2014.05.30 - Distilled Anarchy: Part I

The first official operation of X-Force is underway; and Xavin, at least, might have been itching at some revenge-nailing all this time. The target in question is a simple warehouse on the fringes of a city, not in New York City. Unsurprising; with every other person on the street potentially in spandex, one wouldn't want to base their operations. One of the reasons this organization has been harder to pin down. The group has been Bodyslid to a nearby bush-laden hill, overlooking the squat building surrounded by chain link fence. A two story affair of reinforced concrete, the only windows are on the second story and the roof. Other industrial buildings surround it, but only the target has massive floodlights upon the empty area between the perimeter and the walls. Four people are wandering around, hands in trenchcoat pockets.
"Okay. Here's the gameplan." Cable offers. A small device emits a 3D holographic of the building, acquired by hacking the architecture database and using the blueprints through Professor to digitize it. "I've done psychic recon. They don't seem to have any real protection against it. I count four outside. Within is two stories. The main floor is split in half. To the left is random boxes and other supplies. Nothing but a storage front. To the right, though, they have two active labs. One which creates the MGH. Another that analyzes, grades, and puts it into capsule form. I've ID'd six scientists within. Guarded by five men. Assume everyone has MGH on them... and the guards, the stronger sort."
The hologram shifts to the second floor. "Up amongst the catwalks is a main office, and at the back here, over the storage area opposite the labs, six rooms. Each of those rooms has a mutant inside it. Two guards are patrolling that area. About three attendants monitor them, feed, extract... fun stuff."
And then he taps the main office. "Here, one of our target's main lieutenants is supposedly negotiating with a drug lord who could get this all across New York City in a weekend, if he had the bulk. Don't know jack on either of them but that, really. I confirmed Nails is outside that room." A glance to Xavin at that.
"So here's the gameplan. Nightcrawler." A finger points. "You rescue the six mutants. Teleport them here." Another points to Xavin. "You need to get to the lieutenant in the upstairs office, and attach this to to him clandestinely." A small, button-sized piece of metal is offered. "I can use it to track him, and Bodyslide over to... probe him."
Fingers snap to point at Kilroy. "We'll cause chaos in the lab and destroy it. But I can't maintain a psychic sense link. Nightcrawler, put him on the roof before the operation begins. He can look inside through the windows on top to see the main lab and support me."
The hologram vanishes. "Any questions?"
"Night--crawler." Xavin deliberately mouths the two halves of the mutant's name as she examines him with a bewildered squint. After a moment, she shrugs a shoulder, fixes her eyes to his and continues, "What is it that you do, exactly? Can you help me onto the second floor?" A beat passes as she considers the layout of the place, and then she glances towards Cable and adds, "Unless you'd rather the four outside be dealt with before they come for you in the lab, but that would take time."
The Skrull-in-human-flesh has traded her familiar Skrull military uniform for form-fitting black armor that's only broken up by the 'X' in a somewhat lighter shade of black criss-crossing her chest. Whatever it's made of, she's still getting used to it, but she resists the quiet urge to pick at it now that she's in the field; the hours she's logged in Graymalkin's simulator preparing for the operation certainly help.
"Will we have a telepathic link?" she continues as she steps up to the cyborg to take the device. "Am I leaving once he's tagged, or would you rather I remain in position for when you arrive?" Her curious gaze is broken when her attempt to slip the tracker into a hip pocket ends with her hand bumping uselessly against a sheathed blade; after frowning down at herself momentarily, she reaches over to the pouch hanging from her other side, tucks the thing in there, then folds her arms over her 'X'.
"Will you be alright?" The last question comes with an arched brow and is addressed to Kilroy, who - unlike the other unfamiliar operative - is wading right into the fire with Cable. It's a slightly less direct version of the question she posed to Kurt, but whether or not it's preferable remains to be determined.
"I am an acrobat.." Kurt says smoothly to Xavin and then grins working over what he can see of the building ahead in the darkness, "Also, a teleporter."
Nightcrawler crouches in a low squat the splay of his knees almost allowing his backside to sit upon the ground. The lowlight and shadow of the brush-laden hill has darkened the indigo coloring both of the fur that covers his body and the dark bodysuit which has been treated to work in concert with his mutant abilities.
He snickers softly at the 'probe' bit but when Cable points at him he straightens slightly the spade-tipped tale behind him twisting a bit at the movement.
"Hrm.." He remarks thoughtfully and unconsciously reaches to his back to touch the hilt of one of the sabers that has been strapped there -- assuring its still where it needs to be after the body-slide, "Nein. It seems very clear.." His yellow eyes are nearly invisible in the low-light and he cranes his neck upward rising a bit from his squat to survey the building ahead again so-as to mentally compare it with the schematic he was just shown..
