Players:
Summary: Upgrade and Mindbender attack Xavier's again, but encounter unexpected flaws in their plans.
Date: August 18, 2011.
Log Title: Dispelling the Illusion
Rating: R.
Xavier Mansion - Front Gates
Large Iron gates standing twelve feet tall in front of you with an elaborate letter X designed on each of the gates. An Iron Gate stretches around both sides of the school. The gates are usually found closed and open to those who know the correct code to enter in the keypad on the left. Beyond the gates a large statue can be seen in a courtyard and a building in the shape of an X.
SHANE and TABITHA see: It's late at night and this is it: All of the other machines have been shut down, and its time to come and encounter Marvin Brady once again. Timeslip and Cheryl are both accompanying, with Cheryl still wearing her arm in a sling from the unfortunate last encounter, while Timeslip seems rather calm about the whole thing. "Are you ready?" she asks, turning towards her two companions, not waiting for an answer before going in." to Tabitha and Shane.
Heather arrives on the school grounds in almost the same way she did in the first attack, jumping up and over the wall and landing in a crouch on the ground. She is actually relatively clean, her goggles and her Timeslip outfit covering her up and providing at least some protection from outside attacks. With her movements to this place, a sonic boom follows in her wake, cracking and blasting through the air once she has stopped as if to say: I've arrived.
"Ready," Shane mutters, eyes attempting to follow Heather as she scales the wall too quickly to be stopped. Drawing in a deep breath, she rakes a clump of mouse-brown hair away from her face, turning to size up the gates to the manor. "…Dunno 'bout the rest of you, but I suck at walls. One sec…" Walking up to the gates, she places one hand on the seam where the doors close. Nodding, she curls her other hand into a fist, the skin of her hand glowing an angry pulsing red as she pulls it back. With a yell, she drives it forward, loosing an explosion that blasts the latticed metal gates wide open. With a huff, she starts forward, heavy boots clomping on the rough gravel of the driveway.
"I'm always ready, drawls Tabitha as she walks alongside Shane. "Actually, i've lost most of hte powers I had copied, but I can still…" she pauses, while Shane blasts the gate wide open. "Teleport," she finishes." The rat girl shrugs, flashing a grin as she continues forwards. "Hey, you're really getting the hang of that," she observes. Her leather boots crunch along the grafel alongside the exploding girl's, and she glances over her shoulder to look at Heather and Cheryl. "Are you two ready?"
On nights like this, quiet, clear skies, and the moon is shining brightly, Tara likes to sneak out of the mansion and camp up on the roof. Sure, she can't actually see the moon or the stars, but there's something about the big orb's presence that she can sense that brings her calm. She's got a blanket beneath her, and a pillow for her head, and one hand lazily runs across the raised pips of a large bound book, hardly paying attention to reading it as her mind just kind of wanders. Sadly, it doesn't wander long when there's a loud CRACK and following that a BOOM and she sit straight up. "The hell!?"
Since it wasn't too hot or too cold tonight, Kieran decided to go for a walk. Hands slipped into the pockets of his jeans, and a pair of earbuds running to his ears playing music quietly, the teenager's just sort of meandering around school grounds. It's good night for it and he didn't have anything that he needed to be doing anyway, so why not go ahead and do so.
Currently Jules presides within his room; a half empty dorm room that the boy has all to himself for now. The room itself has two large windows facing the front of the manor's grounds and both windows are open due to the ideal weather this night is exhibiting. Because of the incredible silence filling Jules' room, the sounds originating from the front of the manor grab the teleporter's attention, though he very well can't see what's going on.
Ashley, for what it's worth, if somewhere on the school grounds, taking advantage of the final days of summer. Either that, or he's hiding from someone, but who knows, except the teen and the telepaths on duty. Off away from the gates, the teenager sits on the grass under some trees, listening to the sounds of the night, and roasting a marshmellow on a small flame that dances in the palm of his hand. Movement at the gates goes unnoticed as the pyro cooks himself up some roasted fluffy goodness, but the sonic boom gets his attention. The wave rolling over him, knocking him back slightly against the tree, the marshmellow falling into the flames and turning to char in the palm of his hand. "…was that?" he asks of the crickets that have suddenly gone silent, rubbing the back of his head.
SHANE and TABITHA see: The gate goes down, and so far there's no activity in the front lines of Xavier's. Cheryl advances towards the gate after nodding at Tabitha's question, "Be careful, girls. This is it. I hope to be able to help you as much as I can." Timeslip turns around and plays on her tape recorder: "All clear, but prepare for ambush."
Heather glances around at the Xavier's lawn quickly and then shrugs slightly upon not seeing anyone immediately and she turns around to her companions, crossing her arms. Her edges seem to stop blurring slightly, and she plays on her tape recorder, "My name is Heather Brown, codename: Timeslip."
