Home | Forum | Mailing List | Repository | Links | Gallery
 
 
Chapters
Prolog
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilog
 
 
 

The Vault - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by NicoPony
Last updated: 08/15/2007 08:57:57 AM

Chapter 9

Underground, Ben Folds Five

Everything’s heavy underground

You been kicked around?

Did life bring you down here?

Everything’s heavy underground

And we’ll be decked

in all black

slamming the pit fantastic

Officer Friendly’s little boy’s

got a mohawk

and he knows just where

we’re coming from

It’s industrial

work it underground

Somewhere off the coast of Africa, a small decrepit jet rattled high over the waves of the Indian Ocean. The jet hardly appeared air-worthy, and yet it bobbed along through the air in defiance of logic and gravity. The tail end of the aircraft had been rent off and reattached shoddily with welded and riveted metal plates. Rust ran down the belly of the jet, leaking from the many wounds in the hull. The nose of the jet was crumpled, and upon closer examination, one might think the dents looked suspiciously like large hand prints. Strangest of all, the entire aircraft was surrounded by a bright blue glow. Save for the hollow whisper of air over the damaged parts, the jet’s passage was silent. The passengers, on the other hand, were not.

“We’ve been at it for ages!” snapped an irritated voice. “I say we give up! This is hopeless!”

“Can it, Pietro!” griped a second voice. “We’re not quitting until we find him.”

“I don’t see why we’re bothering, Lance! No one cares about that stupid slimeball,” Pietro continued to whine. He turned to sneer at the only female aboard the jet. “Especially not you!”

“Stop distracting Wanda,” Lance said, shoving Pietro into a nearby seat. “She’s the only thing keeping this bird in the air!”

Wanda sat in the pilot’s seat, her brows knitted in concentration. The threat of plunging headlong into the ocean was the only thing that kept her from hexing everyone on board. Patience was not a virtue she possessed. The fact that she could keep the jet in the air raised a lot of questions about Wanda’s reality warping ability. Just how powerful was she? The Brotherhood preferred not to know the answer.

“If we crash, it’s because we’ve pushed Wanda too far!” Pietro said. “This is a wild goose chase.”

“We’re getting closer,” Wanda said. She was answered by a blip, blip, blip sound from the transmitter.

“You said that last time, and then the signal vanished,” Pietro said. “Toad can’t tie his own shoe laces, let alone send us a homing signal. We need to turn back. Besides, Blob ate all the food we brought!”

“There’s still a box of Sugar Bombs left,” Blob groused under his breath. Louder he said: “And I’m with Avalanche. We keep looking for Toad.”

It had been nearly a week since the Brotherhood received a garbled message from their missing teammate. A scrambled webcam image had appeared on Wanda’s laptop. The brief transmission was of Toad, panic-stricken as usual, pleading for rescue. The brief communication had ended with a set of coordinates. Wanda had tried to put it off as one of Todd’s clumsy attempts to win her affections, but when the amphibious mutant had failed to show up for meals, the Brotherhood members had begun to worry.

Avalanche knew something about coordinates and tracking signals from his brief stint as an X-Man(1). He and Blob had patched their stolen and heavily damaged jet, and with the Scarlet Witch’s help, the aircraft had finally limped into the air. As much as Avalanche hated flying and liked heroics even less, he had led the charge to rescue Toad. Blob was quick to follow suit. Todd was like the little brother he never had, nor wanted. It was Blob who cajoled the Scarlet Witch into coming as well, pointing out to her that Todd had made every attempt to rescue her from Magneto(2). She conceded, and dragged her brother Quicksilver along behind her. Avalanche would have preferred the fast talking boy stay at home. Quicksilver fancied himself the team leader, but he’d thus far failed to lead the Brotherhood to anything but disaster.

The sounds from the transmitter increased in frequency. Avalanche leaned over the control panel. Something had appeared on the radar. He dared a glance out the window. Being away from the ground made him queasy. He rarely even ventured to the second floor of the Brotherhood house, favoring the ground floor or better yet, the basement. It was worse when all you could see for miles was water. As he looked out the window, there was a moment when his stomach lurched dangerously, threatening to eject the bowl of Sugar Bombs he’d had earlier. But something amidst the black waves below caught his eye. “There!” he cried, pointing downwards. “Land!”

Blob and Quicksilver crowded the cockpit. Blob’s ponderous bulk accidentally mashed Wanda up against the controls and the plane dropped a few hundred feet. A communal shriek of terror echoed inside the cabin.

“Shove off, Blob!” Quicksilver cried, trying unsuccessfully to move the bigger man away.

Wanda managed to catch the plane, and everyone save Blob was driven to the floor. The nose was pointing precariously downward, so all they could see through the windshield was ocean waves. The plane drifted along, turning a slow pirouette.

“I can’t do this much longer!” Wanda groaned.

Avalanche was pressed up against the window, giving him the eerie sensation that there was nothing between him and the ocean below. From the corner of his eye, he spotted the hint of shoreline.

