2013-01-26 Highway to Hell, part 5: Denver

(Continued from Highway to Hell, part 4: Chicago)

Desperate times call for desperate measures. While Kwabena has been taking the wheel of their new Range Rover, Domino's been working out details on a personal call. It hasn't been going as well as she would have liked.

"Damnit Jake, this wasn't part of the arrangement before--yes, I --yeah--like -what?-"

Sigh. "-Fine.- But nothing more."

Dom hangs up the phone, flumping back into the seat beside Kwabena. "Change of plans. We've got a train to catch. Just..one little problem. It left two hours ago. I'll navigate, just kick this bitch into high gear. We've got a lot of time to make up."

No explanation's given. No information on the job. There's a freight train heading west out of Denver, destined for Las Vegas. With any luck they're still going in the right direction, though she couldn't know for sure. Not so long as Jake is holding out on her.

Hopefully this won't come back to haunt her later.

How much sleep had he missed out on? Kwabena Odame, codenamed 'Shift', was digging deep to find his energy. No longer as calm and collected as he was in Cincinnati, nor as vigilant as he was in Chicago, the long and boring journey into the west has taken its toll on him. Easily irritable, he's argued with Domino on more than one occasion about everything from music choice and smoking in the Range Rover, to where they chose to stop for food and gasoline.

It's a wonder she hasn't ditched him by now.

Fortunately, a good job and a bit of direction is a great way to put an end to petty differences between uneasy friends. "Finally," breathes the Ghanaian, exasperated at the long, long hours of boredom and beyond ready for some action. Dipping away from the freeway in order to attract less attention, Kwabena does indeed kick the Range Rover into high gear, whipping her through turns and grinding rubber against frozen asphalt as they head into the Rockies.

Soon enough, thanks to Domino's navigations, they come to a place amongst the mountainous roads where a long and impossibly tall railroad bridge can be seen in the distance, stretching over a long valley. "Shit," curses the Ghanaian while gunning the Range Rover around a turn in the mountain road. "Tell me dere's a way at least remotely close to dat bridge!"

After certain... Recent events time is needed. And space. And...

Look, Laura likes the east coast. Especially Gotham. But she knows the longer she spends in one area, the more likely /they/ will find her. Thus for now... It's time for her to hit the road again. Thus a few days ago she hit a bus. Then hitch hiked a bit. Then she went on a long walk into a wooded area. Then well... It was one train she managed to get aboard (don't ask how, since it was already moving)... And then another (which she boarded via the same method).

Unfortunately for her, somewhere along the line she was spotted, and has been tracked. And worse, third parties have been called in to 'collect' her, even as she rides in a box car headed for Los Vegas.

"You got to be kidding." Beat. "No shit?" Gambit issues his doubts into a burner cellphone, cheap off the shelf even if a man bothers to pay for it; which he didn't. "We're sure it's de same people, no?" Whoever's the master thief's contact on the other end of the line talks for long enough for Remy to light a cigarette and take two long drags, blowing smoke out into the nameless motel room along a nameless highway somewhere in the southwest, "Alors pas. I can get dere. Halfway dere already. Jus' sit on it, tell dem passed out." Remy grunts an affirmation, "Right. Drunk." The two men share a laugh, and the Cajun hangs up.

While some chase the departing train, and some sneak onto the trainyard in time to catch it all right and proper, Gambit chooses a third path. That towering trestle passing over the craggy, fog-entrenched outcroppings of the reaching Rockies bears a perching mutant, dully glowing eyes fixed down the line as that marked freight train approaches. Half-gloves leave his fingers bare, and that means his hands are shoved into the pockets of his trademark brown longcoat more often than not, only leaving the heat therein to wrap the lapels of that aforementioned coat tighter, to adjust his belt.

LeBeau's balance at the apex of one trestle arch, out in the middle over the bridge and fearless even at the prospect of the freight train passing, is uncanny - too perfect, too steady. No man's that sure they won't fall... maybe Domino, though.

Ah, shit. Of -course.- There's always a bridge, right? "Welcome to Improvisation one-oh-one, kid. Don't you dare let that train out of your sight." Already Dom's climbing out of her seat, heading to the far back of the SUV where their bags of gear are stored. She's got that look of grim determination about her every step of the way. "Hope some of my luck has shed onto you. We're going to have to jump."

The only question is -how- to best make the jump. Do they go for the Wild West trick and grab a ladder on the side? Or do they --

"That outcropping out there rather looks like a ramp from here, doesn't it?"

Good thing she's not making payments on this vehicle. Moving quickly into the rear hatch, she slings one of their bags across her back then gets a deathgrip on another. This is one of those moments where having a partner can be both a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, this would be a hundred times more challenging on her own. On the other hand, she has to trust Shift to execute every move with absolute precision and confidence.