In any event he lets Cable answer her questions before proceeding with the next bit.
"You will want to take a deep breath and then hold it.." He remarks reaching to place his hand gently upon Xavin's arm, "..and I have been told closing one's eyes helps." Kurt adds, "When my hand leaves your arm open your eyes, step out from the smoke, and then breathe again. Not before." A pause to make sure all that registers and sensing her discomfort at all this he squeezes her arm in a friendly manner, "Relax and hold your breath.." The, directly, "Now."
Wait for it...
There's a faint rush of air and a burst of smoke supplants the space which Nightcrawler and Xavin had just occupied.
Bamf.
There's the pop of merging atmospheres and a puff of smoke just large enough to obscure two people. Nightcrawler emerges first bounding out of the cloud on all fours -- silent as a kitten -- the movement rolling smoothly into a belly-crawl as he slinks to the edge of the skylight and stretches himself at the head and shoulders just enough to peek in. He takes a look at what's below.
Then, pulling his head back the spade-tip of his tail goes right as he cranes his head to the left looking to Xavin, "Are you gut, mein friend?" His voice is not even a whisper but likely the future-communicators in the throat of his bodysuit could pick it up.
Kilroy is...amused...to find himself in a uniform with an "x" on it, something he never thought would happen, but if he can wear a Genoshan uniform he can wear this. He is unsure about the plasma pistol but takes it since one never knows if the magic might run out and Mumblebeard certainly taught him how much damage one could do. As he listens to Cablehe shakes his head, "No questions."
To Xavin, he politely replies,"As long as they don't see me or I see them first, all will be well." Unseen, he has thick invisible coin armor over his uniform.
The body slide was his first teleportation, cold but weird as he felt The Economy panic with a giant "w.t.f?!?!" followed by a silent,"oh there you are..." whereas the second is less of a shock to the God and more to Kilroy. Nightcrawler's appearance shocks him not at all and he is quite at ease. But the Bamf is severely disorientijg and he takes a second to step out, but follows instructions. Immediately he transforms and creates and controls to his limit, ready, unseen on the roof to wreak massive havok,"in position, " he whispers,"say the word."
No particular comment was made on the fact that Xavin was opting to be female for this mission. Much like a proper Skrull, he does not care either way. "Telepathic uplink when able. But if I'm using telekinetics, I have to drop it. It's why I can't keep a consistent link-up with Kilroy." Cable offers; he's wearing the same outfit, although much more heavily armored. The added bulk and segmented joints don't seem to bother him, but one would need to be able to benchpress an automobile to move with similar ease. "And Kilroy will be on the roof. Nobody should shoot at him." In a perfect world. "Long as he doesn't draw attention. I'll handle the ones outside."
After Nightcrawler has settled everyone into their desired positions, Xavin and Nightcrawler able to peer through a skylight to the catwalk which leads both of them to their respective destinations, one towards the office and one towards the six rooms. Two men are walking up and down it, holding AK-47s. Just in sight, if Xavin tilted her head, is Nails; wearing black leather, and twirling a hammer around his finger as he mumbles into a walkie-talkie. It seems everyone is linked up to him through earpieces.
After a few moments, Cable descends to land beside the skylight where Kilroy is settled. Within, the six scientists can be seen working with rather advanced looking laboratory equipment. <Huh. They've got a good setup here. High end. ...Okay. I'm gonna try taking care of the external ones... Keep an eye on the rest. >
Cable then shifts to peer over the edge. His right eye flares orange, before one of the patrols freezes. He just stands there, hands in his pockets. After a moment, his attention moves to another. After a few moments, he freezes, paralyzed. Quickly moving to the opposite side of the building, Nightcrawler and Xavin will see the two men below on the catwalk pausing, hands on their earpieces. Cable's looking down to find the remaining guard in similar confusion. <...Damnit. They know they lost contact. > In another flash, two more go comatose outdoors. < Four down... >
Things are getting active within the warehouse. Kilroy can see two heading towards the doors outside, likely to check. Nails steps forward, shifting through his walkie-talkie. Damn his hammering ways... apparently he's been keeping very close tabs on his men!!
Xavin breathes in deeply and gives Nightcrawler a solemn nod after her arm is touched. Being teleported somewhere while fully conscious and not relying on telepathic pain dampening to function should be a fun new twist on the Skrull's brief time with the group thus far; while the odd feelings of weightlessness and sudden movement that tend to come with such transportation are rarely ever pleasant, there's something to be said for having the chance to weather them at her best rather than suffer them as one more ordeal amongst many.
