Shatterworld #1

Deadpool made the landing, crouching on the table, a sword in each hand. While he had them captivated, he figured he'd hit them with a classic of comedy. "Now who's on first?" He asked, glancing around the room, his gaze settling first on Shaw, “What’s on second,” then on Stryker, “And Idunno’s on third…” and finally…

Deadpool backed away so quickly he tripped over his own feet, as he saw the mysterious figure emerge from the shadows of the conference room, the shadows rippling the air around him, like mighty wings beating the air, or perhaps the suggestion of wings.

He was unmistakable. The dark operatic cloak with a high collar leaving no chance of any sort of peripheral vision, lined with red silk that pooled with impossible elegance. The pale skin that hadn't known the touch of the sun across oceans of time, cool and perfect as a statue. The sinister black hair slicked back with a prominent widow's peak and sharp cheekbones, the diabolical goatee. The burning red eyes that hypnotically drew you in, the strong jawline and the powerful frame. Even the voice, a deep drawling, romantic with just a hint of an exotic, sexy accent. The heavy and rather gaudy ring on the finger he was gesturing with. Who else could it be?

Dracula.

Deadpool actually fell over, he was almost hysterical with terror. He might not be pretty, but he was far too interesting and developed to die! But that was the best case scenario, even with Cable at his back, to hold out for. A quick, relatively painless death.

But Deadpool could be realistic enough, at times. He knew that it was far more likely that the king of vampires would keep him alive for a long time, and do things to him that were not only as bad as Deadpool could imagine (which could be pretty bad), but as bad as Dracula could imagine - which had to be an order of magnitude worse.

They used to call him Vlad the Impaler, and that was before he became a vampire.

Deadpool took a deep breath. Well, if there was one thing he'd learned from papa Wilson (other then lessons by example of what not to do as a father), it was to get your licks in while you could, and dying the way he lived - an insurmountable annoyance, seemed somehow fitting.

"So shouldn't you be sparkling or something?" An oldie but a goodie.

"What?" Demanded the King of all vampires… Hang on a second. That accent was victorian british. And now that he thought about it, the sinister glowing gem implanted directly in the figure's forehead. Even the shadows were just the logical result of the room being insufficiently well-lit. And the beard was way too trendy for Dracula to bother with.

False alarm. It was only Mr Sinister.

Glad that he hadn't actually wet himself in this case of mistaken identity, Deadpool got to his feet with all the dignity he could find, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his shoulder. Realising the speck wasn't so imaginary, and was in point of fact a spiderweb he must have gotten in the air vents at some point, he brushed again, a bit more insistently. Dignity. Right. He was sure he'd had more of it when he came into the room.

For a moment that seemed to extend into forever, nothing happened. But even an awkward moment can only stretch for so long, and at last, Shaw cleared his throat. "I expected Slade to do a better job of his inevitable betrayal." Shaw said dryly, an ornery, long-suffering look on his face. "But at least we're getting it over and done with." He glanced at the two guests. "Would one of you care to deal with this?"

Sinister gave Shaw a contemptuous look at being asked to fight his battles, but he got to his feet. It was unsettling to watch, he moved like liquid, flowing upright. No single limb seemed to stir, but suddenly he was standing, and moved towards Deadpool, still with that unearthly, liquid grace, red eyes blazing. He was far bigger then necessary, closer to seven feet then six. Why he felt the need to be a villain was a mystery - he could make a fortune playing basketball.

Deadpool wasn't intimidated. Mr Sinister was no Count Dracula. "Why does everyone assume something big is going down?" Deadpool asked, drawing his katanas. "Hey, for all you know, I'm here to join you. Maybe I want to defect."

"Such refreshing humour," Shaw said, rolling his eyes. "When you kill him, make sure you do a thorough job. I'm sick of hearing him speak already." He folded his arms. "It might even wipe the smug look off Slade's face for a moment, but I won't expect miracles."

