2014.05.30 - Distilled Anarchy: Part II

"You can play around all you want, but don't die. This guy's one step below Omega, and of the physical sort. Don't underestimate him. ...Something's suspicious. Don't you find it a little odd a guy named Nails seems to have a power that consists of throwing pointed pieces of metal at people?" Stil, he's got his own matters to deal with. And that involves forcing the suited man to the ground, a flash of psychic power causing the second criminal to collapse with eyes rolled back. Both hands grasp the head of the target, finding him to resist far more than expected in the first ripple of psychic power. "...Ngh." If he pushes too hard, he'll break this one. Like an egg, his thoughts will be runny and muddled. Oh, well. Skrull are a dime a dozen, right? Not really, but when he's trying to probe this deep in an unwilling mind, he'd prefer to not have it interrupted.
After a few minutes, what happens might not be exactly what Xavin expected. There's a sudden eruption as a meter-sized hole bursts through the wall, and a foot-long, twisted hunk of metal is launched towards his midsection. It seems that standing out in the open in such a fashion was under the assumption that Nails was going to kool-aid man his way back within the facility, instead of playing it more cool. But beneath it all, his brutality is professional, or he would not be so high in the echelons of this twisted organization.
"Where the hell is the boss?!" he growls, glancing up towards the ascended platform, where the shadow of Cable is barely visible; hand opening as another long metal bit rips out. The once-Aryan is now dark-colored with pebbled skin, upper body built like a monolith, nearly seven and a half feet. Much like the rocky form that Xavin is capable of using. From the twitches of his nose, it seems he might be holding some manner of feral benefits as well, which might explain how he was able to aim such a sudden shot without coming into direct sight.
Small fry. A professional gets rid of the small fry first. "Look at me!" he growls. "And tell me mutants aren't monsters. I'm standing as living proof... and revile every second my pure body is tainted by this strength. And you... a base doppleganger? What world is safe, when you could be anyone you want and go anywhere you want?! There's two options... try to kill every mutant... or just get the world to kill all of them FOR us...!!"
Smile or no, 'play' is the last thing on Xavin's mind as he bounces a small globe of fire from hand to hand, watches the skies, and paces. The pain suffered at Nails' hands is a distant memory, without even scars to show for it, thanks to Greymalkin's facilities; the wound to his pride still lingers however, and as tactically suspect as his plan of waiting out in the open for the enemy to find him may be, the lull just gives him time to reflect on the storage facility--to let the anger and hatred he'd been holding onto since that night boil back to the surface after weeks of having to set them aside.
Nails' first strike rips through his spiteful meditations just as readily as it does the laboratory wall and sends the Skrull rocketing into the air to avoid it; the projectile sends momentary whorls through the fire wreathing trailing from his body as he ascends and it misses him by inches. He turns quickly in the air until the big, black, Aryan monster is spotted, and after hurling the juggled fireball in his direction, Xavin snarls, "He had an appointment of his own to tend to, very last minute; I wouldn't worry about him, though. Yours is with me."
The warehouse is already in bad shape; setting the whole place on fire with Cable and their source inside is a gamble that he's not quite willing to resort to just yet, so instead of just looking at the Aryan, he endeavours to work his way towards the ground in the most circuitous, erratic fashion that he can manage as Nails speaks, hoping to make himself a difficult target for further projectiles.
"When did your mutant gifts of tortuing and murdering anyone who doesn't suit your version of the world first manifest?!" Xavin snaps over the roar of his own jetstream. "As if something as unreliable as a human body could ever be the last word on the worth of a sentient being; when that poison leaves your 'pure' body, and you return to your life of exploitation, will you be a saint again?"
Although he's still ways off of the ground at that point, the fire raging around Xavin is extinguished all at once then, leaving him in what seems to be an uncontrolled free-fall until a series of rocky orange plates begin emerging from his skin, tearing through the dark-toned, X-emblazoned uniform he's still wearing until there's none of it left below the knee. He lands a few feet from Nails with a reveberant *THOOM*, then, and without pausing to get his bearings, charges to try and punctuate his question with a right cross powerful enough to shatter steel.
"Hah. You?" Nails glaces at the flames trailing behind, with an utter lack of fear. "Your little pyromania isn't going to stop me, monster." he growls out. Both hands now wield one of the long, dense metal rods, each tipped with a dull point that has still proven deathly effective with the huge power of the rage-driven man, able to send it through reinforced concrete and metal sheet with ease. "My father, and his father before him, dedicated themselves to erasing the weak genes... the monsters, that taint the pure blue-blood of true, superior humans. You've the audacity to call YOURSELVES Homo Superior... when you're nothing but abberants. As likely to be pus-oozing filth as inhuman dictators. You, and all your kin... I'll kill you all...!" Jagged teeth clench together at the apex of his speech.
Twice more he hurls his weapons, but such is not the reckless, simple power of a brute. There's precision behind them, following through in those terrific launches that are fast as an eyeblink. It would take genuine, intense evasion to fully bypass them, although his hands are emptied at the end once more.
"I'm no saint. I'm a martyr. A blood martyr, dirtying my hands so the rest of the world need not live in fear. Fear of the polluted, the unnatural. I agree with the Imperator on one thing... we're two separate paths. And only one is going to survive dominant!!" He's obviously not put together Xavin's sort of a hermaphrodite alien, but that's likely to scarcely chance the cadence of his spiel. "I've been fighting to survive since I was 14. Killing when I had to. What are you, soft little man?!" A sick, organic rip as two more metal rods manifest through massive forearms. "I'll gladly drink the devil's essence to erase one of you... a sin cured by a blessing...!!"
But when a heavy stone form lands instead, there's a look of surprise. The first blow is intercepted, but plows past craggy skin, heard breaking bone beneath in a splash of purplish blood anything but the purity he claims. His grown bio-organic rod clatters to the floor. There's a growl of pain, but sliding forward, his free hand /lashes/ upwards in a twisting motion, aiming to strike with that pointed rod clasped in his other. Xavin would be unhappy to find he's the strength to get through that rocky hide all the way down to the hilt, even if the MGH-empowered brute's defenses are not up to snuff.
Avoiding the first rod wasn't so bad; it was just a matter of spiralling around it and trying to keep an eye out for the second one. Still plenty stressful, to be sure - one slip would've been disastrous - but it's the sort of thing he was drilled for.
