2013-01-19 One Man Army, Army of One

A few weeks ago the news was gripped with the disappearance of yet another mutant. Over the past few weeks a disturbing trend had begun to appear in New York. Someone or something had been abducting mutants. No motive. Isolated. Few clues.
But clues are something Jamie had found in his investigations. There was seemingly a radius. There were some grainy photographs from different ATMs. There were clues that had been discarded by the local police forces; derelict, stupid, or with a failing of communication between fractured precincts. It's not clear why, and not clear why it really matters. The investigation has been grand in scope. Lucky that there was more than enough Jamie Madrox to go around.
The latest kidnapping took place close enough to Jamie that he could act. The call came out across the police scanner (illegal?), and by now he had a pretty good idea where they were headed. At least the direction. He felt he could cut them off at the pass and got moving.
Caitlin Fairchild, however, saw what was happening as it happened. A black van pulled up on the side of the road three quarters of a football field away from her. The operation was almost military in its efficiency. 4 men hopped out, one knocked a victim over the head with a metal object, and the others grabbed him. A quick drag and a slam of the door later, and the vehicle is tearing away about to hit the interstate heading south. It all happens so fast it's tough to see what precisely is going on.
He was approached to be part of the investigation. His little PI firm has gotten a rep for taking the cases that a lot of people don't want, and Jamie has gotten good at getting the job done. Toss in the fact and it's missing mutants and well Jamie is totally on the case. Mutants they totally stick together and all that jazz. Of course he starts to send out dupes to help the investigation. Saves time and even helps his client's wallet, such a nice PI. Dupes find clues and Jamie prime ends up putting them all together.
So once he figured out where he should go to next, Jamie heads on over there. Man he really needs to get a car or something, taking cabs to investigate things doesn't feel Noir enough. But once he got to where he felt the next crime was well he sent out some dupes to look around. Yes they couldn't react fast enough to stop the kidnapping, hey he still is only a normal person, one was close enough to try something. Jamie Prime is rushing over towards that one dupe, giving him the mental commands on what he should do. Luckily this is one of those things that gets the Dupes all working together.
Jamie #2, well he receives the commands via the hive mind. So going to the place where they think the people are going the dupe starts to make his own dupes. And well where the was one there is now 20 people. They are making a human wall of course, trying to stop the van from going any further along it's pass. Times like this he wishes he also had super strength or something, maybe that could help stop the van.
The world is a tough place now, you can't send your kid to the mailbox without fear of never seeing the little person again. New York City is even tougher in that grown men and women disappear on the regular and sometimes turn up in the river and other times turn up in a hundred different places. A question that comes to mind, which is worse, ten mutants in a trashcan or one mutant in ten trashcans?
Listening in on his HARRIS radio in a blacked out van, Frank Castle was tailing some goons from Boston that happened into the big apple for a muling run. They weren't going to make it on their run but to this date neither was Frank when an accented voice came over the HARRIS, "Another 207A, last seen headed towards the interstate!" Frank hit the gas in his van and passed the mule, getting on the interstate with open eyes.
Sometimes the oddest things make you miss your friends, like seeing someone abducted with tactical military precision, making you think how much you could use a friend who could... fly, throw you like a living javelin, make the van levitate, melt its tires, or even reach into the minds of the people and just stop them... Caitlin sighs, and begins running full out after the van, she can't catch it immediately, but being able to take shortcuts, ignore traffic laws, and the fact that even the freeways most likely won't allow the van to go full speed means she might have a chance to keep it in sight and even cut it off, or find another option.
As she rounds the corner she sees that luck may for once be on her side... okay, a living barricade is something odd, especially when it looks like over two dozen of the same person, but beggers can't be choosers. Running past a parking regulation sign, she rips it from the ground and flicks off the authorized parking hours portion, then tries to take advantage of any deceleration the living blockade cause to get a clean shot to thrust the pole into the rear passanger side tire... hoping her plan works, and no one is severely hurt.