"Oh, I am funny." Deadpool said. "Thank you for noticing. It's nice to be appreciated - I make it seem natural but it's actually something I have to work hard at. But just because I make you laugh doesn't mean I can't kick your arse." He took a step towards Mr Sinister. "This works one way, and it's not the way you are hoping. I hurt people, I don't get hurt. Welcome to the food-chain, bub." With Wolverine out of the picture, or due to be that way shortly (at least for the moment), that particular verbal tic was up for grabs, and he meant to claim it before someone else got the chance to. Maybe he could grab the catch-phrase as well - the best there is at what he did, whatever that was.

And then, Deadpool yelled an incoherent warcry or insult or something as he leapt towards what had been Nathaniel Essex long ago, with his both his swords held high. Mr Sinister didn't duck or try to block or anything. He just stood there and leaned into it. The left blade cut into the meat of his shoulder before glancing off his collarbone, the right cut right through his right shoulder and into his torso. Either Mr Sinister didn't notice, or he didn't care. His right arm, despite only loosely being connected to his body by a flap of meat, some skin, and his costume snaked up and and wrapped itself around Deadpool's throat, holding him effortlessly in place before his feet touched the ground, with two swords sticking out of his shoulders. "This is a farce." Sinister snarled. "I am all that I am, you are a thug with a pair of swords. Do you not appreciate the implicit hierarchy present here?"

That, it occurred to Deadpool, was actually a good question - what exactly could Mr Sinister do? Deadpool could beat anyone who'd been around long enough for people to take notice enough that their powers became common knowledge, but he'd had no idea to expect Sinister, Sinister didn't seem the type to give him a time-out and let him go do some research, and there were no guarantees there anyway - some people were clever enough to misdirect how their powers actually work. That said, for the moment Deadpool had Mr Sinister exactly where he wanted him, and taking advantage of that he drove his knee into the fork of his legs, and his sword into Sinister's torso.

Mr Sinister looked down at the sword, dropped Deadpool and then, snake-fast, his hand closed around the Merc with a Mouth's ankle and with a single wrench of his body he threw him spinning through the air.

There was no time to twist in the air or curl. Deadpool managed to get his arms around his head before he crashed into a room's wall and dropped limp to the floor. Through the red-grey mist in his head he succeeded in finding the strength to push himself, groaning, up onto his elbows and knees. 

Sinister's foot landed like the meteor that probably killed the dinosaurs despite what certain villains might claim between his shoulder blades and flattened him back to the floor, cracked sternum sending out ripping bursts of pain.

Deadpool spat out a mouthful of blood. Already, he could feel his body doing it's best to repair itself. "That all you got, you pansy?" He asked, like a small, puny, insignificant bug beneath a heel that nonetheless refused to be crushed.

"You haven't even begun to see what I am capable of." Sinister replied. He began to glow, throwing off light like a bonfire, a field of distortion, heavy particles of some dark matter flowing around him, a fractal-like edge formed of sparks flying off his body. "While I really do prefer not to resort to violence… that doesn't mean I'm not good at it."

Deadpool hesitated a moment, then decided that although interrupting him by keeping on fighting while he was showing-off might not be done in the better circles, it was better than letting Mr Sinister hit him with whatever he was getting ready. Flipping to his feet with an easy grace he feinted a kick, and when Mr Sinister instinctively moved his arm to block, brought his sword directly into his forehead, figuring when in doubt break the glowing gem. And people thought his brother was the one with the brains.

Sinister went down. He was up again in an instant, but not in time to deflect a following blow from Deadpool's weapon, which opened his throat and made a pez dispenser out of him. That didn't even slow him down. If Sinister even noticed, he obviously didn't consider it particularly important. The gem was not damaged. It wasn't even scratched. Damn.

“A good idea, but that doesn’t actually do anything. It’s just a piece of ornamentation.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“Damn.” Deadpool stepped back. "Where is your weak-spot then?"

"I am not especially weak in any place."

"Oh. Well, do you have to be so creepy?" he asked after a moment. He thought about attacking again, but he could see that it wasn't doing any good, so why waste the effort? "Either close up the horrific gaping wounds or die, I don't care which."

"I could." Sinister admitted. "But I find refraining from doing so illustrates my point. You can't do a thing to me that will so much as slow me down."

