xp_logs | The Rictor Effect

As Julio is about to lose control, the cavalry arrives.

There really wasn't much point in trying to be discreet.

Scott deliberately blasted the ruins of some sort of equipment shed, fifteen feet to the left of where a familiar helmeted figure was standing over a huddled, fetal form. The boy, Scott thought, shoving the anger away down deep where it wasn't going to get out and complicate the situation. It wasn't as if Magneto didn't have plenty of precedent for abusing children, after all.

~Keep under cover for the time being,~ he subvocalized to the rest of the team. The platform shook, and Scott steadied himself with a hand on the piping next to him. That would be Cain, doing his part of the job. He reached up with a hand and adjusted his visor. It felt odd to be wearing it again. Definitely unnatural.

Hearing the command over his earpiece, Cain adjusted the breathing regulator and took another breath of oxygen from the tanks slung over his shoulder before cracking his knuckles and gripping one of the posts that was anchoring the oil platform. Magneto may have raised this wreck from the ocean floor, but he probably had to concentrate to keep it off the ocean floor.

Another wrenching heave, and the Juggernaut sent another shockwave through the rusted metal, shaking the entire platform with his strength.

It was all Rogue could do to keep herself from flying over to the boy. One gloved hand twisted the white strand in her hair, while the other clenched into a fist. How many innocent lives would Magneto ruin? Promising herself that they would save the boy, she forced herself to focus on the situation at hand. If she got stuck in the past, she wouldn't do the team any good.

Levitating to keep her balance as the ground shook, she surveyed the area to see if there was anything she would be able to use as a projectile. Damn, its mostly metal. Noticing several chunks of concrete a few feet to her right, she slowly began maneuvering her way towards them.

Nathan had come up from the other side of the platform, quite deliberately. He saw the scene from a different angle; Magneto, standing over the boy, and Scott approaching slowly from the left. He registered Scott's order, his jaw tightening. Now that they were here and could see Julio, it was damned near excruciating to stand here and not act to get him away from Magneto and out of here. But they had to step carefully, and not just because of the megalomaniac in the helmet. Adjusting his grip on his psimitar, it occurred to him to wonder just how much metal the weapon contained. Shit.

Magneto stiffened momentarily when he felt the first jolts come through the platform, then he smiled. "X-Men," he intoned deeply as he turned around. The boy was no threat, practically catatonic at the moment. "Always trying to save the world," he taunted, "to protect a city full of homo sapiens who hate and fear you. Make no mistake, I will give them reason to fear."

He sent a quick burst of his power outwards, stray rusty bolts and scraps of loose metal prying free from the platform, whirling in the air around him. "And some of you never learn, do you?" he said, pointing one hand at Cyclops. "I'll take that, young man."

With a snap of Magneto's fingers, Scott's visor flew off his head, disassembling itself into parts and clattering to the deck.

Scott closed his eyes as he felt the visor yanked off, just for a moment - long enough to let Magneto assume he'd disabled him, again, by taking the visor. "Actually, some of us do," he said, and opened his eyes. He wasn't at the best angle; the boy was too close to Magneto. An optic blast tore up the platform at Magneto's feet. ~Cable! Take care of that debris!~

Nathan's jaw clenched and he focused on the metal debris hovering around Magneto. Too much like a makeshift nail bomb, possibly. Too close to the boy. But the force gripping the debris was immense, far stronger than he'd expected. Like wrestling over drones with Lorna, times five... His psimitar burst into light as he pushed more power through it.

~Nightcrawler,~ Scott subvocalized. ~Try and get to the boy!~

Kurt nodded, once, quickly, and turned to study the boy's situation more closely. He knew he could get in and out quickly enough that Magneto wouldn't have time to stop him before they were away, but he'd be happier if the man was distracted. Especially with all that loose metal flying around.

~We need to keep his eyes on us.~ Rogue subvocalized as she picked up a particularly heavy looking piece of concrete. Quickly flying up, she threw the chunk in the direction of Magneto and the boy, purposefully aiming a little to their right to avoid the risk of hitting the kid. "Always picking on children, Erik," she said, spitting out his name as if it were venomous. She hoped the use of his given name would further goad him and help divert his attention.