"…We take him out, everything goes back to normal, right?" Shane says, flexing the fingers on the hand she'd used to punch the gates open. "Fine… Let's get it over with. Where do we go, Cheryl?"
Tabitha nods her head quickly. "Right," she replies. "So, where is he, then? Or are we going to have to pummel all his puny little minions to get to him, first?" She cracks her knuckles as she walks. Passing by the statue in the front garden, she shrugs off her jacket and hangs it off the stone, revealing a T-Shirt that looks like it could seriously use a wash— no, replacing, it's got multiple holes in it. "The sooner we get this over with, the better."
From behind the trio of incoming girls comes a single voice, a familiar one for a couple of them, relatively new for the other, "Girls, girls… you're all beautiful… but I'm cougar-hunting tonight. So… Heather… where's mommy dearest. She and I need to have a conversation." Connor is standing there, dressed in his old but still usable Excesliors uniform, with one of Gambit's extendible staves in his grip, out to it's full six foot length and resting on his shoulder. Even with the comm-shades on, the glow from his eyes suffuses them, his hair is shimmering blue green with it… even the air around him crackles with energy, causing pieces of the ground, dirt and metal shards from the gate, to rise up in his presence.
It takes a bit for the ringing in her ears to stop, When it does, though, she lifts herself into the air and cautiously moves towards the sound of the explosion. When she gets a good seventy feet or so away, she extends the reach of her AwesomeSense to probe around and get a feel for the situation. If there was just a couple of them, yeah, she would try take them head on. But as many as there are? Panic button. She's going to need backup.
The sound of the booming finally manages to get Kieran's attention. Ok. So it's a little delayed since he was listening to music when it occurred, so sue him! The teenager does hit the panic button on his own phone as well as he begins heading in the general direction of the boom. It only takes seeing Shane for him to let loose with some rather inventive swearing, and not a single actual cussword included in his swearing. "Ummm Can you guys come back another time? We're full up on the crazy right now." He says from not too far behind Connor.
In an instant, Jules is gone from his window. The teleporter has moved to the gym where he picks through a few things before vanishing once more. It's convenient to be able to move such vast distances without an incredible amount of effort. The next stop for the teleport is right at the Xavier gates, though perhaps a bit askew as he appears neatly under the shade of a tree not far from Connor. A metal staff is in the mutant's hand and is firmly planted against the ground as he silently observes the situation, hopefully still unnoticed.
Brushing charred marshmellow off on his pantsleg, Ash pushes up with his other hand, rising up to stand beneath the tree. The flame gone, the youth disappears into the shadows of the overhanging branches, blinking out towards the main gate. He can't see much, but he can see the gates standing open, and it's not too hard to equate the boom(s) with the gates. A third hand goes to the panic button on the back of the school-issued cellphone, as Ash's brows furrow. But he stays back, for now, off to the side about fifty yards or so. Close enough to see the blue-green glow illuminate several figures as rubble starts to levitate, but not much closer than that.
SHANE and TABITHA see: “Well, I see you've come to challenge me," says Marvin Brady, appearing now with his band of mutated creatures following after him. He looks over towards Cheryl and says, "Ahh, just the one I'm looking for." Cheryl shakes her head and says, "We'll defeat you, you arrogant worm." To Shane she adds, "Yes, we take him out, the world will change."" to Shane and Tabitha.
Heather looks up at Connor's question and seems somewhat surprised. She doesn't answer the question with any words, and instead -stares- behind where Shane and Tabitha stand as if in response. She folds her hands behind her back at the appearance of all of these Xavier's students and plays on her tape recorder, and looks around the front lawn, "I suggest you do not attack me."
Shane takes a step back as Connor makes his presence known, glancing around as the others make their approach. Her knuckles pop, one after another, as she clenches her fists. "….All right," she says, clearing her throat and visibly nerving herself up. "….Let's go, then." With that, she springs into action; hands glowing, she darts toward Tara, clearly intent on doing real damage, and no longer too afraid to act.
The rat's ears twitch and she whirls about, dropping straight into a kung fu stance. "Marvin!" She flashes a grin, and bobs her head. "So good of you to come out personally, you colossal douche balloon." She leaps forwards, starting off into a charge straight for Connor; she gathers as much speed as she might manage, following with a yell, until lunges forwards with a swift punch aimed for the chin; or at least it would be, if she were in range, but she's still several feet back. Mid-punch she vanishes, and reappears right behind Connor, still following through with the swing.
The punch passes right through where 'Connor' was standing, and the form looks back, then forth again before taking a step back and solidifying, "You know… I wish this didn't have to suck so much. See… I'm borrowing from some friends. And they're really aware of what you can do, Miss Jones. So how's Dad? Still being daddy's good little girl?" And this time instead of decreasing his mass to the point of intangibility, he increases it to the point of nigh-invulnerability, "But… you're really just distracting me. Isn't she." And with that he just turns and swings his staff at the point that Heather briefly looked at, using it at the center point for a long sweep of the six-foot metal pole, "Did you honestly think I'd let you get away after what you did to me?! DID YOU!"