"Well, fair point, but as it happens, I heal as well." Deadpool replied, then added cheekily "and even if it is just so many farts in a hurricane, it looks to me like I'm winning."

When Sinister moved towards him in that freaky flowing way, Deadpool slashed at him, but Sinister blocked with his forearm, and drove the palm of his right hand flat into Deadpool's chest, a tension-reflexive strike that martial artists had given all sorts of names, and all agreed it was a bad idea to be on the wrong end of. It was fairly sloppy as technique went, but given the power behind it, that was relative. Deadpool lurched, his ribs cracking. As he stumbled backwards, Sinister looped his left hand around Deadpool's right wrist, and whip-snapped it, forcing the katana out of the merc’s grip. It landed on the floor with a sad clatter.

Deadpool got his feet under him and kept at it. Sinister had closed tightly, and the mercenary head-butted him. It took a few tries, but Sinister didn't seem to care, so he tried taking a leaf out of Mike Tyson's book and bit Sinister's ear. As it happened, ripping an ear off with your teeth isn't as easy as it looks, but Sinister didn't seem to care about that either. Fortunately, all his squirming around managed to get him free anyway, which he took as a win, because he figured he needed one. Deadpool fumbled and drew his over-sized revolver, his broken right wrist forcing him to use his left hand, across his body. As soon as the pistol came clear of its holster, he shot from the hip - but Sinister wasn't impressed by the bullet - why would he be? Mr Sinister backhanded the gun out of his grip and sent it skidding away, bouncing once upon the table-top and across the room. A steel-hard fist shot out at Deadpool, who ducked left, and chopped a passing body-blow into Mr Sinister's ribs. Deadpool’s hands, trained and used to punishment though the might be, were already sore and bloody from punching a man with a physical composition more commonly found in steel beams, and his ability to heal wasn't quite done getting him back into tip-top shape yet. Sinister tried to get behind Deadpool, but the Mercenary caught him and clenched him in a choke hold. It would have finished the fight - if Sinister needed to breathe - or needed his throat at all, which the huge gaping wound suggested was not the case. And if Deadpool wasn't struggling with just one working hand - the other one taking it's time to heal.

By luck or by skill - given the way he was fighting it was difficult to tell, Sinister took the clean way to break the hold, a body throw that tossed Deadpool up and over him, and the merc crashed against the wall once more. He got slowly to his feet. His wrist was better now, but the rest of him wasn't in as good shape. The air smelled of blood. Some of it, a little of it, was his own. His fists were swollen and mangled. Blood seeped from his battered face, and pain made him see double. His skull throbbed from the blows it had taken. He was sure his nose was broken.

All that would heal soon, he supposed, though as he was taking hits faster then he was pulling himself together that wasn't going to do him much good.

And Sinister wasn't even really trying. He was just smashing Deadpool around physically, without even making much effort to apply himself to it in an effective manner. And what was worse, that was proving to be more then enough. Deadpool couldn't hurt him, and while he couldn't kill Deadpool, fighting like that at least, he could certainly hurt him - and that was just a waste of everyones time.

Deadpool got to his feet, and while he was at it he got his act together. So he couldn't beat Mr Sinister with guns, fists or swords. That could scarcely be called a new situation to be in. But there was one thing that had always held him through the worst of it, it was his way of finding a weakness in people who could spill him all over town if he let them. He just had to let his mouth do it's thing.

The trouble was, Sinister was a tad more cerebral then emotional, and any man with the mental fortitude to dress like that wasn't going to be put down by some jabs at his appearance. "No wonder you're such a second stringer, if this is how you fight." He said after a moment. That didn't get a reaction, but that was okay. Deadpool was feeling him out, getting an idea of his mental defenses before letting loose with some really devastating zingers that would (he hoped) have Mr Sinister begging for mercy.

"So does it bother you, at all, that you're mostly irrelevant to 'the struggle to protect a world that hates and fears you'? Is this why you are teaming up with these two losers?" Still no reaction. Well, aside from getting smacked across the room, but chances were that was going to happen again anyway.