As soon as control leaves his hands, she's going to bail right out of the rear hatch. "Keep your speed on, you're looking for a twenty to twenty-five degree angle of approach." Pause. "Try not to miss."

"Oh, perfect," answers Shift, shouting just over his shoulder while muscling the Range Rover around a particularly tight turn. "Lady Luck never fails to cut things to de lettah!"

Darting his head to the left just a bit, the African spies the outcropping indicated, and the skin around his eyes tightens just so. "Sure does," he answers. "Just like Cincinnati. Hold on to your butt."

The Range Rover begins bouncing like hell when Shift takes it off the edge of the paved road and onto the precarious ground leading toward the ramp-like outcropping. The train has already started to pass before them, but it's a long, long vehicle, and they have a few precious moments to get things right. The outcropping bounces around in his vision, and he barely has the time to pound the window controls while struggling with the wheel, but the fresh burst of icy cold air through the driver's side window is all he needs to give him that extra surge of adrenaline.

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ!" he shouts. "Get ready!"

The engine screams as the Range Rover speeds onto that rocky outcropping, and then, with a brief growl of RPM's, the vehicle goes airborne.

Right over the bridge.

It's one of those moments when time seems to slow down. Kwabena takes two deep breaths while the landscape rushes past far below the Range Rover, and he waits until the bridge is passing beneath the flying car before he makes his move.

Poof!

The African turns into a cloud of black smoke, leaving the steering wheel spinning and the seatbelt flapping as that black cloud goes right out the window and into the cold air.

The car that Laura is in has its doors on the sides closed, thus is dark. Not too dark for Laura to see, but dark enough that it might impede other passengers. That is /if/ there were other passengers in the car. But right now it's just Laura, a bunch of boxes, and a small group of cows that are in a pen off to one side.

The mutant girl herself though appears to be nodding off. Or at least resting her head on her knees as she sits on the ground, her back up against a wall.

Or at least she /was/, up until she yanks her head back with a start as if she thinks she may have heard /something/ from either above, or outside... Or both.

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ." Remy notes, at about the same time Shift does, one must note. It's prompted not by the freight train barreling below him, the trestle rumbling precariously as the Cajun just sways unerringly back and forth on some inner gyroscopic sixth sense, turning his head to watch somewhat dumbfoundedly as a landrover ramps the ledge bordering the road and leaps the bridge altogether. He's still in motion before they make their beachhead, however, going with his initial plan to board the train.

Remy's armored boots clank down on the storage cars more by choice than necessity, a product of reinforced shins rather than softly cushioned soles, currently providing traction as the ground races beneath them, quickly leaving the chasm behind. "Laura!" He calls down the train, from his own position near its forefront. "Better be awake, cher." Two cards come into his hands as if from nowhere, flicked between his knuckles and extended as he scans his surroundings over them, a violently fluctuating reddish glow filling both.

The Cajun has about enough time to consider blowing a car or two off the train as well when he recognizes the breaching team. "Don' tell me dey sent /you/." It's called out to Domino, as glowing eyes narrow, trailing intensified points of light as that pair of cards-- deuces-- flare dangerously.

Domino's eyes go forward just before the jump is made. She can see this coming, but it's well and truly outside of her hands. There's nothing for her to influence. Her luck can't be pushed into activating on this one. Still, she watches it rushing closer.

Weightlessness. Timing. One hand stays latched onto the interior handle to the rear hatch.

-Now!-

The back gets shoved open, heavy boots launching her forward against the rush of wind and the pull of gravity, ejecting herself and their gear out of the airborne SUV and into a gondola filled with coal. It's not a fun landing, but it's a -successful- landing.

"Just remember where we parked!"

It's colder than hell on the outside. Dom tosses Shift his pack, quickly outlying their next course of action. "Target is a lone female, black hair, approximately five foot one and one hundred-

Ka-BLAM!

-ten pounds soaking wet. Reported as being a hunter and a fighter, watch your back. There's nowhere for her to jump to so she'll be stuck on the train, same as we are."

Just don't ask Domino -why- she's being tasked with terminating this individual and dragging Shift into it by proxy, honestly she doesn't know. Jake's been alright to work with before, even if this does change up his MO. She's accepted crazier jobs before. Heck, she's accepted crazier jobs -recently.- With the wind terrorizing her short cropped hair she starts to press forward to the boxcars, only to realize that there's someone else amongst them.

