Logs: Ryan, Robot Smashing, and Outreach Ideas
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Wednesday, October 08, 2008, 9:42 PM
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=NYC= Central Park South - Manhattan
Deviating from the slightly more.../lonely/ feel of the northern sections of the park, Central Park South is no less appealing to the eye, regardless. In the distance through the thick treelines of maple and oak looms the skyline of New York. Smaller bodies of water than the Reservoir dot the green, as do bronze statues placed seemingly at random. The Shakespeare Garden, Tavern on the Green, Strawberry Fields, and the like of more popular 'hotspots' of the park flank to all sides.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias CPSouth to watch here.]
[Exits : [U]pper [E]ast [S]ide, [U]pper [W]est [S]ide, [C]entral [P]ark [R]eservoir, [Mid]town, [T]avern on the [G]reen, [S]hakespeare [G]arden, and [W]alker [A]ntiques]
[Players : Ryan ]
The sunlight turns golden in the afternoons now, crisp and bright across the coloring leaves. The sky is deep blue and it's just cool enough for long sleeves. In short, it is the perfect day for an afternoon at the park. There is a path that winds past a duck pond and then on to a playground farther on, and it is on that path that Ryan walks, hands in deep in the pockets of his battered leather jacket, his grief-lined face a poor match for the day. A bag for a video camera is hooked over his shoulder, but still all zipped up. Rocket and two older adults -- clearly grandparents -- pave the way ahead, hunting for the ducks, and he lags behind, watching.
Jean is midpoint between Ryan and the personifications of his past and future, settled on a bench with a bag of lettuce in hand. The ducks, it appears, are getting fed something more nutritious. Her mind is New York shielded, keeping the thrumming thoughts of passerby down to a low murmur, like the indistinguishable conversation sounds of a well-packed hall. So far. She has yet to notice Ryan, drawing ever closer to where she sits, attempting to convince a trio of suspicious waterfowl that the green leafy stuff will not turn and eat -them-.
Why would a duck go for nutrition and lettuce, when instead it could have /wonder bread/? That wonderful stuff is currently being begged off "Gramma" by Rocket, who wisely gives the boy only a few small pieces at a time. Ryan watches, still from a distance, his step slowing as they pause for duck feeding, leaving him right by Jean. Amongst the general noise and hum of New York around, his mind stands out brighter and sharper, nudging obnoxiously right up to Jean's shields, set apart from other minds not only by comparitive loudness of it through the shields, but by the sharp anguish that characterizes it right now, the sick knot of anxiety and fear and hatred knotting in its thoughts. A gentle stream of power knocks at the doors of Jean's mind, ready should she so desire it.
The power may knock. The anguish charges right in, and churns Jean's stomach with it, acid and nausea brought along by the proxy of so much pain. The lettuce bag drops to the fall-damp asphalt of the walkway as Jean doubles over herself for a woozy, wincing fight against a mind flooding with shouts and whispers from all around, once Ryan's pain breaches her barriers. Hidden somewhat beneath a natty knitted wool cap in soft black, distinctive auburn hair now flashes up at him.
Ryan glances over at even the soft whump of lettuce against the ground, nerves wound tight like a string about to snap, an image of Magneto in black, shadowed ominously, threatening in his mind. << Is that... ? >> There's a momentary settling down as he realizes it is not Magneto, only for the tension to renew as he steps closer, enough to look around the cap and catch the profile. His eyes flickering around the park, searching automatically to see if Nate's with her. After the search, his steel-bright gaze settles onto her again, the dislike mingled with curiosity now, noting her doubled-over posture and her wince. "You all right?" he wonders, barely polite. << Just because you're one of them now doesn't mean you have to be /friends/, >> he chides himself.
There is no Nate today, or else the ducks would be feasting on much fattier foods, and Jean would be on her feet, keeping an eye on any intrepid reservoir-exploring. She keeps her eyes closed, pressed shut in a continued wince even as the rest of her profile manages to pull off the oxymoronic state of being of rigid and tensely relaxed. Fingernails dig against her palms in matching tempo to Ryan's too-close thoughts, and then, slowly, to the pulse of old habits of meditation and focus, called up to emergency attention. "Not as long as you're not."
Ryan reels back two steps, frown deepening at Jean's reply. "You don't like what's in there? Then stay the hell out," he says, tightly, even as he desperately tries to calm his mind -- trying to settle the thoughts of a blue LED light on a QuikID unit and the gel in the light of Bahir's lab, the terrorist in the park and in his home. He's not very successful, the knot of emotion and anguish to strong to be properly replaced with calmness, especially with the added mental distraction of not having been able to sleep properly in a week. "Thought that was the whole point of your school, trying to learn to keep it to yourselves."
"You're -broadcasting-, you--" Low and with an edge of frustrated snap is Jean's voice, coming from the little curled knot of her on the bench. "Get out of -my- mind, why don't you?"
"I don't even know what the hell that means," Ryan snaps back, even while the activity in his mind rises with paranoia. << Stayoutstayoutstayout! >> Filled with revulsion, protective of the memories and thoughts that leap, scattered, through his mindscape. << Too many mutants in this city, too many time bombs waiting to go off -- shit. Maybe I /am/ doing something to her. >> He takes stock of his physical well-being -- he's tired, of course, but he's been tired for days now, and he feels sick, but he's pretty sure an ulcer is coming on anyway. His eyes flicker, worried, over to child and grandparents, still blissfully feeding the ducks, unaware. "Can you keep it under control?" he asks, sharply. "Not gonna..." << She took care of huge /asteroids/, who knows what she could tear up around here if she... >>
"Yes, Mr. Hewitt," says Jean, again with that clipped tone rather unlike her usual smoothly comforting cadences. "I assure you, my -receptive- default of my telepathy means that I'm going to end up falling over catatonic before I rewrite the minds of the City because I sneezed. I don't -like- being catatonic, so I -promise- you I'm going to try and avoid doing so."
