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Summary: The Hunters make a full scale attack against the Mutant tunnels, and Tony gives his address to the union.
Date: July 10, 2020
The Hunters Attack (Scene 1)
Rating: PG-13
The Future - The Underground
Under the streets of New York City there are many tunnels that are long forgotten. There are many dead ends, rivers of sewage, pipes and maybe that alleged alligator. There isnt much light down here and if you dont have a flash light, youll be navigating the tunnels blind. Occasionally there is a bit of light that filters down from a storm drain. For those that dont know theyre there, its almost impossible to spot, but in spaced areas in the tunnels are markers to show those how to get to the mutant haven deep underground which is home to the redeemers and the rebellion.
It's been a long week for everybody. The Mutant Underground is still reeling from Bruce's betrayal. They've retreated even further into the catacombs of New Yorks sewers and have set up a temporary base of operations. For the Hunters, life has been busy, too. Their handlers have been whipping them up in a frenzy, getting them ready for what was surely to become one of the most memorable moments of history: The final elimination of the underground mutant threat.
Psylocke has a bad feeling about today. Something monumentally bad is about to happen. She can just /feel/ it, and more often than not, these feelings always turn out to be true. This is why she back in the tunnels, hunting down Volk to warn him to keep his eyes out for anything.
Minus his usual assault rifle and a few other items, Volk is currently sharpening a pair of wakizashi when Psylocke finds him. Looking up and her and meeting her eyes is enough for him to quickly check his weapons and ammo, and then begins to alert others… guards… picking up whomever he can, with a single word. 'Trouble'.
The Hound Cam has done his work well. Down the City streets toward the largest of the tunnels, a massed battalion of Hunters, Hounds, and Omega Sentinels leads the charge. The promise of blood hangs thick and close in the air, and deep beneath the streets, the roof of the Underground begins to tremble…
Prepairations had to be made, there was an opportunity Sabina was not going to pass up, and it beat patrolling and small battles that amounted to the immediate silence after, and abrupt boredom. Hopefully this one would not. With much gathering and help from Deadpool as well she had he small army at her flanks at at her back. All of them constructs that were built from remanants, taking them apart and putting them back together had kept her holed up, but they were done.
At each side what appeared to be mastiffs loped along, their limbs covered in a bent metal taken from downed and irrepairable Sentinel's, forming an armor over them. Lower jaws were half decayed, revealing bone and muscle binding to their hinges where sinew bled beneath fur that, on close inspection, had been stitched. Her zombies fell too easy, and thus, the armor that covered their limbs and back was just to make them last longer, though did nothing else.
At her back was a bit more of a horrifying construct. Standing at seven feet and bearing 4 arms and 3 legs was a hulking human, or humanoid. It was at one point, many other people all sewn into one and layered in sheets of that metal to wear like armor. Its mouth had been cut and restitched back together, reinforced steel for teeth and bone there, the power much more able to crush bone now if it got a good hold on someone. Skin was left bare here and there, and much like the dogs stitchwork held it together at seams where things had been removed or added to make such a giant mass of flesh able to move more at ease behind the small frame that it cast a shadow over, Sabina.
Direction had finally been given and this was the way they travelled, over the grounds leading towards the mutant camp, and the entire path seemed to be still. Not even a bird seemed to dare to fly out past the gathering of the backers of Ahab. Sabina herself seemed rather casual about the whole ordeal, her head covered in the drawn up hood, hair spilling from the shadowed mouth of the cowl over the tank top clad torso, her chapped lips working over lyrics of an unsung song.
Unlike another luck user in the underground, Dunstin isn't really that combative, he's just been…lucky while his enemies are lucky. Currently he's sitting watching the entrance as he's on guard duty. He doesn't say much as he just has been seeing things differently than most as he knows something got messed up. He sits there with a note book just writing down thoughts, trying to figure out exactly -what- happened to Cam.
Saddled atop a fleshy undead steed brought to life by Sabina's powers Deadpool was perched in chunks of armor all pieced together from the local mall, a football helmet which had a half dead rooster stapled to it, umpires chestpiece, and pads on each limb. In his left hand was a stop sign turned into a lance upon the opposite arm was an actual sewer lid (as he was strong enough to carry one) a kazoo in his lips he was speaking around. "Whose giving the speech?! come on, someone do a Braveheart scene, I'm totally feeling this." Aside from the comical array of 'weaponry' he also possessed his usual assortment of gear. Twin firearms, a grouping of explosives, small thrown blades, along side twin swords over his shoulders. "At my signal unleash hell!" He chuckled, patting the flank of the grotesque beast he was astride. "Why yes Silver, it -is- fighty time."
As ghosts-in-the-machine go, Mike Drakos has been a fairly lively mecha-poltergeist. He's taken Theo's SpyBot #13 to the place where Theo stashed the Sentinel he captured, and has spent the day investigating the device. Not actively connected to the Sentinel net, not actively hostile, so Mike has spent four hours inside it, emerging to re-enter with minor pattern tweaks, seeing how much he can do to, and with, the device. It's large, but he can shrink it, take it from 20 feet tall to 10 feet tall and use the leftover mass to replenish his depleted stores… but if he keeps the energy, then he's stuck with it as a body, and he'd look like a sentinel for a long time, not an especially pleasant prospect.
