xp_logs | Day Zero- Chasing Death

As the sun descends, Team Bravo finds themselves fighting Death in a very literal sense.

After what seemed like days, but had really been less than twelve hours, the group of X-Men (and Crystal) had managed to make it a few blocks north of Battery Park. The Citadel was visible in the distance as the sun was beginning to set to their left.

The constant battle had left a swath of destruction over a number of city blocks, with some fires still burning and a significant amount of buildings on the brink of total collapse. Somewhat bruised, scorched, and battered to various extents, the six heroes regrouped and looked to the north.

"Well," Cain drawled. "The hard part's still ahead of us, and--"

His speech was cut off by a bright blast of energy from the sky, which caught him a glancing blow but even still sent the invulnerable Juggernaut tumbling back into a pile of crushed automobiles.

In the sky, glowing wings spread wide, hovered the Horseman of Death, clutching the glowing outline of a flaming sword in one hand, the other aimed down at the ground to send another barrage of energy blasts down at the group.

The shock and awe of something powerful enough to move the immovable made Shiro's fire form falter, but it roared to new life under the threat of a second attack. He flew straight up to avoid the blast and returned it with one of his own. He didn't have to be told that restraint would be unnecessary here, and more likely than not would be what could get him killed.

Terry screamed, a sonic lance aimed squarely at the armored figure, intending at least to stun him long enough for Shiro to do some good. All around her, residual waves of sound ripped up little pieces of pavement, fragmenting them further. Her hair, loosened from its braid by the fighting, whipped wildly with the force of her voice. The lance of concussive waves slammed into Death and...nothing. All was silent.

Marie scowled. She hated long distance fights, knowing her strengths laid with close combat. Dodging blasts of energy, Rogue pushed herself to fly faster. If she could only knock the Horseman out of the air, or rip the sword away, they'd have a better chance of ending the fight with fewer casualties on her end.

Death spun away from the pursuing flyers, shooting into the sky and looping around a glass-fronted skyscraper. On the return loop, another barrage of energy beams peppered the ground before the skull-masked Horseman shot off through the urban canyons, the fliers in hot pursuit.

The light could be seen blocks away, and the figure on the ground had been following it for some time. Once the other mutants had appeared, the figure had doubled it's speed. A fight was coming, and the figure knew exactly what to do.

Crystal sped after the retreating figure, bypassing the energy beams as she moved swiftly through the sky. There was no need to cease her flight as she called a hurricane-force wind into existence, causing it to slam into Death from the side. Although the Horseman smashed through a window of a nearby building, mere seconds later Crystal was actively avoiding a renewed volley of energy beams as Death exited through a window on the opposite side of the building.

Cain extricated himself from the rubble, looking at most of his comrades taking to the air and following Death in a mid-air chase. Seeing only one other person left on foot, he began jogging towards Alex, picking up a discarded fire hose and looping it around his torso like a bandolier.

Picking up the lanky blond mutant in one arm as he started to run, Cain pushed Alex onto his back. "Hang on!" he shouted as he started to accelerate. "I'll run, you shoot. They're the jet fighters, we're the tank!"

"DUDE!" Alex yelped, having had his attention up in the air watching the fliers when Cain scooped him up. It took him a moment to settle himself then he grinned as he got what Cain had said. Holding on for dear life, he began sending shot after shot at the flying Death, but the distance and the speed Cain was moving did nothing for his aim.

As soon as the Horseman launched off, Shiro was on its tail. Gold fire trailed behind him tapped into everything he had to keep up, and the power indicator on his glove was fully illuminated. He'd come to know Manhattan well these past few years, but that wasn't enough to stop him from crashing through a skyscraper window as Death made a particularly quick and tight turn. He landed in a heap of shattered electronics and what might have been office furniture in a past life, but now wasn't much more than kindling.

The slowest flyer among them and, apparently, entirely ineffective, Terry's entire attention was taken up with just keeping up. She felt like she was flagging, expending more and more energy to put out the same volume of sound and keep herself aloft. She'd have called it fatigue but they were relatively fresh and flying wasn't that hard. She went into the building after Shiro, making sure he was still in one piece. "Sunfire!"

Cain ran through the streets, turning every so often to allow Alex to aim and shoot another immense plasma blast over his head. Judging from the lack of winged Death falling from the sky in a flaming mess, the boy wasn't hitting much, though.

"We need altitude," he growled, bounding down the street. "Hold on."

Springboarding off of the top of an overturned bus, Cain threw himself at the corner of a building, sinking his fingers into the concrete and beginning to climb directly upwards to give his erstwhile shooting partner a better vantage point.

"DUDE!" Alex shouted again, this time as he aborted a plasma blast mid shot as Cain started leaping about. "We so need to work on our communication..." He grumbled but he had to admit, this was a good idea as his aim got much better.

Beginning to realize that the chase was folly, the wheels in Marie's brain begun to turn to find an alternate plan. She couldn't keep her top speed for long and she was beginning to trail behind Death substantially. "We gotta try and surround that damn winged beast. And with none of us that're that fast, that's gonna take something besides this damn game of tag. Crystal, instead of a direct assault can you try and block her path? Start getting him to go where we want him to instead of all over the place?

Crystal wasn't quite sure where "where we want him to go" was, but she knew that by the time she'd receive an answer, the masked figure would be out of reach. Crystal sped to the side, throwing up an air shield in the way of Death's current path. From another side, a harsh rainstorm suddenly came into being, the fast-moving drops of water circling Death's body. From the midst of the rain came lightning, lashing out at the armored Horseman at the center of it all.

