Shatterworld #1

Deadpool hadn't actually gotten far. He walked out the door, then stood around, waiting for something to happen. He was in costume, given that he hadn't actually brought any other clothes, but had left his effects with Slade in the hotel room. Canada was a wonderful place, but lacked America's hilariously liberal gun laws.

It took maybe five minutes. "Got you." A snarling rasp, a rumble, words like handfuls of hot gravel cobbled together using sounds not unlike words. Speaking coherently was hard with a mouth full of fangs.

Deadpool started to turn. "Can I be of some assistance, citizen?" A gigantic hand, big and coarse and tipped with hooked talons an eagle would be envious of, reached out of the darkness and picked him up by the neck. It turned him around and slammed him back against the wall, holding him by the throat. 

Deadpool was being throttled, his feet kicking off the ground. The hand pressed him back still harder against the wall. Brickwork ground into his back, and his skull impacted painfully against the wall, cracking his skull and incidentally smashing the aviator shades he'd forgotten to take off into a useless mess of metal and glass shards. The hand let go, letting him drop to his hands and knees. Deadpool remained there a minute, panting like a bellows, then very slowly straightened himself, turned to stare at the hulking mutant, then calmly pulled the broken shades off his face and pulled out a spare pair of shades from his pouch, which he then placed on over his mask, fiddling and adjusting them until they were just the angle he liked, then commented "Well that was kinda rude."

Sabertooth stuck to formula, and caught him with a left, catching the back of Deadpool's neck, and ripping him down towards his upthrust knee.

This time it knocked Deadpool clear off his feet, to crash into the plastic bins and left him sprawled on his rear, covered with garbage and seeing stars, Sabertooth looming above him. Victor Creed had spread his nose across his cheeks, knocked out seven of his teeth and left the inside of his mask a bloody mess. Acting with the utmost dignity, Deadpool got back to his feet, brushed himself off, straightened himself up, shook his head slightly, adjusted his costume minutely, then tossed the second ruined pair of sunglasses aside, only to don a third set with an attitude of triumph, and then folded his arms across his chest. "Now buddy - that's right, I called you buddy and there's nothing you can do about it - I've only got one more pair on me and I've got considerably less patience than that. What the bloody all loving hell are you doing?"

"It's Jim's birthday." Sabertooth said, and in the dim light, his toothy smile and eyes that seemed too open and too wild he attained a menace almost beyond description. Victor Creed was a towering brute. He had to be more than two and a half meters, and given bis broad shoulders he seemed to loom even larger. He shared the same aspect of straight nose and wide-spaced eyes so reminiscent of Wolverine, though his face was a sneering mask made of clenched knuckles, his hair a dirty blond and his eyes feral. "Tracked him here."

A faint breeze blew a lonely Cornetto wrapper across the parking lot like a tumbleweed. The scratchy sound of its skittering passage and the distant wheezing thump from the main street where a delivery truck with loose valves was unloading were the only noises to be heard. Sabertooth's singularly vicious grin began to falter.

Finally, when the moment was too awkward to bear, Deadpool sighed, and placed a comforting arm around Sabertooth's shoulders - who shrugged it off, looking murderous - but Deadpool's sudden affability didn't slip. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You see, there's been a scheduling conflict. It's things like this that make me wonder if anyone even bothers to co-ordinate the stories at all."

Sabertooth's rather limited patience was promptly used up. A deep, growling sound began in Sabertooth's chest, rumbled it's way through his throat and into the air, and sounded as though it would end in Deadpool's throat. The sound touched something primal in Deadpools brain, where it prompted his instincts to insist he find a tree to climb and hide in. The growl spoke of slinking shapes and savage eyes that could wait a hundred years and not starve, and could drink an entire ocean and not burst, yet always hungered. Anyone sane would have been warned off. But Deadpool hadn't seen sanity for a long time, and no longer recognised it when it tried to warn him.