Still, having an attachment to the world, very attractive. He moves from the spybot to the sentinel, and it compacts to ten feet, weapons systems remaining online, sensors active. The color annoys him, so it changes, purple becoming red on black, the head becoming less sentinel-shaped. Considers what he's going to have to deal with in this future world.
All this fades to irrelevancy when the alarm goes off. Mike was given a defensive point-assignment in his briefing the night before, in the event of invasion, and he moves to cover it, and begins sensing… swarms of enemies. Sentinel weapons come online. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven - a time for peace, and now, a time for war.
Her computer hidden away now, Robin is prepared at her own post. She is carrying a light hand gun in her hand and several other weapons strapped to her body. The blue puppet, Blank, even in its expressionless state manages to seem determined, carrying a simple knife in its hand. Instead of her usual glasses, she has opted to wear a simple black eyepatch today, it's all that she really needs after all. Her jaw clenches as she moves through this battle scenario in her head, reminding herself that she is a warrior.
At first, there's silence. Betsy's warning had only come in time to get people prepared, but not in position. There are still children and families out there, trying to live their day to day lives, such as they are. There are guards out there, true, but not enough to repel a full scale evasion. There's a lull before the attack, that has people standing on edge, and listening as close as they can in horror. It's not so much the sound of the marching feet of Hunters and Sentinels, but the /feel/ of hundreds of feet stamping in unison that shakes the very walls of the tunnels, causing drifts of dust and dirt to fall. The call for attack doesn't come as some impassioned cry from a warrior. No, it comes from the emotionless voice of a Sentenel: "MUTANTS DETECTED. PRIMARY ATTACK PROCEDURES INITIATED: DESTROY." Then all hell breaks lose.
Psylocke yells, "Oh bloody hell! as the first wave of attack hits. She knew this was going to be bad, but she didn't realize that they were going to be pulling out all the stops on this one. Only half the invading forces seem to be aware of her, whatever it is that keeps her invisible to machines keeps her safe from the Sentinels. However, this doesn't save her from the variety of humans and Omega sentinels. Going purely defensive she brings up her shadow armor in time to deflect a stray bullet, wincing as she feels the impact. "You!" she shouts at one terrified teen mutant. "Get yourself and as many kids to the back of the tunnels!" The kid nods and starts running towards a pack of scared young children who had been playing with a half inflated soccer ball, who are now paralyzed with fear.
Getting in front of some incoming fire and throwing his arms up, bullets strike a defensive barrier around the arms of Volk as he stops the children from being hit. Both his SMGs are drawn out and soon he's moving up next to Psylocke, and begins to rip off a full-mag burst from both weapons… sending a full-on fan of armor-piercing rounds into the group outside. The weapon's chatter familiar to some. When both magazines are gone, he ducks back down and begins to change out, saying in a grunt up to the telepath, "Staggered… retreats… on signal… hold them… until then." Holstering those, he drags out a compound bow and shoulders a quiver of arrows, prepping to fight the Omegas.
Sabina's head tilted slightly though her steps kept going, the line of pale jaw revealed in the slight movement of her head that had her casting an azure eye towards Deadpool and revealing that mangled scar went higher thena the stretch along her jaw. A cracked smile of the beaten clown spread to flash ivories and her head shook. Lips parted as if to say something and then clipped shut with the drop and furrow of brows. Looking away amusement had come and gone, thoughtlessness had been replaced by thought. This was her war right? She was paid to be on this side at least but was it hers?
A swift shake of her head and her hands fell, unzipping the rest of the hoody and reaching down to her sides, where at her thighs the Rugers remained holstered. "Aside from wanting to do the Thriller dance and call it a night, let's just do this and ride off into the sunset after eh?" Was it a hint in her tones without giving away the entirety of her thoughts to the swarm around them. One hand reached out and swatted at 'Silver' as if to set the beast off with DP on top. Sabina's own gait then picked up to a job, the massive canines loping beside her as well as the massive construct to her back. She was merely human afterall and her backup came in numbers, but more numbers would come once the death toll began to rise, this fortold by the movement of hands and arms to shed herself of the hoody and pause in her readiness to hang it on a tree. Like taking off her shoes before entering someones house - casually. Then moving on, like a horrifying wave of bodies sides began to clash and she was running up to
meet it.
"Hi-ho sphincter away!" The regeneratin' degenerate shouts at the top of his lungs the zombie horse galloping forward as he pelted its side with his heels the stopsign leveled before him at none other than Psylocke thundering forward down the opening before him, if he got anywhere within range to swing the flat side of the stopsign at her he would, a harsh attack but one that wouldn't kill only swat aside. The horse continuing forward in it's rush only to be leapt off of, it's form directed before a string of the Sentinels, explosives strapped all around it's stomach now become visible.
