Crusade: Part Eight

by Alicia McKenzie

"So, was he any good?"

Tal raised an eyebrow at her companion, somewhat amused by the question. "Since when do we talk about things like that, Kama?" she asked her fellow Rider calmly, turning her attention back to the steep slope in front of her. The exit to which they'd been assigned was considerably lower on the mesa than the one Dayspring had used, which meant they had some climbing to do.

They weren't hurrying. Longrifle's orders aside, neither of them were about to take on Dayspring, even together. Kama's blur-field was useful, but she was nowhere in Dayspring's class when it came to hand-to-hand. Tal figured she could hold her own, for a while, if it came to that--but she had absolutely no intention of fighting him. That would be counterproductive, given what she wanted out of all of this.

"Just thought I'd ask," Kama said casually. "It's not as if we've got anything better to do at the moment, anyway."

"Unless Dayspring should happen to hear us, and put to use whatever he took from the armory before he blew it up," Tal murmured. She didn't think he'd shoot her, after she'd been the one to warn him - although she could be wrong, she reminded herself thoughtfully -but she couldn't speak for his reaction to Kama. The two of them weren't friends - friendship couldn't really exist among the Dark Riders - but they faced similar problems, similar challenges. It made for a bond of sorts. She'd prefer not to see Kama get killed today.

"You don't intend to be too enthusiastic about finding him, I hope," Kama murmured. Tal stopped for a moment, then shook her head briefly and started back up the slope. She heard Kama give a soft, humorless chuckle. "Me either. If we can't kill him, and his powers are only gone for the day, I'm not willing to risk his mood in the morning simply for the sake of venting resentment I'm not carrying around in the first place."

Tal smiled faintly. "Aren't you glad we play the game by different rules?" she said quietly, humorously. Like her, Kama had gone about doing her job quietly and efficiently, and thus had never come into conflict with Dayspring. Neither of them had injured masculine pride to avenge. "Do you suppose any of the others have thought about this?"

"Hell no," Kama snorted softly. "And they WILL regret it, in the morning--you noticed that our lord said nothing about telling Dayspring not to kill us? Marcus and Paulo and Peder and Lot found that out, but that won't stop people like Seth. Logic doesn't even come into the equation."

"Well, their fate hardly matters to us, does it?" Of course it didn't. Tal could honestly say she didn't give a damn about any of the male Riders, with the possible exception of Longrifle, and with him, it was only a half-indifferent sort of resolution that she wouldn't kill him, even if he gave her the opportunity, unless she thought it was necessary to survive. There'd never been any affection in their 'arrangement'.

"Not as long as we stay out of it," Kama pointed out dispassionately. "And I'm game if you are."

Tal didn't see the necessity of pointing out to Kama that she'd always intended to 'stay out of it'. Frankly, it was a great deal easier if Kama was in agreement, in any case; no potential conflicts would arise if she suggested they stray from Longrifle's orders. She nodded, her smile growing wry. "Longrifle would have our heads," she said.

"I won't tell if you don't."

***

Longrifle swore as he knelt beside the body. He didn't bother turning it over--Zander was dead, his skull shattered, most likely by a shot from somewhere higher on the mesa. There were three other corpses along this narrow path--Zander and his partner had been first on the scene, but another pair had joined them here in front of the emergency access Dayspring had used to get out. The other three bodies were in the same state as this one.

Apparently Dayspring hadn't gone very far, at first. "You checked the immediate area?" he said impassively, looking up at Tyr, who'd been the first to find the bodies.

The tall, rangy electrokinetic nodded soberly. "No sign of him. He must have shot Zander and the others and then gotten the hell out of Dodge."

Longrifle growled and stood. "He can't have gone far." He looked around at the barren rock, rock everywhere, and shook his head. "There's no cover out here," he snapped. "He can't be that hard to find." A couple of the fliers, maybe--no. They'd just be making themselves tempting targets.

He saw the look of disgust on Tyr's face, and turned to see Varen emerge from the emergency access, pulling the slight, cloaked and hooded form of the psi-vamp behind her. She looked thoroughly repulsed at having to touch him, a look of utter disdain on her aristocratic face. "Here," she said, pushing him towards Longrifle. The psi-vamp stumbled, going to his knees, and hissed at Varen, who paled briefly, but went on. "He bitched and complained about having to be out in the sunlight, but I didn't think you were planning to indulge him."