Which was why a loud, Skrull swear word erupted from his lips when he came out of his barrel roll just in time for the second one to tear an ugly furrow along the right side of his belly; he should've been better than that. Did Nails throw it while he was turned over? Had he just determined that quickly how to compensate for Xavin's evasion? Was he just plain too fast, the second time around, for blazing speed and batle-trained reflexes to compensate?
Avoiding the first rod wasn't so bad; it was just a matter of spiralling around it and trying to keep an eye out for the second one. Still plenty stressful, to be sure - one slip would've been disastrous - but it's the sort of thing he was drilled for.
Which was why a loud, Skrull swear word erupted from his lips when he came out of his barrel roll just in time for the second one to tear an ugly furrow along the right side of his belly; he should've been better than that. Did Nails throw it while he was turned over? Had he just determined that quickly how to compensate for Xavin's evasion? Was he just plain too fast, the second time around, for blazing speed and battle-trained reflexes to compensate?
By the time Xavin hits the ground, a steady stream of green is pumping from his side, tracing the many branching paths between the orange plates surrounding his wound as it flows towards the ground, and the questions threatening to pull him away from focusing fully on his foe are cast from his thoughts. "A mutant," he hisses as he feels hardened flesh and bone give beneath his fist. "A soldier, a hero--"
The dropped rod doesn't quite hit the ground, but it does clang loudly against Xavin's craggy skin when he snatches the falling thing from the air. He continues rattling off, "--a friend, a plant, an alien--" as he swipes his procured weapon into the path of Nails', only to let out a wordless snarl of shock and pain when the blow nearly tears his arm from its socket. The rod goes flying and doesn't stop until after it crashes through one of the walls and embeds somewhere outside.
"Hhh--nngh--you--" he spits out as quickly backpedals from the Aryan, clutching his shoulder. The protective plates sink back into his body at a brisk pace, and after tacking on, "--Jamil--anything--everything--" the air around him ripples momentarily, and then he's gone.
"--nothing."
At that point, he holds his breath and and begins moving towards Nails' right. There's only so much that he can do in the middle of a face to face fight to move quickly enough that Nails can't just guess his position without giving himself away by sound, not to mention the blood dripping from his side; he'll take any chance to regroup that he can get, though, even if it's brief.
The massive crash seems to not have much of a better effect on Nails, who loses how own weapon; fingers breaking and forearm out of shape as it spirals up towards the ceiling, sinking in deep. But he simply laughs then, the reason becoming apparent as the dripping blood begins to lessen rapidly. His shattered arm is beginning to knit, fingers popping back into place one by one. Unsurprising; if he can generate multiple metal projectiles, he's liable to have some manner of regenerative factor. Yet something seems strange. He's sweating rather heavily, breath labored, and his movement becomes slower.
"FILTH!" he snarls, with desperation. Stepping forward, a swing of open fingers towards Xavin's face might be dangerous, but it's easier to evade this time around. During the brief reprieve, he desperately pulls out another three pills from his pants pocket, one dropping to the floor as the other two are swallowed. His eyes bulge out, but when teeth grit, blood seeps from the corners of his mouth. "Grk..."
With a wince of pain that seems unrelated to the damage inflicted -- in fact, it appears to no longer be visible, another wet-looking metal bolt is in his hand. Before he steps forward and swings, right where Xavin is attempting to slip by. Again, he seems slightly off-balance. Is it a side effect of his drug? A battle of attrition might be the best way to handle this beast, indeed. "Fight me... c-coward!!" Eyes are wild, crimson veins standing out more and more with each heartbeat.
Unseen above, Cable allows a grunt as he finally rips away the last layers of defense. This man had a powerful drug to block surface thoughts; his twitching form's probably not going to recover as a result. But finally, he's able to feast on the delicious secrets within. Realizing too late when the man swallows a pill himself. "You--" Is it MGH?!
No. Instantly he starts shuddering and spasming, white foam spurting from the corner of his mouth. Desperately Cable digs deep into the wild thoughts of his dying brain, before the suited man collapses to the ground face first, pool of bubbling blood forming beneath. Shit. He didn't expect that. But...
He walks over to the window, sparing a glance of his orange eye at the fight below. He considered Xavin well below Nails in a fight of brute strength. Is he dead? He hopes not. That would make him mildly unhappy. Definitely no sign of him...
He heals so fast; how many powers does he have? Is that what 'Omega' means? Xavin's eyes are as wide as saucers as he jerks away from Nails' wild swing and nearly stumbles to his knees doing it. He spent weeks preparing himself to avenge his execution and assuring himself that tonight would be different from the unit--but here he is.
The Brother from Hell is unstoppable, unmatchable, capable of absorbing everything that Xavin has managed to throw at him and laugh. And he has all the reason, all the time, all the midnight-black spikes to make him relive that night, magnified a dozen times over. If Cable were finished with the boss, he'd be here by now; there's no guarantee that whatever is causing the delay won't last until after Nails has managed to kill him for real.
It isn't until that swing goes unfollowed and Xavin has a moment to collect himself - to breathe, if only figuratively - that he starts to recognize the strain that Nails seems to be experiencing. His pupils dart all over the Aryan's body as he pieces it together, and then with a grimace, he lets go of his shoulder to grasp the air and twist. An invisible bubble pops into existence around Nails' head shortly after he swallows those pills, the edges pressing themselves against his neck to try and form a seal as the Skrull draws his fingers closer together.
It lasts for all of a few seconds before Nails not only deconstructs it, but forces Xavin into visibility by catching him flush in his previously uninjured side and sending him hurtling away at worrying speeds. The cut is deep, curving towards the wound on his other side, and while most of his intestines are currently tucked elsewhere, bits of them are visible just past it, amidst the green blood. He crashes into a heap of already smashed equipment, and while his first instinct is to get right back up again, he doesn't get much further than sitting up for a second before crumpling and having to prop himself up on his good elbow; his left arm just sprawls uselessly beside him, almost dangling from the rest of his body.
His next instinct is related to the first: fight. Even though Nails has more powers than he does, he has to fight--even if it kills him. Not because doing otherwise would dishonor his trainers, or Cable, or even to avenge himself, but because he and Nails don't both get to leave twice. Slicing his right hand wildly in front of himself, he summons a pair of invisible spikes just before his fingers that snap towards Nails' eyes as soon as they're fully formed. If he can't kill Nails this way, then at least he can slow him down--drag the fight out even longer while the drugs finish working him over.
