X-Men Mission: Opera Redux

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

The X-Men arrive at the nuclear facility under the cover of darkness. Team one goes to collect the mutant while team two takes care of the files and research on him. Of course, like all great plans, everything works perfectly until it all goes horribly wrong all at once.



They hit the ground even before the helicopter had fully touched down, sprinting for the building. The facility was already in chaos, as the first teams of IDF met the guards with weapons fire, clearing a path. They moved quickly, Blink leapfrogging through portals ahead, identifying targets and obstacles in their path. Storm's orders were short and precise, using Sunfire's range and Dominion's speed to overwhelm the fortunately few guards outside of the building. An IDF demo team rushed in past them, heading for the storage/testing facility, while the X-Men paused long enough to try to piece out where the labs were, and where the data on the mutant would be stored.

Though they didn't have as much data on the layout of the buildings as Ororo would have liked, it didn't seem as if the scientists had tried any subterfuge in their arrangement. Logic would suffice.

Locating the most likely building, she decided to eschew subtlety for haste. "Dominion, get us inside."

"Affirmative." Kane said, vaulting over a jeep to reach the door. "I'm going to have to bypass the locks." It had a complex cardkey identification system, which the Canadian looked at for all of five seconds before walking back to the jeep, hoisting it thoughtfully, and throwing it through the concrete wall beside the door. The impact crushed the vehicle, and caved in a wide section of the wall to give them access. The IDF gave him a brief, startled look before scurrying in, as the X-Men formed up at him.

"Bypassed, boss."

"Impressive," Clarice commented her tone both sarcastic and complimentary at the same time, teleporting herself to the other side of the opening. She was good at quiet entries, not so much at stealth. It was a good thing they weren't skulking around quietly, because that would have ruined it.

Waiting for the others to catch up, she headed to the doorway of the room, peeking out of the window to see what was on the other side.

"IDF's going right." Kane said, as they jinked down left. If their intelligence was right, there was an internal security checkpoint to get past, and then the main lab, which held the data they were here to get. The stockpile of material would be close by, but the IDF was also neutralizing the processing plant, sending them down in the other direction.

They punched through two doors, before running straight up against a massive steel access point, locked against them.

"Huh. Big door."

"Very interesting." Shiro rubbed his hands together and stepped up in front of his teammates. He took a deep breath to steel himself, and then released a wide blast of plasma, not with enough force to knock down the door, but hot enough to make the steel malleable. A kick from Garrison was all that was needed to bring it down.

Once said kick was applied, the door crumpled before them and they were free to enter into the lab, which was deserted of any signs of life save for a few blinking lights that indicated the computers and equipment were on 'standby' mode. "Sunfire, stay at the door. Dominion, Blink, you know what we're looking for."

Waking the computers up, Clarice began looking for the information they needed. She wasn't a hacker, but Forge had some interesting doodads to make her not need to be, once she began running the programs on the little data stick he'd given them the computer practically hacked itself, or at least that was how she understood it. "I found something!" she called, sticking another data stick into the port to download the files. Ah, the digital age was so much faster.

"Here's the supply case." Kane lobbed the small box over to Ororo. "Storm, this should have all of the physical data." He paused to look over at the wide security glass. The IDF team had starting working on the containment area.

Shiro stood by the doorway, keeping a close eye on the hall, shifting between the visible and infrared spectra to make sure that he didn't miss anything. His fingers twitched nervously; he was too close to radioactive material to be at all calm, and found himself glancing behind him at the IDF team. After a minute he felt woozy, a familiar sensation he felt around new sources of energy. "Oh, shit. Storm!"

There wasn't time to react at the explosion went off, cracking the glass into a thousand shards and sending them sprawling. In their attempt to break into the containment area to destroy the uranium stocks, the charges had been too much for the door, and had set off an explosion which exposed the entire area to the open. In seconds, the room and everyone in it would be irradiated with a lethal dose of energy.

Turning around, Clarice realized what was happening and dashed over. This could be Very Bad. Opening a portal inside the containment room, she teleported the material inside as far away as she could, not worrying over where exactly she was sending it. A secondary explosion flung more debris through the room, glancing her off the forehead. As the portal closed, she collapsed into a ball.

"Shit!" Kane hissed as he got over to Clarice's side. The purple mutant was unconscious, bleeding from the impact of the metal shard and looking grey from effort. Unlike Clarice, the rest of them had been behind Shiro, a fortunate accident as the Japanese mutant had simply absorbed most of the radiation. When Clarice had jumped forward to get rid of the pile and save the IDF team, she'd also put herself in the way of a blast of rads. Garrison could only hope it wasn't a fatal amount. "She's not good, boss." He quickly gathered her up, with his strength he was the best suited to play porter, as Storm gave the order to leave.

They had what they came for, and if they were lucky, they might not lose anything in the process.



Team one begins to evacuate with the mutant, while things quickly go from bad to worse.