"Why did they invite you anyway? Was Leap-Frog and Stilt-Man busy?" Sinister didn't register that either. And it was such a good line too. Well, time to break out the big guns.

"I'm sorry for sounding so dismissive. This is probably a big deal for you." Deadpool picked himself up. "I mean, this is the closest you've got to a real job in a long time, with your resume - you're not in any of the movies. And last time I checked, Nathanial Essex doesn't even qualify as a footnote in the serious study of evolution. Face it, you've spent two hundred years trying to prove theories that nobody takes seriously. The whole mutant gene thing has made people actually reconsider Lamarck, ridiculous as scientists find it, but your notes will never merit a reprint."

That hit a nerve. At once, Mr Sinister's airy condescension gave way to a sullen rage. "As though you know what you're talking about…"

"Actually, I'm the next best thing to an expert."

"What need have I for…" Sinister paused, and gritted his teeth. "I tire of this." He announced all of a sudden.

Deadpool definitely counted that as a victory, although he wasn't sure it would be one that would go well for him. Sinister, suddenly deadly calm, raised a hand, palm facing outward, and crackling energy, bright with a series of dark overlapping crackling dots erupted from his hand in a wave that rolled over him. Deadpool tried to dodge by throwing himself out of the way, but the energy curved after him, so that didn't work out all that well, and the energy tore through him. Deadpool screamed like a little girl. He screamed until he ran out of breath. Then he screamed some more. He tried to hang limp and play dead, but he was in so much pain he was physically incapable of stopping screaming. The energy coursed all around and all through him, and he did his best to shrink away, convulsing with pain, his knees buckling, still screaming, but it was relentless and merciless.

"You want a real physical confrontation? Fine. I'll indulge you." Sinister said as the energy continued to pour out of his out-stretched hand. First it began tearing away his suit, revealing more of him then most people wanted him to show. Then it started on his skin and flesh, stripping it away to nothing, then his muscle.

"If it interests you to know, what I am doing is shearing apart your atomic bonds," Mr Sinister told him, his voice calm and as scarily arousing as ever, Deadpool continuing to be ripped apart as he exposited. Normally, Deadpool appreciated this bragging-in-such-a-way-as-to-reveal-your-one-weakness, explaining-how your-powers-work-bit, but he wasn't in a position to get much use out of it given the power discrepancy at work. And he didn't know much physics anyway. "I am stripping your body apart atom by atom and molecule by molecule. Essentially, by balancing two opposing forces I have set into being around you a sustained reaction - a linear induction motor, focussed between two bipolar magnetic fields so that anything I should target - in this case that spectacularly resilient miracle of science that serves as your body - shall be rent asunder, pulled at the sub-atomic level in both directions simultaneously. In effect I am stripping you of your constituent atoms - I don't believe even you can heal from that, but I'm interested in finding out." He paused affecting consideration. "In truth this is a rare opportunity - normally it's spectacularly fatal, so if you have any salient data to contribute to broader knowledge, do try and scream it."

Deadpool was still screaming, though all he was expressing was pain and that was of questionable use to the scientific community, already nearly unconscious beneath the continuing assault of Sinister's frickin' laser beams. His arms and his legs were stripped to the bone, and that was going as well in an alarming rate. Tormented beyond reason, betaken of a weakness that took what once had been a identifiable and marketable character and left nothing behind, he almost hoped he would just submit to the nothingness toward which he was drifting. He didn't fool himself, there was no way he'd get to stay dead, but a while just getting to rest for a while while he waited to be reworked into the setting sounded good to him - better then suffering like this, at least. He and Death could hang out again, that sounded pretty good.

Sinister smiled tightly, and although it would not have seemed possible to Deadpool, the outpouring of energy actually increased in intensity. The sound of Deadpool's agony screamed through the room, the murderous brightness of the flashes was overwhelming. "Thanos. I recognise his work, I've seen it before a few times - though I've never had the opportunity to study it like this. While I cannot speculate what motivated him to make you immortal…"

"There was a girl involved." Deadpool forced out through the screams of soul destroying pain. "He couldn't handle the competition."