Unfortunately the chunk of concrete had a core of metal.

Magneto thrust a hand towards Rogue, the thrown piece of debris shredding into harmless flakes of confetti in the air with just a twitch of his power. "I wonder, Rogue," he shot back bitterly, "if you have ever taken so close a look at the methods Charles uses in his indoctrinations. We are both walking the same path, I simply choose not to disguise mine behind the ruse of a school."

Raising both hands in fists, Magneto caused the whirling cloud of metal to coalesce into a wall of spinning scrap metal, razor-sharp edges glinting in the sun as flakes of rust drifted on the air. "As always, he will send you to try and stop me - but this time, like evolution, you will find that some forces of nature cannot be halted simply because Charles Xavier wills it so!"

Opening his fists wide, he scattered the razor-sharp shards of metal like shrapnel towards the X-Men.

Julio pressed his hands to his head and shuddered. He couldn't hear the X-men, nor what Magneto was saying anymore. The fault had lain dormant for years, steadily building up power and force. Within a few years it would have ruptured anyway, but now that Julio was there, it was like placing a lit spark on top of a powder keg. It took all of his attention and willpower to simply keep a lid on the pressure that was building inside him. It was rising, fighting, threatening to burst, but somehow he held it. Please God, help me. He prayed silently. I can't hold it much longer!

The shards of metal froze in the air as Nathan stepped out from cover, sliding shields over each of his teammates and Julio just in case. "Do you practice the speeches?" he asked through gritted teeth. Fuck, he's so strong... The shrapnel edged forward until Nathan concentrated and forced it back. "Because you sound like a pompous ass, Lehnsherr." Hold the shrapnel, but grab something else...

A whole segment of piping tore itself away and headed for Magneto like a baseball bat in mid-swing. Nathan didn't actually have much hope of getting through, but the more he could distract the older man, the better the chance of one of the others getting through to Julio...

#The boy's in a bad state,# he sent to his teammates, his mental voice tight with strain. #I don't dare try and make contact, he's liable to lose it entirely.#

Magneto stopped the metal pipe in midair, flattening it into a thin layer and interposing it as a shield between he and Julio and the X-Men. "Charles teaches you strength comes from unity, yes?" he intoned, rising into the air on a chunk of ripped steel. "Allow me to show you true strength!"

His face contorted with sudden effort, and a wave of magnetic force burst forth, splitting the oil platform in half, as if an axe blade had cleaved through it.

Rogue was glad she had already been levitating as the platform split directly under her feet. A quick look around was not very reassuring as she had lost sight of half the team ? she hoped they had just taken cover. "Everyone ok?" she murmured into her communicator before turning her attention back to Magneto. "True strength is something that comes from inside, not something one has to force others to see." Just gotta keep him talking, keep him distracted, give Kurt the chance to do something. She began flying in a zigzag pattern, edging closer and closer to the two figures. Come on buckethead, watch the birdie.

Kurt had been edging closer all this time, in steps and small 'ports where he thought he could do it unnoticed. The shorter the jump to get the boy, the easier... and finally he saw his chance and took it. One bamf later, and he was crouched by Julio, trying to get a secure grip on him as fast as possible.

Cain heard the sounds of the battle over his earpiece, and saw the platform split in half above him. Figure they're going to need some heavy hitting right about now, he thought to himself, massive fists gouging handholds in the metal pilings to haul himself up to the surface.

Magneto looked down as the cloud of brimstone caught his eye. "You!" he cried out, levitating a stack of thin rods of re-bar and firing it at Kurt and Julio like a barrage of javelins.

The onslaught of death-dealing metal, however, failed to reach its intended target when the platform lurched to one side, sending Kurt and Julio sliding out of the path of the metal.

Out of the way. The boy was finally clear of his line of fire, and Scott steadied himself with a grab at a piece of piping and cut loose. Wide beam, right at Magneto and his shield, and it shattered with a scream of tortured metal, blown apart by the optic blast.

And Magneto didn't look quite as steady in the air as he had been.