The driver of the black van in question has wide grown eyes when he sees a line of identical men lined up in Red Rover style trying to prevent passage. Panicked, he chooses poorly and steps on the gas. A split moment later the van plows through the wall, sending Mutie Madrox multiples all over the place, with varying degrees of injuries.
The van is forced to decelerate, however, and allows Frank to gain on it with ease. It approaches the Punisher's position rapidly for a moment, when out of nowhere a flying sign enters from off the sign and punctures right through the side of the van.
There's a moment pause before the van starts tearing away, intent to make a run for it. It's not clear what's going on inside the van.
Suddenly, from above, a loud roar can be seen before a blinding spotlight encompasses and follows the van. It is obviously some sort of aircraft, but it's difficult to discern exactly what is going on in the night sky.
He should have known something like this would have happened. But of course he didn't think enough about what the van would do, so the dupe wall gets mowed down. Some are able to dive out of the way, others get hit and hurt. One poor dupe gets hit square one by the van, and well he is run over. That dupe doesn't look like a pretty sight after that fact and he's not moving.
Now the impact did have one good thing, it helped create more dupes. So know there are 30 Madri instead of the 20 that there were. The bad thing about the impact is that one of the dupes has just died. Thanks to the hive mind that they share, that makes a lot of pain for all of them. So well they all scream out as the feel their little friend die.
That even goes for Jamie Prime as well. Who has just arrived on the scene to watch his dupe die. He has watched that before, but well once the death happens he screams out and collapses to the ground once the pain takes over.
Over the scanner the situation changes, "Possible 207A has come to a halt, possible injuries on the scene!" Frank grimaces and takes an exit and turns back towards the last known location of the possible abduction.
Getting onto the scene the blacked out van skids to a halt about a football field up the street from the action, jumping out Frank reaches back into the van and grabs his trusty M4, slings it into his back and moving out with his M1911 unholstered and in hand.
A cringe of sympathy crosses Caitlin's face, feeling horrible for the tridectuplets as the scream in sorrow over their lost brother, though she also in on some level feels really bad for the woman who carried so many sons to term. The upside of her plan is it sort of worked, the pole ripped into the van, the downside is she missed the tire, so the van now just has the pole in it with the concrete sticking out. She doesn't want to keep causing property damage, she can't keep up this pace forever, and she lacks traditional weapons, so her only hope is to get on it or ahead of it, which means trying to predict where it is going.
Obviously only a fool would head toward where traffic will be bumper to bumper, so she cuts down an alley and tries to shortcut so she can leap onto the van. She has no high expectations that this will work, and she definitely doesn't notice the armed man getting from his own vehicle with guns ready to be blazing. If there are any of the tridectuplets on the hanging on the opposite side, she of course not leave them hanging... if she makes it on the van herself.
A smattering of blood and gore will greet the Punisher as he arrives, fully loaded onto the scene. All around him are moans, groans, and bodies. Some still move, at least one does not. But there are multiple injuries.
The van meanwhile, is still going, but Fairchild's movements have done well to meet at an intercepting point. She leaps into the air and lands, luckily, just close enough to grab hold of the-you guessed it-parking sign she pierced the van with earlier. Above her is a brilliant white light, letting her see, but also exposing her and the van to onlookers.
Above there is a reddish glow and it looks, almost, as if a UFO is the source of the glowing from above. As Fairchild rights herself, she sees two booted feet smash down upon the top part of the van, over where the driver and front seat passengers sit. A figure, dressed in form fitting black with only his mouth revealed to the open air kneels above the cabin.
The figure works quickly using some sort of metal wire to affix himself to the hood of the car and takes what looks like a tiny hammer into his hand. He leans over the front of the vehicle and smashes down on the windshield, causing it to burst into thousands of shards.
Jamie Prime finally gathers himself together, hey the death of a dupe is something that still hurts him. Plus it makes a lot of questions, since he can't reabsorb the dead dupes. Once he has gathered himself he runs over to the other dupes and checks on some. So they have a few injured dupes and not enough time to reabsorb them. Jamie takes the ones the can fight, leaving 3 injured dupes behind, but hey they still have about 25 dupes around.