"I know, know, it's not fair. I understand your frustration man, really, it happens to me all the time, but believe it or not there is a bright side. Look, I know you want to do something horrible to him, but it's not feasible. See, we're already doing something horrible to him, and we were here first."

Sabertooth loomed closer. His fingers twitched, as his body tried to do the thinking for him. Though he could think, he preferred to listen to his instincts, and wanted to remove one of Deadpool's arms and beat him to death with it. Normally he'd go with it, had not the Merc with the Mouth said one word that prompted his curiosity."Really. That's not going to work for me."

"Ah." Deadpool said, looking up at the feral mutant and swallowing. He went through a lot of pain every day, but suddenly he got the distinct impression this was going to really suck, even by his advanced standards. "Well, in that case, there's a good reason for you to back off. Now first, I want you to imagine I have a big gun on my right hip."

Sabertooth blinked. "You do have a big gun on your hip." He wasn't entirely sure where this was going.

Deadpool, looking down and realising he'd subconsciously remembered to arm himself after all, managed a sort of relieved sneer - which is harder then it sounds. "Just don't want you to stretch your imagination too far. Now I want you to imagine what might happen if I got mad and decided to use it, with you having nothing to fight back 'cept the fingernails of a bag lady."

"Best I can tell, nothing." Sabertooth retorted, and drove his stiffened fingers out-stretched at Deadpool's face. This time, Wade was ready for him and retaliated, moving in unpredictable ways with uncanny speed. Sabertooth went for him again fast and hard as ever, but Deadpool dropped, balancing on his hands and swinging out with both legs like a gymnast, knocking the mutant's feet from under him. "You really need to work on telegraphing your moves, Sabertooth." he chided as the big mutant fell flat on his face. "The whole bestial scream thing kind of gives the game away." Deadpool said, and went for his gun, fast as a flash of red lightning.

But not fast enough. Sabertooth's claws, just a blur in the murky twilight, went through Deadpool's hand in a line across the base of the thumb, severing his fingers, his thumb and the upper half of his palm, and snapping the grip of his Dirty Harry Magnum. The cut was so clean that there was no pain at first. Deadppol staggered backwards, watching the thin sprays of blood jetting out of his ruined hand. 

"Damn, that was my favourite gun." Deadpool whined, dodging out of the way of Sabertooth's other claw, which swung past him and hit the wall so hard it left an imprint in the brickwork.

"A gun? Really? You should just lie down and take your beating. Get it over and done with." Sabertooth mocked as he straightened up.

"What can I say? Something about you makes me want to shoot you." Deadpool replied, picking up his thumb and holding it agains the stump, feeling the joint swell and begin to link up with the missing piece of himself. He was able to grab two of his fingers, and did the same with them.

Adopting a crouching stance that he tended to fall into when pressed to really fight or when the opponent in question proved impossible to humiliate into submission, as dictated by the fighting regimen of Marine Martial Arts he'd cut his teeth with, Deadpool rushed towards the Mutant. It was the last thing it'd expect. He hoped.

Sabertooth lunged right back, and Deadpool barely dodged the sudden attack. Using his low posture to sweep under and around the blow, Deadpool rammed a quick forearm smash into the mutant’s elbow, driving his outstretched claw into his own face.

"Why are you hitting yourself?" It was childish, and beneath him, and he regretted it, but it had just sort of come out. Sabertooth roared and came at him with renewed vigour. Deadpool ducked the clumsy two-armed bear hug aimed at him and used Sabertooth’s momentum to trip him hard onto his rump.

About then, he was starting to feel good about himself. Good enough to drive his foot into a soft, sensitive area. As Sabertooth hissed in pain, his world collapsing into a very small, very private universe of pain, Deadpool kicked him a few more times. "That's a down payment for Vanessa, but it's only the start." Deadpool said, in a passable impression of his brother. He normally didn't let this sort of thing get to him, but he had reason to hate Sabertooth. "I've put this off a long time, but interest rates have never been better. And now, I'm going to beat the ugly out of you, sweetheart." He kicked him again in that same sensitive area, hard as he could, and smiled as he heard the big mutant's pained grunt get a little higher in pitch. "So we might be here for a while." He'd been saving that line for this occasion, even let a few opportunities go past while still holding it in reserve, but now it was time to use it, and he was happy with how it turned out.

