Shattered II

Hearing Xiao's quivering voice mention no longer being able to feel Pietro in the building sent a shiver down everyone's spine. With wide eyes, Eagle contacted Waller through his comms, who answered almost immediately.

"Waller! There's something going on here! They were expecting us! What do we do now!?" Eagle shouted into his device, bringing Waller to a chuckle as he shook his head in the safety of his own facility.

"And what made you come up with that assessment, genius? Was it the fact that Quicksilver and Iceman have both been eliminated?" Waller spoke without any sort of empathy, looking at the monitor in front of him that had all sorts of data on the Dark Angels.

He could see their vitals, their distance from Eagle, along with a picture of them. Both Bobby's and Pietro's pictures were greyed out with the word "DECEASED" written beneath them. With his hands interlocked beneath his chin, Waller spoke calmly once again to his soldier.

"Who cares about them? Iceman was unfortunate, but nothing can be done. Continue, Eagle. You still have Tempo, Fixer, and Answer." as Waller spoke, the mutants could see by the look on Eagle's horrified face that Waller's words were not good news.

"Waller, this place is a death trap! They took out two of our most unkillable fighters! Get us out of here!" Eagle pleaded his case, though Waller didn't really care.

"Tell me, Eagle. What do I gain from saving you? Losing Tempo may be a very, very tough loss for me, but he is not the only one like him in my possession. The risk-reward is in my favor if you continue. We need that weapon, Eagle. Now proceed."

"Fuck you!" Eagle told him.

"My wife already does that for me, Eagle." Waller's sarcasm was cloaked in a cold, plain voice. Despite his blank expression, he was loving it. There was nothing in the world he loved more than to see people beneath him begging for their lives.

"We're not going any further." Eagle told him before starting toward the entrance and looking at the mutants. "Let's go."

"Aht, aht! Aren't you forgetting the bombs in your head?" a slow, sinister smile started to form on Waller's face as he hovered his computer mouse over Eagle's portrait.

"You won't get rid of me. You can't. Do you want to know why?" Eagle had false confidence in his voice, thinking he had the upper hand. However, his smile soon faded upon hearing Waller's words.

"Oh! Is it the fact that you've been secretly gathering data about what I've been doing without the government's permission and how you plan on using it to blackmail me for your freedom and if I kill you it will be sent out to them by your people or whatever?" Waller chuckled, clicking on Eagle's portrait to bring up a pop-up.

"Yeah, that's been dealt with already, don't worry. I didn't think you truly had the guts to pull that off, Eagle. Very surprising indeed. However, if you want to go home, I'll send you to whatever deity you choose to believe in."

"Wait-" before Eagle could plead his case once more, his head exploded, sending brain matter, bits of his skull, and blood splattering in all directions, staining the clothes of the other Dark Angels members.

Trembling, the three remaining fighters stood in place, looking at his corpse flopping onto the ground lifelessly. Though Ky was still recovering from overextending himself, he could have reverted time, but he knew that reversing time wouldn't stop Waller from pressing that button.

For the first time during the entire mission, Ky heard Waller's voice through his earpiece. "Congratulations, Ky Thatcher. You're the new leader. Now, proceed or I will blow your friends to bits just as I did Eagle." Waller knew the right things to say. Ky was motivated by people he cared for more than anything else and Waller was using that.

"Okay. We will complete the mission." Ky looked directly at Tom and nodded, knowing that the time for their plan was now. "Tom, let's see the world together. " Ky told him, which was code for something else, it was code for removing the bombs.

"But how will we get there?" Tom asked, knowing there was nowhere to run. He knew he could disassemble the device he created to cut a hole in the wall that once blocked Bobby out from the rest of the team, using the parts to create the EMP for the chips in their heads. However, he didn't know what would be next.

The plan originally was to wait until they had an actual escape route before deactivating the bombs, allowing them to flee the country safely. That transport that Eagle mentioned was their best bet. Russia was a far worse place for mutants to live, and hoping to blend in would be impossible for both Ky and Xiao due to their foreign appearance.

However, they had no other choice but to do it right then and there. With Ky practically out of commission, along with Iceman and Quicksilver being gone, they knew completing the mission would be impossible.

Ky got down on one knee and began digging through Eagle's corpse until he found a fragment of the bomb. Using his Psychometry ability, Ky was able to see where exactly the bombs were placed in the head. They weren't placed too deep inside their bodies, in fact, they were just inside the fat between the neck and the back of the head. However, as they expected, tampering with it would mean certain death if they didn't disable it first.

Tom dug through his backpack and began putting together the pieces of the EMP grenade as quickly as possible before Waller could suspect anything. Waller could only hear them through their comms, he could not see them. However, the silence was telling.

"Activate project World." Waller spoke to one of his assistance, prompting them to flee the room and do just that, whatever that may mean.

