LEVIATHAN (Part One)

Being safe and sound with feet on the ground did a lot for my state of mind. One thing about the Breakworld, was that it looked like crap. That might have just been first impressions talking, since we landed in some murky body of water and climbed out on some desolate rocky waste, but as I believed, first impressions meant a lot.

The air was gross and heavy compared to Earth's. Plus, the sunlight felt weird, "This place sucks. Where are the plants and animals?" I wondered out loud as we climbed up a small ledge, "What do these people eat?"

These were the questions to ask the first time you were on a foreign, hostile planet. The important things that needed to be known.

Agent Brand had no time for my precocious curiosity, "I'll tell you what, kid. Why don't you make sure you capture one alive so he can answer you?" She said as she walked past me. What an unpleasant woman. She received a glowing middle finger aimed at her from behind in return.

As we approached Mister Summers and Miss Frost, they stood at the front of us, the latter trying to figure out just where everyone else had gone, "I can't read a thing. If they made it, they're nowhere near."

Mister Summers let out a sigh of resignation. Of course things couldn't have been easy, though they hadn't ever been, "We'll give them some time," It was the only thing he really could have done.

Dr. McCoy loomed over Agent Brand as she finished climbing the rest of the way up, "If anything's happened to them, Agent Brand-."

She interrupted before he could finish his perceived threat, "You'll what? Eat me?"

"In fact, I will," He said, much to everyone's surprise, "The new math, Agent. You're outnumbered, and not well liked. And I've recently acquired a taste for human flesh, I say with some embarrassment."

I couldn't figure out if it was more along the lines of awesome that he'd threatened to eat someone, or disturbing. Given that he was sticking up for us, I leaned more along the lines of awesome.

"Stow the bickering, guys," Mister Summers ordered, looking out past the expanse before us at our intended destination, "We've found our tomb."

Attur-Hei.

The tomb looked a lot like a pyramid that you would find on Earth, if only significantly wider, with a more forgiving incline. It looked like there were specific paths meant to lead to the top. Also, more importantly, it was teeming with armed Breakworld soldiers.

Everyone seemed to be prepared for a big fight. To be fair, going head-on against them was an idea that might have been effective given what all of us could do. But one of us was exhausted mentally (Miss Frost), and another was without their powers at the moment (Mister Summers). Sans powers, as the French would say.

It wasn't like I had any problems with a brawl, but there was a better way to do this.

Before Mister Summers could lead the way down and start putting boots to asses, I set my hand on his shoulder, "Wait," I said.

I half expected him to throw my hand off and order me to fall in line, "What is it, Bellamy?" It was a bit surprising that he stopped to consider anything that I had to say.

I pointed down at the soldiers we could see patrolling about the tomb site from a distance, "You realize I can take out most of them from here, right?" I asked, getting skeptical looks from more than just one person, "Hear me out. You guys get in close and give me a signal or something. I'll start picking guys off and leading them away."

Miss Frost looked at me like I was out of my mind, "That's preposter-."

"-Alright," Mister Summers, amazingly enough, agreed. I didn't see that coming. No one else did either.

Miss Frost didn't seem to agree with the idea of leaving me by my lonesome, "What? Do you mind running that by me again, Scott, dear?" There seemed to be an edge to her tone, one that spoke of not getting laid anytime soon if the wrong answer was given.

Mister Summers either called her bluff, or didn't care, "I said alright. If he says he can do it, I believe him," That meant a lot coming from the big man in charge of the X-Men, "You're sure you can handle this, aren't you?"

I did my best job at puffing my chest out, trying to be as convincing as a teenager in high school could be, "I would give you a demonstration, but the only thing worth shooting in this shithole are the guys I'm trying to convince you I can hit."

Logic always made for a sound argument, even if it didn't prove your point spot-on.

Agent Brand put her hands on her hips, regarding me with little more esteem than an extra body, "And what are you going to do when they realize where the shots are coming from?"

I gave her a sideways look to let her know her skepticism was not appreciated, "You let me worry about that," My way of saying that I had no idea, "Just get inside the temple, see what you need to see, then get out. Simple, no?"

Dr. McCoy interjected on my behalf. Yet another reason I thought he was the man, "Given that one of us is missing something very important right now," He said, referring to the apparent loss of Mister Summers' optic blasts, "I would say a head-on battle of this scale would be the last thing we would want to get involved in."

The man known as 'Cyclops' conceded to that, even though he had been onboard with letting me do my thing in the first place, "Give us ten minutes to get into a decent position. Emma will signal you, and then you can have at it," He said to me, before leaving me with a word of warning, "Just remember, if things get too bad, none of us can get to you."