Which unfortunately was also about when it all went wrong.

The manoeuvre almost worked, but Sabertooth turned out of his trip, using his free hand to support his body. He twisted, using the momentum to carry him, and landed a fierce punch to Deadpool's midriff when he came back too swiftly for the Merc with a Mouth to block. An overhand blow followed as Sabertooth sought to chain his attacks, but Deadpool moved out of the striking arc and unleashed a fearsome upraised knee that sent Sabertooth hurtling backwards. Deadpool was on him before he could get to his feet, pressing his advantage. He rained three quick, flat-handed strikes against the mutant’s nose, ear and solar plexus. then, in a sudden turn he hadn't seen coming, Sabertooth drove forward and hooked both arms around his torso. Using the weight of the attack to propel him, Sabertooth roared and flung Deadpool bodily across the alleyway and into a Prius parked innocently and inoffensively out of the way. As Deadpool tried to extricate himself from the windshield he'd half gone through, Sabertooth flexed and flipped the car over, leaving it on top of him. "Get over it." Sabertooth growled, then drove his elbow into Deadpools face, shattering it and flattening the cartilage of his nose. "That bitch never loved you."

Deadpool was beginning to gather what the C-List fodder with highly specific power-sets lives must be like. He wanted his swords. Or his guns. Bombs, bombs would be good. A tank? Couldn't ask for a better friend then a tank at a time like this, unless of course you counted a airforce jet, or better yet the Hellecarrier. "You know, &*%$ you." He yelled defiantly. He could only say that word once or they'd wind up with an 'R' rating - then again, that had worked out in his favour before.

It would take more then some presumably harsh language to get to Sabertooth. "Sounds like I hit a nerve." He sneered through a mouth full of fangs. "Not going to happen." Then slammed his forehead into Deadpools already severely broken face, cracking bone.

Things were not looking good for our hero. Armed with nothing but kung-fu, an ability to heal, and his rapier like wit (his left head voice added the power of being the sole individual able to prevent forrest fires, then added an image of trembling forest creatures trying to pay him off while he laughed maniacally, but he digressed), he was clearly the underdog. And not in an inspiring way either, in the 'fodder to make the villain seem dangerous before the real hero comes along' kind of way.

"I'd have won if I had shot you, #$@%-waffle." Deadpool said, trying not to sound petulant.

"Shoot me?" Victor chuckled, showing his fangs. "You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologise." A hand came down, and crushed Wade's jaw to his head. Slowly, he began to press, forcing his neck out of alignment.

"Hey, you're a Quentin Tarantino fan as well! We have so much to teach each other. Let's put all our differences behind us, and be best of friends- urk."

Sabertooth cut him off, then lifted his hand to cut something else off. Deadpool tensed, then he paused, some sixth sense, some meta-textual awareness, maybe an awareness of cliches, something like that formed a general warm feeling in his stomach, and he knew all was going to be right with the world.

First, a huge bolt of energy tore through the atmosphere and snaked along the rim of one of the dumpsters. Sabertooth hadn't noticed it, an Deadpool lacked the ability or the inclination to point it out to him, but the merc with a mouth took it as a good sign, given the unlikeliness of things managing to get worse.