The sudden bubble snaps shut at just the right time. Nails suddenly gags, and when it breaks free he doubles over and wretches up the pills he had attempted to swallow. He looks even worse for wear then, his body obviously starting to deteriorate. His regeneration continues, but in a disturbing manner; as if it's trying to repair his own body as it decays. His eyes are crimson now, and his movements grow increasingly sluggish. Although the moment Cable appears within the window, Nails' eyes twist. In a brutally swift motion he whirls into a perfect throw. The air cracks; it seems his strength remains true. The armored glass of the ascended office explodes, and there's a spray of metal-tainted blood as Cable is sent hurtling backwards. The wall behind him erupts backwards into splinters, and his heavy body can be heard crashing down on the miscellanious containers and cargo somewhere in the distance.
That probably doesn't do a whole lot to make Xavin feel better, depending on just how happy he was with his commanding officer. A moment later, he twists into two eruptions of blood. He howls, grasping at nothing, raking his face. It clots quickly, before splintering over and bleeding over his face once more. Shakily, he manages to slowly, painfully extricate a slender, pathetic looking metal spike, gripping it hard as a piece of skin sloughs off to splatter on the ground.
"A curse..." he gurgles out, eyes regenerating to blind, milky orbs. "See... this power... is a curse...!" Actually, to Xavin's knowledge Mutant Growth Hormone doesn't even do this. It seems his entire DNA is being destabilized in some manner. This is assuredly far beyond the simple strains that they stumbled upon those weeks ago in a random house.
Nails begins staggering in the direction of the Skrull, sniffing the air with a liquid cough as one nostril begins to bleed. Keening his ears, trying to use his enhanced senses to pin down his location as breath becomes labored. The arm holding the metal spike is shaky, seeming to struggle now to even keep it ascended... blood seeps from his shoes, leaving grotesque footprints in his wake. "Monster... dying... just like you monsters...!!"
Xavin sees Nails pivot towards the boss' office, but his warning - a strained, barely audible, "Sir--!" - doesn't come until after the deadly projectile is hurled. There's nothing he can do for the mutant but watch as the mutant is thrown outside, again--and really, he can't even afford to do that. Cable will bodyslide back in--eventually.
Hopefully.
He can't dwell on whether or not he just just let his CO get killed by the target he was supposed to have under control, though; taking the Aryan's eyes is a temporary solution, one that has to be followed up on if it's going to mean anything. He struggles with both hands and feet to work his way back upright, but all he really accomplishes is kicking his bed of debris around for a second or two before collapsing against it again with a heavy breath that sends a fine green mist spraying into the air. It's no use; too much unsteady ground, too little stability. Too much blood gone--so much blood gone. At least he doesn't have to concentrate on manipulating it this time; small blessings.
"You... nngh... stole gifts that aren't yours... kidnapped, murdered--of course you're cursed!" That ought to make him easier to find, not that that's his aim. In fact, he regrets speaking up immediately, but he couldn't hold his tongue any longer; however much longer he ends up doing so, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he just drank in the man's delusional intolerance He bats frantically at his rent belly and waist as he's stalked until his fingers finally graze over the hilt of the blade he requisitioned from Greymalkin, wraps them around it, and draws it free in a sweeping motion.
If he were anyone else, he would merely be cutting the air, only with an actual weapon instead of his hand; luckily, he is an alien with scientifically enhanced shapeshifting talents, so instead, his arm lengthens rapidly, becoming more undulating ribbon than limb as it closes the remaining distance between himself and Nails. The blade is angled towards the Aryan's throat, a much more savage attempt at cutting his oxygen supply that leaves him open not only to losing the extremity if Nails is quick and disciplined enough, but leaves the rest of his broken body vulnerable.
Staggering forward, Nails breathes heavily, his focus now upon Xavin as best he can. Eyes seem to gloss over in a peculiar coating, before it melts away. The barest outlines of retinae. The speed of his regeneration is rather slower now, to say the very least. But knowing where the other man is... he twists into Xavin's direction, rearing back his arm. Something creaks and pops within him. And then, as the blade is grasped and yanked out in a snap like a crisp rubber band, Nails hurls the slender bolt.
He didn't know that Xavin could stretch. He couldn't see it coming. Somewhere, amidst the horrid burst of air as the projectile hurtles towards the middle of Xavin's chest, hard enough to slam him backwards into a wall and pin him like some grotesque insect on a whiteboard for all to see, there's a sense of disconnect.
Thump.
Although it's liable that the blade is spiraling away in the aftermath, Nails' head has been severed from his body. Blood does not gush out; only seeps, as if already semi-liquid. The rest of him just mouths out nothing, main body thumping to his knees before collapsing down, face first. He then begins to dissolve, regenerate, melt, progressively turning into a blackened mess of something that was once human and no longer is.
Dead. And by all accounts, it looked like a horrible one. He didn't lose conscious without his head. Not for a long, long time.
At least Cable should be... no. He fell out of the office, and doesn't appear to have gotten back up again. It isn't clear where he was struck. Had it been the head, or somewhere vital... could even the nigh-omnipotent Timeskipper have been fallen?!
Xavin's body is elastic right now, utterly malleable; it absorbs some of the initial, scream-inducing force of the incoming spear, but even from Death's door, Nails' throwing arm is a force to be reckoned with. The bolt casts several waves of visible ripples across his flesh that roil beneath what's left of his X-Force uniform as it sinks deep into his body. The embedded end of it forms a growing indentation in his back as the momentum of the throw carries him backwards, and that distended segment of his body just grows longer and longer until finally--
--he just can't stretch any further.
The other end of the bolt, slick with green blood and worse bursts through Xavin's back a second or two before it finally sticks in the wall. He slumps instantly, feet touching the ground but legs too weak to offer him any real support. A moment after that, his body shrinks and darkens; brown hair atop his bald head and grows like a weed until Xavin is back to being herself again--or one of her selves, anyway. There's breathing, but it's a wet, rasping, and rapid-fire sound that's unlikely to inspire much hope; her organs might be cleverly arranged at the moment, but those wounds to the belly didn't leave her with many hiding places that being impaled through the chest didn't at least impact, if not outright spoil.