Tara squeaks as she's leapt at by Shane, darting back and further into the air. It takes her mere moments to compose herself for a fight as more and more people show up. "Allrighty, 'Splodeyface. You want to dance? Let's dance!" Tara remembers the last time she faced the girl, and how much difficulty she had in containing the raw power Shane has. But this time she has several advantages. One: She's airborn, and Shane had proven herelf to be somewhat clumsy when it comes to areal combat. Two: They're out in the open. This gives Tara a lot of room to maneuver, something her gymnastics and Kung Fu training will help her immensely with. Three: Tara is Awesome Girl. Enough said. The blind mutant quickly darts back until her blanket is within reach of her telekinetics. She yanks it into the air and waits for a prime opportunity to try to entangle Shane's head with it.
"Seriously? You want to attack us and just let you waltz on in and do whatever you want?" Kieran asks blinking slightly,"I think someone's /really/ out of it now. So why don't you guys come to your senses and then we can all just have a nice bit of fun." Right now since Shane's so close to Tara, and he's not sure whether or not the whole not getting hit works with the energy and Tabitha's pretty much on Connor, right now Kieran's just sort of trying to stare at Heather.
Jules is a little pensive on the fact that everything is starting to fall apart. People are starting to get attacked but there isn't an incredibly dire need for him to involve himself yet, where right now his inexperience would merely be a liability to those more experienced than himself. For now, Jules watches from the shadows of a nearby tree, staff in hand.
Well, so much for fully fledged X-Men swooping down to save the school. As one of the shadowy figures charges for the school with hands all aglowy, Ash's converse sneakers squeak in the grass with the start of his own charge. Those years on the football field help, but Ash is nowhere near fast enough to make it to the front steps before the shadowy figure of Shane. But who needs to be there, when he's close enough to see? One hand stretches out before him as he charges towards the front door, and then several fireballs explode up into the night sky, like pyrotechnics at a heavy metal show, a line of fiery columns for the first burst forming into a wall of flame, burning hot as a campfire and only getting hotter, stretching the length of the front of the manor.
"AUGH!" says a voice that doesn't correspond a body, at the sound of 'hwank!' from Connor's staff. In a moment, an outline appears and Upgrade stands in its place, off balance and just having taken a hit from the staff to her damaged arm. "Of course I didn't, you twit," she answers Connor, "The moment I touch someone is the moment I understand their abilities, the temporal ordering of those events is a little skewed for me to anticipate you coming after me before the touch, but perfect for anticipating it afterwards, hm? And I /do/ quite understand." She grabs one of her syringes from inside her coat, and jabs it into her thigh with her free arm.
SHANE and TABITHA see: The mutated creature that's facing Shane seems to have means to fight back, and Marvin seems to be intangible enough to attack Cheryl directly. She takes the hit to her injured arm, reeling back lightly and then shaking her head. "I can't let this happen… at the risk of my sanity…" she mumbles, reaching into her bag to grab something, a syringe, and jamming it into her own thigh." to Shane and Tabitha.
Heather stares at Kieran and then shakes her head at him, walking towards the front steps of the school (though doing so at super speed, so it's more like a quick jog). She plays on her tape recorder, "To come to any senses would seem to be a narrow window. An opportunity to become sensical must arise, and then it is mine."
As Shane closes on her target, she lets out a startled yell as the blanket drops over her head. Skidding to a halt, she lets out a furious (if rather muffled) shout that teeters on the edge of a roar, the blanket glowing a dull crimson from beneath. With a sound like a crack of thunder, the blanket shreds apart under the explosion from underneath it, eyes glittering with hate. "YOU THINK THAT'S GONNA STOP ME?!" On the space between two breaths, her entire body glows, flashing brightly before exploding, at the peak of her power; strong enough to feel like a boxer's punch fifty feet away. At five yards? Very much stronger.
Tabitha whirls around as her attack on Connor fails, and her lips peel back in a snarl. "Oh, don't you *dare* ignore me!" she shouts. She teleports again, reappearing close to Connor; though she doesn't attack him, not just yet. She merely stares at him for a brief moment, before looking around once more. Ahh; there's Shane, preparing for a massive explosion; and that mutated horror (Tara) seems to be nearby and airborn. She grins, and teleports close by. She's busy preparing some… sort of attack, when her expression changes. "Shut up," she declares. "Stop talking. Listen. I don't need that sort of advice. THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR THAT. And that's just plain stupid. Will you all kindly go fuck yourselves." She backs away a step, clamping her hands over her head. "Can't you all see I'm trying to save the world right now? I don't have time for this! Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!" By the time Shane's attack goes off, it envelops the rat girl entirely; but when it's over, she doesn't she doesn't even seem ruffled, with not so much as a hair out of place. Intangibility certainly has its uses.
