Players:
Summary: While a distraction takes place, Robyn and Shane perform an assault on Cerebra.
Date: July 3, 2011.
Log Title: Cerebra Assassination
Rating: PG-13.
Xavier Mansion - Subbasement
The subbasement is a long hallway ending with a circular door at the end with an X over the doors. In the middle of the hallway two hallways branch off across from each other. The left hallway leads to two large doors that open up into the Danger Room. To the right they lead to where the shuttle is that leads to the Blackbird. There is quite a bit of security down here and a majority of the rooms require authorization to enter.
This log occurse at the same time as Illusory Assault
It's evening at Xavier's, and a small Danger Room session has recently finished running. There is not much going on in the subbasement now that it's complete, and it's become relatively quiet except for a few students who remain in the area after their practice session.
Man the danger room sessions are pretty intense. Thankfully unlike in some of them, Kieran didn't pretty much end up draining himself to the point he's really sleepy. The blonde teen rolls his right shoulder massaging it a little bit as he tries to work the kink out of it.
Standing at the end of the hallway to the Danger Room is Robyn. He looks like he's in need of a shower and his clothes a torn, dirty and tattered. One foot kicks at something as he looks around, waiting for Heather to get back. He hates being alone here but sometimes it's better when she goes off. He starts pacing a bit as it's easier for things not to get him when he's moving.
SHANE SEES: Tonight’s the night. Both the woman, Cheryl, and Tabitha have informed Shane through the mirror wall that they have a plan to break her out tonight, but she will need to follow Cheryl's directions until she manages to get free, while Tabitha has left in order to face Marvin Brady, the 'visionary' who created the crystal world in the first place. Presently, the voice directs her down the crystal paths.
ROBYN SEES: It's another whatever time it is in meatworld. It's really hard to tell, but Heather has gone out ahead with the reassurance that she would be back with a way to kill her and Robyn both. Presently, the snakes and smaller creatures of the awful place slither and move around, nipping at Robyn's feet if they get close enough, but otherwise being relatively harmless.
Sophie's cane taps softly, as she guides herself out of the danger room behind everyone else. She pauses at the doorway, to let everyone decide where they are going. "What did everyone think?" she murmurs, to nobody in particular. "That session was… not so difficult as the one Professor Xorn subjected us to the other day, I think. Or perhaps we are just getting better, si?"
While other people seem to get drained or tired after their Danger Room Sessions, Tara seems to thrive on them. She's walking alongside Kieran, all but glowing. "Man, that was an awesome session. I mean… that thing went BOOOM! and then I went POW! and you went ZAAP! and it was glorious!" Her smile falters as she senses a familiar shape from down the hallway. She puts out a hand to grab Kieran warningly, to keep him from getting too far ahead. "Robyn?" she asks cautiously.
The elevator doors open at the end of the hall, revealing a bedraggled, filthy, and visibly exhausted Shane. "Almost there, right?" she mutters, eyes darting left and right as she stumbles out into the hallway. "…Okay. Right, straight ahead. Got it." Edging around Robyn, she starts jogging down the hallway, toward the doors that have never been anything but off-limits for the students, grim determination on her face. "…But if it's as important as you say it is… It's gonna be guarded, right?"
"Yeah. Using my powers just drains me a bit. Least when I go ZAP." Kieran says laughing a little bit at Tara,"THat explosion was pretty cool. Then again explosions usually are." He says sounding rather amused until he notices Robyn and then Shane,"Oh hell… Something tells me that this is going to be getting nasty soon." He says nervously looking around and judging the space they have to work in. Last time Robyn helped kick his butt.
ROBYN SEES: After awhile of waiting in the lonely meatland, Robyn would see shambling creatures, a group of three, who start to approach him. Heather has warned him about some things: They often have real life counterparts, so sometimes, if they injure you, it could very well be an injury that occurs in real life.
SHANE SEES: "Yes, I am sorry Shane, I can't help you with them… but I hope what I have taught you will help you enough," says the voice, and three versions of Shane crawl through the reflective crystalline structures. "They are not real like you are… and we need you to get out of here okay."
As Robyn's eyes fall on Tara, Kieran and Sophie he quickly turns around but only to find that the path that he thought was behind him is now closed off. (As the elevator has since closed.) He looks around in a panic, like a small animal whose trapped, as he tries to figure out a direction to run in. "Oh god Heather..please get back soon." He mutters before looking at the three and a purple psyblade starts to form from his hand. "Don't get close!" He warns them.