"I don't know how you all live with yourselves," Ryan says, the statement intended to come out harsh and judgmental, but undermined by an almost piteous tilt at the end. Really, he doesn't know. He can't contemplate it, his mind blank at the prospect of his life spreading before him, riddled with fear and shame. "/Receptive default/. What does that mean, that you're listening in all the time? And then you get all in a knot when people don't like you because of it."
From the huddle of Jean on the bench, a headtilt is given. One green eye fixes on Ryan's face, outward mask of the inwards honesty of pure thought. "Do you actually want to know," she wonders, tone oddly curious now. "Or was that rhetorical?"
<< She could help, >> a lone, sane thought drifts into Ryan's mind, and is unceremoniously expelled. << But that'd mean really -- being /one/ of them. >> Cooties! Revulsion fills him afresh, though directed equally at Jean and himself. "Rhetorical," he says, gruffly, folding his arms against him protectively, and looking down at the ducks. And for good measure, he spreads the hate around a little and gives them the evil eye, too. << Damn ducks. >>
Slowly, carefully, as the storm surge of others' thoughts is held back by tidal barriers raised -just- in time, Jean straightens back up from her hunch. Maternal instincts of tidiness snag the lettuce bag on her way back up. Instincts to give Ryan and his hate a moment's space direct her to toss a few more pieces at the ducks. Some out-of-towner feathered folk, unjaded by City appetites, decide to humour her and pounce. (Or whatever it is that ducks do. Duck?) "I see that Rocket's got his grandparents wrapped around his thumb," she offers, seeking neutral ground.
Neutral ground his hard to find; there are mindfields everywhere, even under seemingly innocuous topics. Ryan's expression creases painfully as he looks up over at the trio, the two older adults laughing with each other at a joke that Rocket doesn't get. "Yeah, well. He's an only grandkid. They'll spoil him more rotten than I ever did, that's for sure." He pauses, and then tacks on begrudgingly, "Good folks, though."
The odd use of tenses prompts an odd look from Jean, eyebrows flickering upwards and lips parting slightly before Good Manners shows up, wags a solemn finger at Curiosity, and tells it that None Of Your Business will be turning up to take over, thank you. "My parents are the same way with Nate," she offers, carefully neutral even as her fingers continue to grip at the edge of the bench and prove that her control is not so easily won as she's painting it. "He's their third grandchild, but the age gap between my sister and I means he's like having a lone one all over again."
"They're my wife's parents," Ryan shares, seemingly at a whim, rocking back on his heels. His gaze flickers once to Jean, and then settles back on the little family grouping. "He's all they've got -- all we've got. She was killed, you know. Mutant lost control." He smiles bitterly, and his eyes crease a little deeper. "So we're all gonna head to the park now. Just trying to be careful." He laughs a low, black chuckle, one filled less with animosity towards Jean than simply towards all the world, and then turns to stride on down the path and leave the ducks behind.
Curiosity informs Politeness that they really -ought- to say something, the man is clearly in pain. But not, alas, before Ryan has already turned to leave. Thus, it's a tumbled little burst of words that reaches him, as Jean tries to get something out before he's gone away, and succeeds primarily in being half-intelligible. "If there's something I can help you with--" But then, head already turning to shield herself from predicted scorn, Jean silences and tosses more lettuce to the ducks.
The only reply to Jean is another burst of joyless laughter, but one that's cut off suddenly as Rocket wheels around to spot his dad and runs to him on the path. "Dad! Monster!" the boy shrieks out, giggling through his words. Apparently Grandpa is the monster today, lumbering up after Rocket with hands outstretched and a roar. And then there is simply nothing for Ryan to do but pick up Rocket and swing him into a piggyback and run for the park (away from Monster and Jean alike) at a full-on clip.
Can Ryan?
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Saturday, October 11, 2008, 8:04 PM
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Far to the west, the lights of Las Vegas cast a bloody glow to the heavens, reflecting off the clouds crowded on the horizon. Dark fingers inch across the sky, occluding the stars. There's not a hint of city to be seen beyond that false conflagration: it is all quiet roads and wilderness.
Here, off the highway and away from the main roads, an overlarge SUV rumbles down a poorly repaired road. Decanted from the X-Jet and jammed into seats, the six adults -- four X-Men, one billionaire, one bodyguard -- make for a quite crowded debriefing. Now, several hours into a drive interrupted by only /one/ potty break, Stark slouches over a laptop trailing an extraordinary number of gadgets and add-ons. He kicks the seat in front of him. "Slow down," he instructs Hogan in a low voice. "All right. Straight northeast. About three hundred meters. That's where the Sentinel armor is, at least. They had a loosely guarded perimeter at about one hundred meters, before. They were, at one point, quite heavily armed."
Almost before the vehicle is fully-stopped, the front passenger door is opened and Scott has tumbled out. He spins and watches the rest spill out like a leather-fetish clowncar. "We need to know their current defensive arrangements. It's likely they may have changed things up since you left," Scott says, not managing to keep the slight sneer out of his voice. "Jean, what do you sense? Storm, think you can give us some natural cover?" He starts stalking away, bleeding tension through action.
Logan's boots crunch dirt and sand as he joins the others, not quite yet making stealth a priority. "What'dy'a mean by 'Quite Heavy', Bub?" he asks, twitching his head to stark as he steps up behind Scott.
Storm's eyes film over white with the slight inclination of her head. "It's dry out here," she says, her voice pitched low. The cloud cover draws thicker overhead, further darkening the sky. She spreads her hands and strides away from the SUV with the others, the threat of direr weather ripples through their shape. Teasing fingers of fog arise in a slow, reluctant unfurling to cool their foreheads with the light kiss of moisture. "So, how /natural/ it is...."
"Flash floods," Jean murmurs, with the absent tone common to Jean Greys when they are following orders and scanning for hostile minds. "Air masses hit the mountains, sudden rain..." This bit of scholarly musing is undercut somewhat by the citation of "I saw it on an episode of CSI... I think I have something," she concludes, in a different tone of voice.
"Better than a sandstorm, I guess," Scott replies as he shifts uncomfortably in his kevlar ribbed suit at the thought of sand in his britches. "Specifics," he barks, albeit quietly. "I need a direction."