"You know?" Connor replies as he tilts his head at Upgrades gesture, his body blurring for just a moment, stretching to infinity and then snapping back into place, "If you know that I knew… then you know that I knew you knew. And taking that into the account, and knowing what I might know you know… Are you positive you want to inject that into yourself?" And staring at it for a long moment, the contents of the syringe begin to bubble, "See… your problem with knowing what you know is that you get so smug in it, you forget the little things." And stepping forwards, Connor now looks a few years older with a scar going along down one eye and past his cheek, he swings with the staff once more at Upgrade, saying over his shoulder towards Tabitha, "One of you help her out, dammit! Get her free of Mindbender's hold!." Probably enough to make anyone believe that he's just as crazy as everyone else in this brawl now, but for those who have heard him talk, his voice is suddenly deeper and leathery.
"Nope," replies the blind girl, grinning like a maniac, quickly swinging around to behind her attacker, her shields deflecting the worst of the blast. "Just wanna keep you on your toes!" It's almost as if Tara is having the time of her life. She's quick to react, though. Before Shane can get her bearings she grabs the girl with telekinetic hands, "So I can do this!" and lobs the girl at a seemingly empty spot on the lawn. "SURPRISE!"
"And what exactly do you want us to do for her? I've tried reasoning with people in this state and it never works. Hell I tried giving them electroshock treatment and they shrugged it off like nothing happened!" Kieran says to Connor, but he does try to throw a couple taser level bursts towards Tabitha. This is one of those times he wishes he could so something more like Magneto's dome tricks."About ready to try hurling pennies at them!" He says under his breath.
The shockwave from the asplodey team rolls out like ripples on a pond, a very large stone tossed to break the calm surface. That rush of air parts the curtain of flames for a brief moment, fanning them towards the manor before the wall reforms itself. But Ash, some 75-odd feet away, gets caught mid-stride, knocked off his feet, tumbling backwards and almost going head over heels for the trouble. As his shoulders hit the grass, that wall of flame gives another burst, another surge of pyrotechnics launched up into the moonlight sky, before going back down to a wall of fire. Grunting as he blinks up at the night, Ash levers himself up with one arm, up to a seated position to see that wall of flame; gotta see it to do it, he's led himself to believe. An arm outstretches, and then he's… tugging… on the flames. Except not towards himself. Towards Shane. The upper edges of the firewall starting to bow inwards, like a wave crashing onto a single point in slow motion. Ash sure has a funny way of 'helping’.
Upgrade pulls out and looks down towards the syringe and says as she drops it, "Of course." Even faster, she grabs a second syringe, a cocktail of abilities, and jabs and injects it into her leg, and her eyes glow, using telekinesis to propel the syringe with air bubbles towards Connor using telekinesis. "You think we don't make backup plans?" She frees her arm from her sling and says, "Finally!"
The toss from Tara would seem to pull off, and the collision between Shane and the invisible spot on the ground makes Mindbender break his concentration on the global illusion, which means that he reappears to everyone else's eyes. "Well, shit," says Mindbender, climbing back onto his feet, and taking stock of the situation and rubbing his temple lightly. He looks over to the school as the school alarm system goes off and shakes his head.
"WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?! HOLD STILL FOR A SEyurk!" Hauled bodily off the ground, Shane soars through the air, crashing into Mindbender and falling to the ground with a croak. Pushing herself up, she shakes her head, coughing as she starts to look up. "What the hell jus—oh. *Shit.*" At this point, Shane notices the tidal wave of roaring fire heading toward her position. Heather and Mindbender behind her, suddenly vastly less important. Ducking her head and crossing her arms over her hair, the young mutant begins to glow, preparing for a blast that is certain to save her life. The lives of those nearest her…. not so certain.
"Of course I'm not being used!" Tabitha snaps. "Shut up, you bitchface! I don't need to hear about that from you. I'm *saveing the goddamn world!* She screams wordlessly, clapping her hands over her head once more. A couple blasts of electrcity blast straight through her; she twists and jerks, but her intangible state leaves the energy nothing of substance to ground to. When she looks up again, she comes to a startling realization; there is fire. And there is a lot of it. …Furthermore, over there, there just happens to be a certain mutated crazy that she recognizes. "Oh, you again!" The rat girl winds up a punch; a really good uppercut at that, and jumps up into the air as she delivers it to… the air. Halfway to the apex of her jump she vanishes, only to reappear straight in front of Ashley. After delivering her punch, be it hit or miss, she takes a step back, shifting her body out of phase with reality once more. Her hands wrath in fire, and she pops her lopsided grin once more. "Some of the voices say I shouldn't hurt you. One of them says I should rip your heart out and make you watch me eat it while it's still beating. I wonder which one of them I should listen to?"