Cain barely saw the trail from the RPG before it hit the other helicopter, but the explosion suddenly had his full attention. "Damn!" he shouted, leaning towards the pilot. "Take us over there! We've got people down!"

The pilot only shook his head, pulling back on the stick and making the helicopter ascend. Growling, Cain made as if to reach for the controls himself, but then looked out the open door and saw a platoon, at least, of Iranian troops closing in on the other team's position.

"Hell with it," he said, unclipping his safety line from his belt. Looking to his left, he met Haller's eyes. "I ain't leaving them!" he shouted over the rotor noise.

The rescued mutant stared at Cain and then to Haller, the only person he could actually understand. "~What's he doing?~" he cried.

#It's okay, he's a professional,# Jim reassured him, then turned to Cain and yelled, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Cain glanced at his nephew, then gave him a nod. "I'm gonna need a bit of a push if I'm gonna clear those troops to head 'em off. Up for it?"

"I--"

A distant burst of gunfire cut him off, and something went ping-whoosh.

In the cockpit the pilot put his hand on his side, then stared in confusion as it came away dark.

The sharp sound pulled Marie's attention from where she was staring in horror at the explosion. Garrison. She'd been about to fly out the door, protocol be damned, when she saw the pilot collapse to his knees. She quickly reached out a gloved hand to steady him and gently lay him down, shuddering as she watched the blood seep into his shirt. And then she abruptly realized that no one was flying the helicopter and it had started to descend at a rapid rate. Shit. For all her abilities to pilot a jet, flying a helicopter was not in her repertoire...or that of any of her teammates. "Nightcrawler, get something to stop the bleeding," she called out over her shoulder, brown eyes saddening as she turned back to the downed pilot. "Ah'm sorry about this. Try to concentrate on what you know about flying a helicopter," Rogue said, pulling of a glove and reaching out to brush the man's cheek.

Kurt was already moving forward to strip the pilot's shirt back and attend to the wound, as best he could. He spared only one glance for what Rogue was doing, disturbed but knowing it was necessary.

Cain looked over his shoulder, bracing himself once more in the doorway. "You get the kid out, I'll get the rest of the team!" he shouted. Turning his head the other way to look at Haller, he tried to give the younger man a reassuring smile, but the whipping wind of the rotor wash turned it into a grimace. "You ready?"

His teammate turned from Marie drawing away from the pilot as Kurt tried to staunch the bleeding. His eyes were grey.

"I don't think they need a fine complex like that anymore, do you?" Jack said.

Cain did a double-take at the sudden shift in his nephew's eyes and tone, still unused to the mental changes. He nodded and squinted into the wind as he tucked his shoulders. "Nope. Now shut up and give your uncle a push, boy," he drawled as he rolled forward out of the chopper.

The gunfire had brought him out. Jack didn't like guns. This, as it turned out, was a useful detail, because as he sensed the large, dense mass that was Cain hurtling towards the earth all that anger poured into a truly explosive burst of telekinetic energy that abruptly changed the other man's trajectory from "down" to "straight into enemy compound."

As it turned out, unstoppability didn't much discriminate about direction.

Kurt was still busily working on trying to save the pilot, but he'd glanced up as Cain took his 'jump'... in time to see a man who hadn't been there a moment before, no one he recognized, strapped in where Haller had been and wearing blacks. He blinked, wondering if the altitude was affecting him, and if he should say something.

Marie was at the controls of the helicopter, steadying its flight and pulling it higher in the air. She had to trust in Cain to take care of the mess below, she had a scared mutant on board and her other teammates to keep safe. Glancing around for a quick status check, she nodded as she counted one mutant, one downed pilot, and two teammates. It took her a second longer to realize that one of the people in black leather looked nothing like anyone who had stepped aboard the 'copter when they'd boarded. Tensing, she began really wishing she had a projectile power.

"Who the hell are you?"

The stranger's attention snapped in her direction, eyes narrowed. The rescued mutant, whose attention had been riveted to the space Cain had just vacated, noticed who he was now next to and jolted in his harness. The stranger shot him a disgusted look before turning his attention back to Marie.

"The fuck are you talking about?" The big man jerked a hand towards the side of the helicopter, teeth bared. "Bullets! Being shot at us! Do you want me to keep them out or go over Haller's psychology again?"

"Jack?" She was surprised to find the name come out as a question when she knew the answer to any question the word may have implied. "We're going to need a night at Harry's," she muttered under her breath as she turned her attention back to the controls. She'd deal with figuring out how Jim had turned into a physical manifestation of Jack once she'd gotten them to where they were going safely. Taking a specific skill from someone never worked out exactly like that and she was still dealing with the side effects from an absorption while trying to fly the 'copter.

"After only two goddamn years on the team," Jack muttered, mind still half-fixed on the shield he was maintaining outside of the helicopter. Out of the corner of his eye he could tell the young man they'd rescued was staring at him. Without sparing his attention the alter growled, "Don't worry, you'll have your fellow Arab back in no time."