With a quiet little snikt, Stark closes his laptop, and glances after Logan. "Oh, you know: missiles, RPGs. Most of that should be taken care of, but in case of surprises--." He leans out the open window, glancing after them, and tosses an oblong plastic case after Logan. Catch? The tiniest hint of a glow lights his throat in the dark, shining from the parted collar of his shirt. He looks in poor health. Good thing there are all these healthy, strapping leather-fetishists.
Jean has many somethings: angry minds light up her thoughts, outnumbering the quartet by 2 to 1. They are unguarded, and don't seem aware of the SUV's approach quite yet.
"Two to one odds," Jean reports, along with general locations that we will assume she picks up and passes along. A darkly amused smile blossoms as she delves a little deeper into highly-icky brains. "They haven't tripped to us yet. And one of them has a very full bladder." Switching from observation to a little subtle influence, Jean pokes at that one. Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go.
Scott shifts again, his expression momentarily nakedly dismayed. Sand and leather. Oooow. At Jean's report, however, he returns to tactical status and quickly trips through approach vectors and likely response. "Ok, let's go," he orders and heads int eh direction of the least perimeter cover. Each member of the team has their particular orders, suited to their powers.
Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now! The one with the full bladder is, luckily enough, on perimeter duty. He is not the one closest to them, however. The angles of his vision indicate that he is some distance to the north. He does his business behind a rock. We'll give him the privacy of it, I think.
Minds opening beneath the delve of Jean's telepathy, here and there, she gathers other details: two trucks, one with a crude sort of mounted weaponry, and the other with the Sentinel armor strapped in back. One of the men is working on it, but he's way out of his league, and frustrated. They've stopped for the night, headed toward greater shelter after their last camp was so rudely razed.
"Two to one?" Logan asks Jean as he rolls his head to pop the bones in his neck, a distinctive metallic set of 'clings' ringing out soft. His voice isn't intimidated at all... even... excited. The slightly disturbing grin that forms on his lips seconds the emotion. His jog picks up behind Scott, but the closer they get, the more he fans out to the side, "Not gonna give me a lecture if I break a few eggs this time, are ya Slim?" the question is asked, though an answer is not waited for. Snikt.
"We're here to put them out of commission, not to turn it into a slaughterhouse. Let's get in and do our job," Scott retorts, then stops, then adds, "I'll save the lecture for tomorrow at least." The lights of the compound grow brighter. "Going to coms." He presses the button at his ear and speaks into it. "Let's shake 'em up."
"One is now literally able to be caught with his pants down," Jean supplies, still absent, but with a glimmer of something dark and live and lovely in her voice. "Closer one on the perimeter is still up, still unawares. I could probably drop him from this range," she allows. "But it will probably attract notice." One hand slips down after checking on her comm earbud, resting lightly against the buckle of her seatbelt.
Not so much a compound. More a trailer, with tents pitched behind. What light they can spare has been set up to face the growing darkness of evening. For now, people sit around in small groups, chatting. Guns are close at hand.
The rolling mist is an imperfect screen, the thin, dry air not supportive of anything like a thick, seaborne fog. In the dark and the sand, though, it lends an eerie air to their advance: ghosts in leather and kevlar, with Nature on their side. All Storm has to say is a low, almost amused, "In we go." The spark of anticipation that runs her energy high just lends more fleetness to her feet. The piled clouds that ripple through the dark sky above are beginning to shape themselves, in a leisurely way, into more characteristic thunderheads. Rain is rare in the desert, but when it comes, it can be torrentous.
Jean did not actually bring the seatbelt like a lucky charm. Her player is just a moron.
Taking a knee, Logan sets the case down on the ground, popping its latch with hands careful not let the protruding claws destroy the poor thing. "If this is Stark's dry cleaning..." he mumbles to himself, but loud enough for the companions to hear.
Stark is in ur channel, listening to ur comchatter: "That's not dry cleaning," he breaks in, surprise guest. "Prototype EMP-bomb. It has about a fifty meter radius, so try not to drop it until you are at least that far away from the SUV. Not sure if you'll need it. Best to be prepared."
Scott glances over at the kneeling Logan and his new toy and grunts in response. "Not a bad way to shake 'em up," he mutters. "Get into position with that thing. We can deploy it first. That ought to stall out the suit, yeah? Get it down, take it out, then turn out attention to the rest of Mr. Stark's.... belongings."
You wish, Scott. You wish.
:(
>:)
"Cyclops, do I have a go-ahead to try for that perimeter guard?" wonders Jean across the comm, eyebrows lifting unseen in the mist at Stark's newest toy, but her own interests (And that of a certain ride-along birdie) focused squarely on the minds that her mental fingers are still touching. Because she is almost thirty eight, she does not bounce on her toes while asking.
The perimeter guard in question is slightly baffled by the roll of mist along the ground. He glances up toward the clouds, building up and up on the horizon. His thoughts are gloomy, fixed entirely on the lack of waterproofing in his tent.
As for the other guard, he's still peeing. Possibly he is a mutant with a really big bladder.
"If you can do it quietly. Otherwise, hold until the EMP is released. Got it, Logan?"
"Got it, bub." Logan answers, latching the top and grabbing up the precious cargo. "Heading around." And so he does, staying low to the ground, a beast stalking in the mists. A few moments later, the case (with timer set) is tossed into the middle of the camp. Its a short timer. The case now sports a smiley face in its top, scratched into it with loving care.
A yelp rises as the case thumps onto the ground near a woman distributing granola bars. She leans over, looking at the top of the case with a baffled expression. "Hey," she calls outwards. "What's this, E--." About that time, with a muffled crack that causes the plastic to shatter, the bomb goes off. In terms of explosive power, it is negligible. The plastic shrapnel causes a few scrapes in the woman right above it, but the cylinder within remains largely confined by the packaging. In terms of effect and reaction, however, it causes quite a stir. The lights go out, and a sudden shout lifts from the camp. A dim, faded twilight illuminates silhouettes, and little else. With a sharp crack, one person lifts a gun to fire into the dark. They are facing the wrong way.