~Nightcrawler! Get the boy out of there!~ Scott ordered and fired again, smashing through yet another hastily interposed metal shield. "I can keep this up for a while! What happens when you run out of metal?" he snarled up at the older man. ~Rogue! Cable! Keep up the pressure - Juggernaut, we could use you up here!~

Seeing Kurt and Julio's near miss had been like a lit match tossed in a pile of kindling when it came to Nathan's temper. Fortunately, he was an expert at turning the anger around, using it to help him focus, and that was what Nathan did now.

He reminds me of Gideon, he thought as the firebird flared into life around him, its wings smashing through piping as they were flung outward. He launched himself into the air, tearing through the wrecked metal that separated him from the magnetokinetic floating in the air -but making sure it was propelled far enough way not to turn into an immediate weapon.

Rogue grinned as she finally spotted something non-metal on the platform. Taking advantage of the opening and distraction Cyclops and Cable had started, she lobbed the sheet of glass as hard as she could directly at Magneto.

It was too much. It was all too much. When Julio and the blue man slipped away from the line of fire, he had tumbled and rolled until he hit a metal support, knocking his already sore head. The sudden pain made him gasp. And in those few precious seconds when he was distracted, he lost control.

Julio's tenuous hold on his power slipped away from him and he couldn't regain his grip. Suddenly centuries of seismic buildup found a release. Julio wasn't prepared for the tremendous amount of energy that abruptly forced its way through him. He began to scream.

And the city of San Diego began to shake violently.

Wednesday, July 5th. 1:10 pm.

In 1906 an earthquake measuring an 8.0 on the Richter scale tore through San Francisco early on a Wednesday morning. The shaking was felt as far away as Nevada and Oregon. The earthquake and resulting fire devastated San Francisco and was remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. No other earthquake has been as large or as devastating to the mainland U.S. in recent history.

Until 1:10 pm on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 in San Diego.

The shaking started right in the middle of a busy workday. One of the first things to go was the Coronado bay bridge, along with the Petco stadium. Then the Convention Center cracked. Three buildings in the downtown area collapsed, and the foundation cracked on another two.

The Gaslamp district saw heavy damage, as did the Island of Coronado. Cars fell into the gaps where roadways once were. The ground in the Marina liquefied. Landslides buried parts of La Jolla and Carmel Valley. And people became trapped or crushed as their office buildings suddenly fell down around them.

Countless neighborhoods and residential areas ceased to exist as they buried their occupants. Shaking was felt as far north as Sacramento and as far south as Baja, Mexico. Many other areas in Southern California received damage as well.

For 45 seconds, San Diego rocked in the grip of an earthquake that would eventually measure an 8.3 on the Richter scale. The worst to ever hit the mainland United States in three centuries.

Shiro is busy trying to help when all hell breaks lose. He begins to doubt even his ability to do right.

Shiro had stayed far far way from the recently raised oil platform. Manipulating charged particles to battle someone who controls magnetic fields? That's just asking to be fried. Not to mention that the prospect of actually meeting Magneto in a setting like this was far more frightening than anything Shiro could imagine. He liked all his limbs and organs and blood where they were, thank you very much.

So he'd taken to help coordinating beach evacuation from the skies. The earthquakes were disconcerting, to say the least, but really the least of his worries. He needed to get everyone the hell away. He'd screwed up with the coily mutant in the FoH headquarters, and he'd screwed up with The Hand in Japan. He would not make the same mistakes here. He couldn't. There were many more people counting on him this time, and if he let his team down, then the consequences would be unimaginably terrifying.

Sunfire would not do wrong.

And he was doing just fine until the earth, stories beneath is feet, began to shake, like it was an Etch-a-Sketch that was being erased.

And then far out at sea, he could see the water level rise. And rise. And rise. And any courage, any confidence he had in his abilities to do this right fell.

Even though Magneto got what he wanted, he's still got the kid.

The platform swayed, and Magneto reared back to catch his balance. Only a glint of sunlight off the flying sheet of glass alerted him to Rogue's attack, and a spray of buckshot-like drops of molten metal from his feet shattered it before it landed a near-fatal blow. As it was, flying splinters of glass peppered the Master of Magnetism's face, causing him to cover up in pain.