Once he gathers himself the dupes start to march on the van. A few have went out and gathered a few things, garbage can lids and well some pieces of wood. So each dupe is now armed with a garbage can lid shield. As they march they pound on the shield, of course it's the thumping sound of We Will Rock You. And this is why you never give a guy who can turn into a bunch of guys a reason to get mad at you!
Moving with a sense of urgency Frank is quick to consider escalation of force, he can see the van up the road and can see the pole sticking out of it, but there isn't an obvious target yet... Holstering his 1911 the man in black brings his M4 around from his back and uses the night tactical system to see further up the road and whether or not he should advance any further on the objective. After a moment of gauging the scene of death and destruction through the scope Frank begins moving in-between cars towards the van, M4 at the low-ready. Stopping beside a long-emptied city bus Frank peers around the corner into the road and sets himself at an intercept point. Raising his rifle and using the bus as partial cover Frank waits for the van to pass and for an opportunity to kill the driver and the tires without killing the innocents inside. Before he gets his chance however someone or something has beat him to the punch, "What the fuck is ET doin' here?"
Okay, a couple of the army of one guy she expected, but some black ops hammer wielder was not what Caitlin on her list of possibilities to see atop the van. She slams her fingers through the roof to give herself a handhold, and looks to the man, "Not sure what you want with these guys, but I really have to insist that their prisoner goes free." She readies herself for an attack, but won't be the one to throw the first punch. She uses her other hand to shield her eyes as she awaits a response, hoping the guy will be polite and this won't have to escalate.
The van screeeeeeches to a halt, throwing the figure in black and Fairchild against the forces of inertia. Once the van comes to a complete halt, the figure puts his head over the side before a red flash lights up the cabin. From Frank's vantage point, he'll see the red flash has seemed to have knocked out the passenger first, but the driver is still around.
The marching Madri approach the van with ease at this point, catching up to them and looking quite intimidating while they do it.
Thought he driver is still active, the man in black seems to have no real concern for the situation and takes a moment to regard her.
"I agree," Cyclops says flatly. "Four armed individuals still in the back of the van. I need you to get in there, whoever you are, and get that victim out and to safety.
The Army marches for a little bit more still pounding out 'We Will Rock You' on their garbage can lids. They reach the back of the band and call out. "Open up, we will not harm you if you open up now." Well maybe they will harm the people a little, who knows. But anyone no one bothers to open up the back of the van so the Madri try it themselves. Finding it locked Jamie Prime gets to work with the lock picks that he has on him. Once the door is unlocked they open it to see what's inside! One of the dupes calls out when they do that, "Oh wow, it's just what I always wanted!"
Seeing the passenger of the vehicle take what looked like a sunray to the face from the leathery ET on the roof, Frank quirks an eyebrow and lifts the carbine to his eye, flips the selector switch to semi and fires off a double tap at the driver as he moves towards the van and whomever is in the back. To Frank's surprise he isn't the only one moving in on the van as a host of others are doing the same with a theme song no less, who all look pretty similar and seem to have the same idea.
Frank moves to the trunk of a parked car and reassesses the situation with his scope as whatever is in the back makes its move with the doors opened.
The driver was just looking to the friend on his right who had been knocked out cold. His eyes move to the dash as he tries to figure out what to do next. Those are his last thoughts, however as his brains explode all over his unconscious friend after Frank's shots hit their mark.
Meanwhile, Madrox Prime flings open the door to find three armed men all taking aim. But when the door opens to find so many of the same man and a fastly approaching, very well armed cold blooded killer, they quickly drop their guns. Meanwhile, the fourth is pinned on the far side of the van, stabbed straight through by the flung sign.
Cyclops walks along the hood of the car. Once he sees the victim is set to be safe, his primary mission is done. The van lurches a bit as he leaps off. Though the tide is moving towards the van, he is moving away from it-and towards the downed dupes.