Deadpool meanwhile ending up in a roll away from it - this was premeditated on his part. He was insane yes, he loved bloodshed, of course but innocent people and kids wasn't in his game plan - now, the lethals on the other hand they were open sport. The entire desired effect of the horse was to act as an explosive near one of the giant Sentinels, exploding outwards to drop one if not two of the lumbering behemoths to the ground acting like a makeshift wall between the rest of the horde and the escapiing children. Leaving those who wear closer acting as a 'wall' to face the hunters, hounds and mechanized army.
Great Exploding Horses! That was very strange. Mike remembers Deadpool, of course, and seeing the mercenary here riding on a kamikaze suicide(?) bomber HORSE that has no life signs, disgusting, it's like an equine version of something the evil zombie-doctors threw around in that online game. He fires two suppressor smoke grenades at the oncoming invaders, and immediately senses traffic on the communications relays: Mutant power adaptation protocol. Directive: identify and terminate all mutant life. He ignores that, of course, realizing that he can SENSE the unique signature carried by some of these … "Hounds" says the signifier. A moment of clarity, and he patches in a directive: New mutant signature identified. Danger:Extreme. Terminate mutants with signature first, security risk omega.
Then he moves to project an ice blast, supercooled nitrogen fog, in the direction of the largest bulk of human attackers.
Robin's eyebrows furrow darkly at all of the chaos brought upon by the Hunters. She is very careful with her ammo, aiming carefully and firing single shots at vital points on the incoming Hunters, especially ones she knows are possible to kill based on the information she 'inherited' from Robyn and her own scouting data. It does come in handy once in awhile, after all. They are laid out in her mind in a priority basis. Blank has one hand on Robin's shoulder, and is performing similar actions, compensating for any shots that are dodged by pulling out another pistol from Robin's body and firing it off to echo her fire.
While some of the human attackers might have qualms about attacking defensless children, the constructed ones, the Sentinels, do not. The large machines are there for the initial assault, since they wouldn't be able to maneuver once the fighting gets deeper underground. However, there are enough of them to be blasting at the initial mutant defenses taking down the guards one by one and one of them looms over the frightened gang of children that Volk is protecting, levelling a hand at them only to… stop. The emotionless sound of their voices are heard once again: " NEW DIRECTIVES ACKNOWLEDGED: CHANGING PRIMARY TARGETS." The giant hands swings around away from the group of children, allowing the teenager to collect them up and move them deeper into the tunnels, and then starts blasting at the hounds who are, after all, mutants uncaring of who might get in the way.
Betsy is nearly buried in a sea of Hunters, fighting for her life, when Deadpool barrels over her and swats her away with the stop sign. She goes flying backwards, landing into the wall of the tunnel, looking dazed for a moment before shaking it off and getting to her feet. The Sentinel's change of heart gives her pause though and she shouts, "Take advantage of this, and beat off as many as you can!"
Volk takes aim with the bow and notches an arrow, firing at one of the tougher hunters, the arrow glowing for a moment before it's fired, and then it's velocity is doubled as he gives it a full-on push. Readying another one, he has to pause to draw one of his blades to defend himself against some incoming attacks. Ducking and weaving from both fire and more physical strikes, he makes his way over through the crowd to protect and back-up Psylocke, and once there he turns the bow and arrow, and attempts another grav-accelerated shot at Deadpool!
Sabina looked up in time to see the direction of Deadpool on Silver Sphincter and feel the severance of the bond she kept with her beings as the concussive force of the emposion rocked through the air, the horse left to steer in the direction Deadpool wanted it to go despite her ability to control it otherwise. "Oops." Was said rather dryly as the end result was not to favor their side.
Several bullets had been in her direction, one mangled hand of the once-human behind Sabina doing as it had been first ordered, and protected. Moving like a meat shield around her body when it needed to and taking the bullets as she remained moving forward while one hand reached behind and beneath the long thick fall of her hair and drew the machete from its sheath at her back where it had been concealed.
"Hehe, she said beat off." Deadpool chuckled the sewer lid was turned into a shield it caught the arrow on it, deflecting off with a resounding *fwwpang!" that had his arm feeling like it had just rocketed in the shoulder socket, spinning around in a full circle using the impact from the projectile he hurled the heavy object like a discus at Connor in return."Where does this happyfuntime line form, Psylocke? Me first! Me first! Bet you got one hell of a Kung Fu grip." Kata like the stop sign twirls over his head and he strikes a pose just as bullets are absorbed by a few hunters bodies behind him, zipping past him ridiculously close. The Sentinels that had fired the frosty attack he was avoiding right now, confused but not about to slow down and allow openings in his defense. Damned mutants and their trickery tricksterness."Amen brother."
Mike reaches the point where he expects to begin attracting attention from the cyborged humans. They cannot be allowed to continue this attack — someone has to get those children back to safety, and he isn't going to use his ultimate attack here, no thank you, not with his recently rediscovered friends within the blast radius, so instead he brings the Sentinel weapons system to bear: identify, neutralize. Powered targets. Electron beam guns activate, targeting as many as possible, attempting to overload unsuspecting systems with a truly random sequence of electrical surges.