"Oops." This Connor says with a grin, "Did I forget to mention… I visited a couple of your captives, and gave them a few presents. That's your daughter. Kicking your husband's ass. Yes, I can swear, this is a Mature-rated comic." And since Upgrade is ramping herself up, he blurs again, and suddenly the uniform is RIPPED clean, and standing there is a ten-foot tall armored, red-eyed beast-like thing that could only once be considered a man. It snorts, and the color of the steam that escapes is somehow a sickly yellow. The plating on the fingers flex, and suddenly claws burst free from the knuckles, blades from the forearms and elbows. A gravelly, nearly-mechanic voice says, "They only let me come because they told me I could hurt you. Hello, silly little mutant. I am War, servant of the one true Lord… Apocalypse. I am the ultimate life-form, as bid by my master. So tell me… pretty thing… what piece of flesh will make you scream the most?"
Tara fistpumps as all the elements come together, as Shane is about to explode right on top of one of her captors. It's almost as if she planned it this way! "Go, go, good team," she cries, her manic grin never falters as she quickly throws up a forcefield between Heather and Mindbender (leaving a little hole in the middle for heather's hand to keep a hold of her father) so that she might be spared the worst of it, as well as keeping one around herself and one around Ashley. This is stretching it a bit for her, but it would be worth it if everybody comes out alive.
"Ok…. Heather, is there anything you want to do here?" Kieran asks as he takes a few steps back, electricity crackling around his hands. He's not actively generating it to go anywhere, he's just pretty much sitting there trying to figure out what he should be doing here. Looks like Heather has Mindbender under control, Connor has Upgrade under control. Shane seems to be back to her own mind, and Tabitha seems to be dealt with quite handily for now.
The metal staff in Jules' hands begins to spin rapidly at an angle between his hands as Tabitha winds up that punch. Before she's even teleported, his own power is winding up and it fires just like a reflex once she's gone. Without much fanfare, light, or even sound, Jules appears in front (or perhaps a bit on top of) Ash with that spinning staff acting as a guard for the pyro. If Jules doesn't arrive in time to stop the punch, he follows through with an attempted sweep at the girl. Where the hell did this guy come from, anyways? "Would you mind backing off, please?"
That wave of flames crests and crashes down on Shane, Heather, and Mindbender, Ash's outstretched hand making a fist as it closes down around them. A wall of flame burning at a couple thousand degress F should put the kibosh on anyone's plans of world domination, as long as they aren't running with the same powerset as Upgrade. Where're those autoguns with bean bag rounds when you need `em?
That wave of flames crests and crashes down on Shane, Heather, and Mindbender, Ash's outstretched hand making a fist as it closes down around them. A wall of flame burning at a couple thousand degress F should put the kibosh on anyone's plans of world domination, as long as they aren't running with the same powerset as Upgrade. Where're those autoguns with bean bag rounds when you need `em?
Ash is still seated in the grass as he closes that torrent of flames on that trio, so Tabitha's downward punch almost catches him unawares. The suddenly appearing rat-girl sends Ashley scrambling backwards across the grass, away from her, and out from under Jules as he pops into existance, too . Surprised at the appearance; no fear from her burning hands. Climbing to his feet, flames start to dance along the back of his knuckles; let's play copy the copycat!
"You should listen to the ones that say don't hurt me. THere's more of them, that means they're more important!" he retorts, even sounding like he believes it a bit. But he takes a fighting stance anyway, shuffling from behind Jules; he doesn't need to be protected!; feet spread, body angled, fiery hands loose. You can almost hear the breathless 'I know kung fu' movie quote. He figures a fight is coming either way, might as well be prepared.
Mindbender mumbles to Heather as his eyes widen as Shane, "No, dear, you should have called it checkmate…" The explosion knocks Heather off of him, though she is at least protected from the blast. Mindbender gets pretty thoroughly trashed by the explosion and the flames that are thrown off of it, and falls down on his face, unconscious, beaten, burned and bleeding.
Upgrade raises her eyebrows at the Horseman and says, gritting her teeth, "I've come /TOO FAR/!" Her eyes light up and she fires up a beam of searing heat at War, before smashing him back with a large and mighty telekinetic fist, which continues to pummel. "I am not going to allow myself to be overpowered." She raises his hand to fling War up in the air, "By a goddamn alternative universe TIN CAN-" And she lowers her arm to send him careening back towards the ground, firing off another heat ray for him to land in just for good measure. "-ASSHOLE."
SHANE and TABITHA see: In the last moments of the illusion, Cheryl (who is still fighting Marvin) looks over and says, holding out her hand towards Marvin, who does the same towards her, both seeming to be preparing for quite a large attack. "Girls! I'm not long for this world! I'm so sorry. You'll be sent to an alternative universe where this never ha-" Both of their attacks go off at the same moment, and they, and what seems like the whole universe seems like it's seared into dust, leaving in place the scene of chaos on the Xavier's lawn as the illusion fades away.