She's got a matched pair of pistols out, locked, and leveled at Gambit before she can fully process what she's seeing, let alone the question that he's yelling down at her. "Getting tired of us meeting like this, Remy! Just stay out of my way and we can go back to forgetting each other exists."

Not that she actually wants to shoot Gambit, but Dom's got a job to do. His involvement just means that she has to do it -faster.- Running time, find and neutralize the target!

Thte landrover goes careening off into the valley beyond, its arcing descent long since forgotten as the train speeds along its tressel. The black cloud of smoke falls, slowly at first until Shift pushes some more mass into his existence. The shape of a humanoid face actually appears within the cloud as it falls, then abruptly re-forms into the African mutant moments before impact.

For his part, the landing is mostly silent, though his boots gradually form dents in the rooftop of an oil tanker upon the further massing of his cells into something stronger and harder than flesh.

The extra weight will help steady himself against the wind and the lurching of that train.

Quickly, the African runs forward, leaping from the oil tankard and onto the coal car into which Domino fell. He reaches to snatch his pack out of the air, slinging it over his shoulder as she reports to him.

Meanwhile, in the valley behind them, a landrover with two extra tankards of spare gasoline explodes in a fury of Hollywood masturbatory special effects bliss.

Shift notices their counterpart about the same time that Domino brings her pistol to bear. Normally fearless, the mutant seems to grow just a bit hesitant when he sees things -glowing-. Glowing things tend not to work out so well for him. "Just who de hell is -dat-?" he asks.

Rhetorically, of course.

The voice calling out for her? That is recognized. It's enough to cause Laura to slowly climb up onto her feet. After all, if Remy is here, it means one of a few possibilities. The chief of which that pops into her mind is 'trouble'. Not for him, or from him, but more than likely for her.

Worse, as the girl hears what sounds like an extra voice from somewhere above, she quickly scrambles over to the side of the car, and tries to open the door just enough for her to glance out, and grab a ladder on the side, before she starts to climb /up/?!?

"Dat isn't how it's going down." Remy assures Domino, turning his hand to flick the cards to the ready as if surveying a hand of hold 'em. "I came here for whoever dey hired to bring dis girl in, or down, Dom." Remy's unique gaze narrows as he just /eyes/ the mercenary dangerously, for a moment as if Shift doesn't even exist. Brown longcoat whips out behind as the train rushes forward, revealing a myriad of knives, pouches, and a mysterious length of what looks like metal pipe holstered prominantly on the master thief's modernized body armor.

The professional attire, for a very specific profession, adds weight to what he's saying. "Take it as de high compliment it is you aren't in lil' bits already an' call dis one a loss." Gambit turns his 'hand' of cards around, displaying them to Domino. He's apparently on a low bullshit diet. "You keep pointin' dat gun at me I'm gonna t'ink you just unhappy to see me." All the serious threat fades into a very profound pout.

At the least, he's buying Laura time. Remy's not entirely certain Domino and Odame can /take/ X-fucking-23.

Knowing your target is always very important. Pity that Domino never had a chance nor means to properly learn about this target. Still, Jake wouldn't have thrown this curveball at her if he wasn't confident that she could handle it, right? They've had a decent working relationship over the years. Maybe things are tight back in his neck of the woods. She's had to be a tad more careful with the ol' finances lately, herself.

"Gambit," she tells Shift in a low tone. "Excellent fighter, great at making things go boom. You should be fine." Her, on the other hand... If not for extremely fast reflexes and stupid amounts of luck, this fight would be awfully one-sided. She's thrown down with the thief before. She only 'won' because of that luck.

"I can't do that, Remy," she calls back, loud enough for him to hear it over the rush of wind. "This runs deeper than you realize."

Is that body armor Gambit is wearing..?

It looks like body armor.

Domino takes the first shot. Center body mass. Square to the sternum. Gambit's armor should take the impact and knock him flat on his ass, buying her all the time that she needs to press onward. It's a calculated risk, but the man's holding -exploding playing cards- and she's kinda on the clock, here!

"Yeah," remarks Shift in a low murmur back to Domino. "Dat's what I thought when I threw myself into a -goddamned force field-."

Yeah, that ended... well.

When Domino fires, Shift makes his own move. Diving forward, the African actually seems to be making a break to get away. His body disappears between two boxcars, and does not reappear.

However, between those boxcars, the satchel ends up hanging from a hook when Shift turns into his gaseous state once more. Mostly protected from passing wind that might have whisked him away, the cloud of black seeps between the cracks and into that boxcar. Moments later, it re-appears at the front of the boxcar, a face appearing in the cloud looking upward as it passes from one to the other.

Advancing upon Remy's boxcar, it would seem, for at the moment, Shift remains painfully unaware of where Laura might be.

