Day Zero: Team Echo

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Taking up a position in Central Park, a group of X-Men finally
comes face to face with Apocalypse.



He'd expected it, but Nathan still felt like they'd stepped into
something out of a disaster movie as they emerged from the tunnels and
got their first good look at New York. One of those movies where the
whole city had been evacuated because an asteroid was about to turn it
into a smoking crater, maybe. ...bad thought, Dayspring. Such a bad
thought. He thinned out his shields instead, focusing on scanning
the area. Not as totally abandoned as it looked, maybe, but no one in
their immediate vicinity. It was the lack of traffic noise, he
thought, that was the most jarring.

Suffocating as the tunnels were, Jay found there was a certain safety
factor within them. There were only two ways someone could come at you
and he had a very eerie recall of a scene in the movie Cloverfield,
where the girl and guy were hiding in the tunnels, awaiting the
monster to pass. Running past Nathan, he said nothing as he took
flight, adjusting his walkie that hung from his belt. He paused at
three hundred feet, his wings beating down hard to keep him in a
hovering position as he tuned into the mobile communication that was
on foot, currently establishing their set up below.

"Testing," he said into it. "Test, test," he blew into the mic,
unknowing it would be hard on the ears for those wearing a headset.

"And you claim to be a musician?" Clarice asked, wincing at the static
in her headset. "Dumbass!" she hissed, pulling her eat piece off and
waiting a minute before slipping it back on. She wasn't very mad
though, this entire situation was as creepy as fuck, weirder than
David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth even and Jay's stupid mistake
was a refreshing breath of normalcy in an otherwise bizarre situation.
"We can hear you," she added, intentionally not using his name. He
wasn't a trainee and didn't have a codename and who else was
listening?

"Still. Let's all try and be a little less obstrusive, all right?"
Nathan murmured over his com, no edge to the words. #I like the idea
of putting off that inevitable moment where we draw hostile
attention,# he added, the aside directed to Jean and Ororo alone. And
despite the fact that his scan was telling him the same thing that
Jean's had established, his psimitar was in his hand, held at the
ready.

#Ever the optimist,# came the sardonic response from Ororo as she
lifted off the pavement, a cold breeze rushing over the other X-Men as
she rose. She was relieved to be out of the tunnels - whatever dangers
awaited them here, at least she could think clearly about the
situation.

Angelo, predictably, was standing at Nathan's side, trying not to
appear too unnerved by the silence of the city. "Might be hard", he
said quietly, "if we're the only people out."

Jean shrugged, and started to say, "Doesn't mean we should..." but she
trailed off, head turning to stare off uptown. "... Shit. We have
incoming."

Nathan's head jerked around as he picked up on it too. "What the
hell-" he muttered distractedly, feeling rather like someone standing
on the tracks, watching a train bearing down on him. That
presence... "Off the street," he growled, his voice low but the
urgency unmistakable. "Go!"

A heavy, muscular form in red armor came bounding in over the trees,
kicking up a cloud of dirt. A handful of mutants followed in his
wake, but he charged ahead, his voice ringing out like a thunderclap.
"Race traitors! YOU WILL KNEEL BEFORE MY LORD!" he roared.

"Oh fuck." Monet had run at Nate's command and was crouched behind a
street level balcony. Not quite off the street, but anything was
better than nothing. "Who do I hit first?" she muttered into her mic.

What? Jay had wanted to say, but instead, oh shit came
out as he heard it before he saw it. He reacted slowly, instead of
diving to the ground, he climbed higher into the air, intent on
getting above all the mess. "Uhh, Ah take defense," he studdered and
watched on from higher up.

Clarice had ducked into some bushes, despite them being almost no sort
of concealment at all. Times like these, beggars couldn't be choosers.
This was also not the time for smart ass comments so she stayed
silent, waiting for instruction. She really didn't want to get into it
with this dude if she could avoid it.

The man still standing in the middle of the street holding a weapon
was the obvious threat. And so War swung his hands back and brought
them together in a powerful move. If his voice had been a
thunderclap, then the explosion that resulted from his hands clapping
was like an entire thunderstorm brought to bear on a single point,
that point being Nathan Dayspring.

Nathan had shields up, but even so, the impact flung him backwards
like a rag doll. It wasn't as if he hadn't been hit like that before,
though, and he managed to compensate at least a little, additional TK
shields cushioning the impact somewhat as an overturned car broke his
fall.

#Scott times about five, Jean, watch it-# he managed to project to the
other telekinetic.

Jean nodded her understanding, already lashing out at the large man
with a sharp, focused telekinetic blow; he obviously had the offensive
strength, it was time to test his defense.

War crouched down and dug his hand in the pavement. Jean's blow
pushed him back several yards, but he straightened easily. "Only the
strong will survive," he grated out, picking up a large piece of
rubble from the furrow his hand had dug and hurling it at Monet. "The
weak will be razed along with the flatscans."

