Summary:An attack by cyborgs is thwarted by a motley group of heroes. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Mutant Town is always a hotbed of activity, be it good or bad. Today, it is of the bad variety. Outside of the police precient, one of the police cars is currently on fire and burning - who would dare attack a /police/ station? Rumbling past the station and firing on it is a figure - the upper half of his body is a human, wearing body armor and firing from a mounted machine gun on his chasis - which makes up the whole lower half of his body, a tank treaded chasis that rolls down the street.
Along with him is a handsome looking figure that is carrying a grenade launcher and firing it at the windows of the police department, causing large explosions. Another figure is moving around on a pair of cybernetic legs, leaping high into the air, and then kicks a car, knocking it on it's side. There's other cyborgs that are on the attack, carrying various weapons, various limbs and body parts are replaced with mechanical bits.
And it's clear that they are sending a message to the NYPD. Get out of Mutant Town.
One of the advantages of Jean staying the city: It's a lot easier for her to show up for these sorts of things. And today, it turns out Scott was with her as well, which means the two of them show up at the same time thanks to a quick ride from Jean's telekinesis, setting them on a nearby rooftop.
"Okay, so I'm not imagining that these guys look like rejects from the horror version of Toy Story, right?" she murmurs to Scott, trying to get a read on just what's going on down there.
There are at least four things that Quinn promised to do for herself. She wouldn't call it a tenemant, that would be weird, but four tasks that are done monthly to make herself feel like a good person. Befriend someone, that's one. Take out the garbage. That's two. Bring someone a gift. That's three. And do some good in the world. That would be four.
Three of those things were already checked off of the list, save do some good in the world. And who in the hell feels like doing some do-gooding when you're not high as a kite or no one has done any good for you..
So, screw it. Quinn took to the skies with a cigarette in her mouth, careful with a tiny TK field so that the embers do not blow back in her face, just over-all on patrol around the city, looking for the most minor crime she could come up on. And she found it! Littering! How dare this scumbag ten year old throw that popcicle wrapper on the ground?! You pick that up sir! Right now! Good.. good..
Good deed done for the month, Quinn dusted her hands off and proceeded to turn on her way home, until.. well.. the whomp, the screams, and the general mayhem catches her attention. Ah.. Aaah.. "Shit." Quinn turns to head that way on foot, in between buildings and alleyways with a march that screamed, 'Who threw my clothes out the dryer and onto the floor?'
Silk had heard about the attack, and it hadn't taken her long to web-zip from building to building from where she'd been perched atop the Daily Bugle all the way to Mutant Town once the attack had started.
She literally swoops in, hand gripping one of the weblines as her momentum carries her forward at speeds well beyond what cars are moving at along main roads nearby, and as she swings through she lets go of the webline, spinning in mid air to cast a new webline onto the grenade launcher and yank it, -hard-, from the one carrying it and using that momentum to try and slam it into the face of the half-tank cyborg before she lands in a classic superhero pose and tells the cyborgs, "You know, if you surrender now, it'll go far easier for you."
She hasn't seen any of the others yet. But, Jean would certainly recognize the young woman.
Mikhail has never been to Manhattan before. Hell, he's never been to the US before. But the cell phone has a map and it tell him where he is as he walks. He'd been getting a recent history lesson and when Mutant Town was mentioned in passing, he decided he wanted to see this place for mutants. Having wandered around it for five minutes, he has to say he's not impressed. It looks much like the ghettos in Moscow.
The sound of military weapons is familiar to him. The explosions are unmistakable. He immediately took cover then carefully looked around the corner to see who it was. Three of them. No, four. And… it's not his fight.
"Come out, come out and play!" Calls the half-man on treads as he fires a blast of machine-gun fire towards the police station, peppering and kicking up the plaster. As he spins back around, rotating on his treads, he notices Mikhail peeking from around the corner. "It's a would be hero!" he calls out and laughs. The Mikhail looks to be ducking away. "You better run, mutie freak!"