Heather looks towards Kieran and plays on her tape recorder, after having been knocked back, "The illusion's faded, I think my father has been adequately taken care of. Now we must stop my mother. And probably Connor too. That really does not look good." Even as she's interrupted by OH MY GOD SO MUCH FIRE the recorder continues playing, and she finds herself set on fire, as she's protected from the blast, but not from the direct flames. She makes squeaking sounds and flails about, tossing her recorder to the ground as it becomes too hot and melty to hold. Well, there goes communication.
Uh. Yeah. THankfully Kieran's not close enough to get caught in the fire. However, he does get a better shot at hitting Upgrade, which he decides to take. He doesn't throw a fully lethal amount of electricity but it's way more electricity than any taser could possibly generate. He doesn't just send one out, but rather generates one and then behind it creates a second just slightly off from it.
Shane carefully raises her head, blinking slowly. She *thinks* she caught what Cheryl was trying to say, but she was too busy trying not to wet herself at the knowledge of all the fire set to crash down on her head. "What the… Where *are* we? Is this is *schoo*—-HolyshitHEATHER!" Scrabbling to her feet, she limps hurriedly toward the timebender, flailing at Heather's clothes and hair in an unskilled, but wildly earnest, effort at putting the girl out.
Tabitha is busy with something at this time. Specifically, someone has just clocked her in the side with a metal bar, briefly knocking the wind out of her. "Ow! Fuck you!" she declares, staggering back a step and holding her side. She straightens, restoring her intangibility. "Well suck on this then." She wrathes herself in flams, before blasting heat and fire out in all directions; including right in Jules' direction.
And then the world changes. Tabitha banishes the flames, and glances about herself. "I…" She glances at Jules and Ashley. The rat girl shakes her head, and teleports next to Shane. "Are you alright?" She reaches out to touch Shane's shoulder. "I—" It would seem that dropping her intangibility might not have been an enormously good idea. Tabitha has teleported herself into the path of Kieran's electricity, and it catches her full in the back. She screams, lips peeling back as her muscles lock up. Her arms snap out to her sides, and she pitches forwards; the back of her shirt is disintigrated, revealing skin melted away to expose burnt muscle and bone beneath. The rat claws at the ground for a few seconds, dragging herself forwards before collapsing and slipping into a mercifully deep coma.
Armor pieces singe and then begin to melt, plates begin to buckle and break under the pressure of the telekinetic assault, and there's a sickening *CRACK* when the beast is slammed down on the ground at Upgrade's full force. Blue-green ichor begins to spread along the ground and then it… laughs. Sickening crunches and pops echo through the front of the Academy's mansion as the damaged plates fall free, making way for new ones… it's like shark's teeth how it happens, and once more the creature stands up, cracking it's neck back and forth and sending more damaged plates away, "That's it? That's all your pathetic, impotent rage can muster? No wonder your name is dust in the annals of history. Your potential is far outstripped by your arrogance. Perhaps my Lord could use you for breeding. Your spawn seems much more capable. A good Death. When I am done, I will take her to a true Master."
It's then that the beast-thing begins to tear into her, the wounds healing almost as fast as they come, clothes being torn away, and blood flying only to be replaced just as quick. But this is a fight of stamina it seems, the unstoppable force meets the immovable object as the beast of War rends and sunders, biting, slashing, and clawing with a fury to make even Wolverine stop for a moment. But Upgrade burns and smashes in reply as the two trade blows for several moments, the air almost rippling with their combined assault. But the apex seems to come when the beast of Apocalypse grabs Heather's mother by the throat, siezes her right arm… and rips it completely free! Holding the limb up, he smashes it down on her skull… rendering her stunned for a moment and on her back, before dropping it at her feet.
Blood is licked from the beast's teeth, and it says, "You taste of cheap drugs and shattered dreams… pathetic creature. A pity you will only know your folly in death."
The problem with being blind, and relying on a power that shows you the world in purely tactile measures, is that things like fire are kind of hard to detect until you stand too close to it. This means that while Tara is able to easily defect the kinetic energy of Shane's blast, she has no idea, until it's too late, that it's pushing a roaring inferno along with it. She screams, too, in surprise and pain as she's suddenly it on fire, and she plummets to the ground, as her concentration is broken. The impact on the ground knocks the wind out of her and gives her a brief and in a panic she tries to expel the fire off of her skin. It works, but not really in the way she intended. What was a reflex GETITOFFGETITOFF, ended up doing was pushing everything off of her skin in an explosive force, thus creating a vacuum around her, thus extinguishing the flames.
And leaving her naked.
Thwack! The metal rod makes contact with Tabitha. Then, just as Jules had appeared to assist Ashley, so does he disappear as the flames are dispersed. What is it with everyone and fire today? The mansion will burn down at this rate. Something else caught the mutant's attention and unintentionally he teleports to where Heather dropped the melty recorder, which Jules spots and picks up curiously.