The Madri stare at the guys as the put the guns away. Well that's just no fun at all, not even a little bit of a fight? They look at the guys in the van and eye narrows at them, "Out of the van, now." All of them say that one in unison of course, it's a lot more effective that way, people seem to respect the mob mentality thing that brings on.
So anyway they just wait for the guys to leave the van, so well they can do things like get them arrested or something like that. Of course one of the dupes noticed the guy heading towards the injured dupes. And nudges Jamie Prime, who looks at the guy, "Don't worry, I can get them back later." Unless they're not any rogue dupes so they're still part of the hive mind, he'll know where they went.
Moving from behind the parked car and to the driver side Frank peers into the bloody mess that used to be the front two seats and shrugs, slinging his carbine around his back he unholsters his 1911 and moves to the rear of the van and grabs the nearest would be abductor by the neck asking in a calm tone, "Who are you working for and how much for each target? Your buddy up there didn't have the head to tell me." Frank looks around a moment and realizes he's at the epicenter of some weird shit going on. With his hand still on the collar of the abductor Frank points his handgun at two of the dupes and says, "Back the fuck off you two, we all look the same turned inside out..."
"We-" the thug stammers as he's grabbed by Frank. "We just bag em for this guy. This guy named Johnny Simpson. It aint. . . aww fuck." There's a smell of urine eminating from somewhere.
Meanwhile, the figure in black speaks something into his wrist. In a mere moment the surrounding area is enveloped in a huge roar of some sort of plane. Cyclops leans down to hoist one of the injured dupes, up onto his shoulder. There only seems, to him, to be two remaining dupes who can survive with immediate attention. The others are either okay to make it to a hospital, or-well. . .
The roar from above is clearly some sort of futuristic plane that lands with a ramp extended. Almost as soon as it touches down, Cyclops is carrying the first of the dupes up into the carriage.
Concussive force to the head can stagger anyone, no matter size, durability, or strength. While her hand grip kept her from flying free, the sudden slamming of her temple into the van rooftop did a number on Caitlin, and she must have been stunned for a bit before she regained her senses, only to find the area surrounded. She slowly rights herself, and shakes off the feeling, but is unsure what to say or do. Overhearing the man confessing, she just sort of rights herself atop the van, and perches there, sort of providing a bit of overwatch in case someone tries something stupid. Though she looks warily at the heavily armed guy, and is just as ready to tackle him as any of the van's occupants at the moment.
Someone is kidnapping dupes, that is not going to end well for them. They'll have like 50 Madri on their doorstep soon, and they'll have to feed them, and let the use the bathroom and everything, it'll be a big mess! But that is a problem for another time.
Jamie Prime stares at the guy with the gun, and just blinks. "Right now there are 25 of us, with but a thought I can double that number." See the staredown thing, that totally feels noir, and there's even a hot chick as well, too bad she's not the one that hired him, that makes it even more Noir! "You didn't even ask the right question. The right question is why are they kidnapping mutants?"
Frank smirks at the talkative clone and then calls out to his leathery ET pal on his way out, "Those fucks come down here and do their work and never ask any questions, you guys just mop up the mess and leave. How can you figure it all out?" Frank pushes the pisser down to ground and adds pointing at the mass of men who are the same man. "There's some weird shit going on here..." Frank raises his weapon at the pisser and fires a round into the guy's leg and then calmly asks as if nothing happened, "Mutants? Why?" Frank turns to the clones and waits to see if they get the answer they want.
Cyclops comes down the ramp and regards Frank's question with a blank, visored stare. Saying nothing in response he lifts the next dupe up onto his shoulder and calmly walks up into the ramp once more. After a few moments the ramp begins to come back up into the underbelly of the vehicle.
"GAAAAAAAAH!" The man screams and collapses into a pile as the bullet rips through his leg. The screeching is an odd juxtaposing with Frank's cool exterior. "I told you!" the thug screams.
The other two thugs are ready to spill their guts figuratively in hopes that it's not literally, but the flashing reds of the police can be seen coming through the distance.