Then the air started to crackle and howl like a radio stuck between two stations, the music all twisted into a dissonant squeal, more felt then heard. Deadpool was no scientist, but this was no regular lightning. A chaotic crisscrossing of arcing purple-white lines of energy licked at the walls on either side of the alleyway, their fiery tongues lashing out, caressing the brickwork. The frenetic dance of power continued to build until it snarled into a thick ball of whiplashing light. The ball of light brightened as the bolts of energy seemed to coalesce. Sabertooth's hair began to rustle, as if caught by a breeze, then his hair stiffened and rose straight up. Suddenly static was everywhere, filling the alleyway with the pristine, tingly odor of ionized air. 

Things seem to go in slow motion for a brief moment as Deadpool registered the instant. The energy built to a bright light that scarred his retinas like staring into a laser pointer, the ball of light exploded into purple slashes, and he was staring directly into the fast incoming headlights of a beautifully modified classic japanese car, which appeared out of nowhere and was moving in excess of a eighty eight miles an hour.

Vague, half-formed plans of wrapping his legs around Sabertooths arm and using his leverage to turn the big mutants mass against him and twist him into a rolling arm-bar were abandoned in favour of curling into a fetal ball and hoping it's over quickly. Sabertooth proved slower to react, not getting much done except an expression of surprise and confusion as the car rammed into them both, sending Sabertooth flying head over heels. Skidding to a halt, the door opened, and out he stepped.

He was a big guy, course features and a scrub of white hair, the artificial light gleaming off his bionic arm, and some truly enormous guns hanging from the harness he wore. Nate Summers had to be the the only man Deadpool had ever encountered whose taste in high yield firepower surpassed his brothers and his own. Each of those pieces was a work of art, assuming there was an artist somewhere whose sole method of expression was over-sized and over-whelming firearms. He looked ready for a fight.

Deadpool had seen bigger men - he was wrestling with one right now. Maybe even some who were physically stronger. But not as perfect. The muscles bunched and loosened in smooth fluid motions, rippling the beautifully sculpted torso. The arms were a study in powerful symmetry, the angry curve of the biceps narrowing with precision at the elbow, then expanding with awesome mathematical balance into thick forearms that flowed into almost gracefully thin wrists. The fingers on the massive hands rolled out and flexed. Poetry in motion.

Man, Cable could make a first impression, Deadpool all but swooned. Just the glowing eye and metal arm alone do it, let alone the guns. And his stance? Wow. That guy knows who he is and just how much he can kick your ass.

Cable looked at Victor Creed. He looked at Deadpool. Was he too early or something? Shouldn't Deadpool be in New York, he was sure of it… "Shit, don't remember any of this," he muttered to himself, his voice all whiskey and broken glass, then looked up to see the mercenary and the psychopath staring at him. Both looked confused. "Well this is awkward." He added inadequately.

Deadpool scratched his head. “I’m dying, aren’t I. The big C’s finally figured out how to do me in, and this a Make-A-Wish Foundation thing or something.” He assumed a melodramatic pose. "Well, I can't think of a better way to go out. I'm ready! Take me away to Valhalla! Preferably send Valkyrie to do it… though I guess I'll settle for Faendal or Hogun - hell, even Volstagg, as long as they wear the traditional outfit."

Sabertooth got to his feet, brushing off his long black coat as though nothing had happened in a desperate attempt to regain a little dignity - maybe even control of the situation. Sabertooth never reconsidered his actions as a rule, but this was going wrong in new and exciting ways. Cable looked at him, eyes narrowing. You didn't need to be a psychic to sense the big mutant was still spoiling for a fight. "You're crashing this party, Nate." Sabertooth growled, drawing himself up to his full height, which was almost a head on Cable, and drew attention to a chest that was as wide as a bear's and about as heavy with muscle.

"That's not all I crashed." Cable replied belligerently, sticking out his chin. His hands balled into fists, and his muscles flexed. He'd just escaped a truly horrifying future, and he failed to see how putting down Victor Creed wouldn't make it a significantly better place. "You don't look so good."

Sabertooth couldn’t help but grin, though his pulse was racing. He turned, and his fingers twitched, the light catching the edges of his claws. "I could mess you up, son. I really could."