The rock hit her hard, Monet not having time to duck. It slammed her
back into the building in a shower of falling masonry. She shook her
head to clear it and picked up a piece of a broken column from the
balcony, hurling it right back. Not at War himself, but at one of the
mutants following him. She followed it up with a window, that, whilst
pulled from the wall and frame, still contained glass.

Dashing out, Clarice opened a portal and threw herself at Monet,
getting them both out of the way. She had no offensive power here, not
without potentially killing the guy and that wasn't an option. X-Men
didn't kill. Defensively though, he couldn't get through her...she
hoped. Who knew what tricks he held though. "Okay, Plan B?" she said
to M. She couldn't pick her up and throw the other girl, but she could
drop her from a height. Monet was invunerable, she'd survive.

War held his hands high, as if to bring them together again in another
destructive blast. But then, before he did so, he cocked his head to
one side. "My lord comes!" he shouted. "Bow before him! Bow before
your ending, weaklings!"

The crowd parted, standing a few meters away from the X-Men to allow a
lone figure to walk through. Clapping his hands slowly, a smile split
his dark face.

"Abraham, please," he chided gently. "Do not condemn our misguided
brethren before they have been tested. You know that the strong are
only found through trial, as you were."

He held out a hand, and War stepped back, leaving the dark-skinned
individual standing in between the hostile mutants and the X-Men.

"I am Apocalypse," he spoke in a deep baritone. "Should your
intentions have been peaceful, I would be welcoming you in kind. But I
will not permit deception among us, not in these first and so very
important days for our people. You are here to try and stop what I am
doing, and I cannot permit that."

#Son of a bitch,# Nathan sent as a push of telekinesis sent him
briefly airborne before he landed back on his feet, his exoskeleton
shimmering into life around him. The wings of the firebird were curled
backwards, however, as if Nathan was unconsciously leaning away from
the self-declared Apocalypse. His was the presence he'd felt. Nathan
wasn't sure he'd even sensed anything quite like it. #We just walked
right into the big bad.#

From her position above Ororo could do little but watch and hold back
the thunderstorm that she had gathered at hand, the dark clouds
roiling with barely-contained lightning. Apocalypse's presense was
undeniably that of a leader, his self-control and confidence readable
from many yards away.

#So what do we do?# Angelo asked tensely. #Can we take on all these guys?#

Before anyone could answer along the mental switchboard, Apocalypse
stepped forward, one hand gesturing casually in thought. "You see, I
know who you are. But I assure you that you have nothing to fear from
me. This," he swept his arm across the horizon, "is nothing but
natural evolution. We as mutants are living examples that evolution
makes leaps in development when necessary. This... is merely another
one. As we are above humanity, so our new nation will be above those
that humanity has raised."

"Yeah, I've heard that line before," Jean muttered. "Didn't buy it
then, don't buy it now." But Angelo had a point; there were a lot of
them, and they were strong. They'd be able to hold them off for
a while, but how the fight would go over the long term was really up
in the air, and Jay and Monet didn't have the training...

#We have to walk away,# Nathan said, his mental voice cold and sharp,
#or run. And we have to do it now.# Even given the situation,
he was half-expecting a couple of disbelieving looks from his
teammates; he was not precisely known for his willingness to entertain
the whole concept of strategic retreat. And yet. #If they take us out,
there's no one coordinating our teams. No reinforcements if they run
into trouble.#

#I like that idea.# Monet began to move into place toward the X-Men's
flank, telepathy wide open and listening for, well, anything. Please
don't kill us while we walk away...

Jay had no problem with retreat and climbed higher in the air, flying
away from the group. He had no means to fight and was not the least
bit interested in getting into it with this group, healing factor or
no.

"I've no wish to harm you," Apocalypse said, nodding to Jean and
taking a few steps back. "I only hope that you will see, in time, that
what we are doing here is natural and right. When you wish to join us,
you will be welcomed with open arms."

He stopped for a moment, then smiled. "And yes, I know that there are
more of you on this island trying to stop me. I have managed to obtain
a certain amount of... wisdom in this regard. I've no wish to
shed mutant blood here. But make no mistake, oppose me and blood
will be shed."

He turned his head to War and nodded. "We return to the Citadel,
Abraham. Let our brethren here remain in peace to contemplate their
choices. I do not think they will trouble us much."

"Dude," Clarice stood there, arms crossed over her chest and one hip
cocked. She was scared shitless, but she had good, confident body
language at least. "Is this guy serious?" she asked, more rhetorically
than anything. Obviously he was, but still. This was just absolutely
nuts and more than that, it was too much like a movie.

#Don't look a gift horse in the mouth,# Nathan sent grimly, his
exoskeleton still glowing around him. #Besides. We'll see him again,
before this is all over.#