Sophie hunhs? "Close? Don't get close to what?" The spanish girl instinctively backs up, and puts her hand out to find the wall; something with which to position herself, at the very least. She continues backwards, and ducks back through the door and into the danger room, using the wall to shield herself from… whatever might be happening. "What is going on? Please, someone tell me, I must know!"
"Sophie, get behind me," commands Tara, voice low and suddenly a heck of a lot more serious than she normally is. "You too, Kieran." The ambient atmospheric pressure notches up a few bars as brings her strange sixth sense to attention, letting her pick out all the details of everything around her in a good forty foot radius. She holds up her hands, palms up to Robyn to show that she doesn't mean any harm. "Hey, Robyn," she says conversationally. "What brings you down here?"
The images ahead of Shane seem distracted — or at least worrying about something other than her. Perfect. Pelting down the hallway, Shane's clompy stompy boots ring out on the floor and begin to glow a deep, burning red. As she passes into Tara's sphere of awareness, her gait changes to that of a track jumper; one hop, two, jump… and as her feet slam to earth, the crimson energy lashes out, causing an ear-splitting detonation shockwave not far from the trio.
"Be careful Tara. Last time I ran into Robyn, he thought Tyler and I were someone else and attacked." Kieran says frowning a little bit and then there's the shockwave. "What the /hell/ was that?!" He says covering his ears and stumbling a bit and trying to keep his feet under him. He's never actually met Shane before and this whole thing now is making his head spin a little bit from the shockwave and the ear-splitting sound.
ROBYN SEES: The creatures do not back off, and one in fact tries to approach Robyn even closer. They stink from rotting in the heat, and seem quite intent on doing Robyn some serious harm. An explosion underneath from the magma shifting shifts the platform that Robyn currently stands on, and the acrid heat seems for a moment to become more intense. There is, however, the path away from the creatures which is free.
SHANE SEES: The shockwave that's produced seems to make the clones reel back a bit in surprise. "Good, Shane, I'll see what I can do…" speaks the voice, echoing through the chamber, "But you have to take care of these three first, before we can get you into position for escape."
As Tara's hands come up, Robyn jumps, his face filled with fear. "No, no, no, no, no." He mutters as he looks around again. As he looks down one of the hallways it seems like there's a way to run. He looks back at the three for a split second, running down the hallway as fast as he can to get away.
ROBYN SEES: As Robyn runs, he will find himself impaled on the blade of another creature, and everything goes dark. He finds himself breaking out of the illusion with Mindbender clutching the sides of his head. "GODDAMMIT THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!" He falls to one knee and then tries to make it to his feet, and as his eyes fall upon Robyn he says. "Shit… CHER- UPGRADE, GET DOWN HERE! I NEED YOUR HELP!"
When she senses Shane launch herself at them, Tara takes a step back and quickly snaps up a forcefield between the two groups, strong enough to stop a car in it's tracks. Tara isn't taking any chances on this one. However, it isn't solid enough to stop sound from coming through, and she winces in pain as the loud explosion leaves ringing in her ears. "Yeah, I know," she says to Kieran. "I was kinda hoping that they'd somehow broken out of it so I didn't have to fight them, you know?" to Sophie, she explains, "Shane and Robyn have been mind bamboozled and think we're bad guys."
"No!" Shane snarls as the forcefield springs into being between her and her goal… nevermind the walking talking obstacles that have the misfortune of being on the other side of the field. Balling up a fist, she rears back, hand beginning to glow. "You can't *stop me!*" The moment her knuckles touch the forcefield, another blast rings out, greater than anything she could normally be capabe of…. with ground zero a space the width of her hand.
Shit. Shane's attacking causes Kieran to lift his hands and unleashes a pair of taser level bursts of electricity from them towards Shane,"Back off! We don't want to hurt either of you but if we've got to do it to wake you up, then we'll do it." He says seriously, his hands remain up. Crap. Like the last time this all went down wasn't bad enough. THey've got to pull this crap here in such a confined space.
Sophie keeps her hand on the wall, and remains huddled behind the doorway, as she hears the awful sounds Shane makes as she comes barreling down the hall. "Si, Tara," she replies. "I… I am going to stay behind this wall." She taps around and behind herself with her cane, and shakes her head. "Then I shall spend my time praying for them," she adds. "I am almost exhausted after the danger room. I shall wait to see if anyone needs to be healed."
SHANE SEES: At the explosion, one of Shane's copies delivers a couple of bolts of electricity, with a blank expression in her eyes, "I want to take your place. I will tear you apart and become you." One of them at least seems to be backing off slightly at the explosion, however.