But if Domino and Shift can't, then who can?

That's probably a good question to ask. Especially as X-fucking-23 hears not only what Remy says, but what's said in return as she climbs up that ladder, trying to make as little sound as possible. But once she's near the top, and that first shot is fired...

The female clone of Wolverine all but leaps up onto the top in a blur of movement. Worse, there's an audible *SKNIT* as he claws pop out and she leaps directly at Domino, without even a word, or a growl. The movements though, despite having the potential to be lethal, do have a certain amount of precision to them, as if to show that this girl not only means business, but she also has more than a bit of training to back her up.

"Aw, you fl--" it breaks off in the report of a gunshot, small talk aborted as Domino moves on to aggressive negotiations. It's almost like Remy half expected just that, and almost like he's some kind of /freak/, the way one hand whips around, and the other quickdraws the length of metal at his side faster than unenhanced eyes can even follow. In the pull of a trigger, the cycling of that swift action, the path of that supersonic bullet, Gambit extends his compact fighting staff directly into its way, the round shearing off the weapon in a secondary, metalshearing report.

That pair of two's becomes less compelling as Laura takes the fight to Domino, and one stops glowing altogether, the other dropping luminousity in an instant even as it passes in front of Remy on the release. He flicks that solitary card with alarming, almost inhuman precision for Domino's firearm: which isn't to say it won't cause some painful injury if it impacted more directly. Still, it's a sizable step from the Cajun's potential.. polite of him not to leave that detonation lethal at some range. After all, X-23 can take it.

Whirling that metal stave like it was an extension of his own body, Remy calls out. "What, your partner jumped down, and now he's going to sneak around and get de drop on me? Gon' get dat boy killed, cher." Gambit just shakes his head, smirking as Laura seeks to skewer the merc.

Releasing his staff in a whipping upwards heave, cards shuffle between Gambit's fingers like lights on a Christmas tree, blooming to full charge in instants before they're flicked over either side of the train, detonating all around the reinforced car like profound, train-shifting depth charges, the weapon returning almost magnetically to the master thief's gloved grasp. "Don't make dis stupid.. er."

Where does one run to when their target is leaping directly at them? Short answer: Away.

A leaping woman with black hair, height of approximately five foot one and weight of a hundred and ten normally isn't much of a threat. Domino has all the time in the world to drill Laura full of holes as she goes flying through the air. So..why the hell -doesn't- she? It isn't shock, or fear, or even the distraction of it all.

It's the claws. She fucking -knows- claws like that. Add into the mix what she does happen to know about Gambit and she's got that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach all over again.

Jake set her up. That manipulating asshole -set her up.-

There's just enough time for the albino to throw herself out of the path of that thrown card and into a backward flip, heavy boots shoving ground up chunks of coal out from around them as she pulls out of dicing range by a sliver and a prayer. One gun at Laura. One gun at Gambit. Holding her attack with a completely different expression now slapped across her face, staring at the smaller woman with claws. Just how Gambit managed to deflect that bullet is beyond her, but they may all have bigger problems if he keeps detonating the world around them! The cows inside of those boxcars oughta just love that. But, first... Clawgirl.

"How old are you?"

Well, it's a start. One more start when she should be looking for a stop. Nothing good can come from this, regardless of how reluctant she is to acknowledge the fact.

"Come on out, Shift," Dom calls out in a defeated sigh. "Change of plans." -Again.-

Explosions begin rocking the cars that Shift is passing through, but in his gaseous state, the rocking of cars and the falling of shrapnel don't bother him. That is, until he finds himself inside one of those cars filled with large barrels, each of which are marked with large, red 'FLAMMABLE: 47" signs.

Shift forms into his human state again, just long enough to begin bashing holes inside three of those vats. The liquid inside begins to spill out, and a moment later...

KA-BOOM!

The box car directly behind Gambit (one forward on the train, to be clear) explodes in fury when one of those super charged playing cards hits pay dirt, so to speak. It's a virtual miracle the explosion didn't separate the train, instead merely turning that boxcar into a maelstrom of flaming debris.

Shift re-materializes upon the same boxcar as Gambit, almost at the same time that Domino calls for him. "You rang?" he calls back over the din, though his attention remains split between Laura and Remy. Arms come up in a defensive manner, paired with a crackling noise when the flesh and bone begins to harden into a deadly, iron-like material. "How bout you drop de cards and we all discuss dis like propah people."

"Old enough. " Laura shoots back in regards to that question about her age.

Only before she can do much else.... There's /that/ explosion. She doesn't fall as said explosion rocks the train, but she does stumble. She quickly catches herself though.