"You guessed right," Longrifle said neutrally, staring down at the psi-vamp. "Get up," he snapped. "You remember Dayspring, right?"

"Yessss," the psi-vamp hissed, not moving from the ground. Longrifle growled, reaching down and hauling him back to his feet.

"Good. Because you're going to find him for me," he said icily. "And if you do it before sunset, you get to taste him again. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yesssss."

"I thought so. Now--"

The world blew up around him, the shockwave from the explosion smashing him to the ground as if a giant hand had reached down out of the sky to swat him like a insect. Debris rained down on him, a chunk of what felt like rock striking him in the head and briefly stunning him.

The echo faded. It was so quiet, he thought dazedly, trying to push himself back up and wipe away the blood running into his eyes.

"Varen!"

At Seth's shout, Longrifle looked blearily in that direction. Seth was kneeling beside Varen, swearing sulphurously. "She's dead!" he spat at Longrifle, his eyes blazing with fury. "We're supposed to just keep letting him kill us?"

Longrifle blinked at the psi-vamp, who was huddled on the ground, hissing to himself and apparently intact. "Tyr?" he asked, coughing to clear his lungs.

"I'm fine," the electrokinetic muttered, hauling himself back to his feet.

Longrifle's gaze strayed back to Varen, and he shook his head, raising one hand to adjust the headset, which was still somehow intact. "Teams seven through ten," he said with some difficulty. "Exit the base at--emergency access fifteen. Fan out across the mesa--proceed carefully, check for explosives!"

Tyr was there suddenly, helping him up. "We need to end this," he said hoarsely. "One way or the other, Longrifle, we have to end this."

"We can't kill him!" Longrifle snarled, pulling his arm out of Tyr's grasp. "Damn it, do you think I like the fact that he's picking us off at his leisure? But would you rather answer to Apocalypse for disobeying orders?" Tyr's expression was answer enough; Longrifle turned away, half-staggering over to the psi-vamp and pulling him up. "Find him," he growled. "Or I swear you'll be next."

The psi-vamp hissed, then bent over nearly double to the ground, a faint glow emanating from the shadows of his hood. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then scuttled off away from the half-collapsed emergency access.

Longrifle turned away from Varen's body, and followed.

***

Cable climbed.

It made no sense to climb up the mesa, rather than downwards, to where he could put some distance between him and the Riders--which was why he was doing it.

In the end, it all came down to a matter of time. The longer he could stay ahead of them, confuse the trackers, the better. By now, the more intelligent of them had to have caught on to his strategy. He wouldn't get many more chances to strike from a distance, and hand to hand was too chancy.

Time. He had to buy himself more time.

It was so quiet. He couldn't hear anything except the wind. That bothered him. If he'd learned anything since--lately, it was that silence was ominous. The day was starting to get hot as the sun rose further into the sky, and it was reminding him of--something, of some other time. The sun, the sand, the pain in his side--

Just exertion, he thought almost wildly, forcing his mind back to the task at hand. He had to stay focused, or this hunt was going to end badly for him.

Focus. The rock face before him seemed sheer, featureless, but he searched for holds and found them. His progress upwards was as fast as he could manage. Exposed on the rock face, he would be easy prey if any of the Riders caught up with him.

Easy prey. He'd shown them he wasn't, so far. Too bad he couldn't take pleasure in that. It was a long way to sunset. The fact that he'd killed some of them wasn't going to do much for the attitude of those still chasing him. He knew that. He'd known that from the start--but he'd done it anyway. Evened the odds, just a little.

One hand gripping the top edge of the rock as he reached it, he started to haul himself upwards.

Feet. There were feet in front of his eyes--stone feet? Feet weren't supposed to be made out of stone.

It was the last thing he thought before a hand of stone reached down and closed around his throat, lifting him up into the air effortlessly.

"Chosen One," Ozymandias said in that hollow, echoing voice. "I greet you."

Cable didn't have the breath to reply, courteously or otherwise. Ozymandias's grip was overwhelmingly strong, impossible to break. He tried to grab a weapon off his belt, a knife, the handgun, something, but Ozymandias shook him, hard enough to rattle every body in his body and leave him dazed, dangling helplessly.

"I said that we would meet again," Ozymandias said implacably, and tightened his grip, just enough to cut off the rest of Cable's air. "Do you now know the rift in your soul, Chosen One?"