There is a fledgeling moment of reconsideration once she steps from the cloud and is treated to the swirling scent of brimstone, but after wrinkling her nose and shooting him a quick look, she lets it go with a slight shake of her head and murmurs, "Just fine," before turning her attention to the skylight. Shortly afterwards, she waves her hand around in front of her nose briefly before just stretching her neck a few feet further away from their entry point, then curling it back to peer through the glass from a different angle. At the first sight of Nails, she grits her teeth tightly and swallows the urge to break through the skylight then and there.
|"Alright,"| she thinks as her neck undulates towards her body and contracts back down to a more human length, |"I can open the skylight and take us down while they work this out--I don't suppose you can fly, can you?"| The Skrull's eyes turn towards Kurt, even though the question is perceptible to all. She splays her hands a few feet above the skylight and narrows her eyes, imagining a blade sharp enough to cut a section out of it. |"I can make a hole, lower us in--even hide you for a while. But you'll need some way to hit the ground safely--or stay out of their field of vision once we're in and splitting up."|
Regardless of the answer, a thin line begins to stretch across the transparent surface, becoming a curve, and then, eventually, a circle large enough to fit she and Nightcrawler.
Nightcrawler brought Xavin first -- he figured that if there were explosives wired up here the Skrull would have a better chance of surviving that unprepared than Kilroy, whom he knows little about, were he to have to save his own skin. He and Piotr have dubbed that particular tactic 'The Osmium Mine-Sweeper'. When Logan has to fill in it's called something far less polite.
Smiling at Xavin he comes back from the skylight, "Be right back.." He says and then looks upward -- vanishing in a puff of smoke.
Re-appearing about two hundred feet in the air midway between the hill and the target site he contorts his body just before gravity really takes hold, turning to look at the brush-covered hill, and then bursts into smoke again.
Nightcrawler reappears about fifteen feet shy of Kilroy and three feet in the air. He completes the acrobatic maneuver he started overhead hitting the ground and rolling to Kilroy. He places a hand at the economist's back, "Hold your breath. Close your eyes." He reminds, and then they're on-top of the building with Xavin. Just like that.
Okay, everyone settled.
Nightcrawler moves to the area overlooking the catwalk as Cable begins dispatching guards, "Your concern is appreciated, Fraulein." He utters glancing to Xavin as she begins to work on the skylight, "..mind the Nails and I will see to the children.."
He squats and scrunches to ball his form while rising up on his tip-toes. Dropping his hands to his waist he clutches at the air to his back as if pantomiming a wall behind him. He looks through the glass...and then he's smoke again..
..he reappears in one of the interior corners of the building. Stuck to the wall and looking out over the complex. If it's not well lit he's very well blended but if its bright inside someone might see the swirling smoke if they're in 'search' mode.
No doubt he'll plans to leave that vantage soon if he's seen. Either way he's got a good position or is about to be one helluva distraction.
Kilroy has limits, but given time to prepare he can do quite a lot. He refocuses, however, when he spots the two approaching the building he's in. Invisible, unheard, he does two things at once.
He drops his concentration on the 1000 pounds of goats that had been hovering unseen and unheard in the lab,who fall three feet to the floor and are no doubt pissed. He will destroy the labs soon enough, but that will have to do as the chaos Cable asked for.
Instead, he focuses very very carefully on the two approaching, and surrounds either with about five hundred pounds of Quipu each, attempting to fill their mouth with styrofoam pogs while leaving enough room to breath. All of this, of course, is utterly invisible with no sparkly lights or rays emitting from him. He just stares, and one moment it isn't there, the next it's not.
Nightcrawler poofs into the corner nearest his own targets, the six buildings that supposedly house the trapped mutants. However, although he took into account the two guards on the catwalk, the three attendants were another matter. One opens the door just as the smoke appears, blinking and walking over to peer. "Something's up..." he states, guard turning around to jog back over. Kurt has time to slither away and hide, but his brimstone stench has drawn unwanted aggro.
Hisnd then it starts raining goats. Cable looks a bit surprised by it, but just hisses. "Well. They were suspicious anyway..." With that, the elder Nathan bursts through the skylight, glass whirling behind. As the labs are kicked and rampaged by the wild goats, many of which get impulsively shot at by the guards, he lands in the midst. << Telepathy's turning off a few. >>
Telekinesis whirls, grasping tables and hurling the contents, slamming into the nearby men, knocking them and goats flying with raw abandon as two others are molested with less esoteric forms of currency. A moment later his plasma pistol is out, and he fires, turning one's weapon into shattered, molten slag with a shriek of pain. "Take them down before they pop any MGH!!"r
"Fuck." Nails growls. "Lock it down." Suddenly all of the guards have their weapons at the ready, lights flashing on at the end as they start scoping around the interior. "Our four canaries weren't responding anyway." His hand pops something into his mouth, shifting it to a cheek. He pulls out a heavy pistol, other hand slowly swirling the hammer around. A hiss of static as Nails switches frequencies. "Contact the Boss. We need a Jumper in here, yesterday!"