Oh great, the freaks are calling the mutants freaks. That goes over well.
Holding onto Jean's hand as he lands with her, Scott adjusts his visor - he had the wherewithall to pack it with him when he came into the city, though he's still in his street clothes. There's a snort at Jean's comment as she makes it, though he takes on the more serious mein. "They're far more dangerous than some Action Hero rejects, Jean." As if to prove his point, the grenade launching Pretty Boy looks up and notices the couple. "'oi, hey red, why don't you come down here and try a real man!" And he fires a grenade that goes arching through the air towards Scott and Jean, looking to knock them down off the edge of the building.
That is until Silk /yanks/ away his grenade launcher. "Hey! Mine!" he calls out towards the girl, and then grunts. "Playmate for you, Springer!" With that, the man with the cybernetic legs bounces upwards, pressing against the side of the building and launches himself at Silk to try to kick her in mid flight.
Quinn is noticed by a man wearing a skull mask, and his right arm points towards her. It warps into what looks like a nasty looking assault rifle. "Let me guess, your power is resting bitch face." he comments to Quinn, before opening fire on her.
"Ugh, gross," Jean grimaces, catching the grenade out of the air with her mind and sending it rocketing skywards where it won't hurt anyone. "Pull!" she calls over to Scott so he can set it off before it somehow manages to find an airplane.
Once the actual grenade is out of the way, she reaches her mind out toward the men on the street, trying to figure out what they're doing.
Quick calculation; there were others on the scene and already being attacked attempting to defend the PD. Hell, if she had gotten here earlier, she would have been on the attackers side and quite possibly would have gotten them all out safely but..
It is what it is.
Grenades fly. Bodies. People being attacked. Someone pointing an assault rifle at her that.. came from his arm? "Holy shit!" She shrieks, but it wasn't one of terror! Her hands start clapping as bullets fly, pinging into random, reckless directions as she continues to press forward towards the oppressor. "That is such.. such a gnarly fucking thing you can do!" She would say, if he was still firing. "Great joke too." She could feel, if the shooting was still happening, her field lessening little by little, and it was putting up a little bit of a strain.
"So I can totes do that, but.. mine is -way- cooler." She holds out her hand, palms down, fingers immediately snapping into a curl around a 9mm that glows purple. For that split second, she allows the shield around herself to drop to fire that manifested gun, aiming for right between the eyes with the hope to knock him clean out.
As Springer launches towards her, Silk's own sense kicks in and she lets her body take over, natural preservation instinct to avoid the incoming threat of being kicked through a building — her hand extends out, to blind Springer first while her other hand ziplines down to the ground and pulls, hard, to make her land quicker than Springer might've planned.
All of this allows her to avoid that incoming kick, and as he flies past her, she turns again to cast a series of webs out from her fingertips, with the intent of tying his calves and ankles tightly to the back of his head to disable his 'weapons' entirely by proxy.
Mutie Freak. Mikhail had assumed this was just American criminals committing crimes against American police. It is not. It is humans, however bizarrely augmented committing crimes against mutants. That transcends borders. Running is the furthest thing on his mind at the moment and he turns back. He doesn't bother saying anything. His answer is the blast of energy heading toward the machine gunner. Specifically, at the machine gun. And the chassis. And treads. Hopefully there's not a lower torso imbedded in it.
« Pull? Really? » Scott asks through the link he shares with Jean, but his head tilts upwards. Tapping the side of his visor, a blast of ruby energy lances out to slam into the grenade and blow it out of the sky. He turns his attention to one of the men that is trying to get into the police station through a broken window, and another blast is fired, knocking him backwards towards the street. Jean can feel the rush of adrenaline from the cyborg attackers. In her mind, she can see what the plan is. Destroy the police station, the fire department - march on Mutant Town. Drive them out, kill them, push all the mutants to the sea. Then into it. It's the start of a plan for a massacre.