Struggling to breathe, the beginnings of real panic jolting through him, Cable tried to reach for a weapon again. The rifle was slung across his back, out of reach, but if he could just get the handgun, maybe he could--

His hand closed around it, but Ozymandias pulled it off his belt and tossed it away. Cable heard it clatter against the rock of the ledge. "Do you see the brighter days lost within the shadows?" Ozymandias asked. "Do you hear the weeping in the darkness?"

*If he wants an answer--this is the wrong way to go about it--* Cable thought disjointed, clinging desperately to consciousness.

"Do you know the truth, Chosen One?" And he felt Ozymandias's presence in his mind, just like he had all those months ago in Tibet. Sorting rapidly through his memories, triggering something--

Apocalypse's words from hours ago, in the observation dome--

*Your life was mine to take, Chosen One! Mine! I spared you only because I knew your potential--only for that reason! I FREED you!*

His reply, the words he'd barely found the courage to speak--

*So I could serve you--don't you think I know that?*

The memory ended abruptly. Ozymandias shook him again, and Cable's eyes rolled up into his head. "You know the truth, Chosen One," Apocalypse's ancient servant said, almost sternly.

The truth. He did. Maybe he always had, but he hadn't admitted it, hadn't let himself acknowledge that he knew Apocalypse wasn't doing this for him, that there would be some price, something--

"Hold to it, as you walk into the void," Ozymandias said, and then images were racing each other through his mind, vivid, searing images that were so unlike his desert-faded memories--

--he knelt on a cool metal floor, his hands bound tightly behind his back, the fiery pain of a dislocated shoulder warring with the pain of other injuries, too many to count. He knelt, staring up at Apocalypse on his throne, hating him with every bit of strength he had left--

The image started to fragment. It blurred and sparked like a transmission decaying under interference of some sort, but he was still there. Seeing through his own eyes, feeling the pain, fighting vainly to keep his expression cold despite the tangle of desperation and anger and fear that burned inside him--

--*One would almost think defiance was encoded within your DNA, boy,* Apocalypse was saying mockingly--

He tried to scream, but there was no air, nothing to give it sound. This wasn't how it had happened. Blaquesmith and the X-Men had driven him away and he'd come to Egypt. He hadn't been captured--this was wrong, it was WRONG!

But he could remember it--

--*You are beaten, Dayspring,* Apocalypse's voice taunted, and he writhed inwardly, half of him rejecting it, half of him knowing that it was true whether he liked it or not. All these years, all these battles, and it had come down to this? *Think on that. I could have your head put on a spike beside my throne, or simply keep you alive, as a trophy. You have no power here, no escape save for what I might choose to give you.*--

Choices. Choices--he hadn't had a choice, hadn't chosen this--had he? No, they'd taken the choices away from him. His family, his so-called friends. He'd come running to Egypt, seeking death, seeking something--

"Know the truth, Dayspring," Ozymandias said, and opened his hand, releasing him. Dropping him. "Hold it to you."

And as he fell, he heard his own voice in his mind, harsh with pain.

--*What are you proposing?*--

--*A--deal, is that not the word? A second chance, to finish this as it should be finish, to test your strength against mine as you have longed to do for your entire life.*--

More. Barely there, fragmented so badly that he could barely see it. But he remembered, Bright Lady help him, he REMEMBERED kneeling on the floor, remembered being given this choice.

Remembered the circle, in the sand.

--*And if I say no?*--

--*Then you die here and now, Dayspring--*--

--*I'll do it--*--

Lost in the memory, he fell all the way to the bottom of the rock face, and the impact smashed all memory, all thought from his mind.

***

"--so I had to bust a few heads." Nick Fury looked morosely at his unlit cigar. "Damned non-smoking restaurants," he said crossly. "Bridge, couldn't you have found us a reasonable place to have lunch?"

Bridge raised a defensive hand, grinning. "You could do to break the habit, you know."

"At my age? Not damned likely," Fury snorted. "And since when did you turn into a health Nazi, G.W.?"

"Hey, just pointing it out."

"Sure you are."

Domino managed a thin smile at the banter, and ignored the way Valentina di Fontaine was looking at her. As casual as this lunch seemed to be on the surface, she knew better. They wanted something--Fury and the Contessa, and probably G.W. as well. They just weren't sure how to broach the subject, so they were dancing around it.