I smiled at him grimly, "I'm not some punk that needs to be bailed out by anybody," I jerked my head in the direction of the tomb, "Go. I need to start spotting," And with that, I set out to find the location of every vulnerable target I could see before the shooting started.

As I started walking around, trying to memorize all of the enemy positions, I could hear comments from Agent Brand, "Are we really leaving this to the kid?"

Dr. McCoy stuck up for me, "That 'kid', Agent Brand, is trained by one of our best. Give him a chance," That big, blue S.O.B. was good people.

"They won't."

As if that was supposed to scare someone. I knew that already. I didn't need to hear it from her. If I messed up I'd either be killed, or captured and tortured. Been there, done that already. I didn't look forward to being put in a repeat situation.

So there I was, all alone on the side of a ridge overlooking a big creepy pyramid, guards teeming all over it. Plus two tanks. At least they looked like tanks. Maybe just a pair of armored vehicles. I had an idea that I would find out for certain soon enough.

I kept track of the X-Men's progression, making sure to take note of their position before I started shooting. The last thing I wanted was to bring all of the soldiers over in their direction. It would have defeated the purpose of my drawing the enemy's attention.

"Alright, Mister Marcher, everyone is ready. Fire at will."

'On it,' I kept a steady breath and upon the exhale took my first shot. It knocked my target off of his elevated position and sent him tumbling noisily down the cliff. If that didn't send everyone nearby calling for help in that direction, I didn't understand psychology, 'By the way, they'll be heading over to the far left of the temple from where we started,' I thought back to Miss Frost as the clamor started below.

"Duly noted. And be careful. I would like for all of us to return home in one piece."

'You and me both,' I thought, taking another opportunistic shot at a person that might have been able to spot the X-Men as they snuck toward the tomb.

I took another pair of shots that put down a guy carrying some kind of heavy weapon and someone very close to seeing where I was. Every few shots, I had to change positions to make sure some random grunt didn't spot me and send all of the bad guys sprinting my way.

Compared to the kind of scenarios Miss Pryde had us run in the Danger Room when I started learning how to snipe, this was easy. Truth be told, thought it was going to be academic that I'd be caught. In reality, Miss Pryde and the inherent adaptability of the Danger Room made it so that enemies would eventually catch on and swarm on me, no matter how well I was supposedly doing.

They set up an expedition force to head up to the cliffs to locate me. They wound up going in the complete wrong direction. I had to hold back my laughter and refrain from shooting at the sitting ducks so I didn't give away my actual position. Not shooting at them actually made them think that they had been going in the right direction and that I had fled to keep from being caught.

That left the dregs behind to protect the place. About ten more soldiers, plus one vehicle. The vanguard had taken the other. I rubbed my hands together like an evil mastermind and slid down the side of the ledge to lower myself closer to their level. I had to handle this quickly.

Shooting light was so great. You didn't have to account for distance, or the time it would take for the shot to reach the target, so I didn't have to lead anything that moved. I just had to make sure my crosshairs were on, so to speak.

On my approach, right out of their line of sight I started to sprint. As I got closer, I started mentally marking the order I would take them all out in. That was when I began to fire. In my head, I counted out each successful shot that dropped someone. It took three before the lot of them noticed. By the time they figured out the direction I was coming in, five were down.

They finally started shooting back, only they panic-fired, and no one tried to find any cover. Three more went down. That left one who tried scrambling for the armored vehicle. I got a headshot on him right as he got on top of it to try and get inside.

*WHUMP!*

The sound he made as he fell off and dropped to the dirt was satisfying. So was the silence of a job well done. I blew at nonexistent smoke that would have been wafting from my fists. And that was when I realized something.

The last guy had opened the armored vehicle... and there was no one around to stop me. Spending the better part of my life playing Grand Theft Auto had prepared me for this moment. What kind of superhero-in-training would I be if I didn't try to steal it?

...Don't ask the question of why a hero would take to stealing a vehicle. Call it 'commandeering' if it makes you feel better.

I hopped in the front seat and noted that it had a push-button start, "Ooh!" I said as the machine hummed to life. It was quiet, I had known that from a distance, but even inside it was still easy on the ears, "And it's just like an Earth ride!"

It was just a transport, so there were no weapons, but that little baby had some horsepower to it... or whatever Breakworld used to describe the power of a car. I drove it away from the makeshift camp right up to the entrance of the pyramid where there were more guard that were down for the count. I hadn't done that, so I figured everyone else had made it inside well enough.

I jumped out, leaving the thing running in case we needed a quick getaway, and jogged inside to see if there was more I could do in the meantime.