"Um... Jack?" Kurt ventured, not looking up from what he was doing. "You do realize you do not look quite... as usual?"

"Okay, we're out of range," replied a different, slightly slurred voice. The psi rubbed his eyes and there sat Jim again, blue-and-brown-eyed and coatrack thin as always, still dazed from the switch. Jim pinched the bridge of his nose and looked in confusion at the bewildered mutant next to him and Kurt on the floor.

"Um . . . sorry, what did you say?"

Team two reaches the landing zone, only to find themselves stranded, with a wounded X-Man to deal with.



Clarice was all but deadweight, trailing blood behind them as they left
the facility. Storm was carrying a small case, loaded with all of the
electronic media they had been able to find, before Sunfire had
destroyed the computer storage and servers. If anything, Shiro looked stronger
after the blast of radiation he'd absorbed. The same could not be said for
Blink, who moaned with every jostle that their escape subjected them to.

Looks belied reality, though. The energy Shiro had taken in was a temporary boost at best, half a can of Red Bull compared to the fully energizing meal that was the sun. But he took in as much as he can, and provided cover for the others by flying backwards behind Garrison. He aimed a torrent of fire at the ground as he flew past, but the soldiers were starting to regroup with fire extinguishers and other protective gear. "Kusoyarou," he hissed.

It wasn't that Clarice felt bad per se, she just felt weak and knew
intellectually what had happened and what would happen and that just
compounded the problems. It didn't help that every time she was jostled,
she imagined an organ exploding inside her until she bled to death from the
inside out. Chances were, she wasn't that sick. If she was, she'd be dead so
quickly it wouldn't matter anyways, but right now her over-active
imagination was not helping her. This was her first mission since October
too when she'd broken her ankle. "2008 sucks," she mumbled. If she lost her
hair, she was going to be pissed. They did not make purple wigs.

A crash came as part of the building behind them came down, as if a meteor had struck it. Seconds later, rubble was flying like cannonballs as the Juggernaut punched his way free of the mess. Batting his way through a squad of Iranian troops as if they were nothing more than duckpins, he loped towards his now-stranded teammates.

"Injury report!" he barked over the noise of gunfire, "We gotta get moving, those who can carry those who can't! Without that chopper, we're on foot."

"What? What happened to the--" Kane cut himself off as he saw the pile of
twisted burning metal that minutes before had been two IDF pilots and their
ride home. He reached for his headset and wrenched it off his ear. "Fuck!
Storm, that explosion must have fried our comms. I'm not getting anything."
He shifted Clarice to a different position, trying to find a way to support
her body while keeping some mobility.

"Just move!" Shiro shouted above the din of gunfire. Now in full fire form,
he rocketed towards the gunmen and released an uncontrolled blast, flinging
the gunmen in every direction.

"Well shit, hurry up and get Blinky Winky to pop us out of here!" Cain
shouted, glancing over at Garrison and finally noticing Clarice's
state. "Shit. What in the hell happened to her?"

"Got too close to an explosion. I think she and Sunfire copped a dose of
radiation." Kane shifted her further, already starting to move. "She's not
teleporting anywhere." Nearby, a fountain of dirt and fire went up as a
grenade went off. "We've got to get out of here!"

"We're leaving," Ororo shouted over the crackle of the fire, augmenting
the flames with a gentle feed of air. "Juggernaut, stay with Dominion -
Sunfire and I will cover the retreat. Just get away, we'll worry
about recovery later."

"Fantastic." Kane muttered. He reached down and onehanded a harness off of
the body of a guard who was lying dead on the tarmac. They didn't have
proper survival gear, and now they were about to flee into the hills. He
carefully settling Clarice and broke into a run. Part of his mutation was
speed, and he was quickly coasting along at close to thirty miles an hour
while trying to jostle the purple woman as little as possible.

Cain jogged alongside Garrison, having to actually lengthen his
strides to keep up with the physically enhanced mutant. Hearing a
rattle of machine gun fire from their flank, he barely broke pace as
he leaned down to rip a metal stanchion out of the tarmac, pivot, and
fling it like a javelin right through a pursuing jeep's engine
compartment. Smiling with pleasure as the vehicle flipped end over
end, he spun back around and interposed himself between Garrison and
the melee behind them in case anyone with a long-range rifle decided
to take a potshot.

Shiro continued flying backwards behind them, flinging burst after burst of solar fire at the oncoming soldiers. "Storm! Conjure dry winds to keep up the fires! I cannot shape my plasma like Pyro can, but you can make it into a distracting inferno."

Doing just that, Ororo hovered above the ground, splitting her attention between the fire and the retreat of the rest of her team. It was not a clean getaway by any means of the imagination, but at least they were escaping. Now all that remains is surviving until we are able to make contact with the rest of the team... Ignoring just how futile that prospect seemed, Ororo fanned the flames into a wall and then shouted to Shiro to fly ahead. They had done what they could.