He's almost entirely blocking the walkway now; even Xavin's utter lack of a chest couldn't squeeze past the huge Aryan without brushing on some part of him.
Xavin's eyes dart towards the impossible to ignore cloud of smoke momentarily, and then after completing her circle, she lifts the panel free with a tiny, invisible crane and a twitch of her fingers while fading from view. A bubble expands around her body, and from there it's just a matter of willing it off the roof, through the skylight, and - thanks to a lack of overhead clearance - down to the walkway, rather than through the space above it; the panel is gently set on the roof meanwhile.
Hopefully, none of the thugs pull telepathy in the MGH lottery. Or thermal vision, or enhanced olfactory senses--as Xavin ticks off the number of ways that her infiltration could blow up on her, she tip-toes along the walkway, searching for somewhere to wait for a patrolling guard--or, better yet, a guard who's already isolated enough from Nails and his partner to take on the spot. Either way, if she does manage to find one of them before they can find her, the play will be the same: expanding her sphere of invisibility to include the mark, disposing of him with a hand over the mouth and a blade across the throat, then letting his body stay hidden for as long as she can maintain the field while she borrows his face and earpiece to work her way past Nails.
Revenge will have to wait--or, rather, she hopes that it'll be able to wait; as much as she'd like to reintroduce herself to the Aryan Brother, her part of the mission is meant to be clandestine.
Nightcrawler blends into the shadows but he cannot mask the stench of brimstone. As the guard runs towards him there is truly a part of him that wants to see how many teleports it would take to dismantle everyone on the catwalk...
..but the children...
Slithering across the wall he numbly avoids the myriad gun lights until he's able to get a vantage that is relatively unguarded. Deciding that further smoke will only draw their attention he instead leaps through the shadows gliding /below/ the catwalk..
Spade-tipped tale whips upwards and curls about the lower-railing. It goes taught, pulling him in a gentle arc, and then he sticks to the underside of the causeway Striking out like a Xenomorph he skitters with remarkable speed towards where the catwalk connects to the six other structures.
Kilroy doesn't have any immediate targets. He feels bad about the goats, but really...he has only himself to blame. Cable might be a surgeon most of the time but he's an atomic powered surgeon with electro chainsaw scaple...he's destroying a lab, the goats were in the way. Keeping an eye out for any hostiles of any kind, he looks around with eyes AND currency sense but in the meantime ensures that NO ONE will ever use this lab again and fills every piece of high tech equipment, every beaker, ever sample, every dish, everything not a human, with salt...so even if they manage to pick up the slag, nothing here will be salvaged...at all.
Nails shifts and swallows his capsule with a grin. "Nobody's getting past this door... he growls. After a few moments his upper body bulges with muscle. Black, tar-like skin flows over him, and he begins to grow, almost eight feet high with a snarl. Utterly monstrous; this seems a little too useful to be coincidental. "BRING IT!!" From his palm there's a ripping sound, before he's holding a coil of bio-organic metal. As Nightcrawler shifts towards one of the doors, he hurls the nail-like item; if it misses, it rips through sheet aluminum, crashing into the outside wall, shatters the reinforced concrete, and embeds itself into the adjacent building. So... hopefully it misses.
The other two on the catwalk similarly pop capsules. One shimmers into metal, and immediately is super-heavy, collapsing through as the catwalk rips, comically crashing down upon the ground as his AK-47 bounces away. "Shit!!" The other starts coughing and hissing, veins and eyes now a dark green. Spittle drips out, sizzling as it melts through the catwalk, whirling around and looking for someone to hock a loogie towards.
Nightwing would manage to get into a room with an attendant, who's fumbling with a capsule. The mutant youth on the bed is skin and bones, looking to be covered in a rhino-skin like hide with a deformed nose and no ears; shackled to the minimal bed, wearing naught but underwear. Seeming honestly bewildered, more than anything else.
"ICE THE MUTANT SCUM. THE LAB'S BLOWN." Nails snarls. The acid-spitter then moves to rush forward, to aim his weapon and fire wildly into the room that Nightcrawler just shuffled into. Looks like there's a complication.
On the lab level, salt ruins all of the ingredients, bursting capsules, shattering glass, the goats making short work of anything else. Cable blows the head off one guard, a whirl of telekinetics shattering one in a manner better left undescribed. A third is too foiled by Kilroy to manage to get the pill in his mouth, and another blast of telekinesis hurtles him and debris rather fatally into a garage door, denting it heavily.