With some of the Hunters coming closer, Robin seems to smile slightly. She is more in her element in close quarters like this than from a distance. She fires her gun at one of the nearby Hunters, teleporting Blank in front of him to reach and try to wrench his neck into an unsurvivable position, tossing a knife from its holster up in the air. The puppet catches and slashes at another, grabbing Robin's wrist and swinging her back around forwards again in a strange kind of dance. Carefully, she fires a bullet towards Sabina, while Blank launches the knife towards the same target with the puppet's superstrength, before Robin ports the puppet back in front of herself for protection against retaliation. She hasn't had a chance to really use her powers to their fullest like this since coming down to the tunnels, but her movement with Blank seems to flow like water.
It isn't until one of the Omega Sentinels takes a blast to the back do they finally take notice that their bigger, older bretheren have turned on them. "What the hell is wrong with you!" She screams at it. "Attack THEM! Not US! Some mutie rewired your friggin' brain!" Once again the Sentinels stop. "FALSE DIRECTIVES CORRECTED. ADAPTING. DESTROY." Still. The damage was done. The confusion and chaos was enough to allow enough of the Redeemers and Rebeelion to shore up their defenses, so that the push into the tunnels won't go as smoothly as expected.
There are plenty of casualties on both sides, now. While the Hunters have numbers on their side, the Redeemers have power. When each person is it's own deadly weapon, it gives them something of an edge, although the Hunters aren't without power on their own. One said mutant weapon manages to get a lucky shot into one of the sentinels, bringing it down before it has a chance to recalibrate it's defenses and start shooting back.
"You have no idea, Deadpool," is Betsy's response, a shadow katana in one hand and her psyblade, the focused totality of her psychic powers, in the other. She doesn't bother with any fancy katas, instead leaping at the insane mercenary, slashing down with the ebon blade that's sharp enough to cut through steel like butter.
With Deadpool and Psylocke locked into combat, and the tide coming, the former merc ducks, but not enough to not take a glancing blow of the sewer-lid that the original merc with a mouth lobbed at him. Rolling and recovering, Volk calmly holsters the bow onto his back, and locks it into place on a spot across the quiver. Moving to the middle of the tide, he seems almost unconcerned of the bullets, a few striking against some kind of force just before his body… causing him to flinch in place. In position, he draws both the wakizashi in time for one of the recent Omegas to jump at him, pointing both it's arm cannons towards him. Pointing one blade up, the Omega's sentinel voice goes off: MUTANT POWER DETECT-… Turning into a pained squelch as it gets a cannonshot off that ends up knocking him back slightly as the armor plates in his jacket are shattered and sluffed… but so is the Omega.
As blood and fluids spray, he launches the corpse through a Sentinel that has just fried two Redeemers into blast-shadows. Then he vanishes… and reappears to slash a Hunter from behind… turning into a blur of motion as he port-strikes through the crowd with a vicious and silent efficiency.
The fire from Robin was met with the forward lunge of one of those massive hounds. The bullet was too fast for a catch inside its undead carcass and scathed past to hit Sabina in the thigh, the impact making her small form spin and fall over without a sound. The knife on the other hand, was lodged in the large dogs side where no blood spilled forth but a hissing sound of air did pass with the bellowing growl that erupted from the lips of the dog-thing. The other stood stock still and turned white eyes towards Robin as Sabina's hand shot up and gripped its armored back and was used to pull herself back up. Her pain tolerance was quite large, and this, to be taken into consideration considering the scars that riddled her arms in deep red and pink lines as well as legs, one now bleeding down to soak the ground. Her reaction: "Fuck…tss-ahh…ow-owow. Disarm her!"
With that the canine with the knife in its side lunged towards Robin while her eyes sought out Deadpool post that blast. Seeing Psylocke mid lunge the other hound was relinquished. "Guard!" He could handle himself that she knew, but she still had the hulking humanoid behind her, shifting its arms as she used the flowing blood to continue her walk, purposefully limping on the fallen bodies, letting the blood that came from the bullet wound saturate their skin. Confusion was around her, but she had a plan and it required her blood, Robin just helped. Despite seeming intent on something she did not stray her vision from her hound and Robin.
And while the battle rages on in the underground, all television channels around the United States suddenly fade to black. A moment passes as slowly a light source glows into being in the center of the camera's frame. A secondary light source, a golden glow, moves towards the center of the screen. Slowly inch by inch the glow becomes brighter until an outline of a man can be seen. "You can change your stations but you will find me on each, and every channel. I have taken over the communications systems to speak to you, now, at our darkest hour." The voice is cold, and metallic sounding. The man steps forward, more small spheres of light become visible about his outline till he's standing directly in front of the camera. A familiar, yet different, suit of red and gold armor can be seen taking up most of the screen.