When I caught up, the lot of them were just standing around and staring ahead. When I got to where they were, I got to see up-close just what had them so enraptured.

"Oh shit," I let slip under my breath.

On the wall, there was a giant mural of a metalled up Colossus, destroying the Breakworld with his bare hands. It looked like he had ripped the core out of the planet. Either that, or he was yanking the sun over across the galaxy for some face time with the fine denizens of this world.

The thing that really made it freaky was that it wasn't just a painting of a prophecy. It was etched in stone.

After I'd said something, everyone turned around with a start, finally noticing that I was there, "Solaris," Mister Summers said, "The enemy?"

I snapped out of my hyper focus on the wall, just like that, "Oh. On a wild goose chase somewhere that-a-way," I said, pointing in a direction away from here. I then gave him a smile that was all teeth and malice, "Everyone that didn't go ain't gonna be getting up for a good, long while."

"You handled it without getting a scratch?" Miss Frost asked, looking me over... and probably reading my mind to get my recollection of events. It took a moment, but when she was done she seemed pleasantly surprised, "Hm. Excellent work, Mister Marcher."

A compliment, from the lady that ran the gambit from thinking I was an idiot to being able to tolerate me for my apparent talent? I'd take it! "I stole their armored car thing too. I think they've got a few rides at the camp we passed," I said, giving that information out, just in case.

Dr. McCoy was busy climbing all over the mural, trying to take trace bits of it for testing. Even so, he still had the time for one-upmanship, "I hate to say I told you so, Agent Brand," He began to lead on before being cut off.

"-No you don't," She said back dryly. Yet, she didn't argue any counterpoints, which was as close to a 'well done' as I was going to get from her, "Let's finish analyzing this thing."

At that moment, both Mister Logan and Hisako flew in to the chamber on beat up, flying bikes. I wanted one, "Sorry we're late," The man with the claws in his fists said, "...Whose tank is outside?"

I raised my hand, "It's more like an armored car, really. No weapons or treads."

Mister Logan grunted in response, looking over us to take a head count, "Where are Pete and Kitty?"

I pointed back to the tank, "They haven't gotten here yet, but they're somewhere. The radio in that thing keeps going on about the metal man."

"What happened to you lot?" Miss Frost asked.

Mister Logan's lips curled in distaste. Clearly, whatever had gone down left him quite upset, which wasn't exactly hard to do, "Agent Brand's brilliant plan went south. Our pretend burning wreckage stopped pretending," How vague, and yet it still sounded painful, "We get through this, I'm gonna pop a claw through her eye. You guys cool with that?"

Miss Frost didn't give it a second thought, "Absolutely."

Mister Summers started out a bit more diplomatic, "Logan, we don't just..." It lasted for all of two seconds, "Nah, go for it."

By now, Mister Logan had caught sight of the mural on the wall and let out a whistle, "Well this doesn't leave a whole lotta room for doubt, does it? How's it work? Is that the sun?"

Hisako tilted her head to give a little bit of a think as she speculated over what it was we were supposed to cause, "So, what? Supernova? Orbital shift?"

Dr. McCoy gave a small round of applause for her theory, "Very likely, Miss Ichiki. High marks for the stowaway student."

Logan put a hand on her shoulder with a heavy clap, "Can't call her a student anymore. Armor here is our new teammate."

Hisako seemed to be nervous at a call like that being made with no one else's input, especially when Miss Frost and Mister Summers just stared back at her, "I mean... that is, Logan said-."

Miss Frost waved off her attempts to be modest, "Oh, it's lovely. God knows the team's going to need some new blood soon."

"Did he teach you the handshake?" Mister Summers joked.

They were just going to go with it? My eyes went wide, but I didn't say anything. Instead, I just lingered back, mouth shut. It was just some honorary thing, seeing as how she had been stuck with him by herself, and they'd probably had to kick some ass to get those bikes.

Really, it was cool that I didn't get the same accolades. A pat on the head, and a 'good boy, Bellamy' was enough.

...

...No it wasn't. My ego demanded parity. I wanted to be a goddamn X-Man.

I rolled my eyes, "Whatever your handshake is, it's not as good as a 'too sweet'," That she still wouldn't do.

Logan walked over and smirked right at me. He knew I was miffed. He knew the whole 'teammate' thing was messing with me, "Don't be jealous now, Glowstick."

The thought went through my head to kick him in the nuts. Those weren't coated in Adamantium, and he'd heal from it quicker than anyone else would.