Ash didn't expect that to happen when he turned that wall of flames onto those that would attack the school. Screaming and burning, sure, but flames exploding in every direction? A tiny voice in the back of his mind notes that he's sooooooooo gonna catch it from the Headmistress for this one. He's knocked from his feet again as Shane's concussive wave rushes over him, the flames it pushes all but ignored except for where they set his hoodie smoldering and smoking. He goes through so many of those.
On his side, grunting from the shock of being knocked to the ground, Tabitha's stolen flames wash over him as well, this time setting the back of his hoodie on fire. Then it stops as quickly as it started, the rat-girl porting away and into the path of an electrical shock. Well, those are dealt with. Ash rolls to his back, smoldering the flames that leave the back of his sweatshirt tattered rags, revealing what looks like a tank-top made of the same material as the school uniform, and then he sits back up again, just in time to see Upgrade get beat down with her own arm. "…holy shit…" he utters, going a little green around the gills. Throwing flames at people is one thing, but that seems to give the teen pause.
Upgrade, clothes torn off and flesh slashed up, begins to chuckle softly and hoarsely, using her free hand (you know, the one that's not over there on the ground separated from her body) to bring her arm back to where it was torn off. Her regeneration works quickly to at least make it stick, though not quite repairing it, and she stands up slowly, "A pity that you don't have a wristwatch. Too bad unlike the real Connor, you don't know what I know…" Her lips turn up, but she's clearly in pain and worse for wear, and she puts a TK forcefield in front of herself. "Come on…"
Heather helps Shane to pat her off, patting down her own hair and rolling on the ground, before she ascends to her feet and looks right towards Ashley with the most disapproving glare that the speedster can possibly muster. She will disapprove him straight to hell. She looks towards the fight with Connor and Upgrade and says, "Imntsrwhchtahlprhrt."
Shane looks over her shoulder once Heather is out, eyes widening in shock at the sheer brutality of the battle between War and Upgrade, a small, sick noise like someone almost throwing up just barely heard at the back of her throat. "…Seems to me," she says once she's gotten her stomach under control, "take her down, stop the fight."
*BANG* The blow strikes the TK Field *BANG* Again! *BANG* Again! *BANG* *BAM* *BOOM* *-BOOM-* The impacts increasing in force as more and more strength is applied, the creatures muscles becoming thicker, more spikes pushing out as it 'Upgrades' itself to try and pierce the shield, "You trite little creature! Pathetic mongrel! OFFAL! FODDER! CHATTEL! INSIGNIFICANT THING! I AM WAR INCARNATE AND YOU ARE NOTHING!" The invectives increasing until there seems to be a 'crack' that forms in the shield itself. War-Connor grabs the 'edges' of that power and TEARS! Hauling back and rendering a monstrous roar that no human larynx should be able to create, the shield of will sunders, and it stands there… panting and crouched, shoulders rising and falling as it's massive right arm slowly forms a giant plate BLADE and it hauls back tiredly to strike and decapitate the nuisance before it.
Jules looks up to War and Upgrade while holding that still slightly warm tape recorder. When the TK shield cracks, Jules vanishes completely. There is again, no fanfare to this action. One second the mutant is there, the next he is not. That's that.
Ash would probably return Heather's disapproving glare with one of his own. She was trying to attack the school, her and Shane and Tabitha! As far as he knew, anyway. Oh well, plenty of disapproval to go around; the Headmistress, the groundskeepers (someone's gotta replace all the burned grass and shubbery!). But he's too busy staring at War and Upgrade duking it out.
Ever BOOM, every BANG brings a shudder through the firebug, his knees drawing up against his chest. Eyes going wider as he watches the big plate-covered beasty try to beat the stuffing out of Upgrade. Flames and the like, he can deal with, but the sheer physical violence seems to be affecting him the worst. Arms slipping around his legs, drawing his knees in until they rest against his forehead, the teen rocking back and forth slightly as he draws in on himself.
From the field of battle, radiating from the burnt, blind and naked mutant, the ambient air pressure increases almost tenfold, causing ears to pop, and if one is prone to it, bleeding noses. Tara doesn't get to her feet as so much rises off the ground into a standing position, the smoldering remains of her hair radiating out from her head as a testament as she pushes her power to eleven. Fire is bad. Being burnt is worse, and having your friends be set on fire is enough to push the girl's ire to unfathomable levels. "Let's end this," she growls, floating over to the melee, her eyes filled with pure malice. Now that her TK field is down, Upgrade is something of an easy mark, though Tara finds her a little slippery to grasp. The woman's clothes? Not so. She extends a hand to the woman and clenches her fist, and all of Upgrade's clothes suddenly constrict on her with inhuman force.