"I can do quiet," Jean assures, with a remarkably unpleasant smile in the darkness as she studies the mind spread out before her. Oh, what to do, what to do? Whispered suggestions from her back brain about aneurysms are shot down, as is an amusing scheme involving the Macarena. Telepathy unfurls itself fully, spared pain by the sparse population of the wild desert, and then falls back on a familiar standby. Hello, thalamus! Hellow reticular activating system! Feeling depressed? Feeling sleepy? Feeling-- Off goes the EMP. In the darkness, Jean looks equal parts grumpy and impressed.
"Go!" The single command is sharp and forceful, and Scott takes off running, his hand to the control of his visor, ready to dial it narrow or wide as needed. The tently outskirts are scanned for signs of habitation as he come sup on them.
Two tents: a large blob boils out of the tent to the right, while a smaller, spindly collection of limbs stumbles from the left. What light there is from above glints off the shine of metal, everywhere. Guns, guns, guns! A sharp spit of bullets of cracks in the direction of Jean, Scott, and Storm. The two trucks are off to the side of the trailer, one partially obscured, half behind it. "What's going on?" is a common call.
The air is thick, heavy with the threat of a storm about to break. The thunderhead has eaten the starlight and moonlight, leaving the whole world dark in the absence of the light. In the darkness, Storm smiles. Her eyes are filmed over white again, this time as she holds the threatening cloud in abeyance from its burst. Lightning streaks in a sudden flash, centered in the midst of their numbers for minimum targetic accuracy but maximum human chaos. As she closes her hand into a fist, the rain begins to fall, and thunder's sleepy roar follows the blaze of electricity.
Scott dials his visor to narrow and quick blasts of ruby light streak through the dark to collapse the tent beams. The material flutters down in thick, tangling waves as another blast, wider this time, strikes the ground near the forms that had already escaped the tents.
The big blob, already having difficulty as two fought though through a space reserved for about one-half, gets trapped in a tangle of canvas. Curses are Scott's reward. The woman who had been earlier distributing granola bars swaps her box for a semi-automatic, and barely in time: Scott's second shot strikes where the gun had been resting, sending up a cloud of debris which turns her shot wild, though she tries to shoot. She is not the only one. Targets picked in lightning are realigned in the brief red glare. Uh oh: three people are shooting at Scott and Storm, and gee, who could possibly stop those bullets?
Bullets this way please! Logan's battle cry roars out as he quite literally attempts to draw fire. He charges in with all the subtlety of a a stampede of elephants, claws and arms fanned out behind him. The truck is given a worried look... but there is a little bit in his way before he can make it to that tasty target. He begins to bear down on the nearest Friendly face he can get to.
Dull in comparison to the argent strike of the lightning bolt, the orange and red flickers of false flame follow in its wake, crackling and sparking around Jean as she opts to trust in bad aim and kevlar body armour rather than the high physical toll of a telekinetic shield. This does not mean the guns are left alone. Indeed, the nearest to her is jerked from its owners hands, turned around, and pointed back at him. Unlike Magneto, however, the Phoenix's object lesson seems to be to take it and slowly disassemble it before his eyes as a voice finds his mind. << Hello, little man. >>
A man scrambling to get out the front door of the trailer is the first to meet Logan. He barely has time to go, "Hol--" before he trips backwards off the steps an instant before Logan can slam into him. His gun goes flying. The man behind him, however, has a firmer grip, and cracks a shot at Logan from point-blank range.
Not sure, but Scott hits the dirt to avoid as many of them as he can. That just lowers the level of his blasts. "Jean!! Can you hurry it up a little?" he hollers into his com.
Bad aim? Alas. No. Among these men and women are those who have trained as hard in their own way as the X-Men, prepared to fight for the purity and safety of the human race. As Jean makes so /nice/ a target of herself, more and more of the gunfire turns in her direction. Ms. Granola and the other three aim their full fire at the Phoenix -- and the one of the three finds his gun yanked from his hands. He yelps, flattening. << Go away go away go away go away. >>
Scott's fall is assumed a victory -- but the only bullet to score on him rips across his upper arm, rather than putting him out of commission.
The wind factor is picking up, as well; the weather conditions are merciless to those who would fire in the dark. Storm's eyes are fully white, and her winds splatter rain in multiple directions. While the worst of the wind blows and batters at her targets, there is no completeness in discerning between friend and foe. The forces of nature are untoward and uncooperative servants. Storm drops into a crouch to better avoid the bullets and the worst of her own medicine, into the thickness of the unfaded mist. Hard packed sand is moistening, shifting and becoming less steady under the wet onslaught from the sky. Wind shrieks.
The Friend's bullet manages to find a neat home for itself deep inside Logan's ribcage, metal clanking against metal as a fine mist of blood sprays out signaling a successful hit. Logan reals back with a "Rahhh..!" as he winces in pain shrinks back.
Scott jerks at the contact, and /his/ mind flares red pain as his hair whips about wildly in the dark. But he rises to one knee in the howling storm, his uninjured arm used to steady him before going to his visor. Red light battles the camp lights for illumination, and for a moment, it wins, bathing everything in pinkish tones. The concussive force streaks across the ground to hit the largest target around--the trailer, and anything or anyone in it's path is slammed out of the way.
Well. That's annoying. One small strand of thought reflects that she really ought to see if there's some way to get the showy flickering fire thing under control, sped with red-tinged alarm. The rest of Jean's mind is devoted to calling up the disdained telekinetic shield, thrown up and out at the speed of thought. Refinements come at a similar pace, as kevlar takes a direct hit to the torso, dropping her with a sound more grunt that shriek as the force of the bullet carries on where the thing itself does not. The shield changes, turning from something tight enough to stop bullets into a wall looser, wider, and moving fast as it blasts unseen into the shooters. Hope you didn't need those ribs intact!
The angle of Scott's blast knocks two men near the tents flat on their ass, while the one in the doorway who had shot at Logan suddenly finds himself pinwheeling backwards. His footing goes unsteady as the entire trailer rocks with a deep metal groan. Somewhere, a great many dishes break as the trailer tips off a non-standard prop to fall heavily at a skewed angle. A trunk gets crunched.