One who swallows looks confused, given nothing appears to have happened. He may never find out his great gift of making everything he touch taste like apple pie. Either way he fires the weapon impotently at Cable, bullets, sinking deep into his heavy armor but not penetrating beyond. But as the elder Nathan turns to focus attention on him, the other roars, grasping his head and falling to his knees.
The world turns topsy-turvy.
Suddenly everyone is caught in zero gravity within the entire warehouse. Nails curses, as does the other guard. Things begin to levitate upwards, goats kicking the air, salt, broken items, and Cable. "Shit... an Omega trigg--" And then the lucky guard raises a hand. Cable manages to start saying "F--" before he vanishes.
Into the air.
Very, very high into the air. The skylight beside Kilroy explodes, glass and metal flying in all directions as Cable forms a little star in the night sky.
Partway through shifting gears to hunt down a stray attendant - neither guard gave much of an opening, as it turned out - Xavin jerks her head towards the sounds of chaos building around the upper floor and pauses, briefly, to consider turning around and taking some of the pressure off of Nightcrawler. Suddenly being down a guard is great for both of them, but not if he still has to contend with gunfire and super-nails.
She isn't the only one who's having a hard time keeping her feet on the ground; the guards, some scientists, and, for some reason, goats are levitating with her, but more important than any of them, Nails is up there too. Narrowing her eyes on the door behind him, she concentrates on willing her invisible beneath him while he struggles to find footing in the air. Even if she's able to work against the unseen force sweeping the warehouse's occupants off of their feet, she won't move much quicker than a brisk jog; on the upside, though, she can shrink herself and the bubble down by a foot or two to make passing beneath him a little easier.
Reaching the edge of the catwalk, Nightcrawler shifts his momentum and grabs the lower railing while immediately detaching from the surface. This brings all his momentum through this arm and his body out perpendicular to the catwalk. It's an easy affair to take the top railing with his other hand and then sling himself up. It's the sort of thing he's been doing since he can walk.
As he somersaults up onto the catwalk he checks the placement of his foes and sees...
...a giant nail heading right for him..
So much for stealth..
The object collides with purple smoke and then crashes through the sheet metal, the concrete, and continues on outside as Nightcrawler reappears with his back to the wall alongside the first holding cell.
Pivoting the grabs the door frame and hurls himself inside at the attendant feet first--
Bamf..
He reappears behind the attendant with the same momentum sucker-mule-kicking the attendant at the middle of his back and out the door into the path of AK-47 fire.
The attendant gives Kurt and the mutant child a few seconds of human shield time. Let's hope that capsule was a healing factor.
The kick took most of his momentum away so Nightcrawler twists hitting the ground landing on his toes and right hand in a three point stance. He comes off the line of scrimmage directly at the wall..
Bamf..
A burst of smoke erupts mid-air just aside the spitter on the catwalk. The momentum of the Nightcrawler's leap carries through the teleport and a saber flashes through the purple smoke the shimmering blade cutting at the fellow's jugular to drain the poison and then some..
Needless to say after the blade connects Nightcrawler is planning on displacing himself again before gravity overrides the momentum of his leap. THEN he realizes something has gone HORRIBLY WRONG. Someone took away all his momentum and gravity so he'll need an extra second to realize WTF just happened.
It keeps happening. Kilroy...is a sheperd. He's supposed to be a guy in the background. The guy you never see. And, granted he's not seen YET, Cable is...probably in low orbit right now. His immediate reaction is to try and help him but Kilroy remembers that he can TELEPORT so...probably will be fine. He doesn't exactly know what an Omega class mutant is, but he's guessing anything that can do that to Cable is pretty bad....really really bad.
So...what to do?
Gravity. Lessee....dropping Rai stone. Nope. Gravity. Dropping goats? No. Gravity. Cone of salt? Nope. Gravity. In fact, this joker probably had a force field of gravity around himself or something...and making him spit quarters was a horrid idea....
Kilroy thought about it...and then remembered, out of nowhere, a bunch of drunken frat boys who had been singing on the way here.....frat boys....inside the throat of the gravity guard, pure 100 proof alcohol manifested itself, ever clear, about two quarts of it. It wasn't an auto take down of the guard...but at the least it would likely hurt like hell.
Well. Cable's still not back. Then again, he can't Bodyslide until his momentum is fully arrested. Time goes by fast, when everything's gone to hell and back. Xavin's presence is still entirely unknown, unless she somehow gets touched by another guard and the smell of delicious pie draws attention. Nails is only about a meter up, his huge frame shifting around with annoyance. "CUT THE DAMN GRAVITY THING!!" he yells out. However, that doesn't happen. Instead the guard on the lab floor is glowing blue, looking at his hands and trembling.