"No, but a man and his voices can dream!" Deadpool quips at Psylocke as the stopsign was cleaved in twain,"By MacGyver's sweet mullet those are sharp!" Leaping backwards as she assaulted both parts of the object dropped on the ground, evading the attacks from the former X-Man as he draws both swords - or at least tries, an extra swipe done with his left hand as he realizes two of his fingers had been cleaved off. His right sword, however, drawing free. "Hey look, I just gave you the finger. Haheh owch.That's okay you lack a few things I do…"
The 'reset target' directive is almost strong enough to make Mike take pause, and he swears for a moment, in his quiet place away from reality, trying to analyze the new security key that got slapped into the protocol; it will take at least five minutes if he dedicates half his processing to take it apart, and that will mean he cannot control the sentinel he inhabits. More compute power is needed, but there isn't time to create it. So fine, if that won't work, then he'll just do things the hard way. Denial of Service Attempt! Precious energy goes to create a pod of sentinel transponders, four of them, shoot from his head in all directions, warping into being in the third dimension and scattering into the tunnels. They begin sending garbage signals on the Sentinel stream, uploading nonsense about mutant powers and adaptation requirements at high speed, each of them sending upwards of thirty false signals.
If nothing else, it should distract them, Mike thinks to himself, and sends another chilling blast out towards the less-protected swarms of humans. There is no reason NOT to .. what the … Mike is stunned for a moment at the television broadcast that he, and perhaps the other sentinels, can sense. A possibly very bad reaction.
With the hound ordered towards her, leaping to attack her, Robin meets it head on. Her motion is almost foolish seeming, as she extends her fist to punch at the hound, her timing so bad that it will be fully extended by the time the dog finishes its lunge. But that's her intention. As her punch is reaching its greatest speed, she summons teleports Blank once again, the puppet's foot connecting to the tip of her fist, the puppet's own punch mimicing Robin's motion while its whole body keeps the momentum of the attack, adding its own super-strength attack to the mix. Robin doesn't hesitate now, though, raising her other hand again to fire another carefully aimed bullet towards Sabina while time allows.
One can only imagine what President Kelly is doing at this point in time. Probably screaming his head of to find out who the hell is brodcasting that transmission, and where they are so they can take him down and, Goddammit, didn't he have Stark executed already? Still, the battle for mutant lives rages on. It seems to be at a standstill with heavy losses on both sides, until Mike manages to blast the communication channels with nothing but noise. While this won't stop the attacking robots and cyborgs, it will keep them from coordinating their attacks as effectively. Still, this only serves to fuel the ferver of hatred and fury of the Hunters.
"Like insanity?" asks Psylocke, pirouetting around to spear a hapless Hunter who thought he could flank her with her psyblade, frying his neurons in the process. Without stopping she twirls low, sending her ebon blade to cut Deadpool's feet out from underneath him. However, the chances that she'd hit are reduced since an undead armored guard dog just barrelled into her.
The man who has usurped the televisions across the nation continues to speak. "Citizens of the United States of America, I address you from the ruins of a once great city, a city that once stood for hope, and the promise of a prosperous future. Now New York and other cities are nothing more than rubble, and ruin. Much like the American Dream, it has been lost to shadow and destruction." The helmet of the suit of armor is pulled off to reveal the man behind the mask, the serious expression of the presumed dead Anthony Stark, Iron Man. Several silent moments pass as if he wants everyone to take a good hard look at him, to know he is indeed standing alive and well in some destroyed building.
The teleport assault can only go on so long before Volk ports back close to Robin, and clicks a signal. Rudimentary comm gear for all the Rebellion and Redeemers make a stand there get the 'Fall back' signal from Volk as he pants for a moment, favoring his still aching arm as he parries away one of the zombie-forms and decapitates it, followed by a kick to a second with enough secondary force to make the bone-snap sickeningly audible. Having given up on going for his guns, the man is now channelling his grav-bolts as fast as he can, each one with enough crushing force to feel like they're being hit by a mac truck. As he backs away, a glance is afforded towards Psylocke, one which allows another Hunter to strike him with an energy blast dead-center… the armor coat turning from grey to black as some of the heat is dissipated, but the kinetic carrythrough knocks him a couple feet back.
Volk skids to a spot, and counters with another pinpoint bolt of energy the size of a pencil that goes back through the shooter with a burst of blood and bone that sprays into his companions.
The mastiff sized construct that was upon Robin snapped large jaws just over her face, but that was not its true goal. It intentionally missed to turn its large maw towards her weapon wielding hand while the extra force of a kick dented makeshift armor and released a sickly crack. Disarm was all it was told to do not kill. Not yet. The rumbling growl was now wet, sickly sounding and bubbling from its throat as it made to knock aside Robin's second aim for Sabina that was caught by the large humanoid construct, the bullet burying into its body made of many while it stood there unflinching and following the silent dark haired woman that remained intent in her path as well as raising the one hand that held the Ruger and pointing it at Robin. "Stop that! You're distracting me!" They wouldn't like it if she was distracted…She would lose control. Her other hand bearing the machete and the twin pistol rose to slice across the face of an incoming attacker, dropping him by using his own momentum that sunk him further onto the blade and made it a killing blow.