Oh, and by the way: it also hits Logan, mushing him up against the side of the trailer; since he was so close, though, it is just insult on injury, rather than injury on injury on injury.
Jean's shield takes care of quite a few bullets, which continue to pour upon her. The wide shove of telekinesis knocks the remainder before the trailer onto their backs -- but one smartass goes sniping at ankles. Meanwhile, there's some heavy clanking from the direction of one of the trucks.
"Spread out! Find the suit!" Scott barks, climbing slowly to his feet, his hand wrapped around his upper bicep. The clanking draws his attention and he narrows his eyes to squint in that direction. Not... that anyone /sees/ the expression behind his visor.
"Damnit, Slim!" Logan grunts out as he winces in further, but rather familiar, pain. "You did that on purpose!" The accusation isn't /entirely/ serious. But he works through the pain, so the speak, by giving the nearest Friend in the pile a good old pat on the shoulder. And by pat, I mean a trio of claws through the shoulder blade. When he makes it up to his feet, though, since he's so close (Thanks Scott!) he makes his way to take a good look inside the trailer.
Her arrogant flex of might taking its toll on her acuity, Storm peers tensely into the black and uncertain mess of the unlit gale. With the flash of red light that is Scott's beam, she attempts to pick out a fresh target, but all is black and wet and howling again only too quickly. "I'm an easy shot if I'm airborne," she tells her comlink, "but I can't see my hand in front of my face."
"Nrgh," is Jean's answer. Product of Pony Club, she does in fact know what it feels like to be kicked in the stomach by a horse. The middle of a Nevada desert is not a place where she was hoping to revisit the sensation. She remains down, curling slightly around what will be an impressively bruised abdominal plate, before beginning a slow crawl out of the way of fire. Riled, she reaches for the next gun she can find that's still in action, and simply flings it off and away somewhere in the dark. And then on to the next...
"Fall back and get high enough to get out of range. Find the arsenal stacks," Scott tells Storm, though the unspoken undercurrent is, as always, take care of yourself. Logan earns little more than an unrepentant, boyish grin before he starts toward the truck. "Jean? Where are you?" he asks as he moves, trying to take advantage of what little cover there is in his approach.
The clanking clanks like ceramic -- /heavy/ ceramic. Two of the eight that Jean counted are not ... present. One is lost in the depths of the tipped-over trailer, which looks quite a mess inside, although there are no convenient piles of ceramic armor. Another is sprawled on the ground, shrieking after Wolverine's claws PATPAT. Four lie subdued by Scott and Jean -- and one by one, they raise protests to the loss of guns. Never fear, though! They can make due! A young man rises to leap at Scott in a tackle. He has the build of a linebacker. The other two? Who knows! CLANK CLANK!
The wind picks up again as Storm pushes to her knees, and then her feet. She leaps into the air and catches her own fall on a sudden gust of wind, slick sandy muck whipping away from her body as she darts upwards in an airborne pirouette. Where her eyes fail her and the wind tears at her body, shapes indistinct beneath her -- the heavy and bizarrely familiar clank of ceramic cuts through the shriek of the gale. In the dark, in the sky, Storm closes her eyes and points. The flash of lightning cracks open the black, blinding light and startling heat searing past human faces as the directed bolt lances toward where she heard the Sentinel.
"Bullet," Jean manages to convey. "Hit the chest plate of my armour." Succinctly, there is an "Ow. Fuck." to conclude this, as Jean attempts to crawl her way to cover, and an ambush for Sentinal drivers. "Need a moment to focus. Don't want to fry their brain."
Oh, look. There they are. Mr. Racehorse is helping the last figure slide into the Sentinel armor. They look pissed -- and then they look startled, frozen in the hot flash of lightning. Electricity crackles along the body of the truck, a smaller filament arching off the whole to strike at Racehorse and send him flat on his ass. That leaves the last, now wrapped in ceramic, seated on the bed of the truck. He has a big gun. He points it not at Ororo, but in the direction of Jean and Scott. He fires, but the shot goes wild in the uncertain light, with neither target conveniently lit up like a Christmas tree. Meanwhile, another of the flattened four rises to her knees, pulling a knife, and looking for a target.
OOF. Scott takes a faceplant and hits the ground in roll that immediately uses the attacker's momentum to flip him away. Scott rolls to his back and hits his visor, using the same wide beam to sweep outwards from him at an angle to catch his tackler scrambling back toward him. The force is enough to snap his head backwards with a force that is going to have him tying up the FoH's workman's comp adjusters for whiplash. For the moment, however, it knocks the breath clean out of him and bruises his throat so that breathing is painful. Storm's lightening flash is close and brilliant and /hot/. Fried ozone reeks around them. And then there is more /shooting/. Scott echoes Jean's fuck.
Ribs already having taken a battering care of Jean, Scott's attacker hits the ground hard, and is slow to recover after first being thrown and then being slammed again by the concussive blast. There's a faint whine lost in all the noise.
Jean has been -trying- to be gentle. She has been -trying- to avoid anything potentially lethal. But, dammit, they just won't lie -down-. Knife Chick catches Jean's mind, danger glinting like the blade in her hand, and recieves a sudden kick to electrical activity in all quarters of her brain, as seizures are less hazardous to others when the victim's not holding an unsafed gun. Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble goes the Jean, making for the nearest convenient wreckage to hide behind.
With visual senses at a disadvantage, Logan tries his best to rely on his hearing and nose to point him in the direction of the Anti-Mutant wonder machine, searching for its scent as the rain will allow. What scent is that? Considering the designer, Logan is betting on smug arrogance and liquor. Storm helps him draw the target with her blast. He makes his way over towards that technical abomination, his limp lessening with each step as his healing factor kicks in. "Alright, tincan, lets see what ya got." he taunts as he closes the distance.
Knife Chick lies down. Heavily, body locked into position with tremors running the length of her limbs. The knife falls from her hand -- but at least she doesn't fall on it. The nearest convenient wreckage for Jean proves to be one of the tents earlier brought down by Scott.
