Hell Freezes Over - Part 1

Posted on Fri Nov 8th, 2024 @ 11:24pm by Jean Grey & Pietro Maximoff & Scott Summers & Bobby Drake

2,069 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 5: Days of Fortune Past
Location: Baxter Building | Manhattan
Timeline: November 6th, 1990

“Well, the Hellfire Club is back and burning hotter than ever.” Scott had a sheaf of papers in his hand that he flopped on the conference room table. “Read up, X-Factor, because we’ve got work to do.” He spun the sheaf into the middle where anybody could reach if they desired. “The sum of it is that Sebastian Shaw had a bastard son who’s claimed the family legacy, including the Sentinel production lines that we destroyed.”

It was generous to say ‘we,’ given the present company. Although the Brotherhood had certainly contributed to the resistance against Project Wideawake five years prior, it had been the X-Men who brought down Master Mold after Sentinels kidnapped Professor Xavier and Bolivar Trask during a public debate. Jean tracked the Professor with Cerebro and located Master Mold’s location, giving the X-Men a target. But the Brotherhood chose vengeance over valor, with Magneto attacking the Inner Circle in their former lair. Sebastian Shaw had perished, along with a few other Inner Circle members, leaving the rest going to ground.

The responses of both groups to a common foe made for a clear delineation in their ultimate goals and values, yet Pietro the former Brotherhood scion now sat at the table of a new team. Old judgments were suspended in favor of new beginnings.

“Shinobi Shaw has been busy. East Harlem, Seattle’s Central District, South Valley outside Albuquerque where… the X-Men lost a friend.” Scott paused in a moment of silence for Tammy Thompson who had left the X-Mansion to tend to a family emergency only to die a hero’s death defending an impoverished area against a Sentinel attack. “These coordinated attacks appeared to be an unsanctioned action to clear out existing inventory in order to fund something altogether new: Prime Sentinel production.”

What went unsaid was the vanguard of that production line, which was Warren Worthington III, their old friend and teammate. The Angel had now become a destroyer. Only a combined effort had been even able to slow down the Omega Sentinel. With the right numbers, Prime Sentinels could become an existential threat that the early Mark 1 and newer Mark 2 Sentinels could never be even in swarms.

“The X-Men are pursuing a direct lead on the technological origin,” Scott continued, bypassing what didn’t need to be said, “so we are going after the financial backing. We’re going to hit the Inner Circle where it hurts most: in the wallet. Priority one right now is uncovering as much dirt as possible and surrendering it to the authorities to build cases against them. They’re wealthy but they aren’t untouchable, especially not if they’ve defrauded the government.” Scott pounded the table. “I don’t care if it’s tax evasion like what brought down Al Capone. Their empire’s days are numbered.”

“We’ll find it.” Jean reached and placed a reassuring hand over Scott’s. His temper flared and flashed like a blast from his eyes and Jean’s touch was intended to calm his outrage to a more productive call to action. “We’ll find all of it.”

Reaching out for the papers that Scott had placed on the table, Jean skimmed through them for a moment as the tension in the room cooled before she dared to ask Quicksilver a question. “Is it true that the Master Mold head that your father had on Asteroid M was taken?”

“Yes.” Pietro answered the question earnestly, the private struggles of the Brotherhood now connecting to everything happening here made it foolish to keep secrets. “A man with metal claws that came out of his hands did it. Apparently he had been in Avalon for months slowly worming his way through all the restricted spaces looking for it. I assume the head being in Magneto’s private quarters was why it took him so long to discover it. But it feel like a suicide mission to send a man with metal inside his body into Magneto’s lair. Do you know who he is?”

“Maybe.” Scott left the conference room for a minute and ducked into the secure storage closet where private files were kept.

Bobby looked around the table at the other two. Despite his years of experience in the First Class of X-Men, he still felt like the young guy on the team. As tempting as it was to shrug off a lot of this talk as being over his head, he knew it was time to grow up. He wasn’t stupid. He was just insecure. If he wanted to sit as an equal, then he needed to apply himself as one.

“Okay, so they had the old Master Mold’s body at Alchemax. They wanted his head too but clearly they didn’t need it to launch any of the old Sentinel attacks or the Prime Sentinels in D.C., and if that’s the case, they already had a Master Mold head.” Bobby stopped for a minute. “Or something like it. Maybe they needed the original for some reason. Sentinels never were the brightest. They need, like, a boss Sentinel or some kind of master controller thing to do more than one attack at a time. Now that they have the original, they might be gearing up for something big.”

The glass door to the conference room opened with Scott returning at the end of Bobby’s musings. “You’re probably onto something there, Bobby, so it’s all the more imperative we bring these pompous chess pieces to heel as soon as we can.”

Walking past Pietro’s chair, Scott placed a Xeroxed photograph in front of him before returning to his seat. “The man with metal claws. Is that him?”