"This... this is the power of... those things?! Hah... hahahah... I CAN SEE WHY THEY ARE FEARED!!" He raises both arms at once, and suddenly the building shudders. Supports bend, bolts pop out like bullets, and the random entourage of containers and such begin to heavily rise up, many impacting the catwalk and denting them. One of the six rooms housing a mutant is struck by a massive metal container, rupturing open.
Nightwing appearing is the main reason Xavin manages to do the worm. Almost immediately, another of those huge nails is hurled at him with a snarl, the force of the throw sufficient he's sent floating backwards to thump into the wall beside the door, grasping the railing in a large hand. All of this doesn't make the nail-bullet any less effective. The acid-spitter's throat was ripped open, and he fires randomly while spiralling around, acidic blood going in all directions in the second terrible Aliens ripoff so far. Twitching, it's clear that he's out of the fight... although in the motion, Nightcrawler probably got an unwelcome splatter on him as a result.
But then, the Gravity Guru (That is now his name) begins retching up alcohol, doubling over and grasping his throat. Like that, the gravity turns back on. All of it. Sadly, the building is in a poor condition for it. Nails rips off the side of the railing before crashing upon the ground. Goats rain, breaking legs left and right. A terrible cacophony, as the entire catwork begins to rip out, damaged by lifted items and weakened by acid. A mutant adult in a bed is now falling nearly a story; Nightcrawler is hopefully fast on the draw.
Three of the other ascended rooms start to rip free of the roof now, as attendants and scientists fall shrieking to land on unrelenting concrete, writhing and rolling around. Mr. Apple Pie cracks into a pile of salted chemicals, dampening his fall slightly. "Sh,shit...!!" He hastily moves to reload his AK-47, wondering where that nostalgic aroma is coming from.
To Kilroy's dismay, the roof sags inwards with violence, creating an indent... towards the broken and ruptured skylight. Hopefully he can find something to grab on to. Maybe causing the Gravity Guru's powers to suddenly turn off was an overall negative. Hopefully Xavin made it to the door.
Nightcrawler hangs listless in the air his own attempt to compensate for the sudden shift sudden nullification of his momentum causing him to spin rapidly about whilst waving his sword in a pathetic attempt to fend off the spray of acid which is just merrily drifting about.
Releasing his saber he cover his face with his hands, droplets biting through his new X-Force Gloves, and then he's gone...just as the nail passes through..The swirling smoke writhing like a tentacle'd purple liquid rather than dissipating smoothly.
Apparently Nightwing's plan wasn't anymore than "get the hell out of there" for he reappears in no strategic position still spiraling in the air -- his one saving grace is that The Batman is not here to see him compromised by something as simple as a few of the laws of physics going awry...and now the building is coming apart.
Then, as if a switch were thrown, the physics come back. Gravity eagerly grabs Nightcrawler and wrenches him for the ground. Now this -- he understands. He teleports up, and up, and up again, the momentum continually pulling him downward but not letting him hit the ground as he tries to get glimpses of what's going on between teleports.
Nightcrawler /is quick/ and so his next teleport lands him practically on-top of the fellow who he wraps up with his arms and legs. They vanish and reappear near the one stationary fixture Nightcrawler could find in such short order. Snagging it with his tail the pair are suspended by Nightcrawler and the man, for everything he's been through thus far, apparently was both breathing and had his eyes open because now he's puking all over whoever happens to have ended up below them.
Thankfully, with the building his open, he has a pretty good line of sight. Then he and his vomiting friend are outside on the brush-covered hill, "Deep breaths mein friend, I will return soon.." He instructs the man
Kilroy does two things he really shouldn't. The first is that he tries to move...well...everyone....by their wallets, out of the collapsing compound. He can lift a ton of currency but in this case he is mainly lifting people. If he can only get some, he's starting with the mutants (even if he has to plant some money in their tattered clothing to do it), then the scientists and the guards last. Obviously team members if in danger are included in that.
As for himself, he still heeds his grandfather's call not to fly, plus all his creation and control magic is going into saving other lives, which means he still has to save his own neck, so as he goes running over the edge of the warehouse, he takes one of the untracable cards in his pocket, which begins to create a massive pile of confederate notes to break his fall as he leaps off of the building and away from the wreck.