"You could try," replied Cable evenly.

"I would, you know?"

"Yes, I have a feeling you might. Don’t. It's not that I hate the thought of doing you damage - to be honest, that sounds positively cathartic, it's that I'm not in the mood to draw attention. So start something, and I'll put you down so hard you never get up." He took a step forward. "I didn't start this fight, Victor. But you better believe that I can finish it."

"Addressing me by my christian name." Sabertooth growled. "You know, I'm not sure I like how you're getting all familiar on me, talking down like that." He edged closer, lowering his centre of mass almost too slowly to be noticed, trying not to tip his hand. Sabertooth wasn't stupid, even when his blood was up, even if his brutish nature made him seem that way. He knew his only chance against Cable was to take him by surprise, and take him out quickly.

"Here's the thing." Nate growled, and while he lacked the intimidation factor Victor Creed had turned into an art form, there was little doubt he could make good on what he promised. Victor lowered and made a move, charging forwards - but he didn't get far. Cable didn't engage. He didn't even go for his gun (any of them). He just placed two fingers on the side of his head, their tips resting on his temple, and before Sabertooth could do a thing what was left of him was sent flying of his feet and down the alleyway in an explosion of gore, looking as though a landmine had detonated inside his ribcage. Nate removed his fingers, not needing any more mind-bullets, and turned to Deadpool."Wade. You well?"

"Well." Wade said, looking at his mangled fingers and realising he was obligated to make the obvious joke. "I could use a hand."

"Funny." Cable said humourlessly, reaching down and picking him up. A part of him couldn't help but feel bad for running his friend over, even if it seemed to have worked out in the end. So much so he even helped Deadpool find the missing fingers. "Not really. That even sounded bad in my own head, I just couldn't help myself." The merc with the mouth admitted.

"Seriously, you okay?"

"Well, I seem to be losing a lot of fights. I mean, I suppose it's to be expected, but my ego could use the pandering, you know? I feel like I've been relegated to Disney princess, ineffectively waiting for the big, strong, ruggedly handsome men to come and rescue me." Deadpool sighed, then gave Cable a look of unadulterated adoration, batting his eyelids. "So did you kill him or what?"

‘It’ll take more than that to finish the likes of him,’ said Cable. He patted the heavy gun strapped to his back in a manner that suggested he knew at least one reliable alternative. "So. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, my brother got us a job."

That definitely wasn't right. The Wilsons working together… something was very wrong. "What's the job."

Wade looked at him incredulously. "Why did you save me if you're just going to try to get me killed right after?" Deadpool all but shrieked, his face aghast enough that something of his horrified expression could be seen through the fabric of his mask. "You know I would have to kill you if I told you. And since if I tried you'd kill me, that would make you a murderer."

Cable blinked, but couldn't fault the circulous logic.

"Deadpool…"

"I'm serious. Wild horses couldn't drag it from me."

"But it's Mr Sinister, isn't it?"

"What? No. No! That's stupid, and so are you. It's Vandal Savage." Deadpool's brain, finally catching up with his mouth, was too late, and could only gape in horror and what he had wrought.

This time, Cable was ready for the worst, but it still hit him where he lived. Some of the frustration at the sheer impossibility of the situation was spilling out of him. No matter what he did, the future he had come to avert seemed to find a way past his attempts. En Sabah Nur never stayed dead, the sentinel program never stayed buried, and mutants always remained in more or less the same place. But things always managed to get worse. They never got better, no matter what was done, how hard he fought, but they always managed to get worse.

Some of that must have shown on his face, because Deadpool took a step back, holding up his hands. "But hey, it's not like I like him or anything. The guys crazy. And not charming, self-aware crazy like me, more 'drools, talks to himself and picks his teeth with a box-cutter crazy. I feel like he sits down with his psychiatrist and says things like 'Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum europe vincendarum'." It occurred to Deadpool's Right Side Head Voice that some of his readers may not have had a classical education, and find that incomprehensible, but in these days of mass media and the internet, he was sure they could put it through Google and get a translation in a few seconds.