Opening her eyes with the groan of thunder, Storm lifts a hand to press against her ear as she circles above the camp in the black. "--ly long I can keep this up," her voice flickers through the com, cut by wind and rain. Wind hurtles at the truck she already fried, picking up speed and force in a blasting attack on, at least, balance.
Strangely enough, the scents of arrogance and liquor emanate behind the quartet, rather than anywhere around them, almost as if it is coming from the SUV. Blood and ozone and gunpowder obscure lesser scents. Logan's approach is greeted with gunfire. Seated in the bed of the truck, the suited man steadies the automobile so that it slides, rather than tip or roll. He is clearly not moving anywhere, but the armor just as clearly serves as protection, so that he can unload on Logan at will. He does so.
Jean will take a downed tent. After a quick mental sweep to be sure that it's an empty fallen tent, Jean's wavering focus, spiked liberally with knotted red aches and pains from her gut, centers itself on the man in the armour. This would be a bad victim to send into seizures, one imagines. << That. >> she informs him quietly, a little distracting tickle beneath the skull as telepahty worms deeper, << Is my boyfriend you're shooting at. That's the sort of thing that really annoys me. >>
Scott's bounces against the ground and lays there for a moment while he gets his own breath back. The rat a tat tat of the gun pulls his attention back to the fight, and conveniently provides a target. "Got a fix," he announces needlessly into the com, then focuses on the suit. The optic blast that he then releases is a not so subtle reminder why he holds his own in the offensive category. It hits the suit with enough force to push it out of the truck bed and out into the desert, streaming little pieces of plastic and ceramic as it goes.
Loathing lashes at Jean, revulsion thrown up against the barest touch of telepathy. Hatred seeeeethes -- and then blanks entirely into an, << Oh, /fu--/ >> as Scott's blast lands. Pain soon overwhelms surprise. Thrown from the truck, ceramic cracks at the point where the blast impacted, breaking off in jagged shards. The shooting stops. Surely, Scott has redeemed himself from throwing Logan into the trailer.
Surely!
"Oh-- Christ-- Aaaaurgh" says the comm in Jean's voice, gasping with audible pain. Her already-riled midsection makes another complaint, as retching sounds transmit lovingly to Scott's ear.
Logan has to dance back his charge as the gunfire BIG GUNFIRE is pointed in his direction. He doesn't want to find out how much it takes to heal from /that./ When Scott's beam sends his target EVEN FURTHER away from him, the angry growl in his lips isn't directed entirely at the FoH. That com chatter doesn't only reach Scott's ears, and Logan screams out "Jean!" before a fit of anger drives him to downed robot, Claws slashing widely as he begins to quite literally tear it apart.
Scott digs the com out of his ear. Ew. But just for a minute! He goes back on line with the others. "Status! Report!" Logan just gets blinked at.
That's not Jean. It's a man, groaning in pain, trapped in a broken wreck of metal and ceramic. There's little protection offered after Scott's blast; the slash of claws is just as likely to catch flesh as tear apart what remains of the suit's form.
Status: Ooog. Jean spits violently into the sand by the collapsed tent, trying to purge the bile and revisited in-flight snacks from her mouth. "I was in contact with his mind when you hit him!" Team discipline keeps her from appending an aggrieved epithet or two.
The wind bears Storm in a slow circle to the ground, and she touches down lightly. Blinking back vertigo as she presses her palms to either temple, she looks around in the dark. "Aground. Unhurt," she snaps back to her com, edgy from tension.
"Sorry." The word really isn't apologetic. Scott slowly clambers back to his feet for the /second/ time, though this time he keeps a lookout for anymore ninja tacklers. "Did you see any additional Stark armanents?" he asks of Sotrm, while still keeping a wary eye on Logan. It... might not be a good idea to interrupt him at the moment.
As seizures fade, the woman with the knife lapses into unconsciousness. She and SuitMan are out; Racehorse is out. Football is out. PATPAT is out. The man from the trailer is ... /climbing/ out. Emerging from the side through what had previously been the front door, he shoots rather wildly into the night. Bang, bang!
"Ought to just set the whole place on fire..." Ruffled Jean is Ruffled. And has puke breath.
"I couldn't see much, Cyclops--" But whatever she is saying interrupted by gunfire, Storm snaps alert again. A fresh gust of wind blasts toward the wildly firing man, following her orientation on the trailer. The blast is hardly strong enough to roll it over on top of him, though. She is tiring!
Logan digs into flesh three times before the sensation finally manages to get to his feral mind to quit gunning for blood. The flailing slows down... and eventually stops, Logan looms over the heap as deep exhausted breaths heave in and out.
Of the six thus accounted for, it leaves the total still two shy of eight. And where /are/ they? They were here just a minute ago! In the flickering light, they are hard to find.
Jean is likewise sputtering and stuttering, head still ringing from the ill-timed contact and gut still burning with a spreading pain. Still, there's a slightly astringent "I'm going to do a head count, please don't shoot anyone." before she again tries to scan the area. Helloooo? Please show up so my teammates can give you a world of pain.
"Shit!" Then man expels from the Trailer as he ducks back down inside it from his makeshift perch, evil weather is very very bad. When he comes back up, though, his gun comes back up at the ready, and this time with a target to take aim at! Pulling his red bandanna down, Frank braces the butt of his AK, and fires three rounds in Storm's direction.
Of the pair unaccounted for, one is hiding beneath the tent that Jean has been using as shelter. He is just on the other side, pulling his limbs in just in case he gets mutie vomit leaking like acid through the canvas. The other is crawling, low to the ground and thoughts filled with pain, in search of a gun.
Scott glances over the ground, mentally tallying up the numbers and nodding as Jean volunteers to do a headcount. Oh, hey there... One of the missing is crawling toward the perimeter, trying to escape into the darkness or find a gun. Whichever comes first! "Wolveri--" The fresh eruption of gunfire spooks Scott in Storm's direction to tackle her out of the way.