“A little to the right!” he cried.

“Don’t you mean starboard?” Quicksilver quipped.

“That’s on boats, stupid,” Blob said. “Not planes.”

“It’s both, you morons!” Wanda screamed. “Give me some room!”

The plane continued to spiral downward. Their slow roll began to pick up momentum.

“Aren’t we coming in a little fast?” Avalanche asked.

Wanda moaned and slumped against the controls. “Wanda!” Quicksilver cried. He seized her by the shoulders and began to shake her.

The blue glow surrounding the aircraft stuttered and then vanished.

“Grab the stick!” Avalanche cried. “Do something! Pull back on the whatsit!”

Blob began yanking levers and the jet seemed to level out a bit. There came a horrible groaning from the rear of the aircraft, but the sound was quickly drowned out when they began hitting the tops of trees. Foliage went flying in all directions as the plane sheared off the tops of palm trees. The jet shuddered as it propelled along, then canted to the side. They dropped below the canopy and into the dark forest. One of the wings caught on a tree trunk and jet abruptly spun around. For a moment, they were pointed up towards the sky and the jet threatened to flip over, but Blob’s bulk brought the plane crashing forward. The plane came to a sudden halt.

For a long while, nothing moved. From the rear of the jet came a creaking of metal, and the tail section fell off.

“Blip,” said the transmitter, then it abruptly sparked and went black.

Quicksilver had landed on top of Blob. He pulled himself away, and began looking frantically around the cabin. “Where’s Wanda?” he cried. “Blob, I swear, if you’ve smashed her---!”

“Relax, Pietro, I’m right here!” Wanda crawled out from beneath the mangled captain’s seat.

“Is everyone alive?” Avalanche asked.

“I think so,” Blob answered.

The motley band of mutants stumbled from the wreckage of their jet and out into a jungle.

“Where the heck are we?” Avalanche asked, looking around at the palm trees and vines. He dropped the pack he was carrying. The earth under his feet was spongy, but at least it was the ground.

“This was where the beacon was coming from,” said Wanda.

“I didn’t see anything from the air,” Avalanche said. “Just trees. There’s gotta be some kind of communications tower or something.”

“I dunno you guys. This place looks deserted. Don’t you think someone would have heard that crash?” Quicksilver said, as he looked around nervously. Something smashed through the trees nearby, and he gave a start, nearly launching himself into Blob’s arms. “Whattheheckwasthat!?”

“It’s just some breaking branches! Just chill out, all ready!” Avalanche shouted. “This here’s what we’ll do. Quicksilver, you go that way, back towards the shoreline and look around.”

“Reconnaissance,” Wanda prompted.

“Whatever,” Avalanche looked irritated.

“I’m not going out there by myself,” Quicksilver snapped. “What if this is like LOST and I run into The Others, or something?”

“I hardly think that’s going to happen. You’re the fastest, so just go around the island and scope the place out.”

Wanda sighed and shook her head. “’Scope the place out’...?”

“Then come back here,” Avalanche told Quicksilver.

“And what are you guys gonna be doing while I’m risking my neck?”

“We’re gonna go in,” Avalanche pointed toward the island’s interior. “We’ll start out walking in a circle.”

“We’ll conduct a sweep of the area...” Wanda suggested.

“Whatever, Wanda. Okay, so let’s go. Blob, you go first,” Avalanche commanded, hefting his pack onto his shoulder.

“Take point,” said Wanda.

“Whatever!”

Quicksilver hesitated, but Avalanche raised a fist in a threatening manner. Quicksilver zipped off into the forest, his form nothing but a silvery blue blur. The remaining Brotherhood members proceeded through the forest. Blob crashed his way through the underbrush as the Scarlet Witch and Avalanche trailed in his wake. Blob resolutely plunged ahead, but the others were far more cautious. They continuously looked to their left and right, occasionally glancing behind. The forest was dark and quiet except for the sound of vegetation crunching under Blob’s weight.

Suddenly, there came a rumble from under their feet.

“What’s up?” Blob turned to Avalanche.

“Don’t look at me,” Avalanche replied. “I didn’t do that.”

The rumble steadily increased. The trio clutched at trees, which thrashed overhead. Scarlet Witch threw her hands over her head when a coconut was launched from a tree like a stone from a catapult.

“Make it stop!” she cried.

Avalanche held out his arms, hoping the strange earth would obey him. He felt the familiar pressure behind his eyes that occurred when he used his powers. Eventually, the trembling stilled. Avalanche straightened and rubbed his forehead. “That kinda felt weird,” he said.

“How so?” Wanda asked.

“Hard to explain,” Avalanche said shaking his head. “Like at Halloween, when you stick your hand into a bowl of cold spaghetti with your eyes closed, and they tell you it’s brains.”

Wanda looked at him quizzically.

“Like it feels like one thing, but it’s not.”

She just shook her head and shrugged at him.

“All right, let’s just keep moving,” he waited for Wanda to comment, but she remained silent.