*Who said you needed to be a telepath to read people's minds?* She lifted her water glass, taking a sip and staring down at her half-eaten pasta. Not that the food wasn't good - far from it, actually - but she hadn't had much of an appetite. Not after that--episode in the shower. The link had faded back down, finally, but the memory still made her shudder.

"Domino?" The Contessa's voice was very quiet, even kind.

It still took an act of will not to snap at her. Domino looked up with another of those thin, fixed smiles that seemed to be all she could manage these days. "Yes?" she asked, pleased that her voice came out perfectly level and calm.

Valentina was regarding her almost thoughtfully. "You seemed very far away for a moment."

The laugh that escaped Domino then didn't have much of humor about it. "Yeah. I just wish I knew where." She felt G.W. stiffen beside her, and saw the slight wariness in Fury's eyes, across the table. "Not to worry," she went on, bitterness creeping into her voice. "He seems pretty quiet at the moment. I'm not going to lose it and start raving at the table, if that's what you're concerned about."

"Well," Fury said, almost genially. "Good to know."

Domino stared at him for a moment, and then started to laugh again. The laughter sounded almost normal, and G.W.'s surprised look only made her laugh harder. Eventually, the looks she was getting from other diners registered, and she finally wrestled herself back under control, wiping her eyes and taking a quick sip of her water. Too quick--it made her start hiccuping, and it took a few minutes and some careful breathing to take care of that.

"You all right?" Fury asked when she finally managed to stop.

Domino nodded a little jerkily. G.W. laid a hand on her shoulder and she shook her head at him warily. She didn't need to be mothered, and she really wished he'd get that through his head. "I'm fine. Just a little on edge these days," she told Fury.

"Don't blame you," Fury said levelly. "Suspect I'd be more than 'on edge' if I was in your place."

So they knew. Well, of course they knew. G.W. had never been good at keeping his mouth shut about things. She gave G.W. a reproving look anyway, and he flushed, his eyes dropping to his plate.

"Whatever. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?" Domino said, folding her napkin as neatly as she could and putting it back on the table. "Since we've all made our token gestures towards being social, I'd say it's about time. What do you want, Fury?"

Fury exchanged a look with the Contessa, and it was Val who answered. "It's not so much what we want," she said thoughtfully, "as wondering what you want." Domino stared at her blankly, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of Val's mouth. "In terms of your future, Domino. G.W.'s told us you're somewhat at loose ends."

Domino blinked as realization hit. "You're trying to recruit me, aren't you?"

Val hesitated, then nodded. "You have exemplary skills, and a great deal of very useful experience."

Domino snorted, turning away from Val and giving Fury a disbelieving look. "Getting awfully ecumenical in your old age, aren't you, Nick?"

Fury gave her an amiable grimace. "It's not being ecumenical. It's just me getting sick of watching people with the skills I need wasting their time playing crusader." He turned the cigar over a few times, his gaze almost speculative as he watched her. "You never really bought into that anyway, did you?"

Domino managed to shrug. "Not really." She swirled the water in her glass for a moment, watching the way the overhead lights sparkled off it. "But I had--reasons to stick with it." Still had, if she wanted to be honest with herself. The kids. Once she'd been out of danger, they'd gone back to San Francisco. Reluctantly, very reluctantly - they hadn't liked the idea of leaving her with G.W. - but they'd gone. She knew they wanted her back there, too, but she couldn't go. Not yet.

A strange, barely perceptible jolt of--something went through her and she twitched violently, managing to set the water glass down without spilling anything. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks," she went on a little hoarsely, ignoring G.W.'s concerned look. "Besides, Fury, I can't quite commit to anything at the moment. There's this little matter of waiting for my partner to pop back up. You know how it is." Her hands were shaking. She folded them together under the table so that no one would see.

Fury bared his teeth at her. It wasn't quite a grin. "Yeah, I know how it is, lady. But what're you going to do? Sit around and drink yourself into an early grave while you're waiting, or get yourself set up to be able to stop him when he does?"

***

Something cracked and twisted in his left leg with every step he took. It wanted to buckle, but he didn't let it. Blood was running into his eyes from somewhere, but he didn't have time to try to wipe it away.