"Well, if you do manage to cling to existence as nothing but a few scraps of hydrogen, no doubt sentience will have to be redefined." Sinister replied, raising his other hand. What was left of Deadpool's body slowed, wilted, finally crumpled under the hideous barrage. He stopped moving altogether. At last, he appeared totally lifeless. Sinister hissed maliciously. "The physical trauma too much to handle? I suspect that Thanos shall prove to be better at this sort of thing than myself, you will survive beyond even these ministrations, but as it happens…"

Sinister managed to intensify the power all the more "…I am more then willing to put it to the test. You can try me again when you learn some manners. And how to reconstitute your physical form from absolutely nothing."

And then a gunshot rung through the air, as the door exploded inward. Nathan Summers floated into the room, his body wrapped in pure telekinetic force, his right eye blazing with power, his clothing leaving no curve and dip of his perfect physique to the imagination, the rifle that was Deadpool's one true love cradled delicately in his arms. "Looks like I made it in time. Now back your %&@# down." Cable growled, flipping the rifle over his hands in a magnificent John Wayne impression to recock it.

Mr Sinister did no such thing. Instead he smiled, rather creepily, still a mess from all the hits Deadpool has scored, and lifted his hands to send the energy at Cable instead. Cable responded with raw telekinetic force, and the surge of power met in mid air explosively, the energies smashing through the room turning the table to splinters, smashing Stryker against a wall hard enough to leave an imprint, and sending what was left of Deadpool bouncing all around. The two of them strained, trying to overwhelm the other, but neither could gain any advantage. Sebastien Shaw got to his feet and cracked his knuckles, obviously planning on interfering, but with a negligible flick of his mind, Cable lifted him up, and held him suspended, unable to do a thing but hang in place, where his powers wouldn't do him the least bit of good.

"What a specimen. What a specimen." Mr Sinister was babbling, eyes alight with a lust to claim, to possess. Cable himself was all steely determination. Sebastien Shaw had tried flailing with his arms and legs, but when that failed to get him down, he simply hung there limply, fuming silently to himself at the indignity, and wondering how he was going to salvage this, or failing that make it somebody else's problem.

Wiliam Stryker decided he'd seen enough, and got to his feet, planning to make his exit. He didn't make two steps before he felt a presence leaning against him. "Where do you think you're going, Willie?" Deadpool whispered in a voice still hoarse from all the screaming into the old man's ear, and a part of Stryker wondered how Deadpool had managed to stab the point of his knife through three layers of clothing but stop before before cutting flesh. The least amount of pressure, and it would slide into his kidney, and he'd suffer a painful death. "After all these years, I think you and me really should play catch-up."

Stryker went very still, but his eyes flickered malevolently. Deadpool only smiled all the wider, in a manner that - had anyone seen it - they would comment on his uncanny resemblance to his older brother. He wasn't looking too good, his body was trying to rebuild itself, but he didn't have the body mass (anymore) and so was doing it's best regardless to cut corners to make up the biomass - how often does one really use all the squishy bits inside their torso?

"And what now? An apology, perhaps?"

"Now I hurt you until I feel better." Deadpool replied, and the knife pressed into him, just a few inches. "Tell me, is this where the begging starts?" he asked him, as Stryker's face went white and he sank to his knees, Deadpool following the motion and keeping a good grip on the knife still embedded in him. "Is this where you promise me that 'If I let you go, you'll drop a few more cryptic, tantalizing hints about Wolverine's alleged backstory'? Because guess what? I don't care. I'm the complete package as I am - who cares what you might have done to me while I was unconscious." Deadpool said. "It's enough to know that I am most certainly legally distinct from a mutant. The only other thing I care about is watching you leak all over the floor."

Stryker's face was white, and he gurgled a little when he chuckled. "Another wash-up blaming me for their problems?" Stryker said, his voice shaking a little with pain. blood was welling up from his side where Deadpool had slid in the knife. "You volunteered. You begged me to save your life." Stryker hissed, clutching at the side of his stomach as though trying to hold in the blood, close to the wound. "And didn't I?"