Her good arm is still good, but it's also rolled out flat across several feet of lab space, so it isn't likely to actually do her much immediate good; at least she can see Nails' severed head through the dark veil falling over her eyes, though, which is an actual bit of good news to balance out Cable still being gone. Not that it helps any now, or triggers much beyond a vague sense of relief to have one less thing to worry about while she bleeds out. "Suh..." she gasps, writhing on the end of the oversized pin, "... sir?"
Her body ripples around the intruding object again, and then the wounded margins of her flesh seem to extend along it, grab on and pull, allowing her to slide inch by agonizing inch along the length of the thing until she's finally to free to fall to her knees a foot or two in front of it and cough out another mouthful of blood.
Her arm begins to slither back towards her body then, fingers twitching all the while. Pulling herself back together again will take a little bit of time - enough that she was unwilling to chance it while hanging; now, though, she doesn't have much of a choice. She's losing too much blood--has lost too much blood; her body might heal a bit quicker than most humans' do, but that doesn't mean a whole lot in the face of three gaping trunk wounds. It takes her a moment to actually register that her arm is the proper length again when that second ordeal is finally complete, but once she does, she's able to swallow thickly, bow her head and concentrate for the moment that it takes to summon a raging fire around that hand. She's running out of options; Cable isn't coming for her, and the lab is getting hazier by the second. If she wants he and his CO to leave here tonight, she's going to have to make it happen. Which means--
"--hh--nngh--nyyAAUGH!"
--bathing parts of her upper body in a stop-start rush of flame to cauterize the terrible wounds studding it. It's a job that requires a modicum of precision, despite the overt savagery of it; her physiology is supposed to be able to withstand the extreme temperatures she's capable of generating, so tricking those pseudonatural defenses in order to save herself means having to flip rapidly between fire and her other cosmic abilities. Parts of her briefly flicker out of sight, or sprout orange plating, or simply bubble and twist unnaturally between bursts of fire until finally, she is left smoking and bloodied, but no longer bleeding.
Now she just has to find Cable.
"Sir..." she barely exhales, reaching towards one of the many holes dotting the warehouse with a trembling hand that, after a moment, extends to grab the edge of a wall and pull. She has a rough sense of which direction the cyborg might be in, just judging from the terrible crash he made on impact. The best that she can do now is crawl outside to see if he's visible and try to haul herself closer if so--or in the general direction of the impact site if not.
Right now, Cable's having a bad day. Nails struck him in the throat, and the tip of the metal rod impacted a rather important vertebrae in his neck. If not for his insanely durable physiology and metal-laced skeleton, the elder Nathan would have been struck dead; a flash of telekinesis at the moment of impact, insufficient to stop it, is what saved his life. Careless. He's also rather paralysed at the moment, which is making things difficult. With the metal lodged into him in such a manner, only emergency trauma-treatment of his psionic powers is keeping him alive, body limp as a fish on a broken cargo container. Xavin's going to die. It's his fault. He felt that he could just remove Nails the moment there was actual danger... and he certainly looked anything /but/, until that rod ripped into him like butter.
The shouts for his name get no response. He can't. He's a vegetable at the moment, trying to heal enough of the damage that he can breathe enough to not black out. He was considering risking his life for a psychic assault on the rampaging beast, but there's no guarantee he'd not bleed out before even locating the duo and trying to bring his strength to bear...
Eventually, Xavin would find her CO laid out. The first thought, with that jutting metal and his utter string-cut puppet pose, is that he's dead. Makes sense. People don't get hit there and survive, unless they are Logan. But a closer look would reveal eyes very much alive, and a slightly aggravated frown. He tries to communicate as best he can to the Skrull; glancing down to the metal, up to her, down to the metal, brows raise expressively.
Get it out. He can't disintegrate it while keeping himself alive. With that removed, the rest is just a matter of time...!
Crawling from the lab to the actual warehouse is a matter of stretching one arm as far as worn muscles will allow, digging into whatever convenient handhold can be found, then reeling the rest of her bloodied body along. When she encounters obstacles - be they corners or mountains of storage containers - Xavin forces herself to flow bonelessly around or over them, grimacing all the while as already traumatized tissue is further stretched and contorted. When she isn't grimacing, or groaning, or struggling to keep herself conscious, she's calling for Cable. Nevermind that he still hasn't answered, or that he's very probably dead; the name is mantra, focusing her waning energies on taking her only remaining shot at survival rather than giving in.
When she finally finds the broken container and broken man sprawled out on it, she feels as if she just spent the entire night on her belly, only to die. Like a cadet, like fodder, like--
... is that light in his eye?
With a shocked cry of, "Sir!" she strains to push herself up for a better look, her one good arm trembling with the effort; of course he's frowning. As she sucks in a lungful of air, her eyes dart over his form until she catches his eyes, and then tracks his gaze to the metal. She hadn't missed it on her first look, exactly, but--he can't mean...
Her eyes dart from the spike to his face; of course he means that. Gritting her teeth, she fixes her gaze on the offending rod, gently rocks back and forth a time or two to get her bearings, then sharply twists her body towards the left with a short, shrill cry of pain. Her right arm meanwhile snaps towards the rod like a rodeo whip, allowing her to grip it tightly and hang on for just a moment as her rippling arm draws taut. With one last, strained groan of agony, she finally pulls her arm back into shape, jerking the metal free in the process.
It's probably not quite the kind of TLC that one hopes for as one lies paralysed on the battlefield, but it should - hopefully - improve his chances somewhat.
The weapon tumbles from Xavin's hand as he arm is drawn back into shape, and once it is the proper length, it doesn't really move. She's still breathing, but it's shallow, and her eyes are barely open.
There's a sort of patience to Cable. He doesn't look very concerned really, despite being paralysed with his throat mostly impaled by a piece of metal. It's probably not the first time such has happened. Almost impatient, like he's waiting for a bandaid to be ripped off and expecting some manner of discomfort. He does relax his muscles once the metal rod is gripped, and there's a wince when it's yanked free and likely launched to clatter somewhere behind, Cable's eyes focus anew.
Of course, other matters are causing a hindrance. The sound of sirens in the distance. This was not the X-Force's most subtle of actions done, really. Focusing, telekinesis probes around his broken vertebrae, sealing it together. The severed nerves are caught in an unseen grip and pulled together, melded as quickly his accelerated mind can when it comes to rebuilding the disconnected nerves at a microscopic level. Twitches go through his fingers, his leg kicks, and then after a few exceedingly long moments Cable pushes up to a sit. He's still got the hole, he still can't talk, and he's got a mostly-dead Xavin going all limp-puddle on the ground.