Not a good idea, anyway. Pain was a tricky thing; if you acknowledged it, you gave it power over you. He knew that if he started to assess his injuries, part of his mind would realize that he shouldn't have been able to get up. That he should still be lying where he'd fallen at the bottom of that rock face, waiting for the Riders to catch up with him.

That wasn't an option. He had to keep moving. Hobbling, his breathing coming hard and painful, pain shooting from his broken leg straight up his back, Cable stumbled down the steep slope. Climbing was out of the question. He had to get off the mesa, try and put some distance between him and the Riders.

He'd landed on the rifle. It was damaged, wouldn't fire. He had one gun left, with limited ammo, and a few knives. He'd used the last three explosive packs to mine his trail.

Options--he was running out of options. Running. Cable gave a cracked laugh. Very funny. He couldn't run. Fighting would be a little difficult, too. But then, he should be used to that, shouldn't he--

Closing his eyes, almost unconsciously, against the sudden, vicious impact of the memory Ozymandias had triggered in him, Cable slipped and fell. The agony as he landed with his injured leg twisted under him was distant, barely registering in the face of the conflict raging inside him.

He remembered coming to Egypt to challenge Apocalypse in a fit of guilt and desperation.

He remembered being a prisoner, given a choice to fight or die.

They couldn't both be true. Could they? Gasping for air, clutching at his side, Cable hauled himself back to his feet and kept staggering downwards. The pain stabbing into his side seemed to keep time with his heart. The rhythm helped him focus.

They couldn't both be true. One had to be a lie. Had to be. His mind playing tricks on him, or Ozymandias playing some game of his own--

But the fight was the same, he thought, clinging to that clarity. From that point on, it was one memory. One--very flonqing--PAINFUL memory.

And that was all that was important, wasn't it? The fight. Being beaten, because Apocalypse was strong and he--

Wasn't.

Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him. The memory Ozymandias had triggered was too pat. He could almost imagine the course of events leading up to it. Some sort of accidental encounter, a battle he hadn't expected--maybe an ambush? Something like that. But that was too easy, far too easy. He could construct that whole chain of events in his mind, pretend he'd had a life where his family hadn't betrayed him, where he hadn't been used and betrayed and thrown away, and wouldn't that be nice, wouldn't that be just fucking PERFECT, if the truth about everyone who'd pretended to care about him was a lie--

Oath, what was he DOING? It didn't matter. Self-delusion or hallucination or Ozymandias's trick, whatever the hell it was, it DIDN'T MATTER. The why of any situation was secondary to the situation itself. Another wheezing, ghastly laugh escaped him. How he'd gotten here didn't matter. Nothing like that mattered anymore. Not the how or the what or the why, not even the who, Bright Lady help him--

Just this. The fight. Always one battle or another. Whether he was strong enough to win, to survive. Apocalypse was right. When you broke it down, stripped away all the useless, pointless garbage that got passed off as 'humanity', it was all about being weak or being strong.

He didn't want to be weak. He didn't want to be an animal, didn't want to spend the rest of his life mourning for people who'd discarded him without a second thought.

Apocalypse had told him to choose, but where was the choice? He was strong or he was weak, and that was all there was--

A bolt of blue-white energy smashed into the ground at his feet and Cable gave a hoarse cry as he fell. The world spun crazily around him, he tumbled helplessly down the slope. Only a boulder broke his fall, the impact hard enough driving the air from his lungs, and he laid there for a moment, too stunned to move.

*No--* he thought disjointedly. *Not so soon, NO!*

A shadow loomed over him, and power-nulled or not, he sensed the kick before it came. A booted foot slammed into his ribs, and he let it connect, knowing he couldn't stop it. His hand closed around his last gun, and as another kick came, knocking him onto his back, he drew it.

The Rider standing over him - he couldn't even remember the man's name - had a moment to realize what was happening before Cable shot him, once, straight through the heart. Agitated shouting broke out somewhere below him, and Cable struggled desperately to get back up, knowing he couldn't waste ammo, that he had to make his shots count--

Something dove at him out of the cloudless sky--not something but someone, a someone who was glowing, surrounded by his own aura of flame. Patel. A pyrokinetic, one of the more competent Riders. Cable raised his gun and fired twice, but his hand was shaking and his aim was off. Both shots missed, and then Patel was slamming into him, the flames blazing hotter. A harsh cry escaped Cable as his skinsuit started to smoulder, but he twisted his wrist free, the knife sliding forward out of the sheath and into his hand.