"I trusted you, did your dirty work, and all you wanted was a weapon." Deadpool replied, "Which is all fine - it's all I wanted to be. No, it's not what you made me into. It's that you sewed my mouth shut. Do you have any idea how many awesome disses I wanted to get off, and couldn't? I was in the best form of my life, you'd think I was Arnold Schwarzenegger with all the one-liners I was coming up with, and I couldn't say them! I'll never forgive you for the couple of hours I spent screaming insults in my head that nobody else could appreciate."

He leaned close, until he was breathing in Stryker's ear. "That was the first time I appeared in a movie too! You almost spoiled my big break in showbiz, you unconscionable bastard!" He yelled at the top of his voice directly into Strykers ear, then drove the knife in all the way. Stryker made a faint indrawn gasping noise.

Deadpool stepped back, watching him bleed. "Oh, and for the record? You like to present yourself as a man-of-the-people, a champion of the common man, but all you really are is a paranoid mess terrified of a changing world, trying to cut off the bits that don't fit. This isn't revenge, it's me putting you down because the world will be better off without you." He added, because if he just watched a man die slowly without justifying it in some kind of halfass way he'd lose the sympathy of his audience, then laughed. Stryker twisted and pulled out a gun, turning and aiming it at Deadpool with enough speed and competence to take most people unprepared. Deadpool, still laughing, kicked it out of his hand. "That's it? No cutting edge tech? You must be having an off day. Oh Willie, sorry to squash you're hollow defiance, but I just survived most of my soft-tissues being atomized. You're going to need a lot more gun then that." He said, reaching for his sword, then remembering he'd left it in Mr Sinister. With a small sound of frustration, he glanced around, spotted where he'd dropped the other one, and walked over to retrieve it. "You just lie there and keep bleeding, I'll make it quick. Well, quicker, anyway."

Meanwhile, the battle between Cable and Mr Sinister was taking place in a whirling storm of energy, the two of them throwing everything they had at one another. Cable had more raw power, but Mr Sinister was far better at finding creative uses for what he possesed, and far more tricks and abilities to draw on. 

Sinister was throwing his arms around like an insane music conductor, as he threw around more energy trying to break the stalemate. Cable was still, tense with concentration, one hand resting against his brow. Despite the clear strain, he wasn't slackening in the least. Sinister, however, was still smiling. "Magnificent." He told Cable. "You are the culmination of my lifes work, you know. All I have worked for, all I have sacrificed, have reached a kind of perfection in you. Such terrible and beautiful magnificence."

"Don't try to give me daddy issues. I think if one more psychiatrist hears about them, the entire occupation will collectively commit suicide." Cable replied dryly.

"Your father? Nothing so base. I admire you, your structural perfection, your purity of purpose, even your mind is possessed of such a singular drive." Sinister responded. "And I shall, in time, posses all those things. We shall continue this soon. But for now, I have so much to do." There was a flash of light, and he was gone. A moment later, Stryker and Shaw vanished as well.

Deadpool glanced at his sword, then shrugged. He'd really wanted to kill someone too. "After all that explaining, I'm still really unclear on what powers he actually has and what they do." Deadpool said after a moment. "So did we win?"

Cable shrugged. "Well, we didn't lose." He paused. "Though I'll be damned if I can figure out what it is we achieved."

"We're calling it a draw." Deadpool said after a moment.

"Agreed."

"Though I wish I at least got to kill Stryker."

"No arguments from me."

"So now what? I mean, all that information gathering we just did can't have been too important. I mean, THE WATCHER didn't appear." He paused. "Though why would he? This issue is all old news. Wolverine gets beaten up so often it's like watching reruns, and the rest has been nothing but cameos. We should probably get out of here, huh?"

Cable glanced around. "I suppose it's too much to hope for that they have a convenient file or something lying around we can use for evidence?"

"Not to mention ridiculously contrived. That's why we have a guy with absurd psychic powers, who has access to something called the infonet. So we don't need to be detectives."

"My powers might make things easier, but not that much. Those three all know how to keep psychics from getting too much from them, at least quickly, and as for…" He paused. "Do you hear ticking?"

Deadpool looked at him, then sighed. "I suppose it's a classic for a reason."