"On the roof!" the treaded man calls, and behind Jean and Scott, a portal opens. Another cyborg drops out, and this one is carrying a pair of bladed hands as she rushes to try to run Jean through. "Look out!" Scott yells, pushing Jean to the side as he moves to try to defend himself from the strike, but one of the blades catches him in the side, cutting through his cloth, and Jean can feel the pain in his side as he takes a cut there, as he fires a blast to knock the cyborg back at the same time. She tumbles across the roof before pushing herself back to her feet and licks her lips as she looks to Jean.
The skull-faced man growls as Quinn is knocking away his bullets. "Die, mutie." he snarls, before Quinn pulls out her own gun. Then she'll realize it's not just his body aumented, but his reflexes as he ducks aside of the blast as she fires it and he runs at the pink haired mutant, drawing both of his hands over his head, combining them into what looks like one large wrecking ball that he plans to bring down on top of the telekenetic, smash her defenses - and then smash her.
Silk's attack snags Springer in mid-air and he's grabbed and goes careening about. He lands on the ground with a grunt of pain, tumbling end over end. And then she's wrapping up his legs. She seems to have the easy victory, but the moment Silk lands, he drives both of his bound legs together into the storefront of a neighboring building. It creaks and cracks, and if Silk is not quick, the building's facade will collapse upon her.
The treaded cyborg turns on Mikhail and is racing towards him, the machine-gun firing wildly. That is until his treads are suddenly ripped apart and the roadwheels screech on the pavement. The lower-half of the cyborg trundles to a stop as Mikhail is systematically taking aparet his lower body. "Help!" he yells, getting the attention of something, and as Mikhail is almost done, a portal opens around the mechanical man, and he disappears into it.
"Where are they-" As the portal opens behind her and Scott, Jean starts to reach out with her mind, though not as quickly as Scott pushes her out of the way. "Dammit!" she curses as he takes a hit, jaw setting.
"Girl. I can promise this doesn't end well for you," she snarls at the woman with the blades for hands, extending her own hand just to lift the woman into the air with her mind, holding her out over the street as she starts to try to disassemble those blade-hands.
"What is your problem?"
Woah! He was fast! That shot didn't go as planned. She squeezes her hand tight to do away with the gun, it disappearing in a cloud of smoke, her arms raising to cross in front of her to bring out a fortified shield to protect herself with. The first slam down upon the shield was a complete shock, one that drives Quinn to her knee; if there was a manifestation of the shield she put up, it would look to be cracked. The second raise of his arm causes Quinn to think quick, using her own TK force to snatch her back, her foot dragging against the concrete until she pushes herself up into the air at a high jump and a land upon her feet at a couch.
"You. Asshole." She hisses, her eyes narrowing. That would be her, punishing with the force of her mind against his brain pan. "Fuck off." The command sent, her eyes near wild, attempting to send that command out to the aggressors. "ALL OF YOU. FUCK. OFF!" Cue nosebleed, and migraine headache.
Again, Silk's senses kick in. She is, in this case, lucky that her own danger sense, and her reaction speed are better than Spider-Man's this time. Again her body almost seems to take over, for as soon as Spinger begins to kick the building to send it down, Silk is falling backwards to buy herself a precious half-second or so as webs furl out from all ten fingertips to web up the cracks and breaks in the building even as they form to secure, support them for the next few hours, until she reaches the top - that she can't prevent from crumbling but what she -can- do is spin a netting to catch, and support the falling debris from the building. All of this in just a few quick seconds.
Rolling over onto her side and moving up into a standing position, she casts another set of webs onto Springer until he's fully cocooned so he can't do any further damage to anyone, or anything.
A portal. Mikhail can't keep portals from opening - wait, can he? - but he can keep them from closing and he locks onto the energy that formed it and keeps it that way. Keeping an eye out for other cyborgs, he runs - okay, jogs, sort of hobbles - toward it to get a look to see the destination.