Staggering down, he grasps Xavin's good arm, pulling them up into a stand. Red and blue flashing in the distance. Nothing to do about it. He can't erase this now; turning off telekinesis will make him bleed out, and Xavin needs a good dosage of Dr. Professor.
Damnit. Reaching into his pocket, he presses a button, initiating a bodyslide. There's a wild, temporal flash consuming the pair, before they vanish... leaving behind a far, far bigger mess than he intended. Cable came into this thinking it was back-alley watered-down MGH dealers trying to work large scale like a sea of sadists. One look at the man in the suit running the show, and the strength of Nails' transformation... it should have been a bigger clue, when he saw how careful the mastermind was.
It might not be too late to use the info he ripped from the fallen businessman's mind before he died. Time to roll the dice. Worst csae... well. Worst case, it can't drop much lower than it already has.
Kilroy and Nightcrawler have been in Graymalkin now for about ten minutes, likely enough time to ask for cocoa and recover. However, there's suddenly a whirl of red alarms, and then the area they are in manifests into a medical bay. A moment later, in a temporal crack, Cable appears in a whirl, grasping Xavin; who looks like someone tried to put him through a meatgrinder, but he clogged it somehow. Which is probably both good and bad, really. Cable himself has a gaping hole in his throat, currently not bleeding, and makes a motion for the other two to 'get out of the way'.
He then thumps Xavin on the automated medical machine, which immediately encloses him in a sealed glass container. A whirlwind of machines and lasers and diagnostic scanning begins to stop his vital signs from plummeting. Cable himself crashes into a nearby seat, wincing and grasping his throat. A lump of random metal flips up a tube and into his right hand.
It takes a few moments to realize things are roughly under control. Slowly but surely, the wound on Cable's throat is mending; nearly imperceptible, like a spider spinning a web, fading back into a single piece. For some reason he's not using telepathy; presumably he can't, though. But he does type into a console.
"LOCATION FOUND. KILROY: 1805 HERA DRIVE, NEW YORK. CORADYNE CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES. INVESTIGATE."
A moment later a computer terminal shifts up out of nowhere, with full connection to all manner of Earth databases.
"NIGHTCRAWLER: SCOUT AREA." A moment later, Nightcrawler would find himself awash in temporal energy, and manifest on the roof of a building across the street from a sleek, dark-windowed four story building in the heart of the 'clean and futuristic' area of New York. Nothing seems out of place, although it is well-lit and fenced in. Atop the sides is only the initials 'CCI: Your Friend in Pharmacy' in very crisp and neat font.
Right now, he has to get rid of the wound that'll kill him if his telekinesis stops suppressing the damage. And then he can work on what's left of Xavin...
Kilroy is in space. He's in space. Yes, the station is neat and he's impressed by all the high technology but...He's. In. Space. That's just...awesome. Once he gets the address of course, he immediately investigates and reports, "It's a front for one Daniel Cragg IV. He's in his early twenties and a 'super genius' of the non Wylie E Coyote variety. He's making truckfulls of money but those only make money and just enough ripples to stay under the radar. CCI, his company does drugs, hormones and genetic engineering. Bleeding edge stuff. In short, the numbers do not add up give how many people are on his payroll. This screams front for something like MGH if I've ever seen one.
Xavin's got a hole all the way through the middle of her chest, a deep, curving cut across one side of her belly and a somewhat shallower one along the other, when they first arrive; while she's covered with quite a bit of green blood, the wounds don't seem to be issuing any more. Probably because the edges of them, along with several inches of skin surrounding them were cauterized--and rather hastily at that. Her left arm dangles uselessly, the fingers bent in different directions; the other is draped over Cable's shoulders, providing no support whatsoever as she hangs limp in the mutant's arms. She's breathing, but it's soft and shallow and interlaced with notes of agony.
She groans loudly upon being deposited on the by now familiar medical machine, then rolls her head from one side to the other to try and get some sense of her surroundings. Blue guy, handsome guy, stars, glass. Needle jab in the arm; she's definitely on Greymalkin. Her eyes don't linger for very long on Kilroy or Nightcrawler; she's a little too out of it to do much more than vaguely recognize their presence.
Kilroy is in space. He's in space. Yes, the station is neat and he's impressed by all the high technology but...He's. In. Space. That's just...awesome. Once he gets the address of course, he immediately investigates and reports, "It's a front for one Daniel Cragg IV. He's the owner of the company. He has one Darren Ecleston working for him. He's in his early twenties and a 'super genius' of the non Wylie E Coyote variety. He's making truckfulls of money but those only make money and just enough ripples to stay under the radar. CCI, his company does drugs, hormones and genetic engineering. Bleeding edge stuff. In short, the numbers do not add up give how many people are on his payroll. This screams front for something like MGH if I've ever seen one."
When Xavin arrives though, he's shocked. He knew that he was in for some rough activity here, but this wasn't what he was expecting. Since the last fight he's been working on a few suprises, new tricks but this....he frowns slightly and then looks at her and Cable. Quite determined. This guy is going down. "What else do you need?"
Kurt's arms are plunged up to his elbows into a vat of bio-mimetic gelatin. It was a treatment "the professor" suggested based upon the numerous chemical burns covering his hands and arms.
As the alarm goes off, the semi-solid substance is working on regenerating the damaged tissue from the acidic encounter a bit ago but when Cable appears he rips his arms free, "Mein gott!" He exclaims but doesn't seem capable of rationalizing what his next move should be opting to simply get out the way as Nathan storms past, "Nathan, what has happened?" He asks worried, but not yet fretful, and starts to approach..
..only to stop short when the man has deposited Xavin and turns to reveal his own injury. Nightcrawler's yellow eyes widen as the random lump of metal flips out into the open. This is the sort-of thing he doesn't see often outside of Wolverine.
However, there is no real time to work out the particulars as all this. Turning he presses his hands against the chamber which surrounds Xavin even as his long serpentine tale plucks the sabers which had been deposited upon a nearby table and re-sheathes them at his back, "Mein prays are with you.." he murmurs turning as the terminal appears.
He nods once, crouching low, and is whisked away.......