"I say this to you, I pray thee to listen with an open mind, and open heart," says Tony. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
"Well that yes, but…" Deadpools body leaps forward flipping over Psylocke as he cuts downwards with his own razor sharp katana slicing at her ebon blade wielding shoulder using the oppurtunity opened to underestimate him and defend herself against another Hunter, his attack was well-placed yet surprisingly not lethal as it could have been, though severing the limb was still in that equation should she move just one direction the wrong way. His feet not on the ground when it got there, "yellow boxes, a superhuman hunkiness and a uniform that covers my naughty bits, which by the way thank you! I'm loving some of these angles."
Mike has begun playing the audio portion of the television signal, at high volume, Tony Stark's unmistakeable voice being echoed into the room. He's alive, people.
This doesn't mean that the ghost in the machine is going to stop sending the false signals that make him appear to be just another sentinel; if the enemy doesn't stop to LOOK then he is just another one of them and isn't targeted, which is fine by him, for now.
Of course, when the teleporter slides up against his feet, Mike warns him, "Careful, Volk, they'll be shooting at me any second."
And he follows up that warning by firing at another one of the Omegas, this time, using a combination of rounds, explosive, electrical, laser, ice-bomb. If nothing else it will catch the thing's attention away from the other mutants in the room.
Tony continues, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness, prudence, indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usuerpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security."
"Aaaaugh!" cries Robin as the mastiff bites into her hand, though she react quickly by porting Blank in to pry the jaws open (and even beyond, if possible, with the blue humanoid's unusual strength). She is indeed disarmed, and her damaged hand remains unmoving while she falls back, ready to pull her puppet away whenever the going gets too tough. While she works best with the puppet, it seems best to leave Blank alone on the battle field for the moment being.
And there is the call to retreat. Psylocke curses, and twists, but not managing to completely dodge the downswing of Deadpool's blade. Fortunately the shadow armor provides her enough protection that the blade's cut is shallow. She's having a hard time reading the man since it seems like even /he/ doesn't know what he's going to do half the time, which negates one of her advantages. Still, she doesn't have time to waste going mano e mano with the psychopath, so she tries to end it early, by sending a psy-bolt at Deadpool, wanting to fry his twisted little mind.
While the Omegas are tough, they're hardly invincible, and Mike's onslaught brings yet another one down. Despite the call to retreat, the sound of Iron Man's voice reciting the Declaration of Independance only serves the bolster the courage of the mutants who are fighting to protect their home, their lives, and their freedom.
With Sentinel-Meck for cover and a moment to recover, Volk slaps the chassis hard enough… enough that the mecha-form might remember a similiar sensation of a bygone era. Getting into a secondary position where some rocks have been carefully laid out, Volk moves to the center-point, and two large bounders are lifted… and then crushed down into pebbles! The intent seems less obvious to many, save those who have already seen this in action from the prison break. In a move to do justice to another departed team-mate, the former merc and former X-student balls his hands together and then pushes them forwards in a move just like from the videogames: Hadoken. And as he does this, the twin piles of ammunition begin spraying out ball-bearing sized pebbles in excess of 200 mph, working the room with a pair of ah-hoc but extremely effective railguns!
The jaw of the hound on Robin begins to crack under the pressure, and its lower mandible is ripped off, landing on Robin's body beneath it. But it now stood there, with her blood still upon its upper canines and unmoving while dead eyes scanned for any other weaponry. Then it backed off, not taking notice of Volk in his approach as it only had been given one target to disarm and it had succeeded.
"Stay! Guard!" The demand was given and as another hunter came at Robin the large beast hurled its mangled body into the hunter, no longer having jaws that worked for attack but the sheer size of it alone having its mass used as a battering ram to pin the body beneath and then be frozen in place by one of Mike's blasts.
It took one moment though, the voice over the open air that was riddled with the sound of clashing was familiar to her, but not as familiar as what the voice was quoting. Sabina stopped, standing over one of those bodies, the blood sill flowing from the wound on her thigh as a soft green glow begins to emit from the bodies she had marked for the moment. Many missing limbs, half frozen, some just with bullet wounds and some half charred from fire blasts, both rebel and Ahab's alike rose in a slow shamble to stand their ground with lifeless eys or no eyes at all and wait for their orders while Sabina stood there, listening. Volk's spray of ammo chipped away at more of the undead, the large hulking construct stepping over Sabina and bowing over her like a mother protecting a child, taking on the hits that sprayed off chunks of its flesh.
Tony is silent for a moment. "It can be said no truer than that, from the Declaration of Independence, the Rite of Revolution, the document that states everything that the United States was built upon. We, as human beings are meant to learn from our mistakes. Once, we went to war to learn that slavery, was wrong. In another war we learned that one man's war to abolish a race of people off the face of the Earth, was wrong. Yet we come to find ourselves here again, where an administration has started a war to abolish a race of people, simply because they are different. I find it hard to believe that as a people we could sit by and watch this atrocity, as men, women and children die daily because they are simply different."