As if in response, the oil platform jerked, then began to drop towards the water. From over the edge, two large hands gripped the metal, and dripping with seawater, the Juggernaut pulled himself up onto the swaying structure. Spitting out the mouthpiece of the SCUBA tank, he blinked and looked around. "The kid okay?" he bellowed into his communicator, "Tell me who to hit!"

~The one in the cape, in the air!~ Scott sent back in exasperation and blasted at Magneto again. There was another piece of metal in the wall all of a sudden, the blast smashed through it, sending Magneto reeling slightly in the air

He needed a mini-sized exoskeleton, for moments like this, Nathan thought, finally getting into a position where he had open air only between him and Magneto. He registered Cain coming up the side of the platform, right... there. Perfect. The firebird dove at Magneto, glowing talons reaching out to tear him out of the air. Let's see if Cain can play catch...

Magneto found himself gasping for breath, telekinetically flung across the unstable platform by the glowing exoskeleton. He reached out to stabilize himself, then saw a black-armored fist sailing towards his face. Instinctively, he thrust forward with a destabilizing burst of magnetic power, shredding the metal below Cain into a thousand razor-sharp spikes.

As the attempt to impale Cain failed miserably, it did serve to throw off his punch enough to only hit a glancing blow to Magneto's shoulder, causing both men to tumble to the deck. Rising to a knee, Cain shook off the disorientation. "Give it up, old man," he growled from under the helmet. "You're beat."

Magneto glared through a faceful of blood from the shattered glass, indignantly levitating himself on a deck plate while holding his shoulder. "Beaten? By the likes of you? Hardly." He gestured towards the shore, and a seismic tremor answered him by shaking the platform even more.

Kurt had lost his grip on Julio as they rematerialized, and they'd been separated by the tremors. He was trying to get back to the screaming boy now, but he didn't dare teleport with the metal shifting that way, and going the ordinary way was only bringing slow progress.

For what felt like years, but was really only less than a minute, Julio was caught in the grip of his power. Every one of his nerves felt like it was on fire. He was dimly aware that he was screaming.

Then finally the pressure let up and Julio was released. He collapsed face first onto the deck, utterly exhausted. He wasn't sure for how long the ground shook, but he knew it was bad. The platform was crumbling around him - Magneto's control was slipping and the shaking had destabilized the structure. Somewhere in Julio's foggy brain he realized he had to get moving or be crushed. Slowly he got to his hands and knees, and looked up, only to have to duck as a huge chunk of metal nearly decapitated him. "~Fuck!~" he cried. Julio dodged another hunk of debris. This one concrete.

Rogue heard the boy scream and turned just in time to see a chunk of concrete barely miss him...and there were more bits of debris headed his way. Damn damn double damn Changing her course, she flew to intercept the next piece, slamming it off its route with her fist. There were so many fragments of rubble headed towards her and the boy beyond her that it was all she could do to keep up with them. "Somebody get the kid outta here!" she cried out into her comm, before punching another piece of debris out of the way.

Nathan, on his way over to see whether holding Magneto underwater for a little while might take some of the fight out of him, heard Marie's shout over the comms and shifted in the air. He saw Kurt trying to make his way back towards Julio - and the debris flying towards both of them, and Marie. "I can't get at him," he responded in frustration, but flung up a TK shield over them to keep the debris away. "I'd rip the platform up more trying to get down there!"

Scott let off another blast at Magneto - stopped, again, by a metal shield that was just there, with dazzling speed. "I'll try and get to him," he called, letting go of his grip on the piping and sliding, hoping he'd judged the angles accurately.

Julio didn't have time to dodge the next piece of metal that came flying at him. He threw his hands up in a futile effort to protect himself. Instead of being squished, however, the chunk of debris bounced harmlessly off of an invisible shield. What? Julio looked up to see Nathan, his father's friend, suspended in midair inside of a giant fiery bird. Holy shit. "Nathan!" he yelled. There was an opening in the debris field, and Julio broke into a run. Only several feet separated Julio from Nathan, and Julio dodged around the debris with a grace that belied his exhaustion

Only to have metal bands suddenly encase his wrists and pull him back.