Blob turned and took a step into the forest. His big foot came down with a squelch.

“Hunh?” he looked down to see his foot had disappeared into a puddle. He pulled back, but his foot remained stuck. Blob was thrown off balance. His arms flew out and he fell forward.

“Freddy!” Avalanche and Wanda rushed forward.

Blob was half immersed in a huge sandy puddle. His head came up with some effort and he gasped for air. His arms flailed, but it only served to mire him deeper into the puddle.

“H-help!” he cried.

“What is this stuff?” Wanda asked, casting about for a way to rescue Blob.

“Maybe it’s quicksand, right?” Avalanche said, seizing a nearby vine and yanking it free.

“It doesn’t look like quicksand to me!”

“How often do you see quicksand, Wanda!?” Avalanche threw the vine at Blob. Blob grabbed it and pulled, but the vine only snapped.

“Quick, hex him out or something! He’s sinking faster!”

“Okay okay!” the Scarlet Witch concentrated, flexing her fingers in the meditative positions her mentor, Agatha Harkness, had taught her. She was still shaky from the crash and the expenditure of energy it had taken to keep the jet in the air. Her hex caused a few stones to pop like bottle-rockets, and a tree uprooted itself.

The quicksand that didn’t look like quicksand made several unpleasant bloop blurp noises, but did not relinquish it’s hold on their teammate. Avalanche and Wanda watched helplessly as Blob sunk deeper and deeper. They both dove to their stomachs. They grabbed Blob’s big hands and tried to pull him back. It was no good. Blob was just too heavy and he sank like a stone. They watched, horrified, as Blob sank from sight, the tips of his fingers disappearing into the strange soil. Several fat bubbles rose up to break on the surface.

“Oh no, oh no!” Wanda shouted over and over again. Hexes flew through the air wildly.

Avalanche grabbed a whipping vine and tied it around his waist. “Wanda! Calm down! I’m going after him. You need to try harder to pull us both back out. You could lift a jet! You can lift Blob!”

He was poised to jump in after Blob when suddenly the quicksand began to move sluggishly. Soon, the once still puddle became a slowly spinning whirlpool. Then the quicksand began to drain away like sand through an hourglass. Or water down a toilet. Avalanche and Wanda looked down into a pit. Avalanche grabbed the pack he’d dropped and pulled out a flashlight. Shining it downward, they spied their teammate laying face down at the bottom of the pit. Blob raised himself to his hands and knees and choked out some wet sand. The quicksand continued to drain away as he stood.

“Freddy! Are you okay?” Avalanche called down.

Blob looked up at his teammates, shielding his eyes from the glare of the flashlight. “Uh, I think so,” called Blob, he patted himself down as if to reassure himself that all his body parts were accounted for. He was standing hip-deep in the soupy dirt. A horrible stench rose out of the pit. He took in his surroundings. “I think I’m in some sort of tunnel...It looks like it goes back some ways.”

“We’re coming down,” Avalanche said.

“No, don’t! It’s too deep, you’ll just get yourselves stuck,” Blob waved them back. He waded about in the thick mud. “I’m going to go this way,” he pointed down the tunnel. “Maybe there’s a way out.”

“Okay, just hold on.” Avalanche riffled about in his pack. He extracted a second flashlight, a flare gun, and a ball of twine. He wrapped one end of the twine around the flashlight and flare gun. “Here, I’m sending you down some stuff,” he called down to Blob. He began to reel out the length of twine until Blob took hold of the tools. “Just fire off a flare when you find your way out. We’ll follow it and find you.”

Blob nodded and turned on his flashlight. “Okay, see ya topside,” he called before ambling off down the tunnel.

“Now what?” Wanda asked, slumping back onto her rump.

“We keep looking for Toad,” Avalanche said, holding out his hand and pulling the Scarlet Witch to her feet. “It’ll be light soon. Things’ll be clearer then.”

With the meager beam from the flashlight bobbing ahead of them, the two remaining Brotherhood members picked their way deeper into the jungle. Behind them, bent twigs unbent. Trodden leaves unfurled themselves. Vines crept back into the trees. The jungle slowly rose up and closed in.

(1): That was Episode 22, Joyride. Lance tries to join the X-Men in order to be closer to Kitty. After a harrowing flight in the X-Jet, he decided being an X-Man was too much work.

(2): Episode 37, The Toad, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

So where’d The Brotherhood get the jet? They did manage to steal a jet in the final episode of the last season of Evolution. They promptly crashed it, and then Blob and Magneto pretty much pulled it apart.

 

GambitGuild is neither an official fansite of nor affiliated with Marvel Enterprises, Inc.
Nonetheless, we do acknowledge our debt to them for creating such a wonderful character and would not dream of making any profit from him other than the enrichment of our imaginations.
X-Men and associated characters and Marvel images are © Marvel Enterprises, Inc.
The GambitGuild site itself is © 2006 - 2007; other elements may have copyrights held by their respective owners.