Deadpool's attack failed in it's attempt to destroy the sword arm, a blast of psychic mutant viciousness assails him to meet that already in flux cluster of a brain. Telepaths in the past have tried similar assaults and failed this one does as well but it has a desired effect enough to tigger disorientation and a instantaneous hallucinatory effect. Suddenly Psylocke is a twirling dancer covered in sparkly glitter, brilliant colored lingerie and batons, a 'Loves Wade' emblem etched across her backside, she's also astride a purple hippo. "I love you too! Who says mutants don't have hearts!" He exlaims. Dude, I think we're doing it again "Is that why I taste Creme Soda? I think thats braincells rapidly popping His aggresive attacks having stopped at this point as he stood there in a daze.
The defensive protocol is familiar, but Mike's focus remains on the attackers, and on protecting the retreat which was announced. "Volk, when do we fall back?"
They may not be being beaten down, but the more vulnerable mutants have been taking damage, even dying. And the broadcast of Iron Man's words, it seems, are having an effect, but when the Pretty Little Dead Girl starts waking the fallen … a cold shiver would run down his spine, if he had one.
"American citizens," Tony says, voice strong and commanding, "do not turn a blind eye to this horror; you do not have to live in fear any longer. One voice alone may not be loud enough to evoke change but a chorus of voices are. Unite my fellow Americans, unite against an administration that seeks to destroy everything that this country was founded upon. Rally against an administration that has killed innocent people, brainwashed some of the finest minds of our time, and murdered American Heroes in cold blood, It is your right as an American, as a human being to oppose this atrocity, to hold true to what our Founding Fathers decreed."
After the undead dog's jaw is torn off, Robin calls her puppet back to herself to protect herself from on oncoming Hunter, but blinks a few times as the undead dog seems to protect her. She doesn't really understand what is happening, but she scrambles up to her feet and stumbles back slightly, unsure of how to proceed.
Psylocke pauses and blinks in confusion as her psychic attack doesn't have the reaction she expected it to. Still, it's enough for her to have him standing there drooling and confessing his love for her. She turns to disappear into the fray to help with the retreat, getting lost in the melee, hand holding her shoulder where Deadpool's katana bit into it. Iron Man's speech seems to have a rallying affect with the Mutants, however. Those who were content to hide and retreat now feel the fire of rebellion and rush towards the others, willing to lend a hand. It's because of this that any retreat at all is possible. heading down further into the tunnels where the large Sentinels can't reach. The plan is now to keep the raiders in place, in a certain place, and bring the tunnels down on them effectively sealing them off from access to where the mutants are.
As he speaks, Tony's voice gets more empassioned with his own words, "The American people have always defended their homes, their rites, and those of others when unspeakable acts have been done in the name of one individual or another. This is the time to rise up my fellow Americans. Rise up, rise up and be proud of this country again. You all have the power to change things before its too late, before we all become that which we have fought against for centuries. Let us lift this shadow from over our great nation, and return to happier times. Times when we all were free, and we all lived in a land of peace and prosperity, united."
The construct uncovers Sabina once the spray ceases, her eyes looking over the battleground and seeing the blast from Psylocke towards Deadpool had her jaw rocking, tensing in its debate. The one hound sent to guard Deadpool was there as he stood dazed, paled eyes staring out as stiched lips shook with the baring of the rows of teeth placed within its body during modification. Psylocke was still zeroed in on but it did not move from the side of its ward as he prattled on about soda and glitter ready to spring and take the hits of further attacks if needed.
The hoarde of undead remained unmoving, unbreathing, like statues for heartbeats as the message droned on and the dozens of undead finally began to move, filing in line before the line of Sentinels and hunters as well as hounds that were left. Some faced the side of Ahab's, the others faced those of the Rebellion. Not yet defining that line of whose side they were on but standing in the way of any assailing ammo and becoming fleshly fodder for either side. Sabina was apparently in debate, and this showed by the large scale of pause given and the hiccups were the small distractions. "Guard them.." The word was a whisper, but it went down a connection she held with her beings as she lowered to a one knee'd kneel and dug her fingers into the bleeding out wound on her thigh. A ruse, a form of distraction that she could use as her fault for losing control of her beings and them going haywire on the hounds, sentinels, and hunters alike that were not listed as "guard". Meanwhile, Sabina was digging out the bu
bullet to stop the bleeding.
Two more boulders lift, crush to components, and then spray back out as Volk continues to hold the line for the others, growling out in his lupine voice, "PULL. BACK." The expression under the balaklava unseen by the enemy while he takes steps back here and there, hands still forwards as he sprays back and forth over the incoming crowd. As quickly as the first set of railgun rock was used up, the second is depleted, and he is sporting two more burn-marks on his armor, and a crease-line on his HUD-eye where a stray shot took the device out. Hands immediately drop to one of his SMGs, and as one hand motions, he ducks to a side cavern and aiming to cover Robin and the others. Over his comm, for Mike to hear, comes a whisper of, "They're committed. Everyone back now. Time for our fireworks display." And with that Volk sends a stream of bullets at Deadpool to dance with nicely instead of running after Robin or Sentinel-Mike.