Concentrating on wielding rain-filled wind, it is seconds too late for Storm to do much about the gunman -- while the trailer creaks and yaws under the bracing fury of the storm, its mistress hurtles to the ground, thunking heavily into the slick mud with bruising force under the weight of her leader.
Jean's vomit is happily free of any powers of its own. It is a little stinky, though. She pokes the tent-hider in the brain, just like Perimeter Sentry, if with a little less finesse.
Scott rolls off Storm and looks back to the now toppled trailer man, then back out toward the crawling one. /He/ gets to eat dirt as Scott hits the back of his head with concussive force. Enough to concuss him.
Being spared the vileness of telepathic vomit is a small comfort when /not/ spared the vileness of telepathic poke. Out he goes, perhaps the happiest of his Friends as he yet thinks he is hiding. The crawling one? Not so happy. He whomps into the dirt with a starburst of pain, and goes quiet, leaving Frank alone to Represent.
Bang bang, bang bang bang, bang bang bang, bang bang... click. Click. Click click click click. "Arrh!" Frank is very not happy now that his AK has run out of bullets. "Damn Gene freaks! You godless animals. Why won't you just get put down like the curs you are?!" He pulls out his trusty revolver as he clambers his way out of the trailer pointing it squarely at Jean. Frustration in his face of desperate defeat. "Tell me why the hell you deserve to live?!"
Shaking her head dizzily, Storm pushes herself to her hands and knees, and squints at the trailer. As her gaze narrows, she reaches past the ordinarily limits of her strength, pulling from her reserves in a thrum of adrenaline and anger and ache-- But with the revolver aimed squarely at Jean, if she misses by a fraction of a centimeter, he will probably shoot in panic at point blank range. She pushes herself in a slow, straggling drag to her feet, and says nothing.
"Because I'm not like you." The words are quiet ones, delivered with green eyes wide and pupils dilated in the darkness, as Jean makes no move to rise or cringe away from the lone dark eye of the gun barrel. One hand is resting protectively across her much-abused belly, and her breath is coming in shallow pants. Too spent to shield herself, she closes her eyes, and *reaches*, feeling for the chamber, the firing pin, the pregnant density of the bullets. The tiniest little *push* of telekinesis follows, jamming the parts together as Jean continues to pant.
Scott pushes up on his elbow to watch the exchange, watch Frank, watch Jean. Watch him not interfering with a blast this time!
Frank's finger tenses as he pulls the trigger... or tries to. It doesn't budge. He pulls it again. Nothing. The frustration in his face boils over, and he simply throws the gun at Jean, though with his emotions pushed this far, the throw goes wide and sails safely past her. "No! Do you have any idea how many of you mutts I've put to sleep? The work I've done for my race?!" Having gone through two weapons already, he slips his knife out from behind his back. But he is a man beaten, holding it half-hearted in his hand at best. "You don't get to end it. You don't have the right to end it."
Jean relaxes just slightly as the gun jams, inhaling a long breath through her nose, and leaning back against the side of the collapsed tent, and the thoughtfully-provided FoH-shaped backrest within it. "Have you ever," she wonders, "Stopped to take a poll and see if your race wanted it?" << Gun's jammed. >> is reported helpfully to the others.
Her low voice hoarse and her body stiff-framed and sore, Ororo snarls, "Small, stupid man." Moving at a dignified partial stagger, she starts across the camp. The rain is already petering out, and she nudges it along this course.
Jean sweeps in her own way, and reports "No more active hostiles." It's not very graceful, the lurching that's involved in getting herself back up on her feet, and there's a certain amount of bracing herself against the zonked-out tent dweller, but up she gets, and promptly claims the nearest friendly arm to lean on. "All in favour of stealing Stark's alcohol?" she wonders, making sure to use the comm channel.
"Hey," Stark chides, having otherwise maintained a wise radio silence rather than interrupt the team in action. "So much for /sharing/."
"I will gladly share," Storm murmurs into her com. She is distracted, coming down from adrenaline and excessive power expenditure. "But the shower is all mine."
The camp is also clear of Stark weaponry. Because Scott has deemed it so. It takes him a bit longer to clamber down, but when he does, he's a farily reliable arm to lean upon. As long as it's not /that/ one, ow! "Stay focused. We don't want tails," he mutters, still on task.
"My mouth tastes like death," Jean informs the comm, taking a moment to peer fussily at Scott's /that/ arm. "Have something with amaretto waiting for me, Stark, and you can have the rest." Peering is replaced by cautious poking, and the murmur of "There should be room enough in Stark's boat for me to look at that... but someone else is going to be flying us home."
"Hell yeah." Logan answers at the prospect of alcohol to numb the sensations. Having caught his breath, he paces back to the group a pathetic sight. Black leather now decorated with blood (some of it his.), sand, ash, trailer, and ceramic powder, his breath is still heavy and his look for friendly faces (lowercase 'f'.) His claws retract and he asks the only question that comes to mind. "Everyone alright?"
"Fine." The short response comes automatically, followed by an equally brisk, "I'll take care of that, Cyclops." Storm is half-stalking, half-stumbling her way back to the SUV now -- wet hair silvery flat against her head and neck and shoulders, long since ripped free of its constraints. To the com, she clips out, "If we're clear, everyone return to the transport. I will cover our tracks."
Everyone returns to the transport.
Stark is stretched across the seat, possibly playing Tetris on his phone as the group approaches. Possibly not, though. Surely he is doing something busy and important. He straightens at word from Hogan, casting an appraising glance over the four mutants. "No amaretto here. Just a flask of Scotch." He does, however, offer it as they clamber or collapse in. "I'll place a call, get someone out here to take people in. The suit is scrap, right? See anything else?"
"We got it," Scott says shortly, standing outside the SUV until the others have climbed in. He doesn't spare a glance for Stark, but instead watches for Storm.
"Blessings upon you, sir," says Jean to Stark, taking him up on the offered flask after she settles herself with a ginger tenderness, and a hand going to her suit again. Mouth sluiced with a first sip, and eyes closing after a second, she hands it back again for redistribution. (She is nice enough to wipe it first.) Waiting for Scott to appear so that she can fuss over him, she takes a moment to experimentally unzip the front of her suit (There is a tank top beneath, shush.) and prod at her thoroughly cranky abdomen, where it appears she's been hit by a baseball at full force.