After a pause of being not in the area and completely vanished, some crazy person appears maybe five feet up in the air and behind War. The speed with which Jules is falling is actually pretty fast, as if he had already been falling ten or twenty feet. That metal staff from before is raised over the boy's head and at just the right moment he makes for a downward swing towards the back of War's head. Should the staff make contact, it will make a sickening squeel as the metal bends over War's head before Jules likely collides with War's back and then hits the dirt with a rough 'thump!' After all, you have to land /sometime/.
Upgrade is indeed disabled by the pulling at her clothes, "AUUGH!" She struggles against the TK hold, and tries to fight with her own TK, but it's not effective.
Heather watches as the fight progresses, and approaches the battle at her incredible speeds, gesturing at War and shaking her head. "Stopit."
The maneuver is one of David and Goliath proportions, as Jules receives several cuts along his arms and back, rolling off the giant techno-mutant monstrosity that was formerly a sedate student. However… it is successful. The beast freezes, the tip of the armblade scratching Upgrade's neck and leaving the shallowest of razor-slashes present, only to have the point of impact begin to crack and spew argent blue-green flame into the air. Like a chryalis, the blaze tears down it's back until it meets at places best left unnoticed… and the thing BURSTS… becoming nothing more than motes of light that fall like ash to the ground. Collapsing to the earth is Connor Blake. Sizzling and smoking, sparking blue-gren light here and there, but otherwise unmoving. Still able to speak as he pants out the words, "Soaking up the… punches… anyone… needs me… unconscious. 'kay?" Then the lights go out.
While the battle has been raging, Shane has been slowly, tentatively approaching the melee; one does not, after all, want to attract the attention of such *frighteningly* powerful people if one can help it. As the monster collapses and reveals itself to be Connor, Shane pauses, jaw falling open… and shakes off the shock, curling her right hand into a fist, seeing that the other combatant is well distracted. Without speaking a word, she pulls her arm back, and drives her fist forward into Upgrade's face. While normally such a punch wouldn't hurt very much from such a small girl, the half-ton explosion that lights off less than an inch from her nose would likely sting a whole lot more.
Tara watches Shane stalk up to Upgrade, and gives the other girl an encouraging thumbs up, all the while squeezing the clothing tighter to make sure that the girl gets in the last punch. After all she's been through, she deserves it.
Upgrade cannot do much but take the punch, and her head drops down as she blacks out, both from the loss of air and the powerful hit. Like her husband, she is now fast asleep.
Once it's obvious that Upgrade is no longer a threat, Tara drops her unceremoniously to the ground, and slumps wearily herself. "Ow," she says, suddenly realizing how badly burned she is. Then she comes to another realization. "I'm naked." With a sigh of defeat she says, "If anybody wants me, I'll be in the medlab." A pause. "Again." And then she floats off to her destination.
Jules got all scratched up from rubbing down the cheese-grater-esque back of War. The sweater that was on the young mutant has is all torn and bloodied up. The teleporter is sprawled out on the ground, still conscious. The metal staff used to give Connor a good thwack is almost comically bent to the shape of War's head. After a few minutes the teleporter slowly begins to push himself up while holding his most damaged arm as he looks around to observe the situation and the unconscious Connor.
Heather looks around and says, "IamburnedupprettybadeveryonewhocanwalkormovegotothemedbayandIwillgetstafftocontainmyparents…" She zips over to pick up Connor, though seeming somewhat unstable as Connor is quite heavy compared to her. "Oof." But still manages to move him off to safety.
Shane watches almost blankly as Upgrade slumps to the ground, frowning in distant puzzlement. "…The hell was going *on* here anyway…?" Shaking her head and sighing to herself, she turns to face Jules and Kieran, eyes flicking toward Heather for a second as the timeshifted girl speaks, and nods. "….Someone else call the medics? I um…" She looks down at her grubby self, the flat black sports bra, bike shorts, and clubstompers that were all that could survive her explosions. "…Guess I left mine in my other pants."
Jules looks back at Shane and begins to corpseshuffle over. The teleporter offers a friendly hand, "I'll teleport us to the medbay." There's something odd about Jules' voice. It's not just tired, but also a bit sad. Probably not because he's going to get an earfull for jumping off of Xavier's roof and scaring people but also for bending up that staff. Damaging school property. Tsk tsk.
Shane blinks sharply, taking a step back and shaking her head. "…Um. No. S'fine." One hand gestures about, at the multitude of unconscious people strewn about the cratered lawn. "I c'n still walk. They can't."
Jules nods and simply vanishes. Such is his stealthy teleporting power. Those paying attention will see him next to Ashley for a second before they both vanish without a sound. To the Medbay! To then go unconscious.
Shane, for her part, simply turns toward the Mansion, shaking her head and sighing. So many questions… and all of a sudden, absolutely none of them take priority over her first actual real shower in three months. Also, change of clothes.