Magneto smiled at Julio, a horrific rictus with the blood streaming down his face. "Hear this, X-Men," he boomed, floating away from the platform on a disc of metal. "Save the boy, if you will. But today, humanity will receive its notice that their time as the dominant species on this planet is over. When the very power of nature's wrath turns against them, they will begin to see - evolution cannot be stopped. We cannot be stopped. They have refused to step aside, and so their only fate is extinction. Choose to join them, and it will be yours as well."

"As for the boy," Magneto curled his fingers, lifting Julio into the air by the metal around his wrists. "I wish you would believe that this was not my intention to cause you harm," he said in a soft voice, "But your power, your very being has served a greater purpose. That purpose is finished, Julio."

Suddenly, the metal disc under Magneto widened, then curved upwards to encase Magneto in a shimmering silver sphere, bobbing once before vanishing under the waves.

Without warning, the fifty pounds of metal around Julio's wrists suddenly plunged downwards as gravity took hold, dragging the boy under the ocean's surface.

Julio hit the water hard. Falling from that height onto the water with his back was like hitting concrete. Even if he hadn't been knocked senseless, he wouldn't have been able to swim with fifty pounds of metal still wrapped around his wrists. His vision dimmed as the surface slipped farther and farther away.

Perhaps I will die, after all...

"NO!" Nathan shouted and started to dive for the surface of the water. Like Morgan before him, the drawback of his exoskeleton was his inability to exercise much active TK separately from it. There was no way he could just grab Julio from here. But the platform was still collapsing, and before he could get over open water, the remnants of a crane toppled, smashing the firebird to the deck and pinning it there.

Scott's eye widened as he saw Nathan, apparently unhurt but very pissed, struggling to push his way free of the debris. He'd get out easily enough, Scott thought rapidly, but it would take him a few moments, and that was too much time-

"Nightcrawler! Get the boy!" Scott yelled over the coms, remembering how Kurt had saved Marie years ago when she'd been sucked out of the Blackbird. The half of the platform he was on started to tilt much more noticeably, sinking faster now.

Marie froze as she stared at the spot where the boy hit the water, a piece of metal barely missing her as it whizzed by her torso, as she realized that she wouldn't be able to reach him. Scott's shout to Kurt over the comms finally jarred her into action again. Kurt had saved her once - she had to have faith in him. As Rogue glanced down, she realized that reaching Julio wasn't the only immediate problem. She dove down and grabbed onto the sinking platform, pulling up with all her might. "Ah...Ah don't know how long I can slow it...y'all need to get off this thing..." she said into her comm between groans, her face contorted from the exertion.

He could do this. Focusing on the spot where Julio had disappeared and visualizing deeper, Kurt was gone the next instant, into the water to the place where the boy was sinking fast. It only took a good grip on his wrist to get them both safely back to the surface.

There was a wrench and suddenly Julio was not underwater. He coughed, gagged, and drew in a lungful of air. He briefly opened his eyes to see a man with devilish features and blue skin standing over him, looking concerned, before his eyelids fluttered closed again. He didn't pass out exactly, but he was so tired he couldn't open his eyes anymore.

Nathan gritted his teeth and got one claw of his exoskeleton around the crane, flinging it away. The firebird lurched up off the deck, reaching out and grabbing the platform on the other side. "This thing's going down one way or the other," he called out harshly, part of him registering Julio and Kurt back on deck and relaxing. Fractionally. It wasn't as if they weren't still in a whole shitload of trouble here.

Scott caught another piece of piping, steadying himself. "We need to get to shore," he called out, his voice tight. He looked at the boy, then at Marie. Risks of skin-to-skin contact aside, she could get him back to medical attention the fastest. Although he had a bad feeling that there were going to be a hell of a lot of people back in San Diego requiring medical attention this afternoon. "Rogue, grab the boy, get him back to land. Cable, you can carry both me and Nightcrawler back." Cain. That left the problem of Cain.