Reappearing across the street Nightcrawler shifts in a movement with undulates from head to toe causing him to drop into a four-point stance with his weight upon his fingers and toes so that the shadow cast by the lip of the building due to the brightly lit one across the street partially obscures his form. His first action is to hold position for a moment and assess the traffic around CCI before allowing his gaze to slowly work up its sleek surface visualizing advantage points and hand-holds out of angles that are ordinarily impossible for someone to conceive -- at least when they're limited two traveling between points in a straight line.
A nod follows towards Kilroy. Pieces add up. Although Cable had no idea that MGH was being handled by someone so... professional. This isn't a bunch of random thugs, kidnapping two score mutants and then trying to flood the market. Something else is going on. From one of his billion pouches, a small dark capsule of MGH is taken out and deposited into a plastic bin, which is sucked away in another tube. He'll be speaking to Hank about that later.
Xavin's not really healing very quickly. No; that only happens when Cable's loving telekinesis is applied to hasten the process, but at least there's no more pain or discomfort. It's rather worse than Nails did the first time... but he won't be an issue again. But the crime scene... police were swarming it, and he wasn't able to hide any of the evidence. Damn it all. Hopefully it will just seem like a drug bust. But with salt everywhere and dead goats, it's probably going to be a strange, strange crime scene.
"LOCATION OF XO? NAME OF CHEMIST?" the screen displays with a few taps to further instruct Kilroy. The hole is almost closed now after a few minutes. Rippling swallows are attempted, making strange noises. He's not got the benefit of happy drugs making him float, at the moment.
Nightcrawler would find the building to be very modern. A number of corners protrude here and there, hexagonal as it builds up to all four stories. Most of it is pure glass walls, tinted one-way with black metal intersecting. The bottom level has security guards patrolling, but they seem legitimately hired and nothing that stands out as beyond the norm. This /is/ a chemical research lab, after all. On the rooftop can be seen about four giant turbines, and a locked door. At the back is a loading area with slide-up garages, presently closed and locked, with a similarly locked door up a staircase...
Kilroy is quiet. He's not exactly Mr. Loud and Party, but the tone in his voice is flat, deadly. In fact it's almost a whisper. The XO is at home. His address is 72 Morning Glory Lane. I can also give you lat and long. The head chemist's name is Darren Ecleston. He's in the lab. Not a lot of cash in the building, mainly vending machines and the like. Darren uses a lot of coffee. He's with the other scentists. There are twenty five in the upper left of the building. At least fifteen of the guards have cash, though there could be more. There are eight to ten other employees. If Graymalkin can pull up a map, I can point out their name and location to match our sensors."
As an after thought he adds, "Is there any operational reason not to ruin this guy financially at this time?"
Nightcrawler vanishes in a puff of smoke and re-appears beneath one of the architecturally sound joints that help shape the building. He scans the area for a moment and mentally curses the tint of the windows. Then twisting he looks out and up the side of the building for sign
He teleports once and then once more until he's clinging to the side of the building near-to the rooftop and shifts to peek up across its surface. Four turbines. Locked roof access. Camera at the door.
Kurt smirks coils himself. Jumps out from the side of the building into the open air. He vanishes before gravity takes hold re-appearing thirty feet above the vents. He vanishes again...
...and reappears beneath the fan in the ventilation system, "I'm in." He says slinking through the narrowed shaft the plume of purple brimstone vented outward by the fans.
"ID OF SCIENTIST TO NIGHTCRAWLER. ACQUIRE." comes next from the console. And then with a deep, heavy growl Cable pushes to his feet. The wound's finally closed. A few coughs, and a spit sends a large spot of blood away. "Shit. Can't use telepathy and telekinesis at the same time. Only thing keeping me alive was my telekinesis until I got it fixed..." For some reason, the piece of metal in Cable's hand is missing a large amount of volume. He brings it over to Xavin, dismissing the large metal nude-tube.
"If you crash his finances, he'll know we're on to him. Save that for later." Cable offers then, eyes closing before there's a flare of cerulean energy. Pressing down on Xavin's supple feminine body, telekinesis swirls and dances amidst every cell intimately, drawing and knitting them together. Bones felt snapping back into place and then fusing, ruptured organs pressing together and becoming hale, burnt flesh literally sliding off. It's going to take awhile. Too long, really, to personally do anything. It's up to Nightcrawler to get and isolate the target before they realize that a telepath was involved. They've no reason to think things are as immediately dangerous as they are...
Nightcrawler would slide down to a heavy grill, and beneath is a massive open area. The floor is all stone, oddly, smooth and well-crafted. There's countless rows of high tech equipment, white-suited figures working with vials and beakers. Isolated rooms of armored glass have large rubber gloves extending within, where more sensitive research is done.
The target himself is currently looking into the lens of an electron microscope, seemingly connected to a massive network of computers, in the midst of some sort of analysing. But a sleek man in a business suit, one without a shred of money, walks up him and taps his shoulder before whispering in his ear. He looks more irritated at the interruption than anything else.
When the drugs kicked in and the pain began to subside, Xavin exhaled a slow sigh and sank against the medical table, relaxing for the first time all night. She doesn't quite fall unconscious, but she doesn't seem especially responsive, either; her eyes did wander lazily towards Nightcrawler's hand against the glass, but she just kind of kept staring at that space for a while after he left.
It's not until Cable lays hands on her that she begins to show signs of life, her eyes fluttering briefly before squinting blearily up at the mutant. "How--how long?" she wonders in a small voice, like a young woman who's just waking from a twenty hour nap as her tissue is rearranged. "When're we going back out...?" After a beat in which she takes a quick look around for their teammates, she adds, "Where're they?" as her brow furrows in confusion.
Kilroy nods to Cable. Since immediate intel is not requested, he moves back to his project. Not one Rai stone but many, melded into one another, modeled after ancient armor. Quite heavy. Very heavy actually, but thick and quite protective. He steps inside it as he molds it around him, these fashioned plates of stone etched with the markings of ancient tribes of Yap. It is ready and will be a very useful weapon indeed when the time comes.
Nightcrawler pushes the palms of his hand to the grate and looks to the arrangement of articles before the scientist upon the table. He adjusts his footing within the vent-shaft and then...
BAMF
A cloud of purple smoke explodes upon the table all around the electron microscope and before the scientist. A lean form leaps outward pushing the scientist back and wrapping legs and arms around his front in a full-bodied hug.
BAMF
Both vanish, reappearing momentarily horizontal within the vent and then - a moment later - lying upon the rooftop, "We are out."