Well Jamie didn't get the answer he was looking for. Damn the hired thugs don't know anything. He figured they wouldn't but well it was worth a shot at any rate. He sighs at the guys answer though.
Once he gets the answer he was expecting he looks at the guys, "Okay massive headache time." He focusses and well the dupes surrounding him just get reabsorbed back into his body. Which does leave Jamie holding his head, "Damn, taking in that many always gives me a headache."
He looks at the guy with the guns, "Dude just reaching for some Tylenol don't kill me for that, okay?" And he reaches into his awesome noir style trench coat and pulls out the bottle.
Frank shrugs as he eyes the man on the ground, turning to the cloneman he says, "Nothing to see here, these guys are nobodies. They just took a paycheck. Not even worth my bullets and that's saying somethin..." Frank's ear's had perked up to the oncoming sirens a few minutes earlier. "It's that time again, I'll let New York's finest clean this up." As Frank turns to leave he peers up at the exiting bird and sneers to himself, "Those fuckers don't ever know how to do the job, they just dance around the real solutions." With that Frank heads back to his own van and disappears into the night as every ghost should.
Okay, bullets, cops, mutants, black ops jets, this is not a good situation. Slowly standing, Caitlin gets her balance and then leaps and flips clear over the area where a majority of the dupes stand... stood, landing hopefully out of the light's path as well, "Seems to me the guy doesn't have any more answers. Perhaps someone should leave a note for the police letting them know this guy is a kidnapper." she looks around, "Something tells me none of this was exactly sanctioned behavior, and I don't think the police will be too happy with the shots fired nor the interrogation methods. If any..." pausing as the dupes dwindle to a single guy, "either... of you have some police friends, maybe be best to let the cops take these guys in for questioning, and get the answers later through slightly more official channels."
It has been a long day already, and Caitlin checks her attire. Jean rips, okay minor, might even be able to turn those into a trendy fashion statement... jersey a bit grease stained, but otherwise nothing a good run through the laundry can't fix... gloves, shredded, but no big loss in the grand scheme of things... hightops, practically falling apart, definitely were not designed for high speed ground pursuit, and men's size 13s are hard as adamantium to come by in hot pink... total heroics cost is reasonable for saving a life, but still hurts a bit. She looks at the others, and for the first time actually gets to appraise them. Okay, so guy with guns... definite Team 7 type, moves like he's ex-military, and plenty of attitude, totally not the guy you want to meet in a well lit mall food court with plenty of witnesses, let alone a dark alley, so current situation is iffie. Tridectuplet... or mutant with duplication power... okay that makes way more sense then some mother really gave birth to thirty identical sons, and the other options are just unthinkable, so better to not mull on them... he moves like he has some training, though it is either diluted, he's seriously out of practice, or he really lacks the discipline to properly utilize it... He's sort of cute though, totally would have dated him when she was less woman... but that was a long time ago. She decides not to stick around for their answers, especially since Hansome-McTriggerHappy is disappearing.
Giggling to herself she thinks about how one of those old detective or secret agent novels would end. Detective would have the gumshoe loping back to his office, pulling some bullets out of his vest, and commiserating with his sweet and lovely but overlooked secretary while he daydreams about what could have been with the sultry bombshell. Spy novel on the other hand would have the secret agent parting ways with the surly old soldier who helped out, then interecepting the female counterpart agent, and seducing her while ignoring his serious straight-laced superiors calls for a debriefing. It would be so cool to be in those kind of romantic action adventures instead of this crazy chaos...
As the cops arrive the bird lifts off into the air and slips into the darkness. The roar is dampened, apparently by some additional means, and after a moment it is gone with two dupes stuck inside.
Meanwhile the cops arrive just as Frank leaves the party. Good thing too. They probably wouldn't be fond of the thug with the bullet in his leg. Or the one with bullets in his head. Caitlin and Madrox are still at their whims as to whether or not they want to stay, though that's up to them. Though there are certainly more questions than answers, it seems like the victim is safe. The larger story however, will need to be told later.
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