In less than a minute Tom finished the EMP grenade and the team gathered around it. Tom activated it, which then disabled their bombs briefly, and after a few seconds passed, Ky reversed time. He wasn't fully recovered, but it didn't matter at that point, he knew he could use his powers this one last time.

He then used his Time Reduction ability, slowing down time around him before using a knife to cut the napes of his friends' necks, removing the bombs, before reaching behind his own head and cutting his out.

Just in case the bombs would explode, he tossed them across the room and time resumed. "AH!" both Tom and Xiao screamed in pain upon feeling their necks suddenly ripped apart. Both of them fell to their knees, leaving Ky as the only one standing.

"Do you have the gauze?" Ky asked, prompting Tom to point at his backpack. Ky reached over and grabbed the gauze, using it to first wrap Xiao's wound. They didn't have anything to clean the wound, nor did they have the time.

He then began wrapping Tom's wound before handing the gauze to Xiao who wrapped his. Once their wounds were haphazardly treated, Waller could be heard clapping from their comms.

"I figured you three were up to something. Of course, the mind reader, the time warper, and the boy capable of making almost anything would conspire together to escape. Go ahead, try to leave." Waller, of course, foresaw this and had an ace up his sleeve the entire time.

Without saying a word to him, the Dark Angels removed their communication devices, freeing themselves from the Waller's leash once and for all.

Quickly, the remaining Dark Angels sprinted toward the entrance, fleeing the scene and heading straight into the foggy rain outside of the facility. "I can hot-wire one of these vehicles!" Tom told them, prompting the others to follow him over toward a militaristic truck.

However, they stopped in their tracks upon seeing a silhouette in the fog, one that they did not recognize. This mysterious figure slowly turned his head...

And time paused.

'What!?' Ky thought to himself, his eyes wandering around frantically as that figure approached them slowly. Once the figure was close enough, Ky's eyes widened. For the first time, Ky was able to actually comprehend when time itself was stopped, though he himself could not move, the only thing that could move were his eyes hidden behind his helmet.

'Ken?' He thought, seeing a man with a similar build to his older brother approaching him with a pistol in one hand. His face was covered, wearing chrome, metallic armor over his entire body.

This mysterious gunman then placed the barrel of his gun on Tom's head forehead, his finger ready on the trigger. 'NOOOOO! WAIT! PLEASE STOP!' Ky wanted to scream, but it was as if he had no mouth. All he could do was watch as the man began pulling the trigger, causing a bullet to transcend time itself and drill a hole through Tom's head. Due to time still being stopped, Tom's body remained standing despite his life being stolen from him.

'KEN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!' Ky again bellowed in his own head, his eyes quivering beneath his mask. He wasn't sure if this was Ken or if Waller truly did find a way to use mutant abilities for himself. Regardless, in his own mind, his brother just killed his best friend.

The figure then approached Xiao, causing Ky's mind to scream even louder. 'PLEASE! NOT HER! NOT XIAO, PLEASE!' Ky was trying his best to move as time was paused, but it was as if he were stuck in sleep paralysis, watching helplessly as the nightmare continued on. 'IF I CAN MOVE DURING SLOWED TIME, I CAN MOVE WHEN IT'S PAUSED!' he thought to himself, using everything he had to try and move even just a centimeter. There was nothing left to try, it was do or die at this point.

'COME ON KY! MOVE! COME ON KY!' Ky successfully moved a single finger, showing that he could in fact move in frozen time. A pleasantly surprised look was on his face, hidden beneath his helmet before the voice in his head started speaking calmly to him. 'Alright, okay... One finger, now I just need to-'

𝘽𝘼𝙉𝙂!

Ky could feel his heart sink as the figure put a bullet through Xiao's head, killing her instantly, though she still stood as Tom did.

'No... Xiao.' Ky's inner voice quiver weakly, his eyes looking right at her as blood was seen paused in time, spewing from her skull. Despite being able to reverse time, there was nothing Ky could do to reverse her death.

Immediately, it was as if something inside Ky broke. Though his mouth did not move, nor did his body, he could feel his body screaming, shouting as if something within himself had changed.

His eyes shone brightly beneath his mask in such a way that even the gunman could see the glow coming through the mask. He hesitated for just a second, though he quickly pointed his gun at Ky, aiming right for the head.

𝘽𝘼𝙉𝙂!

The gunman pulled the trigger and a bullet flew through Ky's mask, breaking it before that same bullet went through his brain, killing him in an instant.

Time resumed, and Ky's body hit the ground, his face was then shown to his killer through his shattered mask. Despite Ky being dead, his eyes shone brightly, as did his killer's whose eyes returned to their normal color beneath his mask upon time resuming.

With wide eyes, the killer realized what he had done.

"Ky..." Ken's voice whispered, now with the blood of his brother in his own hands.