It was a photograph of a masked man inside the Blackbird, a still image taken from the flight recorder. Several members of the Alternate Class were visible, along with an unconscious Bobby. The center frame of the picture was the clawed man taking an optic blast straight to the chest which piledrived him into the ground hard enough to dig a lengthy trench.

“That’s quite the action shot you managed to capture,” Pietro said with a smirk as he began to examine the photo beyond the superficial. “But yeah, that’s him.” Pietro scowled as he continued to look at the picture. “But why would this knucklehead want an old Master Mold head?”

“He has to be working for Shaw,” Jean said as she reached out for the photo and looked at the man in question. Moments like the one in this photo made it feel like years had passed during her absence from the team. “Maybe that’s the key to catching the Hellfire Club. We do not dig through the past but look to the future. Catching them with their hand in the cookie jar makes it easier to attach previous crimes to them.”

Jean drummed her fingertips on the table as she considered the current situation. “That Master Mold head is huge, it’s not something you can slip in your pocket. How did he take it back and where did he go with it?”

“Good questions,” Scott said.

“What about NASA and all those guys?” Bobby asked, thinking out loud. “Don’t they track things like that?”

Scott nodded, “Oh, sure, but we’re talking about cutting edge technology. The Blackbird alone can slip through radar undetected. Unless a satellite network was keyed into Sentinel technology, we would have to get lucky with an eyewitness, someone with a telescope, maybe, or who happened to see a squad of Sentinels carrying a giant head.”

“Yeah…” Bobby cupped his chin in one hand and leaned on his elbow. He was trying. “But… all the attacks have been in the USA, right? Coast to coast and a few places in between. Let’s look to see where money has been moved in areas near the attacks, any buyouts and liquidations. If any of it traces back to shell companies outside the attack zones, then that might lead us in the right direction.”

It was tenuous but Scott still smiled at Bobby anyway. “Been hitting the business school books, huh, Bobby? Alright, that’s as good of a start as any. I’ll count on you to chase that lead and see what shakes out.”

Bobby looked startled at first, but he nodded in the affirmative. “You got it.”

“Pietro, we’ve got names on the Inner Circle, but we need more than that.” Scott looked to his erstwhile adversary with newfound camaraderie. “Jean and I will start looking into their pawns, the rich and powerful assets who do their bidding, but you will be our man on the ground. Get in, get the hard proof we need, and get it out.”

“Oh, I get to spy on people.” Pietro appeared pleased with the task presented to him. He opened up a folder that had been offered to him with lists of names and places for each Inner Circle member.

“We know that two of them are telepaths,” Jean said, warning Pietro of the potential hidden threat they held.

“You pesky telepaths, I will make sure to take the appropriate precautions, but thanks for the warning,” Quicksilver said with a carefree wave of the hand. It was getting easier to trust them and to work with them. All the resentment that had built up between them over the years was dissipating at an alarmingly fast rate.

“Jean and I will bring on some additional help,” Scott added. “Nelson and Murdock’s law office offered any pro bono assistance they can muster, and Alias Investigations is on retainer now along with our corporate attorney from Hodge and Associates. We’re loaded for bear on this because time is not on our side.”

“Aren’t they busy with the MRA lawsuit though?” Bobby asked.

Scott nodded. “Yes. That’s why it’s on us. But we aren’t alone. Let’s turn over every stone we can. With any luck, we’ll do the government’s job and hand over a ready made RICO case.”

“We just have to make sure our lawsuit is ironclad because when we cry wolf the whole pack will descend on us. Huge corporations have enough money to burn on lawsuits that they can snuff out legitimate claims by simply drawing out the legal battle. We can’t let them do that, funding from X-Corp or no, it can’t take years of litigation to make this stop, people will continue to die if we do.” Jean sighed as she looked over the massive amount of paperwork stacked and organized across the conference table. It was months of their hard work laid out before them.

“Good thing we got a speedster on our side,” Bobby quipped. Out of all of them, he had hit it off with Pietro the best. “So what comes next? Just so we’re all on the same page.”

“I’m going with Matthew to interview the legal guardian of Peter Parker tomorrow. If we can show the court his death was one of gross negligence in the Sentinel program, it will be one of the biggest claims we can attach to the Hellfire Club.” Jean hated to consider a person and their family as nothing more than testimony but if this was how the battle was going to be won, she would fight. “Meilin will continue to work with the Fallen Angels, her personal connection to the group makes it easier for her to trust them.”

“Who’s Meilin?” Bobby asked.

“Meilin Jiang is the corporate attorney from Hodge and Associates,” Scott said, “so any legal trouble you get into, she’s the first point of contact.”

Bobby nodded. So far he had little contact with lawyers or the Fallen Angels, but it was all X-Factor business. He was ready to apply himself and that meant he had to show interest in things he normally wouldn’t just because they were outside his realm of experience. “Cool, got it.”

“I think we all have our next tasks laid out before us, any additional questions?” Jean asked the X-Factor before they disbanded for the evening.

“I think we’re good to go,” Scott said. “We’ll meet back here in three days and adjust our strategy from there. Let’s break!”

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