Cable barely even heard him, or registered that 'since when did Wade speak Latin?'. Was this a change to the timeline, or had it happened this way last time, and some of his information was inaccurate? Truth be told, he wasn't sure which possibility was worse.

Unnoticed, at the end of the alleyway, Sabertooth was getting to his knees with all the grace of a terminally ill arthritic grandfather, grimacing in pain and self-loathing as he was unable to suppress the occasional mewls of agony as his body protested moving. His healing factor was beginning to feel seriously over-taxed, and his body felt as though his internal organs had been re-arranged in alphabetical order.

"Do I want to know what the job is?"

Wade shook his head, perhaps a little ashamed. "No. You don't."

"That bad, huh?" Cable sighed, suddenly looking very old and tired. "I want a favour, Wade."

"Ask." Deadpool replied, without hesitation.

Cable gave a grim look from the vast repertoire he had developed - which ranged from very, very blackly grim indeed at the bottom of the scale, suitable for the absolute destruction of all that was right and good with existence, all the way up to tiredly resigned and only faintly grim, which he reserved for reunions with long lost friends, adorably precocious kittens, and children's birthdays. "Keep doing what you're doing. But keep me informed. Be my inside man. You good to do that?"

"You want me to spy on my brother?"

"Well I did just save your life."

Deadpool sighed. "So, while transporting a mutant living weapon across Canada with my brother, I get attacked by the mutants arch rival, saved by my time-travelling best friend, and asked to be a double agent, by trying to succeed in a job I was thinking of undermining in the hopes of making it fail." Deadpool sighed. "I swear, my life is not like other peoples."

Cable shrugged sympathetically. "Try saving the future some time."

Sabertooth had gotten up, and more or less pulled himself together. Cable turned to look at him, and his eye blazed with white light. "You need to understand something right now, Victor. There are things going on tonight that you don't want to mess with. They're bigger then me, which makes them that much bigger then you. So don’t start pissing around. Don’t get involved. You’ll understand soon enough. For now, right now, Victor, take my word on this. You don't want to be here. Go."

Sabertooth slunk off.

Deadpool whistled, impressed. Well, why wouldn't he be? "You'll have him house-broken next."

"It's a gift."

"So look, I feel like spying on my brother is one of those grey areas that doesn't lead anywhere good." Deadpool started to say.

"I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, Wade."

"I know that. But the thing is, Slade doesn't care a fart in a hurricane about the X-Men. It's Wolverine he wants, and he's already got him. Why don't we just hunt down Shaw and see what he knows? Once you get the information, you can stop Vandal Savage, and the whole thing you're worried about will never happen. He won't be hard to find. In fact, he's meeting my brother right now, it shouldn't be hard to sort it out now."

"I probably can't let him kill Wolverine either."

"Wow, really?" Deadpool said, sounding impressed. "What, does he run for president or something?"

"It's more a matter of principle."

"Oh. That." Deadpool said distastefully. "Come on, compromise."

"Wade…"

"Don't give me that look. Anyway, it's not like he's going to actually do it. He talks a good game, but he'll try, sure, he might even succeed, but Wolverine's gone down more often than even he can remember. Like his owners would kill a character worth as much as him."

Cable shrugged. "Well, I'll give it a go, and we can see where it takes us."

“That’s going to work for me too. You and me are partners, men forced together by fate and the shine of money, against the odds. How about we seal it with a kiss? You just bring out the best in me, you big lug.”

“Lets just…” He rubbed his temples with his fingers. Deadpool always seemed to have that effect on Cable. “Lets just take it one thing a time.”

"I'll take it! The band's back together." Deadpool said, clapping his hands together loudly. "This is the renewal of a beautiful friendship!"

"Really." Cable said drily. "Because to me, it feels more like I'm about to make a terrible mistake."