Storm swings up into the SUV, dripping mud all over the nice upholstery. Tucking herself into a corner nearest the window, she takes a nursing sip of the flask when it is offered, lashes falling low over her eyes as the pleasant burn sears through her blood. Once everyone is situated, she rests her head against the back of the seat and stares out the window into the night.
When everyone is in, and the SUV starts off and away, the wind behind it bites the dunes, and whips the sand into a frenzied, swirling blast: the last, natural chaos of a long and wearied battle, churning an erasure of telltale marks in desert sand and drying muck.
The X-Men and Stark take away the FoH's new toy. They are grumpy.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Monday, October 13, 2008, 5:42 PM
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=XS= Main Hallway - Lv 3 - Xavier's School
On the third floor of the mansion the main hallway narrows, branching off into two wings and up a short flight of stairs to an old door that looks to be the entrance to the attic. There are entrances to two large rooms here. The floor underfoot is still in its original state of boards, varnished and free of the runner carpeting of the lower floors, and the walls have been scraped free of layers of old wallpaper to be refinished with a pleasant pale green paint over smooth plaster.
[Exits : [T]he [E]levator, [V]isitors' [W]ing, [F]aculty [W]ing, [M]usic [R]oom, [A]rt [R]oom, and [T]he [A]ttic]
[Players : Scott ]
Hallways are places of passage, but rarely places of pause. Like all the other main hallways of the school proper, the third floor one has windows, and it appears that today is the day that they are finally granted a chance to fulfil their destiny. Thusly: one Jean Grey, one chair, one palm pilot being ignored, and one window being used to peer out across school grounds where leaves are just starting to turn to fall colours. She is positioned in an excellent location for talking to passerby.
She's waiting for him. Of course she is. Like she's been waiting all her life. Just like. Scott exits his room, dressed for the day in a thin sweater and jeans. He pushes the sleeves up on his muscular arms and turns to head for the elevator. Oh. Hello Jean. << ? >>
<< . >> Jean pairs acknowledgement with a wave of a hand towards a second chair with a view of the grounds, and favours him with a slight smile. Her posture is still just a little too careful, tender with a midsection that's blossoming into a startling array of bruise colours beneath the warm wine red wool of a much thicker sweater than Scott's. "I've been thinking," she begins.
Scott's injuries are safely wrapped beneath a bandage and hidden underneath the sleeve of a sweater in a color not too far off Jean's. Aren't they cute? He hesitates before accepting the chair and dropping into it stiffly, gripping the chair-arms and sitting steel-spined. "About what?"
Jean's eyes shift to take in the sleeve and what can be assumes to lie beneath it. She need not ask 'How's the arm?' when a well-practised lift of an eyebrow, and a tilt of a chin just so telegraph the question all the same. Eyes rising to meet his glasses, she hitches a shoulder a little, and the looks away to study the grounds, pensive but peaceful. "About all the people who don't have the school."
Scott pretends not to see the telegraphed question. He is leader! He is manly! He shows no weakness! He... looks out the window too. "We're doing the best we can," he replies in the tone of someone citing the rote of a well-worn argument.
"I think we could do more," Jean reflects, then lifts a hand in a gesture just as practised as the ones that have gon before. "We're doing the best we can, here at the school, but what about the people who aren't teenagers? And what about the people who want to help, but aren't teachers?"
Scott unbends a little and leans back in his chair. He rests his ankle on his knee and folds his arms, carefully avoiding the injury site. "I'm listening."
"It was actually a talk with Tim that gave me the start of the idea," Jean admits, eyes drawn back to studying Scott's sleeve the second he shows signs of taking care to avoid it. (Telepath, Doctor or Ex-Girlfriend? Who knows?) "But I bet we could try something in the City. Like my clinic," she muses. "Or like the Sanctuary. Or... something. Some sort of safe space where people who either don't need or can't fit into the full resources of the school could get some guidance. Or give it."
"Someplace public makes it a target," Scott points out, though more thoughtfully than gruff. "Who'd run it? Who'd fund it?"
"We're a target here," Jean points out, with a tip of a chin.
"We also spend obscene amounts of money to keep it secure," he shoots back.
"Because it's occupied 24/7, in an area where police response is sorely limited, and we also happen to be running a covert paramilitary strike force," Jean ticks off on her fingertips. "We'd need better security than Sanctuary had, that's for sure, but nobody's shut down Purgatory yet."
"And you think /they/ aren't running a security grid?" Scott shakes his head and shifts. "I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, Jean. I'm just saying that there's stuff you've got to consider." He points out the window. "They hate us, out there. We can do all we can to make them see they're wrong, but I don't want us to be blind either."
"So we figure out what to consider. God, Scott, I'm not going to run out there and sign a blank cheque for the empty warehouse next to an FoH bar," Sudden in her moods, Jean bristles, the window's pleasant view abandoned in favour of crossing her arms over her chest and glowering briefly at Scott's... shoe. "I've been up to my elbows repairing students and strangers alike after they've run into the haters. I -know- it's not going to be easy."
Scott leans forward and drops his foot back to the floor so both knees are cleared for his elbows. He reaches for her hand, worming past her defensive arm-cross to capture it. "Hey. I want to help, ok?"
The wild Jean is not so easily soothed. She now switches to glowering at his hand as it captures hers, for all there's an almost reflexive squeeze of her fingers against his. "Sorry," is murmured, still a touch grumpily.
"So. How about you tell me what you /have/ come up with...?"
"Well, first of all, we study Worthington House and the Sanctuary, analyze the failure points to better avoid them," Jean begins, taking back her hand in order to gesture with it as the bristling disappears as swiftly as it had come. "Location will be a big thing. Although it will eventually draw troublesome sorts, starting in the right neighbourhood--" And so it continues, Jean interspersing hopeful burbling with prodding Mr. Tactics for analysis.
Jean and Scott communicate and miscommunicate, and eventually start to Plan.