And she doesn't look in Shifts direction as he appears. She's instead /that/ confident that Remy could handle him if it came down to it. After all, he is /Remy/.

But anyways, it doesn't matter to X-23 that there's a gun aimed at her. The fact that it isn't fired does cause her to slow down, but otherwise she does try to walk closer to Domino.

"Put the gun away. And /LEAVE/."

Setting off unsealed accelerants wasn't really Gambit's plan when he started laying cards down. It's not all that unreasonable to figure that Remy was willing to sacrifice Domino's partner in crime to get his point across. The staff comes back to Gambit's grip, and he staggers forward under the shockwave of that explosion. His coat ripples around him back the other way for a moment before the train's forward momentum catches back up to the wind.

Also unpredictable: Shift's abrupt reappearance. A dark brow arches over voids of darkness and energy as Remy stalks towards the others, chuckles once towards Odame. "Jus' how hard can you take getting hit, mon ami? Dat jus' now? Not anyt'ing." Even so, there are no more playing cards immediately produced, even if his bo is still held ready, notably taller than the man himself.

A glance towards Domino is spared as he amends Laura's demands. "You don't t'ink you're de only ones sent after her, do you?" Assuming the train gets into town without being further molested, Las Vegas would be an interesting town for X-23 tonight. It's half Remy's way of letting her know about the whole contract hit and kidnapping issue, straight up.

One part of that demand can be met, though that comes after Domino shields her face from the sudden detonation of one of those boxcars!

"The hell?! Christ, Shift, really..."

Is..is the fighting really pausing now..? She sets the safety on both of her pistols, letting them roll around on trigger fingers while her arms drop down to her sides. Whatever emotions she happens to be feeling at the moment are very well guarded. The smaller woman in front of her is still the opposing wildcard. Gambit she wouldn't expect a blind attack from, not after she's already backed down. The blender posing as a teenaged girl is by far a much bigger concern, though Remy's question does get answered. "I have no fucking -clue- how many people have come after her. I don't know -why- people have come after her. But there's -no fucking chance- that I'm going to gun down a kid."

The point is further made by the holstering of her weapons, hands now left empty. "That's going to be a bit of a problem," she says to Laura. "This is our lift to Vegas. Looks like we're all stuck with one another for the rest of the day."

There's a momentary pause as Dom finally looks back up to Remy again, her jaw set. "How's about we all get ourselves inside and warm up by the giant fire for storytime?" It's cold out here in the wind, darnit!

"Hey!" defends the Ghanaian to Domino, even going so far as to point a finger at her. "Nevah undahestimate de powah of a good -explosion-!"

Canting his head aside toward Remy, a decidedly whimsical smirky look comes over him. "Dis is why she nevah lets me have any -grenades-," he stage whispers, before raising his voice to a more conversational level afterward. "Let's not answah your actual question. We don't need dis to get -real- ugly."

Shift then looks between those gathered, and the stalemate that seems to have formed. Oh, he's piecing things together alright. "It sounds to me dat what we have here is one, big, happy -clustah fuck-." He turns aside then, looking at Remy specifically while jerking a thumb toward the nearest ladder, and the cow-carrying boxcar it leads into.

"Weapon X hired you."

As far as Laura knows that is the truth. And it is the most logical conclusion. Sure it could be others, or other groups, buuuuut.... That's the /most/ likely.

Either way, her claws retract, and the shorter girl heads towards the ladder without so much as looking at Domino, so she can climb back into her 'car'.

"And if you try anything before we reach the city, you and your partner will regret it before you have a chance to /do/ it."

"Dat explosion in particular..." Remy points out, "Means riding this train into the station is goin' to come wit' some federal time." The Cajun just assumes avoid responsibility for most everything, whenever possible. Even so, he climbs down into the intact box car, fishing out one of a half-dozen burner phones from his trenchcoat and dialing out.

"Yea. Two extra. Two." Remy speaks into the phone, pausing to give an exasperated sigh. "/Four/." The 'Dumb shit' and flurry of French profanity is spared (mostly) until the phone is hung up. "Since when am I de prepared one?" The master thief laments, smirking from one to the other as he fishes out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lights up. "Chopper's inbound, ten minutes."

Funny. When Domino first returned to the tri-city area, it had been Gambit that helped her get back on her feet. Now, sleep deprived, running absolutely ragged and flying blind on so many different levels, here he is again. Helping her out.

Frankly, she's too exhausted to calculate those odds.

Getting out of the wind will be a good thing, but Dom's hesitating once more behind the others.

"What the hell is Weapon X?"

(The story continues in Highway to Hell, part 6: Las Vegas.)

(IC News article: Possible Train Hijacked (CNN))