Although Xavin's done a good job of avoiding criminal contact thus far, when the Guru's exuberance sends numerous small, but dangrous bits of metal into the air, she finds herself unable to dodge them all. Bolts and flecks of acid bounce off of or hiss against the surface of her bubble, each one sending little pricks of pain shooting through her skull; separately and without the added stress of negotiating the artificial gravity that the guard is generating, the inconvenience would hardly slow her down, but as it is, she has to stop periodically and concentrate on buoying herself in the air while praying that the metal hail dies down. Getting past Nails - even at that slowed pace - is a cause for some relief, but even that's taken from her when his attack on Nightcrawler launches him back against the door.
If her training wasn't preventing her from sighing just now, she would. Bad enough that she's taking fire; she doesn't need more things to maybe blow her cover.
She's lingering up there and considering her options for sneaking - or just fighting - her way past Nails when the gravity comes back on and simplifies things considerably; at that point, she glides the rest of the way towards the door and touches down on the twisted end of the catwalk still leading up to the door. The air around her shimmers faintly as she fishes the beacon out of her pouch, and then an unenhanced Nails tries to enter the office.
Nails pushes himself back up to his feet, apparently uninjured by the heavy fall. He growls, but the main office remains suspended. With horrible ripping noises, two more nails appear in his hands. Shifting his stance, one is hurled at Nightcrawler and his saved mutant, blowing out the corner of the building as he escapes in a ripple of brimstone. This further compromises the delicate structure. "Damnit... DAMNIT!!" This is all going to hell!! How'd a whole team of people ambush them like this?! Right now none of the other mutants are falling, but they are certainly risking it. A limping goat is then kicked by the monolithic Aryan, hurtling like a meteor and exploding through a window. "WHERE DID THESE GOATS COME FROM?!" Somewhere in the city, someone is in for a nasty surprise. The scientists escaped being leg-broken thanks to Kilroy, but finally Nails looks up and catches sight of the man. "...!!" A good thing he chose to leap off, as another piece of roof explodes into shrapnel right behind him, as another nail rockets off into the horizon!!
Within the room, Xavin is looking right into the face of a pistol. There's a crumpled-looking man, and a sleek individual in a business suit. Between the two, which one is a drug dealer and which one isn't is probably easy to tell. "Nails...?" offers the higher lieutenant. Before turning his head to the side. "I heard you transform." And then he begins pulling the trigger, firing bullets towards Xavin's head and upper body. "And if you aren't a doppleganger... this is QUITE a mess." Disturbingly calm. He has a cellphone to his ear. "Yes. We're ready now. Send the Jumper to my signal."
Just as the Gravity Guru recovers, coughing and spitting, there's a temporal CRACK. Cable suddenly appears once more within the middle of the room, trying to get the lay of the land. < What's going on...?! > A few of the mutant-holding rooms decide that's a good time to break and fall, and with a curse Cable's right eye flares orange, telepathy shutting off as he catches them roughly, yanking them to the ground far too hard.
A moment later, Cable explodes into a crator beneath him. He's then sheathed in protective telekinesis, but inch by inch the pressure upon him grows. The Gravity Guru is glowing like a beacon once more, striding closer to the elder Nathan. "Crush... get crushed like a bug!!"
"Shit..." Cable hisses. All his telekinetic might isn't enough. He's feeling bones creak. "NIGHT... CRAWLER... TAKE HIM... FOR A HIGH RIDE..." he calls out, desperately.
..for a ride.."
Nightcrawler dissipates and then reappears behind the Gravity Guru. Slinking forward his tail oh-so-slowly curls about the fellows ankle..
They reappear mid-air above the building.
The wretched stench of brimstone is overpowering as successive teleports creates a thick bank of fog above the factory.
Higher now. So much higher. One mile. Two Miles. Three Miles. Four Miles. Freezing cold. The air is so thin.
Nightcrawler's feet are at his back and at their last teleport he simply shoves off and spreads his arms wide, "Good luck." Kurt remarks and then he's gone.
The Gravity Guru is in a bad spot. High as he is there's little air. It's freezing and to compound things he's got teleportation-vertigo and nausea on top of it all. Good luck, indeed.
A long series of teleports bring Kurt back into the action.
Kilroy swirls a cloud of salt around Aryan. Bastard hurt a perfectly harmless Goat. Now, when we say cloud of salt here, we're really talking about ...like...a storm of salt, a thousand pounds of it swirling around very very fast, coming out and in of every tiny little place it can as Kilroy himself runs as fast as he can for concealment and cover, hiding temporarily behind a large bull dozer. He doesn't expect that to last long but hopefully they're all distracted enough that it will work.
Using Nails' form was a hail mary, a quick and dirty attempt at maintaining some semblance of cover amidst a swiftly deteriorating situation. Xavin wasn't expecting success, exactly, but the speed at which the lieutenant tests the ruse is still surprising. He barely has enough time to throw his hands forward and raise an invisible plane between himself and the dealer; if not for the gun pointed at the door when he entered, he might not have managed it. The bullets bounce off of it harmlessly, eliciting a few small grunts and grimaces from the alien.
