The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Chapter Fifty Five (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *sniffle* I think I caught Minerva’s cold. :( InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting! ProPhile: You’ve been sorely underutilized. That will change soon. ;) Morgan: *glomp * Save that for next week… ;) And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Doctor Nightfall, my favorite plotbunny rancher. :) Readers/Reviewers: Thank you thank you thank you for reading/reviewing!!!

The only thing Wanda hated more than flying was flying in bad weather. She could feel the pressure of time against her, more definite and immediate than anything else, the knowledge that Magneto would get there first crushing against her, pressing the breath out of her lungs and making her head ache and stomach writhe in uncertainty and guilt. She got off the plane at Logan, not sure what to do next. She was too young to rent a car, it was too far to walk or take a cab… She sighed to herself, realizing what option she was heading for. “God help me,” she muttered, heading towards the long term parking lot as if she belonged there, “something Toad showed me is actually going to be useful…”

Pietro glanced at Tarot and sighed. Sometimes, he thought, she could be a real pain in the ass. It was not that he did not like her—he admitted that freely, as he did the lust. He just wondered why he had let her stick around so long. She was clearly his father’s pet, eager to please and cunning, witty, intelligent, not to mention attractive, Pietro added ruefully.
“Ten minutes,” Tarot announced over her shoulder. “Get ready.”
“What exactly are these things going to do again?” he asked his father over the engine noise. “I mean, I know they’re gonna squash the X geeks but I mean… how?”
Magneto raised an eyebrow but did not deign to look over his shoulder. He simply raised his voice slightly and replied, “Quickly, son. Quickly.”
Pietro sighed and sank back in his seat. Ever since Tarot had become more vocal about wanting a more active role in the Brotherhood, Magneto had been treating him like an especially dimwitted child. “I mean,” he began again, “is this going to be brute force or is there something more?”
“Unfortunately,” Magneto said crisply, “some things in this world can only be accomplished through physical force.”
“Aren’t they designed to destroy all mutants?” he pressed, ignoring Tarot’s frown. “That was why those guys made ‘em, right? How the Hell are you going to keep them from killing us? Huh?” He leaned forward against his restraints, partially in agitation and partially due to the jet’s descent.
Magneto sighed audibly and shifted to face his son. “Even the most basic creatures can be bribed, child. Power, money, fear… it all works in the end.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that you bribed a bunch of fucking robots!” Pietro snorted, not bothering to censor his language.
“Pietro,” Tarot responded through clenched teeth, “someone has to control them, neh?”
He jerked his chin, refusing to be made to feel stupid. “The point is… you can only control so much! Yeah, the powers that be gave ‘em over to you and yeah, they’re supposed to do what you say but man… it’s hard to get a Xerox machine to do what you want, much less a freakin’ sentient robot!”
A ghost of a smile flitted across Magneto’s face, but he remained silent as they made their landing. Tarot muttered under her breath in French, something, Pietro caught, about donkeys and possibly cabbage. The atmosphere was tense as the jet powered down and became relatively silent except for a few pings and faint whirrs. “Well,” Pietro said finally, “here we are.”
Blob grunted. “Big fuckers, huh?”
Pietro followed his gaze and felt his throat go dry. He had seen the Sentinels before, but only on film or in pictures, never in person. They were huge, bigger than he thought possible. The first thought that came to mind was a blindingly technical one of how they needed to be redesigned to make them easier to use, make them more compact and less ostentatious. The next thought escaped his lips on a breath, irregardless of his father standing within cuffing range. “Holy shit…”
Magneto sighed. “All that private school, all those tutors, and still you talk like common trash.”
“The Boardinghouse does that to ya, yo,” he replied in an undertone, using his best Toad impersonation. “Okay, now what?”
“Now,” Magneto smiled in a nearly feral manner, “we begin.” As if he had issued a command, the three Sentinels stepped forward, eerily silent despite their massive size. “Pietro, you and Tarot bring them to me.”
Tarot nodded firmly. “Five minutes. If we are not back by then, feel free to let them start.”
“Whoa…start what?” Pietro yelped, yanking his hand from Tarot’s grasp. “What the Hell? This is really just gonna be a smash and grab?”
“Not quite.” Pietro jerked around to face the source of the voice and found himself with a face-full of blue fist. Kurt vanished and reappeared near Blob, thwaping him in the face with his tail before vanishing and reappearing again next to Magneto. “Boo,” he caroled, grabbing the edge of the older man’s cloak and yanking it hard, forcing him to stagger forward. Kurt was gone again before anyone could react, only to reappear next to Pietro one more time. “Want to go for a tour of the place?”
Pietro’s hand shot out faster than Kurt’s eyes could easily track, latching onto the blue teenager’s throat. Pietro had a witty come back at the ready, but it was lost to the ether as Kurt grinned toothily, his tail lashing around the blond’s leg a second before he teleported. Pietro gagged on the wave of disoriented nausea that passed over him, stumbling in the brightly lit foyer as Kurt broke away from his grasp. “What the fuck…” New hands grabbed and held him before he could run, binding him with what felt like rope. His eyes focused and he saw Storm, Kurt and an older, red haired man staring back at him. “Fucking hell…”
“Got a mouth on you, haven’t you?” Sean demanded, nodding to someone behind Pietro. “That’ll do.”
Kurt exhaled noisily, obviously anxious to be moving again. “I saw them from the upstairs balcony while I was looking for Kitty and Theresa…” He glared. “I swear to God, Pietro, if you hurt her…them…”
“Fuck you, Fuzz Butt. I have no fucking clue where your fuck buddy went!” he spat.
“Now,” Rahne sighed, “I wish you hadna said that…”
Pietro jerked his head to face her only to find himself punched for the second time in fifteen minutes. “Bitch!” he cried, tasting blood.
“Now I wish you hadn’t have said that,” Storm sighed. “Sean, take him to the interrogation room…”
“The inter…ooooooh,” the Irishman nodded, following Storm’s quick glance to the hall closet. “Right. Interrogation…”
Kurt’s tail lashed angrily as he turned to Storm. “I didn’t find them! Where are the others? How can they be lost inside a house?”
Storm looked somewhere between angry and scared herself. Any answer she might have had was broken by the sound of a loud, earth shattering impact against the roof of the house. “We don’t have any more time,” she breathed. “This is it.”