"Our problem is you and your kind, girl." the woman snarls in response. And while in Jean's telekentic grip and dangling over a wide opening of a five story building, she kicks at the redhead telepath, and from her boots, a pair of blades fly out, streaking straight for Jean to try to impale her and break her concentration - even if that means dropping her.
The energy that Mikhail locks onto is powerful. Perhaps one of the most powerful he has felt since he left Earth. He can see something - an unfamiliar terrain, maybe it looks like the American West, it's hard to tell, but the town is abandoned. But for a moment, he catches a glimpse of what appears to be an Aboriginal man before the power becomes overwhelming, and the portal is snapped shut in his face.
As Silk is webbing the building, Springer spreads his legs, snapping the spider-silk - those are some powerful legs - and he launches himself at Silk to try to slam into her from behind before she can react. Whether or not this is successful, as Springer is getting coccooned - it hits.
Quinn's attack is hard and it strikes everyone. The cyborgs, the sieged police, even Scott, who is partially shielded from attacks from his training with Xavier and the link that is shared between him and Jean is affected as he cries out in pain. « Jean! » comes the call, feeling the wash of power. And he's not alone. Apparently, whoever was in charge of this operation has decided that with Quinn's attack, and the general turning of the tide of the battle, it is time to retreat. "Do it." snarls a figure in the shadows, and portals start to open, pulling most of the cyborgs away, except one.
The one that remains runs into the police station, and then there's a massive explosion that shatters all of the precient's windows and shatters the concrete. The Skull-face cyborg is on his knees and in pain as he snarls. "We'll be back -" and he's gone into a portal - as is the woman in freefall that was trying to break Jean's grip. The only thing that remains is the damage to the police station, the store, and the alarms and cries of those that were wounded. And the silence of those that were worse.
Jean simply pushes the woman away when she kicks outm but she isn't fast enough to stop her from disappearing through the portal. As the attackers disappear, though, she at least tries to counter Quinn's sudden psychic attack, to blunt the force of it.
"What was that?" She exclaims, stepping over to Scott to get a better look at him and his wound. "Also, how did you already got stabbed?"
It's all fun and games until you just had enough. And a blast like thatwas just a woman was fed up. She crumples to the ground upon one knee again, lurching forward, one fist repeatedly pounding the ground to offset the pain that she feels in her head. Those.. several minute migraines that take the wind out of your sails, make you nearly see black and only ease up a pinch when teeth are gritted. Still, punisher of self, Quinn looks up just in time to see the remenants of the portal closing. It was a quick snap, one that has her snapping her fist against the ground again in frustration.
"Fucking.. hell.." She says, wobbling to her feet with a little bit of a stagger.. until the precinct itself blows up which sends her spiralling into yesteryear!
Silk wasn't prepared for that, and she's hit, hard, and she snarls, "Alright. No more Ms. Nice Spider," she promises, and she launches herself at Springer, prepared to slam him in the jaw as hard as she can — but she ends up swinging at air as the portal sucks him in, disappears. There's an explosion that has her attention momentarily as it shatters windows, but doesn't seem to do much actual damage beyond being a distraction, still, she finds herself on her knees just the same to withstand the blast.
She stares, blankly, her mouth open even if it's hhidden beneath the red veil that covers the lower portion of her face. She stares, further, before asking aloud, yelling so all and sundry can hear, "What. THE HELL!? Do ALL the assholes in this city have some damn store they shop at called Portals R Us?!?!"
She slams a fist into the concrete below, sending a small spiderweb of cracks and a depression into the asphalt before she stands up, loking extremely displeased.
Having his control of the portal broken visibly surprises Mikhail though it really shouldn't have, given his lack of training and experience in such things. But he knows where they are and that's the important part. Looking around for the others who were fighting them, he's prepared to rally them for a counter attack when the precinct explodes. Fortunately, he's not close enough to get peppered by the glass but it does change the situation. As he walks toward the precinct, the nearest fires in the building die down and go out. "I know where they are." he says in English with a heavy Russian accent. "I can take us."