The man had been in the midst of speaking. It was in... German. "--to leave--" is all Kurt gets, before the billow of displaced infernal air. The man in question is young, hair a rather beautiful silver cropped short. Eyes are a light gray as well. And he moves surprisingly quick, attempting to grasp Kurt by the forearm before he slips away. Not that such matters; either way, the baffled scientist is upon the rooftop now, collapsing to his knees. "Ach!" he allows. "Wh--kaff--what!!"
"Well. ...That's a fun looking suit." Cable offers Kilroy, when he seems to be dressing himself up in a giant piece of stone. No matter. Once it's been confirmed that the target is extricated, he grasps Kilroy and grunts. There's no longer a risk that the shapeshifter is going to die, but he just plain doesn't have time to render him operational again. "Xavin, you get the rest of the evening off. We'll be back in a second. Bodyslide by two."
And then in a great temporal CRACK, both Cable and the money-lover are brought down to about a meter off the rooftop. Cable grunts, but manages to use telekinesis to set Kilroy down a bit more safely as the scientist in question begins to back away. "Nein...!!"
"Wai--" is all the protest that Xavin can manage before Cable and Kilroy disappear. She's feeling well enough to sit up - barely - when the news is given, but shortly after they leave, she sinks back down to the table and exhales heavily. Getting a little time off isn't so bad, although there's a part of her that's beginning to dread what she might see when - if - she gets to sleep for real tonight.
Maybe Greymalkin can pick up cable signals from Earth? Anything not to dwell too much on the tail end of the mission...
Kilroy might seem rediculous in the funny rock suit, but as they slide, he slides with Cable, he makes the armor vanish, revealing only on the surface his armor of X-Force. The half mask hides most of his expression. Cable likely isn't looking inside of his head, but the seemingly comical mage comes from a long line....there are wheels there, levers that will move the world, and while the visible reaction to Xavin's condition is concern, the rage there just beneath the surface is echoes at something more, something large and something titanic. It is resolute and eternal. It is not, to be sure, of the cosmic nature of Cable's reintegration and disintigration among many timelines, but...there is a hint there. There is an echo of ...something else, something hidden, unknown, swimming beneath the surface or a yet that is soon to be, echos of things on the brink, the turning of gears, and the breaking of fate itself. It is, if you could catch the moment, not the first domino, but it is the domino that leads to a large large pile of them...
But of course, one has to be able to notice such moments, spoken in the spirits between all things...hard to hear if not listening...but the air has a hum to it, charged with magic, the attention of something huge, horrific and quite dum ...a ringing in the subconcious as Kilroy...LOOKS...at the scientist...and says not a word.
Kurt deftly rolls off of the scientist giving the man a rather sinister snarl as he lowers himself into a crouch and trashes his tail menacingly from side to side, "Zee children!" He barks with a fanged snarl, "Why?!"
Enter Cable and Kilroy..
The Nightcrawler backs off at this point and scratches at his arm with the tips of his fingers as if annoyed. He scratches, and scratches, before finally becoming so annoyed with his appendage that he takes his eyes off the new arrivals and looks to see what has stung him..
About the size of a man's hand the itchy patch of skin quickly becomes flaky and then begins to harden into stone...
...it's, excruciating--but worse--it's spreading..
Nightcrawler falls to his knees grasping at the chunk of petrified flesh with gritted teeth, "Cable. Mein arm!"
"Well, looks like we got ourselves someone useful to interrogate, now don't we? Let's Bodyslide him out before... eh?"
Glancing over, Cable looks reasonably alarmed when Nightcrawler's forearm is shown to be turning a strange sort of slate grey. "What happened?"! He moves over, shifting to grasp Kurt by the wrist. A flash of telekinetic inspection causes a curse. Cursing's not good when he's playing doctor. "Something's petrifying all the molecules in your body... this'll hurt."
And it does.
In a flash of stone and a mist of blood, every bit of offending rock is vaporized, as well as adjacent tissue. It's a rather grievous wound, but it's probably better than the alternative of slowly turning into a freaky looking but sexy statue. The scrambling scientist, however, suddenly is engulfed by the stone rooftop. It whirls up like liquid, swallowing him down and leaving the surface smooth.
"...?!" Cable turns back to the empty spot. "What--"
And then, slowly, a form draws himself up from the black surface of the structure. Slender. Suited. Silver hair, and grey eyes. Handsomely smiling. The man who touched Kurt, when he tried to escape with the good Doctor. And Kilroy would recognize him immediately...
Mr. Cragg, CEO. And, apparently, a Mutant.
"Gentlemen. Are you aware you are trespassing?"
Kilroy moves fast. He moves a lot faster than he'd seem for just a regular guy, and with strength capable of smashing an Elephant, he SLAMS into the CEO with a shockwave that causes the gravel around the CEO and Kilroy to move outward like Ripples on a pond.
"Mr. President..." Kilroy punches again to no effect,"don't you know that the first rule of sampling the product is never to sample the product?" He knows this is trouble. Big trouble, but the cold rage only makes him smarter and harder. A third punch to the face has zero effect, despite the loud noise it makes.
It also might distract him from the far more dangerous opponent.
"AUUUUUUUGH!" a scream punctuates the spray of blood and stone leaving a gaping wound of minced muscle, tendon, and fractured bone. Head swimming, Nightcrawler backpedals a surge of adrenaline overpowering the pain for the moment and then more so as the rooftop engulfs the scientist.
"Do not let him touch you!" Nightcrawler warns cradling his injured arm with one hand and then drawing a single saber from his back with his tail only to be buffeted by the shockwave which causes him to turn away and then vanish in a twisting plume of purple smoke.
Nightcrawler re-appears near the rooftop camera which he slices deftly with his tail-sword, killing it, "What now?" He asks Cable.
"...? Oh? What's this...?" The last heavy blow strikes true. A crack forms across the CEO's cheek, as if his face were made of porcelein. Those truly observant might notice that there's a number of cracks on the ground at his feet, as if the incredible blows were more hurting his foundation than him. A moment later it vanishes in a wisp. "You..." A hand raises, and then Kilroy would freeze in place. "...Seem to be covered in stone...?"
A moment later it begins to constrict with bone-crushing force from all directions at once. The power this man holds is readily apparent to be terra-kinesis. Only of a highly advanced form, and... one thoroughly mastered. Of course, fake stone can be unsummoned, but how unscathed Kilroy might be as a result is a question.