Remembering what he heard, about a device that only Mindbender can control, Robyn decides to take the opportunity to possess the man he believes is Heather's father. Now entering the area from where Robyn ran off to is now one Sam Guthrie. His eyes focus on the entrance to Cerebra and Sam starts to make a bee line there, knocking anyone out of the way if necessary. As soon as he reaches Cerebra, he starts to enter the proper codes to open the doorway.
Tara grunts as Shane's punch collides with her shield, the blast strong enough to get through and knock the girl off her feet. "Dammit!" she shouts, frustrated. "Keiran, I can't keep her back if she keeps doing that. Don't pull your punches. Sophie can always heal her afterwards." She scoots back a bit and goes on the offensive, throwing a mental shove at the Amazing Exploding Girl to get her far enough away that she can't throw a punch at any of them. When she senses Robyn run away, towards Cerebra she suddenly realizes what it is they're after. "Sophie!" she shouts at the girl. "Hit the panic button! See if you can get a hold of Emma! They're after Cerebra!"
Shane looses a shriek of pain and fury as the blasts cause her muscles to seize. "Nnng…. No! You're nothing!" Her entire body begins to flush, her very pores emanating a dull, angry red light. "*Do you hear me?!* YOU'RE NOTHING!!!" If the punch was bad, the explosion generated by her entire body is utterly *horrible.* Five tons of force at ground zero, an expanding wave-front of compressed air blasting outward in all directions, with the filthy Shane at the epicenter.
That's a lot of force coming out at once. It's enough that Kieran's knocked clear off his feet by the compressed air. "Ok. /That/ hurt." He says under his breath,as he gets up slowly on to his feet, and stretches a little bit to try and get his sore muscles loosened up a little bit. This time he's not taking any chances and hurls two bolts over 75 megawatts each. "We've got to do something here. I don't know what Robyn is up to but this /can't/ be good."
The explosive blast is enough to rupture the walls down here, and it is thus that Sophie feels a taste of the explosion as well, as it comes through the wall beside her and sends her flying through teh air, then skidding across the danger room floor, shrieking and screaming as she goes. By the time she comes to a stop, her cane is lieing on the floor a good ten feet away from her, but she does not immediately notice. She lies on the ground, motionless at first, and then rolling on to her side and getting to her knees. She pats her arms and legs, and her fingers come away with blood from scrapes and cuts; but at least the wall shielded her from most of the effect. She sucks in her breath as she notices the cane's absence. Instead of searching for it, she pats the top of her right boot, that she wears as part of her Danger Room uniform; and fortunately, the phone is still there. She flips it open, and feels for the panic button. "Hello?" she says into the phone. "Hello? Help! Help, quickly! Robyn and Shane are attacking Cerebra! We need help!”
SHANE SEES "The other versions of Shane seem to be working together, though not terribly well, to get rid of the original and take care of what happens later. The one with electricity powers attempts to throw more bolts at Shane, but an opening seems to be created and the voice urgently says, "To your side, dodge that! Now quickly! Get in there, that's the core. You have to destroy it, destroy it completely."
ROBYN SEES: The machine seems to shut down, and Mindbender remains Robyn's puppet for the time being. He steps back slightly from the console as it finishes and Upgrade comes down the stairs. "Oh, shit!"
Once Sam is done entering the codes the doors to Cerebra slide open he looks over at the group fighting and hurries over to Shane. Putting a hand on her shoulder he says, in a complete lack of Southern Accent, "Yes." He mutters and then looking over his shoulder he gets a surprised look on his face. "No..I won't let you guys do this. One I'm done, I'm going to get the others and get far away from you two!" He shouts. "Shane! I need your help!"
Shane is exhausted, and hurting, and desperate… and in such times, even the most insane of tactics could be considered viable ones. As hands are raised, the slight, terrified girl gathers her feet beneath her, the soles of her boots glowing red… And with yet another earsplitting explosion, Shane is hurled down the hall, past the trio and away from the lethal charge aimed her way. Curling her head into her arms, she hurtles toward Cerebra, a human projectile, already charging up again to break her inertia on the other side.
Being in front of the group, Tara gets the brunt of Shane's blast. She's able to put up a shield that deflects most of it, but is still blasted off her feet and into a wall. Dazed, she isn't able to do anything about Sam and Shane blasting off over her head and into Cerebra. It takes her a few moments to regain her bearings, and she gets to her feet shakily. "Crap… where did they go?" she asks, before her sixth sense snaps back on. "Come on," she says, stumbling a bit at first, and then regaining her feet. "We need to keep them away from Cerebra!"