"Just a scratch." Scott responds to Jean as he lifts his shirt. He's got a cut- but it's not a bad one. May need a bandage and antseptic. And a tetanus shot.
As the fire department is starting to arrive on the scene to assist with the police, Scott frowns. This wasn't a win. He could barely call it a draw. The brows of the mutant draw in as he hears Mikhail's call out. "Can you get us over to him, Jean?" he asks.
When they arrive, he shakes his head. "We don't know what's on the other side of that portal. It could be just them - it could be a whole army." He doesn't like knowing what he's getting into. But Mikhail and his accent get a look over. "You look familiar." Even if he can't place it. "I'm Cyclops. This is Marvel Girl." Codenames for now.
Jean floats herself and Scott down to Mikhail, raising a hand toward where Cindy is in greeting to the Spider. Quinn…is a larger project. "Much as I'd like to take them out, I'm pretty sure this needs some more research," she agrees with Scott. "But if you saw where they were, enough to get a feel for it…"
Yeah, that knock to the ground was just enough to get the pain dispersed in equal fashion. Quinn slowly draws herself to her feet with a few grunts, her hands immediately shuffling through her pockets, ignoring the tiny cuts on the exposed skin that she has. Even a bit on her face. She shuffles out a pack of cigarettes in a white box; one with the green filter tugged out, lit and inhaled deeply as she glances to the sky. It smelled faintly of weed, but a true practicioner would know that it's just hemp.
Limping over to Mikhail's side with the rest, she gives a shake of her head. "I could give a flying fuck what's on that other side." She says plainly, taking another pull, and letting out a puff of air. "I'm going." If he was ready to go, she was. But a look towards Cyclops and Marvel Girl had her rolling her eyes and scoffing, not bothering with a wave or a hello, no long time no see nor how do ya do's. "We don't need to leave this to chance. Look at what the hell they did." She gestures to the burning building, she was sure she heard a woman screaming. "Fuck letting them regroup."
Silk moves over to MIkhail, "Good. Let's go." She looks to Cyclops, then over to 'Marvel Girl'. She doesn't call Jean's name out, but does look at Scott a bit oddly, and it's not because he's wearing something to turn his eyes into focused lasers.
"I'm going. I'm not going through this bait-and-chase-and-disappear crap again. I did that once with the Nightfall."
She nods once to Marvel Girl. "We took on some Gods. We can take on a few idiots who think if dehumanize themselves they're better," she says, encouragingly. She seems to be with Jean on the 'fuck letting them regroup'. "Besides. We'll have the element of surprise. They won't know we're coming after them."
She looks over to Mikhail. Nods, once. "I'm ready. Let's go." A pause, "Silk, by the way. Good to meet you. Let's go smash some cyborg assholes."
He has no codename. "Mikhail." he replies. "I hold it open. You look. Is… what is word? Dry, rock, few plants. Buildings in distance, no people." A pause as he thinks. "Look like Clint Eastwood movie." Looking to the street, he frowns ever so slightly and it takes a few seconds before there's a rip in the air that lengthens and widens till everyone can see what might be the American west. Or might not. Wah wah wah.
When Mikhail attempts to open the portal, he'll find that the portal itself is being warped and changed. It's as if someone has it on a randomizer and is messing directly with his power - yes, it could take them where Mikhail is trying to aim it to, but it could also drop them in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's hard to make heads or tails of it - but whoever is handling the portal is damned good at it.
"I'm not going to risk the lives of anyone until I know what we're facing. We should regroup and prepare to do this. We have intelligence they don't think we have. Thanks to Mikhail."
Scott is clearly not going to let people go diving through the portal if he can't help it - he's going to try his best to get everyone to stand down. "There's enough here that needs our help." he points out.