Death folded those glowing wings into a cocoon again, absorbing part of the lightning, but still smoking as the Horseman fell towards the ground, only breaking out of the dive at the last moment and firing up towards the other fliers in a tight loop.

Cain kept climbing as fast as he could, leaping across the gap between buildings in pursuit of the Horseman. "If you got a shot, Squirt," he yelled over his shoulder, "take it!"

Biting his lip, Alex paused for a bit longer then usual to concentrate and once Cain cleared one of the buildings...."Got it!" Putting caution to the wind for a moment, he put both of his hands together and sent a large blast of plasma hurtling towards Death.

The door to the roof wasn't locked, but it was stuck fast. A vicious kick smashed it open. A hand to the ribs, and a quick pause for breath to wait for the pain to subside, and then a shambling run to the roof's edge. Almost there.

The blast struck home, sending the Horseman reeling, blinding energy blasts and flares burning scars through the skyscrapers of Manhattan in an attempt to escape.

Shiro wasted no time getting back into the sky to catch up. Crystal's and Alex's attacks gave him the opportunity to catch the Horseman, and he concentrated hard as he rocketed to intercept Death. As soon as the target was in range, he let go, igniting a miniature nuclear explosion. The resulting thunder and shockwave could be felt halfway uptown.

Death was rocked by the explosion, tumbling into the air, wings flickering in and out of existence, armor now almost fully aflame. Still the Horseman of Apocalypse remained silent, even after crashing atop a building in a spray of concrete and asphalt.

Finally, the team seemed to be catching a break. A quick burst of speed and Rogue pinned death to the spot the mutant had landed, raining blow after blow, more than anyone should've been able to take. But Death was not anybody. While the armor shrouding the mutant had cracked, the battle was not over as Marie was hit by an energy blast, giving Death just enough space to shoot up into the air.

What will it take to stop this madman? Crystal wondered this question as she saw Death take to the air once more. The attacks done by the X-Men and herself seemed to be working only a little bit. The unknown mutant didn't seem very interested in attacking them, often choosing to attempt to flee rather than attack, but also chose to cause random damage to the city for no apparent reason at all, other than being a madman. This had to be stopped.

Before Death had the chance to get very far, Crystal put herself in Death's path. Winds whipped around the young woman, carrying up bits of debris from the ground as well as glass from broken buildings nearby. Small pieces of concrete, glass, metal, and assorted trash circled the area around Crystal for a few moments before rushing forward at Death as if they had been shot at her.

Armor shredded to reveal a lithe female form underneath, Death cloaked herself once more in glowing white wings, then regained her composure and shot for the nearest rooftop, eyes blazing under the featureless skull-mask.

So fast Death flew that she didn't see the figure that was waiting for her. Bruises mottled the side of the new girl's face, and she pushed back the sleeves of the Yankees sweatshirt that had been "borrowed" from a broken storefront window. Blue eyes narrowed, and the air around her charged.

"Hey, bitch!" Jennie yelled, her power surrounded her with a crimson nimbus, and her crazed grin only made her look even more dangerous. "Remember me?" Death paused, and in that instant, Jennie tipped the balance to her favor. Before Death could react, the groaning of rusted metal echoed throughout the canyons of the skyscrapers, and a water tower slammed into her, smashing her to the top of the building.

There was no time for the shock or the leap of joy at seeing Jennie alive. Terry was the closest to the rooftop where Death lay crushed and crumpled, the hideous light that had protected her dying slowly. Terry flew down, cutting off her scream a few feet from landing when she saw the light pulse with the sound of her voice. She stumbled as she found her footing then ran the last few yards, everything curiously silent, like the rest of the world had been shut away.

Metal protested as she pushed it off the Horseman and it occurred to her that she was fighting to make sure that Death was still alive. She wondered if she'd had some sort of psychotic break. Or if there was a point that was too far in holding to their doctrine of not killing.

Jennie stumbled away from the ledge, every part of her body protesting. She had survived the bridge, somehow, and washed up near Harlem. Too tired and in too much pain to think clearly, she barely had enough strength to break into an abandoned townhouse, strip off her wet clothes, and curl up in the comforter left on the bed before passing into blessed unconsciousness. Waking only just that morning, she had forced herself to wash the worst of the blood and mud off and scavenge for clothes. It had been luck that had led her to Bravo, and to Death.

Getting closer to Terry, Jennie had to reach out and grasp one of the twisted shards of the water tower's support beams. She blinked and weaved unsteadily, because there was no way she was seeing what she was seeing.

"T-Terry?"

Terry was sobbing, pushing more and more of the wreckage off of Death. The thick iron mask that had protected her now lay to one side and blonde hair was spilling out over the rooftop like sunlight. Unconscious, there was a certain peace and serenity on her face, even the fall of her body was graceful in its splay.

Terry's hand found her neck and found her pulse, thready and fast--alive, thank God, alive. The redhead looked over her shoulder at Jennie, helpless in the face of this revelation. This betrayal. "I don't understand."

Alison Blaire's eyes opened.

"Holy shit," Jennie breathed. No way, there was just no way. Jennie stared at the woman who had once helped her master the G chord on the acoustic and the one who had just very nearly killed her. She exchanged looks with Terry, suddenly unsure, and Alison chose that moment to strike, knocking both girls back with a blinding white light.

The world flared white for a moment, and when it cleared - the Horseman that had once been Alison Blaire was gone.