Nathan, fortunately, was a mindreader. "Cain," he said, his voice just as tight as Scott's, but with strain, not stress. "If I give you a running start, can you get back to shore on your own?" Part of the platform tore away, reshaping itself into a ramp leading out over the water.

Cain backed up, fitting the SCUBA regulator back into his mouth and giving the thumbs-up. Ensuring everyone was out of his way, the Juggernaut began to move, feet pounding against the swaying metal. He hit the ramp at about forty miles an hour, and plowed through the water as if it provided no resistance at all.

Continuing down the ramp until his feet hit ocean floor, Cain sucked air from the tanks and kept running. They needed him on the shore, then that's where he'd go.

Letting go of the platform, she prayed that it would hold long enough for everyone to get off. She quickly looked over her uniform, relieved not to see any visible tears. Floating over to the boy, Marie carefully gathered him in her arms. "Easy sugah, Ah got ya. You're safe now," she said soothingly. Launching herself into the air, she held onto Julio tightly as she pushed herself to fly faster than she had ever been able to go before. Her figure grew smaller and smaller, until all that was visible was a small speck in the sky, and then nothing.

One claw still embedded deep in the metal of the platform, Nathan straightened himself out in the air, the wings of the exoskeleton beating furiously for a moment. "This is not going to be the most enjoyable ride ever, just to warn you," he said, picking up Kurt with the free claw. "Hold on, Scott," he said, letting go of the platform, which instantly started to sink at a much faster rate that before. He ascended, then snatched at Scott, telekinetic talons closing around him firmly but carefully.

Scott, whose heart had leapt up into his throat as the part of the platform he was on had dropped precipitously towards the water, didn't find himself breathing a whole lot more easily as Nathan turned in the air and headed for shore - at a much slower speed than Cain and Marie. Not unexpected; his exoskeleton was the TK equivalent of a flying tank, after all.

And yet. "Fast as you can, Nate," Scott murmured over his com. "This isn't over."

Back on the shore, the team does its best to provide help. Until they realize that it's not over yet.

Back home Jim had wondered why so many X-Men had been scrambled for this mission. Now he knew. The FoH offices had been chaos, but there was no comparison. Minds swarmed around him in a boil of vivid orange panic as car alarms sounded and dogs howled, sirens from emergency vehicles wailing in the distance. San Diego wasn't used to this, the telepath realized as he stooped to help a fallen bystander up only to be roughly pushed aside. Growing up in New York he'd always had preconceptions about California, but now that he was here he could tell from the minds of the people that it wasn't what he'd been lead to believe. For the most part, San Diego was tectonically stable. Minor tremors they were prepared for. Not this.

Jim backed away from the frantic civilian and readjusted his grip on the psionic switchboard in his mind, a communications-redundancy that at least made him feel of some use. He could sense the distant crimson dance of Jean's mind as she followed the fight on the water miles away, the first active use of her telepathy in weeks an act of necessity because her range far outstripped Jim's own. He ached to know what was going on out there, but no -- Jean would be telling Ororo everything she needed to know, and that was not his job. Jaw tightening with determination, Jim kept his mind open and focused on what was.

#Second floor, far to the back,# he sent, accompanying the statement with a telepathic impression of the sagging condo before him far more exact than words could ever have been. #Hallway caving in, fire escape is jammed somehow. Can you get it?#

This was not Lorna's preferred way of doing this. Even DR sessions, blindfolded or no, weren't a substitute for doing this in the field and the way that her skin crawled at every touch of another mind on hers. She reached out to where Jim guided her, shoring up collapsing walls, opening locked doors. #Can you bring them out to the west?#

#Yes.# As he reached out to do so Jim's eye caught a flash of fire streaking high between the buildings to their left -- Shiro, he sensed over the switchboard, evacuating a rooftop. Turning his mind away from it, Jim pushed away his own aversion and firmly steered the panicking vacationers towards the path Lorna had cleared. It was frightening how easy it was just not to think about it. It was a day of challenging discomfort, it seemed. He winced as the people he was shepherding encountered an unexpected barrier. #Shit, part of the hallway's caved in . . .#

#Only for a sec.# She'd left him, crawled inside the building, testing the floors with her weight so she wasn't risking them first. She reached the blockage and pulled it away turning away before the frightened people had a chance to see more than a flash of green hair. They didn't need her. Others did. They'd get out. #Where to next?#

She was back on the street when the aftershock hit.