Into the camera's frame the helmet is lifted back into frame to slide down upon Starks head, the eyes reactivating to their glowing blue tinge. "Iron Man has returned to defend this country, and ALL of its citizens. I implore you, let your voices be heard; I can only do what I must. God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America." With that the image of Iron Man goes dead on the tv's around the United States leaving people to their previously interrupted broadcasting.
As the purple hippo steals away the image of Psylocke he begins to snap out of his delerium. I think Kozo the Hippo just stole our dance partner.~We don't like tea much anyways and could you really stomach sitting through another episode of Eastenders? ~ "Shut up both of you and get your game… fac… accents? tones! Just shut up, before I start singing something by Toni Basil." Deadpool ceases speaking for what could be a recordof a fraction of a second to sweep low evading a hail of rounds from Volk his sword slung out and at the mutant 'terrorist' in the same motion as he ducked, something attached to it's hilt strung there into torn tsuka ito (cord wrapping) a lovely explosive surprise the pin pulled it should even if the hurled weapon was evaded go off with a hefty enough eruption it's blast radius of 3 meters a healthy dosage of fun.
Mike the Sentinel is, of course, going to be the last of those remaining to go, and he's going to keep a sensor track of Connor, extending it rather farther than the usual Sentinel reach of just under 200 yards, because when the man vanishes he'll know he's safe. Over the comm, he replies, "Just don't waste time trying to take out the rest of them. Especially…" And the grenade hits the ground two meters in front of him, and erupts. Mike is very happy at that moment to be made of omnium and very irritated at the loss of a paint job. "Ouch." He takes a second to double-check on Volk.
Robin reacts pretty quickly to Volk's other cry for retreat. She runs off, clutching her damaged hand, her puppet trailing close behind her. She's glad for the retreat order, really, and now moves unimpeded. These kinds of brutal battles are really not for her.
Amongst the chaos, Volk's commands reverberate inside the tunnels, letting all know what the plan is. The Rebellion is able to hold off the Hunter's attacks long enough to get everybody in position for a final, desparate manouver. As Iron Man's words ring and echo throughout a silent prayer is said and the explosives and land minds are triggered. The noise of the explosions are deafaning and the heat and shrapnel injure friend and foe alike, but in the end the tunnels to collapse in on themselves effectively making any further passage impossible. For now, mutant kind as a whole have survived another day, but their numbers have been greatly diminished.
Reanimated bodies fell in the confrontation only to use whatever was left to keep moving towards their goal. It was a torn goal at that, it seemed they were taking bullets, explosives, and blasts for both sides but not moving against either. Sabina remained in her knelt position, withdrawing her hand from her thigh when she had successfully dug out the bullet, holding it n front of her for inspection and then palming it as she reached back blindly feeling for her construct to grab one of its lower arms and use it as support to stand back up and become a lean to.
Once all the Rebels were in their hole and out of sight the reanimated corpses fell to the ground in a crumple, lifeless save for the one remaining hound that remained by Deadpool and the construct that had been Sabina's shield.
The thrown sword earns a diving roll from Volk as everything goes off at once, and for a moment he vanishes, even from Mike's sensors, reappearing several feet down the assigned escape passage in a roll and a skid… back hitting the wall. Looking down at the armor jacket, there's several new holes, most incomplete but one seems to have gone through the side of his neck leaving a nasty puncture from the tempered steel of the blade working like an ad-hoc claymore. Ripping the now-useless jacket off, he tears a strip of the undercloth from it and wraps the wound tightly before continuing on… dragging his combat harness along with him as he grumbles, "Problem… with kicking… Deadpool's ass… is an hour… later… you have to do it again. Hopefully… we buried him… so deep… he'll… come out… as a mole man."
"Ah hah! Lookit them run," Tunnel's are crumbling time to go" Yikes here is me without my umbrella. Theres no place like home, no place like home, come on Todo!" Quickly Deadpool scoops up his fallen fingers tossing the ;guarddog one before he teleports out to a safe distance. He'd encounter them again, right now it was playtime was over.
Once Volk reappears in his sensors, Mike waits at the rendezvous point, carrying one or two of the injured, a grim sort of expression on his not-a-sentinel face.
"Where to now?"
A flick of tongue over Sabina's lips and she looked back only once and slowly made her way out of the grounds with her weight supported on the construct while she moved and reholstered her weapons into place. "I've got a love‘ly bunch of coconuts…" Deedly-dee. In passing she grabbed her hoody, slinging it back over her and pulling the hood up. Her direction was uncertain, but she wasn’t going home just yet, she needed a break. Lowering to a seat on the outskirts she watched the ground shake and then buckle in on itself.