He brought it up sharply, burying it in Patel's chest and twisting it brutally. The Rider gave a gurgling cough and collapsed on top of him, his flames suddenly roaring higher. Cable pushed him away, gasping. Burning--the bastard was dead, and the flames were still burning--

Moving was agony, but he did it anyway. Futilely, he tried to wrench the knife out of Patel's twitching body, but it was too hot to touch, and had hung up on a rib or something. Cursing bitterly, Cable pulled the last knife out of the sheath in his boot and staggered back to his feet, trying desperately to straighten as he saw several Riders rushing up from downhill.

More shouting, this time from above him. *Surrounded,* he thought sickly, trying awkwardly to turn and gauge how many were coming from that direction.

But even as he started to move, someone stepped on one of the last of his mines. Dust and debris billowed down the mesa as the thunderous echo of the explosion faded, and Cable felt his lips draw back in a smile that wasn't a smile as the moment of silence was shattered by screaming.

But then he had to turn his attention back to the ones coming up from below. Eight--no, nine of them, and angry enough that he could almost taste it, blocked powers or not.

So it came down to this. A red haze entirely separate from the blood running into his eyes descended over him, and he heard himself call out a challenge in Askani, his voice hoarse and broken but burning with contempt.

They reached him in seconds. He sidestepped a clumsy first attack and dodged beneath a wild punch before he delivered one of his own, pulling it just enough so that the armor spikes along his arm buried themselves in the Rider's throat. Blood gushed, flowing down over his arm in a warm tide, and Cable gritted his teeth, using his good leg to kick the dying Rider away. His injured leg tried to buckle, not wanting to hold his weight, but he didn't let himself fall.

If he fell, it was over.

The next Rider tripped over his fallen comrade and Cable pounced like a hunting cat, grabbing the man by the hair and yanking his head upwards to draw the knife across his throat. More blood. Two down.

But the others were getting smarter. More cautious. Even as he blocked the next attack and snapped both bones in the arm of a Rider who made the mistake of overreaching himself, the others were pressing him, leaving him with no space to fight, no room to breathe--

"Get him down, damn it!"

Someone hit him from behind, and he staggered, managing somehow to reverse the knife and stab backwards. The Rider screamed, almost in his ear, and fell. But the knife went with him, and Cable lurched forward, realizing it was down to hand to hand and there were still too many of them--

A well-placed kick smashed into his bad leg, right at the knee, and he fell, white-hot pain washing away the red battle-haze and threatening to take conscious thought with it as well. By the time he fought it back, someone was hauling him roughly back to his feet and someone else was approaching him from the front, growling curses.

His leg wouldn't hold his weight. Rage spiked inside him, one last flash of pure fury, and he lashed out at the dark shape he could barely see. So much blood in his eyes. But the blow connected, and the Rider staggered backwards, clearly stunned.

"Hold him, you stupid bastards!" someone else shouted, and then the dark shapes were all around him, too many to fight. A blow snapped his head backwards, and he reeled. Another followed right on its heels, and then another, blow after blow raining down on him until he was sagging in his captors' grip, barely conscious.

They seemed to know. They let him fall to the ground, and the beating continued.

"Son of a bitch!"

"--Patel, and Tyr--"

"--Brevin, too--bastard!"

Snatches of conversation drifted to his ears, growing fewer and farther between as each kick and punch connected, fraying his tenuous hold on consciousness even further. As it went on and on, he couldn't even try and protect more vulnerable parts of his body. Couldn't move at all--

"Enough! I said enough!" someone roared, and that voice he knew. Knew and hated, and it didn't make sense that he would stop this, did it? "Are you trying to kill him?"

***

"So what if we are?"

Tal came to a skidding stop behind Longrifle as Seth straightened and snarled back his defiant response. Kama stopped just behind her, breathing hard. They'd rounded the side of the mesa just in time to see the last of the fighting, but it had taken them a few minutes to get up here.

"I hope that was a fucking rhetorical question!" Longrifle growled, giving no indication that he knew they were behind him. "Or do I need to repeat myself, AGAIN?"

Tal winced as she looked at Cable. He was curled up in a fetal position, his breathing ragged and shallow. Blood darkened his silver hair and covered his face in a red mask, and his eyes were open, staring at nothing. Bad shape--he was in bad shape, she could tell that much at a look.