Jim stumbled and dropped into a crouch as the street lurched beneath him, knees scraping the pavement with leathers he'd never worn before. Buildings rocked as if shaken by an invisible hand. In his mind he felt Jean throwing out her arm to brace against the doorway, felt Bobby jolt but continue to draw ice around licking flame half a block away, felt the teenaged girl in Shiro's arms scream and tighten against him as he held them safe in the air, felt Ororo's hands tighten around the makeshift tourniquet she'd been applying to a desperately bleeding man as frost gathered around her hands to slow the flow of blood. And he felt Lorna, only a few yards away, as she grit her teeth and stretched out with her power to keep the already unstable building she'd just vacated from tumbling onto survivors who had barely set foot on the street.

Let it pass, Jim thought, palms flat against the heatsoaked pavement. The tremors travelled up from the ground to vibrate every bone in his body. Let it pass, let it pass . . .

Lorna never wavered, ignoring the aftershock like any native would, more interested in the building and the people than the jolting, rolling earth. Just releasing pressure. That's all. Let the building move with it. Let the metal take the stress and channel it. There... #Jim, where next?#

He saw it in Ororo's mind before the call went out over the comms. A shift in the air-pressure over the waves, as certain as the sensation of a lover moving in their sleep beside you, and the telepath could feel the knowledge welling up in his CO's mind like the slowing seep of blood beneath her fingers.

The aftershock had just become the least of their worries. Jim pushed to his feet and turned to Lorna.

"We need to get to the beach. Now."

As everyone gets to the beach, Julio reveals that things are about to get much, much worse.

The beach was a mess. Smoke had drifted over from the fires that were currently burning in San Diego. Sirens could be heard wailing in the distance, and the pretty seaside buildings were now pretty much rubble.

There was also something else. The water had retreated, as if there was suddenly a very low tide. Miles of beach were exposed. A few knowledgble survivors of the quake knew exactly what that meant, and began to head for high ground as fast as they could.

As Julio was laid gently on the beach, his eyes shot open. Something was happening. He could feel it. He reached out and gripped the girl's arm. "~Wait, no. We have to leave~," he said in Spanish, panicked. "~We have to leave now.~"

"~Easy, it's ok, you're safe now.~" Marie said in halting Spanish, trying to calm the obviously agitated boy down. Thank goodness for required high school language classes. Seeing that her words were doing little to ease the boy's fear, and that everyone else on the shore was fleeing, she suddenly found herself growing nervous. Picking Julio back up, she looked around the beach apprehensively. "Ah don't know what's goin' on here, but somethin' isn't right guys," Rogue said into her comm, turning to face the ocean as she cradled the boy protectively.

Nathan landed on the beach, managing not to produce any kind of crater - or drop Scott and Kurt on their heads. Scott staggered, catching his balance as Nathan set him down, and headed immediately over to where Marie had the boy, casting a sharp look out at the receding water as he went.

"People are running," he observed, his eyes narrowing. "Why are people running?" The sight of the receding water was twigging something in his brain. That meant something. Something to do with the earthquake.

Nathan steadied Kurt, then collapsed his exoskeleton, hurrying over to Julio. "~Julio, you remember me?~" he asked rapidly in Spanish. "~It's all right, you're safe.~"

"Down," Julio hissed, pulling away from Marie and making her drop him. He stood unsteadily, and used both her and Nathan as supports. If he was going to die, it would be on his feet. He looked out at the water, and heard it before he saw it. Pale, he raised one shaking hand towards the horizon.

While the fault that had ruptured hadn't displaced any large amount of water, the underwater landslide that followed the earthquake had.

"Tsunami. There's a tsunami." Julio's words were punctuated with a much louder roar, as a wave nearly 70 feet in height made its way towards San Diego. And there was no more time to run.