"I'm trying!" Kieran says as he hurls another pair of electrical bolts towards Shane and Sam, each one about three times as strong as the normal taser burst, so enough to hurt but not quite heart stopping force. "Hopefully we can slow them down long enough for backup because they're being the equivalent of steroids for their powers if I remember what Heather told me about her parents." He says grimacing a bit. His power's starting to run low at this point. "I don't know how much longer I can keep going." He says to Tara.
The blind spaniard pats the floor around herself, still holding the phone and shouting into it. "Hello? Hello!! Anyone! Please help us! Shane and Robyn are attacking Cerebro!" She eventually gives up on her cane, and grits her teeth as she stands up. She holds the phone to her side, and extends her right hand out in front of her, as she walks back towards the hallway. "Tara!" she shouts, moving slowly and waving her hand about, looking for a wall but thus far not finding one. "Tara! Is anyone hurt? Kieran, are you alright?"
Shane hurtles through Cerebra's open door, her skin beginning to luminesce as she builds a heavier and heavier charge. The blast of electricity hurts, unimaginably, but to her eyes she hurtles towards freedom, and has only one chance to break through her prison. If she misjudges, the impact is likely to kill her… and if she doesn't, the sudden stop just might do the job on its own. Sucking in a breath as the command console hurtles toward her face, she has just enough time to whisper "I'm coming to find you, Patches…"
And inside Cerebra, a ten-ton explosion rocks the room.
The words 'Campus lockdown procedures and defense protocols enabled.' sound calmly.
SHANE SEES: More bolts come towards Shane from her clone, but now she's at least in the core, and there's a figure who stands in between her and the core, facing away from her. "It's time. When you're out, follow the flares outside. That's where she is. Break any blocks in the way, like I told you… Then, you can rest."
ROBYN SEES: Mindbender suddenly stops following Robyn's commands and a wide grin appears across his face, "You better run away, kiddo. 'Cause I bet you have no idea where you really are." He laughs maniacally as the machine behind him explodes from Shane's aid, "RUN, CHAMP! THIS WHOLE PLACE IS COMING DOWN! AHAHAHAHA!"
There's a startled scream from Sam before his body collapses to the ground unconscious as Robyn slips back into his body from the other hallway. As the sounds of warning go off combined with other warnings Robyn starts to run. "No….Stop it!" He shouts as he starts to try to make his way out of the building.
"I'm good, Sophie!" calls Tara back to the other blind girl, as she hurtles down the hallway after Shane. "I'm a little shook up but I'm…." she never gets to finish her sentence as, once again Shane explodes, sending heated shrapnel flying everywhere. Tara was never good on raw strength of her telekinetics. Subtlety and agility is more her game, which means that the field she brings up is able to stop most of the small hot shards of metal, but the large ones still manage to punch through. One of them, in fact, manages to punch through the girl through her abdomen. Tara blinks in surprise as she's impailed, but the girl grits her teeth in anger and in pain. "No. NO! You're not getting away." Far less gentle than she normally would, she telekinetically grabs Robyn by the head, and goes to slam him against the bulkhead of the hallway. "If I'm going down, I'm taking somebody with me, dammit!"
"Oh shit!" Kieran says trying to individually push some of the shrapnel away from him but isn't being very successful really since he has to toss each small piece away. He really needs to figure out how to create a magnetic field the way Magneto or Polaris would to try and keep these things from getting close to anyone. A few get through digging into his shoulder and abdomen causing the teen to let out a bit of a cry from the pain.
As he's trying to run away, Robyn's head gets slammed into the metal. He's dazed for a few moments and some blood trickles down his forhead but he has to fight beyond the pain. He can't just lie down and let nearly blinding pain and dizziness stop him. Clutching his head, Robyn groans. "No…I can't…I have to find Heather…go home…" He mutters as the door to the elevator opens up and he stumbles in as the doors shut after him.
The force of the blast is enough to send shrapnel blasting through the opening in the wall, and into the danger room; and into the space that Sophie presently occupies. The blind girl is thrown off her feet, landing heavily on the ground, with a loud crack of something breaking. She shrieks, and curls up in a ball on her left side, with bits of shrapnel sticking out of the right. Her blindfold is in disarray, revealing the old scar across her face and the pale, milky eyes that it intersects; eyes peeled wide and glistening with moisture as she cries, feebly pushing her legs against the ground as she loses herself in the pain.
Pain.
Everything hurts. Fire in her spine, one arm hanging limp, her already-tender hip screaming with every step. But, at last, Shane is free. As the woman guides her, she drags herself out of the wreckage of Cerebra, following the path laid out for her. Bulkheads, torn away under her explosions, her singed and soot-blackened face blank with the focus required to keep going, one step in front of the other, until finally she emerges into open air.
Finally… free.