I worked my jaw for a bit, half mouthing every curse I wanted to give him, "You know what? I'm just gonna take all of this rage that's building right now, put it in a ball, and stick it right here," I smacked my fist against my belly, "And keep it there for the next poor bastard that tries to get in my way. So thank you."

The cream rose to the top. You couldn't hold back raw talent. All that good stuff. I was the man. I knew I was the man. As long as I didn't end up scattered across Breakworld in itty-bitty pieces by the end of this ordeal, everyone else would know it too.

"So. I guess you had a good day," I struggled to not be a bitter ass. Hisako was still my friend and teammate... unless being made an X-Man in the field took her off of the Paladins. That would have sucked.

She turned to me with the dullest expression she'd given since we were beamed up onto S.W.O.R.D.'s ship, "I saw Wolverine with all of his skin burned off."

How exactly was I supposed to react to that? "...Cool," We fell into a weird silence for a moment. But only for a moment, "...Does this mean you outrank me now?"

She threw her hands up in the air. No fair. I was the one who should have been annoyed, "Oh my God, I knew this was coming!"

"That makes one of us."

"You still run the Paladins!"

"Are you off the Paladins?"

"I-!" She made to snap back at me until she seriously considered my question. It calmed her down, "I'd better not be. I'd miss you idiots. And yes, that includes you. Moron," She added before I could mention it for her.

I grinned at her and chuckled, "I knew I'd grow on you."

"Like a fungus," Hisako said with a scoff. We just turned and kept looking at the mural. I felt a shift of movement and saw her holding up the 'too sweet', "I'm glad we're both still alive."

There was a first time for everything. I returned the gesture. I didn't admit it out loud, but I was happy that both of us were too, "Of course we're still alive. We're the Paladins. It's us against the world. And I never thought I'd mean that literally."

Dr. McCoy dropped from the wall with a small bag containing bits of the mural, "I'm afraid that without a lab, I can't tell much about this carving."

Agent Brand held a device that produced a hologram of alien characters turning into a language we could recognize, "The symbols are older than anything in our data banks. Gonna be a while before we get specifics. I say we split up."

Dr. McCoy's expression clearly brightened, "At least we agree on something."

Agent Brand put away her device and addressed him directly, "You're coming with me."

His happier outlook on life quickly vanished, "And so ends that era," Who could blame him? We'd all been dealing with this hardcase of a woman since we'd left home.

Agent Brand gave her reason for needing the resident egghead of our little crew, "I need to get a look at the weapon they've got pointed at the Earth. There's a base directly under its orbit, a hundred miles east. You're science division, so you come with."

Mister Logan cut in with his own aims, "I wanna find Pete and Kitty. I'll take the kid," He noticed me perk up and took great pleasure in bursting my bubble, "...The quieter kid."

And here I thought we were cool with each other.

Mister Summers apparently wanted a piece of the big boss of the Breakworld, "I'm interested in this Kruun," It definitely sounded like he was spoiling for a fight.

Agent Brand shook her head, green hair swishing to the side, "You're not up to facing him. I've got men in the field. I think you and Frost should rendezvous with them and wait for word."

Our glorious leader didn't like the sound of that, "Oh, is that what you think?" He said, an edge to his tone. Being anywhere but on the frontlines, in the action made him feel uncomfortable. To be fair, I did too..

Normally, conflict resolution wasn't Brand's strong suit, but Dr. McCoy's words from earlier must have stuck with her. She had basically no leg to stand on if we all went off on her, "No offense, but you're powerless right now, and she's more unstable than normal. I wasn't counting on either of those things when I brought you here," She finished under her breath.

Mister Logan whispered none too subtly, "Want me to pop that claw?"

"No, the lady has a point," Mister Summers conceded before pointing at me and gesturing to himself and Miss Frost, "Bellamy, you're with us," Before anyone could say anything against it, he turned to Agent Brand, "You just said we didn't have any firepower. If he doesn't count as firepower at this point, I have no idea what you were hoping for from us."

"Besides, the poor boy has to go with someone," Miss Frost added, "Look at him. He's like a puppy staring at all of the families through a pet store window."

It was jarring just how accurate that assessment was. So much so, I didn't have the strength to fight it and say anything back. I was a full head taller than her, yet felt very low. I walked past the two of them. More like through them, "Just... get in the armored car when you figure out where we're going."

Before I could leave and head back for my ride, Mister Summers put a hand on my shoulder to stop me, "Quick question. How good are you at flying?"

I turned halfway around and raised an eyebrow, "I'd have won the Field Day event if David couldn't absorb Nightcrawler's pilot mojo from sitting next to him," And I'd gotten better since then. A few times, Miss Pryde had even let me mess around in the Blackbird for more live practice, "Why?"