"Thirteen of us!" Seth almost hissed. Tal looked back up and at him, flinching as she saw his eyes. They weren't quite--sane. She'd been on the receiving end of Seth's tantrums sometimes, and she had to say she really didn't envy Cable at the moment. "He's killed THIRTEEN of us, Longrifle! That's not even counting whoever's dead up there!" He gestured wildly up at the mesa in the direction of where she'd heard an explosion a few minutes ago.

"We are under ORDERS!" Longrifle snapped, and Tal heard the strain in his voice. She could sympathize. He was facing Seth and six other, very angry Riders, and his leadership was not the secure thing it sometimes seemed. Apocalypse would very probably consider him at least partially responsible if something permanent did happen to Cable. "Do you want to answer to Apocalypse?"

Trump card, Tal thought. None of them would go that far. Seth and most of the other male Riders WOULD challenge Longrifle, if he was all they had to worry about, but none of them were idiotic enough to do the same with Apocalypse.

Surely, they weren't--

Seth's gaze wavered, and fell, landing back on Cable. Rage twisted his features and he kicked the downed man in the ribs, not quite as hard as before.

"Seth," Longrifle said warningly. He sounded more relaxed, as if he was sure the situation was back under control. "Hunt's over. Let it go." His lips pursed as he looked down at Cable, assessing his condition. "You all got some of your own back. Just leave it."

"It isn't sunset," Morel, nursing an arm that was definitely broken, growled at Longrifle. He kicked Cable, harder than Seth had, but got even less of a reaction. Cable twitched as Morel's foot connected with his ribs. That was it.

"There is that," Seth suddenly said, giving a hard, cruel-sounding laugh as he glanced up at the sky, judging the position of the sun. "The hunt's over. The test isn't. Hell, we all know what Apocalypse wanted him to learn. I say we'd be derelict in our duty if we didn't teach him exactly what it means to be weak, don't you?"

Cable actually found the strength to raise his head. There was still nothing but uncomprehending shock in his eyes, and he slumped back to the ground almost immediately, but Tal still bit her lip. *Stay down, you fool,* she thought, her stomach churning.

Seth knelt down beside him, yanking his head upwards by the hair. "Shouldn't we make sure we do this thoroughly?" Seth asked, his voice soft and savage. "I think there's a lot more we can teach you about what it is to be weak, Cable."

Tal froze.

"Are you insane?" Kama's voice rang out, far too high-pitched. Seth didn't look at her, but she didn't seem to be bothered by that. "He's going to have his powers back in the morning, you idiot! What the hell do you think he'll do if you--"

"Seth." Longrifle's voice was almost as soft as Seth's had been, but it cut Kama off instantly. "Seth, this is over. He's had enough."

"It's not sunset," Seth said, with another one of those horrible laughs. A rumble of agreements, low and vicious, came from the other Riders, and Seth looked away from Longrifle, as if dismissing him from mind. "You're prey," he said to Cable, as if explaining something to a child. "You're prey, and you're caught." The rage flashed back across his face, distorting his features into something that didn't seem quite human. "You're weak," he said. "We're strong. We do what we want, and all you can do is take it--"

Longrifle stiffened. "You think it's going to matter if you kill him by accident, Seth?" he almost hissed. "You think Apocalypse is going to care?"

Seth completely ignored him. "We may be under orders, Dayspring," he said, almost pleasantly, "but I swear, by the time we're through with you you're going to be BEGGING us to kill you."

"I can't believe this," Kama whispered from behind her, sounding almost aghast. "Aren't they THINKING?"

"Of course they're not," Tal murmured, something uncomfortably close to sympathy knotting her insides. They weren't thinking. They were just reacting, taking the opportunity to salve their wounded pride while they still had it. They weren't looking past today, and that was going to cost them dearly, they were just too angry to see it--

"It's on your heads, then," Longrifle snarled suddenly. "One way or the other." He turned away, almost violently, and nearly ran into her. "Are you coming?" he rasped at her and Kama, his expression grim.

Tal stared past him at the others for a moment. Morel sneered something under his breath and kicked Cable again. A couple of the others laughed, but their body language was changing. Less tense, yet somehow more intent. Hunters circling around their downed prey, knowing it was at their mercy--

Tal shuddered.

"Yeah," she said hoarsely, and turned away.

[next part]

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