The debt I owe to Apocalypse is more than I can repay, but to reduce me to no more than his mouthpiece? You have no idea how far you fall from the truth.”
With a frantic wrench from Cap the shield came free, both weapon and owner suddenly suspended by nothing more than air. Cap landed on his feet with little more than a grunt, and with a roar of battle he charged War, shield in hand.
“Captain,” said War, holding him off at arm's length with little effort, “I had hoped your men might offer me at least a diverting challenge, but the belief you can distract a psion with a frontal charge is...” War broke off, hesitating as something registered in the psychic equivalent of peripheral vision.
Thrusting Cap away from him, War moved almost too late to avoid a glowing blade that had pierced straight through his shield. The weapon caught him on his right shoulder, the armour offering little resistance against it, but it barely more than grazed the skin beneath before War had caught the shaft with his other hand. Cable glared at him from across the blade, gripping the weapon double-handed, every muscle straining to move against War's influence.
War dropped his gaze to examine what he'd caught, eyebrows raising just a little as he identified it. “A new psimitar? Now that is inspired. I'd go so far as to extend the compliment, had you not just used a weapon made to amplify latent psionic ability...” War's voice rose to a roar even as his grip on the psimitar tightened, “against a psion a million times your power!”
The entire length of the psimitar glowed, and Cable had just time to give a yell of pain before War wrenched it from his grasp altogether. He took a moment to appreciate the make of the weapon, then cast it aside. The psimitar came to rest several feet above the ground, well out of anyone's reach, and hung there.
War's grin was vicious as he approached where Cable lay, defiant but half-stunned and left trying to pick himself up on his forearms, hands raw and steaming. A half-gesture from War - not quite mimicry of grabbing an opponent by front of his shirt - took over the job for him, dragging Cable upwards. War rose with him, high enough to give himself height advantage even as Cable's feet dangled above the ground.
“Already done? What a shame,” said War. “Shall I finish you myself? Or shall I call Wade over to do the honours?”
Cable twitched at the name, and his teeth ground. War smirked, pleased by the response.
“I haven't forgotten meeting your Wade, you know. A shame our acquaintance was cut so short. How do you suppose he will celebrate when you do not return?”
Suspended by the front of his shirt and head thrown back, Cable could do nothing but laugh silently through clenched teeth, beyond caring what War might read from his mind - half-mad gallows-humour of the condemned.
“Really?” said War. “How tragic. Do you still believe it was the humanity - the weakness - within him that called to you? Even now?”
And there Cable's head snapped back upright, human eye blazing almost as bright as the other.
“You have the - the nerve to speak of weakness when you gave in to the tyrant I dedicated my life to defeating?” Cable seethed. “Was it so easy to forget - how many years have we fought? How much have we sacrificed? All for what, to become the very thing we hated most? You accuse me of weakness?”
But War's grin only widened. “In the single day you've been here, hasn't it occurred to you to wonder where my lord and master” War spat the words, “has been? Apocalypse is no more.”
War paused to dedicate his full attention to the reaction his pronouncement created; and Cable's eyes widened as the meaning of his words sank in.
“As I told your Captain,” War went on, “I owe Apocalypse a great debt - the freedom, the release, you cannot even imagine - and what better way to thank him than to demonstrate how far I have surpassed him? I succeeded where you failed, because you were not prepared to sacrifice enough.”
Cable stared at War in disbelief. “Millions of lives,” he breathed, “all to become the very thing you struggled against?”
“Millions were only the beginning. In thanks for this power I would gladly sacrifice far more - starting,” War gloated, raising a hand, “with my own.”
Following War's statement several things happened in quick succession. Cable realised, to his confusion, that his feet were touching the ground again, and War was sinking, making the same realisation as Cable a few seconds later.
The next thing was the sound of a high-pitched beeping noise, as a small device which had gone on happily flashing its lights even after being thrown from Cable's lap finally found something to report. The noise served as little more than a wildly inappropriate backing track to the sight of something the armour covering War's left arm could no longer contain beginning to writhe like a mass of snakes as the effects of the Façade Virus - at long last - took hold.
War's telepathy lasted just long enough to give him an explanation that was no comfort whatsoever.
“YOU!” he roared, the fingers of his metal hand closing around Cable's neck before the latter regained enough equilibrium to defend himself; but his movements were halting, the grip not nearly so strong as it would have been had motor control not been so rapidly escaping him.
Cable reacted on automatic, both hands closing on War's arm despite the pain of the burns, too shocked to decide which out of the hand or the horribly familiar tendrils of unconstrained T.O. mesh was the greater threat.
“Hey Nate,” said someone neither had noticed approaching them. Both 'Nates' looked up in unison.
Deadpool had a gun in his hand, and the sweet glow of victory in his eyes.
“Wishing we'd talked about safewords now?” he crowed, and emptied the entire clip of bullets into War's head.
Part 8