"Great. You're an even better target." Cable growls, hand lifting. There's a flash of orange from his eye, followed by confusion. "...He doesn't have a brain."
"That's rude."
"Shit--it's some kind of golem--" Cable begins to move, but then a huge spike erupts from the ground at his feet. Nathan freezes, as it blows through his armored front, blood erupting out behind as a good two meters extends past his large frame. "...Hrk...!!"
Kurt would feel the ground suddenly become like glue; all of the stone irrevocably clinging, and trying to draw him down. It won't stop his ability to teleport, but it might be momentarily startling.
"Kurt... get us... out...!" Cable hisses around his bloodied mouth, grasping the stone before it erupts into pieces in a flash of telekinesis, the elder Nathan stumbling. They are fighting a man of unknown power on literally his own battlefield, who's apparently doing it remotely. That is not the recipe for a special ops team to win!
Kilroy is hurt, but not wounded. The pain is excruitating but while his magic is limited, it is provided remotely, which makes the reaction time very fast indeed. The pain nearly knocks him out, but fortunately no bones are broken.
As tempting as it is to threaten Daniel...Kilroy only begins to laugh. Poor poor Daniel. Daniel has shown that the element of surprise no longer matters.
And then something happens. It's invisible. But it doesn't matter that he's remote. It doesn't matter that no one present but Kilroy can sense it. Daniel is done, he just doesn't realize it yet, as the sands of entropy already begin to grind his little empire to dust, one granual at a time. For Daniel is CURSED, already spreading in the company, clinging unseen to every employee while acting for the corporation, spreading like a plague from area to area slowly, silently, but wreaking havok as the invisible worm that flies at night. Of course people are still dying, so Cable's methods of direct action need to be addressed and followed and Kilroy will be more than happy to help...but in the long run? The War? It's not looking good for Daniel.
He also backs away, getting close to the teleporter. He does NOT want to be here.
The Nightcrawler begins to sink and for a moment he tries to shift his feet and pull free but only succeeds in churning the quicksand and drawing himself down further for his effort.
'..get us... out!'
Nightcrawler vanishes and reappears with his back to Kilroy whose mid-section he snares with his tail. Nightcrawler vanishes, dragging Kilroy with him, and then reappears directly in front of Cable, he grabs Nathan's armor.
Nightcrawler, Kilroy, and finally Cable vanish..
Reappearing on the only nearby place he had a good bead on in his mind's eyes. The rooftop across the street.
Kurt drops to his knees, feeling as if he just ran a few miles with a severely inured arm, "We are not far away..." He says believing the two of them may be momentarily disoriented from transport.
"Ngh." Cable can still feel pieces of bone in his gut, and they are digging /in./ Daniel Cragg is grinding them like shards of glass within his insides, and the results are not pleasant, enough to stagger even his iron mind. Just as Nightcrawler's first teleport takes place, multiple spikes erupt where he had just been standing. The slender form of the suited golem clenches his fist, and an impact of stone is just where Kilroy had been standing before Nightcrawler jumped him away. But as he appears to perch near Cable, the CEO pauses, fist held at the ready.
The appearance at the adjacent building is close. Too close. No sooner does Kurt give that warning, then the surface whirls up to crush them. The hapless Nightcrawler is struck in the head, but Cable manages to growl out right before the oubliette crushes them against the elder Nathan into an unpleasant paste;
"Bodyslide by two!!"
In a temporal flash, Xavin will find the three of them crashing to the ground. Nightcrawler is unconscious and bleeding, and somehow Cable came back with a far worse wound than before, on hands and knees with metallic blood spattering the ground. His virus warbles on the edge of control, panting heavily.
"Get... Nightcrawler... on a table..." A second raises, shifting open the glass cover to allow him to be placed. Hopefully Kilroy ended up in a better position after that final *clamp* from the man.
"That didn't go well." he offers, afterwards.
A monitor suspended from the ceiling a few feet in front of Xavin is playing an I Love New York rerun when the rest of the team returns--no, crashes into the station. She immediately sits up at the ruckus, scanning over broken bodies in wide-eyed disbelief. "Sir--?!" she sputters, "Nightcrawler?! Kilroy?! What--nngh--"
Sitting up is one thing; rolling out of bed - which is her next instinct - is quite another, and while the sucking hole in her chest is more of a worryingly deep stab wound now, she's still got IVs hooked up to her arms. Instead, her eyes just flit between Cable and Kurt, though as the latter is propped up in a chamber like her own, her attention ends up drifting more towards him; whatever got them got them good.
"What happened? What did you get out of it?"
Kilroy moans. The surge of adrenaline he's been running on up to now is gonegonegone. He is black and blue over ninety percent of his body. He'll get better, and he's in better shape than anyone else, but for now he hurts. He has specific things in mind to make the life of this guy a living hell. Darkseid? The Joker? Cold Hard Cash? He can't do as much....but this guy? This guy is like the idiots shooting 45 calliber bullets at Superman...he just doesn't know it yet. "We got the fact that the CEO of a major corporation is using an illegal substance....and the element of suprise is gone. Which means I get to destroy him." He says through hissing teeth.
"We tried to abduct the chemist behind the new strain of MGH. Turns out that yes, a fifteen minute warning is more than enough warning to stop us. We had him, but... Nightcrawler got petrified. I should've Bodyslid the target and had Nightcrawler retreat for a moment, or..." No. That's not the right attitude. Making sure his ally was safe was the correct call, even if those seconds cost them the proverbial brain of the operation. "Guy was an Omega. Pretty easy to tell. ...I'm not sure if he was using MGH or not." His gut tells him though that with that level of finesse, it's unlikely. And he was completely calm and rational, none of the rage seen in the likes of Nails. "Powerful one, too. We need to move carefully now. We know the name of the man behind the digital screen. Rest... ngh. Just a matter of time."
Telekinesis hefts up both Kilroy and Xavin, thumping them into beds that seal shut. All three of the party now recouperating through the automated medical facility, although they are indeed allowed full access to the satellite networks and information databases such as the internet at their leisure. Coughing up blood, Cable begins to limp away. "I... need a few hours to get over this. ...Then I'll fix you and send you back. Don't worry..."
A door slides open, allowing him to pass through. "This isn't over." The door merges with the wall thereafter, locking those of X-Force in their tomb of entertainment and high-inducing meds. The first setback. Not the last. But now they're on the trail. And with Kilroy... that trail is going to be a nasty one.
Category:Log