"It is a mess," the Skrull agrees, advancing on the dealer at a brisk pace. A wave of his hand sends the barrier hurtling ahead of him, towards the criminal; he means to press the man against the wall behind him to keep him secure for beacon attachment. Afterwards, he clenches that hand into a fist meant to summon another force field, this time inside of the phone in order to disable it.
"Something called a 'Jumper' may be en route to the lieutenant's position," he transmits over the physical communicator. "I'm doing what I can; it will have to be enough."
Using Nails' form was a hail mary, a quick and dirty attempt at maintaining some semblance of cover amidst a swiftly deteriorating situation. Xavin wasn't expecting success, exactly, but the speed at which the lieutenant tests the ruse is still surprising. He barely has enough time to throw his hands forward and raise an invisible plane between himself and the dealer; if not for the gun pointed at the door when he entered, he might not have managed it. The bullets bounce off of it harmlessly, eliciting a few small grunts and grimaces from the alien.
The bullets bouncing off thin air does surprise the man in the suit, who steps backwards to thump into the back of the office. Then he's smashed against it, gun clattering to the floor. He still seems somewhat calm, until his phone is destroyed. Now he's cursing. "Damnit... who do you... think you people are?!"
Suddenly, Cable is free, and with salt whirling around Nails, he roars and grasps the man in telekinesis. Before /whipping/, sending the hapless Aryan exploding through the damaged roof and spiralling away head over heels. Cable is more than a little disoriented, beginning to stagger forward. "Well, hopefully it's an emergency way out. Then we'll know exactly where he's taken..."
Suddenly, a metal-skinned man is standing in front of Cable, AK-47 hefted up. The spray of bullets hits a telekinetic shield, warling upon it. Before with a grunt, Cable hurtles them back. They bounce off in a spray of sparks. "Hahahaha!!" mocks the Metal Monstrosity. Cable pulls out his plasma pistol, firing three quick shots. Each makes the heavy man take a step backwards, but outside destroying clothing, his metal form is unscathed. "Idiot!! I can't be har--"
Dismissively, Cable gestures in the air in a bright flash of his orange eye. Drool and twitches follow as the last 'dangerous' guard thumps over, his mind scrambled like eggs in a beater.
Floating up in a shimmer of blue, Cable lands heavily in the open doorframe, spitting blood to the side. "You've got a lot of questions to answer to, friend." he offers to the barrier-pinned lieutenant. "But don't worry... you don't have to be conscious for that part..."
To Xavin he says, "Nails. ...Go kill him. He'll be on his way back. I've got to... clean this place up." Scientists have already fled, as has the limping pie-summmoner. That's bad. He wanted no witnesses. But at least the mutants are in no immediate peril, although they are rattled and likely uncomfortable. This was... what's the Skrull word for clusterfuck?
Kilroy leaves, but not before making any remaining goats float out, turn invisible and get healed along the way. He plans on delivering them to a local petting zoo.
"Surgeons," Xavin/Nails replies as he closes the rest of the distance and slaps his beacon-bearing palm to the lieutenant's forehead. His other hand remains outstretched the whole way until it ends up braced gently against the barrier, and then once the beacon is in place, his fingers drum impatiently against the surface as he periodically checks over his shoulder for some sign of Cable. With the way that things have gone, he wouldn't exactly be shocked if the cyborg took his time arriving; still, though, he can't exactly leave his objective unattended...
Cable's voice in his head elicits a sigh of relief, and when he appears shortly afterwards, he steps back to give him however much room he needs. When that last order is given, he fights to maintain an appropriately neutral expression, but can't quite manage to keep a tight smile from crossing his lips. "I assume that you have--this under control," he says as he backs towards the door. The wall falls, freeing the lieutenant for a precious second before Cable has his way with him. As soon as that's done, he turns to run around Cable, out of the room, and down a set of invisible steps running from the end of the catwalk down to the lower level.
Once he finds the lab, it doesn't take long to figure out where it is that Nails might be on his way back from; all he has to do is look up. Once that's sorted, the alien lets out a slow, shaky breath, shakes his hands out, then lets them hang at his sides. It would be easy enough to cloak himself, to set up an ambush and see whether or not the Aryan's drug-enhanced body is tough enough to withstand the blade he requisitioned from Graymalkin; it wouldn't satisfy at this point, though. No, instead, he'll wait out in the open in Nails' flesh until the real article crashes back into the lab. In fact, after balling his hands up, he even makes himself a little easier to spot by surrounding his hands with fire...
Category:Log