Day Zero - Team Foxtrot
Oct. 28th, 2008 10:22 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAs the resistance presses forward, the best and brightest heroes of New York take to the streets.
"Ladies and gentlemen, is everyone reading me?" Fred Duncan said into his headset, and got a series of all clears and thumbs up in response. "Good. Remember the plan. We go block by block, street by street, and keep heading north. Any refugees you come across, get them south of the line. Firetrucks and paramedics are going to be following close behind, and the National Guard is our strategic reserve. Any part of the line starts to buckle, you start yelling for them to plug the gap."
Fred shook his head. "Serve and protect, people. Anyone with a gun, any mutant using his powers to attack, any of those monsters or the insane cultists you find are considered a terrorist threat. That means weapons fire. I don't care how violent a mob gets, if they're human and not waving shotguns at you, back off and let the riot teams break them up and get them to safety. This is a city full of a lot of scared people, and it's up to us to show them that law is returning."
"We got our own mutants behind us. Apocalypse made a mistake coming to New York. He thought showing up and declaring it the new mutant homeland would rally mutant New Yorkers to his side. Inside, they're out here with us, ready to hold the line against him. These are your streets, your people that he tried to steal. Let's take it back."
***
Through out south Manhattan, centred around the Pershing Armory and extending out in a radial pattern, the people under Duncan's command began to move. It was slow at first, as they started bunched up and slowly breaking away down streets and alleys, across parks, and through complexes. New York was a huge city, but south Manhattan was just a fraction of it. With each block, the police found a few people, trapped in their homes or shops, afraid to move and unable to evacuate days ago. They were firmly but kindly vetted and escourted behind the line, were paramedics and firefighters organized them, sending those wounded to barely functioning hospitals, treating the desparately injuried on the spot, but slowly re-introducing order amoungst them.
Slow burning fires and collapsing buildings were swarmed by firefighters as soon as they were behind the thin blue line, and more people were pulled from dangerously fragile buildings by the men and women manning the trucks and the ladders. As the line stretched out, and grew, the fires behind it began to abate, the sounds of destruction to fade. Only luck had left the water system undamaged, and more than one firefighter kissed a St. Florian medal or a cross when the hydrants worked. It was happening.
***
The SWAT teams moved out, their armored trucks rumbling ominously as they navigated the damaged streets. Beat cops on the ground, and Wanda and Sofia in the air were providing information on the block by block advance by their forces. Their job was simple; to clear out the heavy pockets of resistance, deal with the high powered mutants and meat spores, while the human police and FBI unraveled the mobs. A fist pounded the reinforced glass, signaling they had a target.
"Agent Kane, we've got a group that's blocking access north near NYU, just about the top of the Village. Hang on-" The SWAT Captain pressed his headset closer to his ear. "Your people say definitely one energy caster, and they're supported by those meat things. Spread between a blockade in the street, and a four story apartment block beside it."
"Sounds like fun. Where are the mutants?"
"Two on the blockade, at least two directing things from the roof."
"Great. Bishop, you want the building or the street?"
"I'll go with the building. I'm good with those and if they're directing things then our energy projector is probably up there. I can deal with that better then anyone else here." He laid out his rationale out of habit, in case someone caught something he missed.
"Makes sense to me. Morgan, where do you want to send your fire team?" Kane turned to the blue skinned woman, sitting with her weapon across her lap.
Morgan had remained mostly silent, busy thinking and only bothering to even look up when she heard her name. "The buildings around the blockade area. We'll find the tallest and most convenient angles nearby to set up shop in. We'll give you closer eyes than the ladies up in the air can. We'll get high enough to help you both out. Getting shot will distract anyone, even an energy caster if he starts to overpower Bishop so I want to know which building he's on. From up there we'll also help thin out your mob by targeting the people further back so you've got less to wade through."
"That's the plan then. Captain?"
"Thirty seconds to contact."
***
"You ladies ready?" the pilot shouted, raising his voice to be heard over the thrum of the helicopter blades. The doors were to be left open - with all the chaos in the streets, Wanda needed more of a visual and none of them wanted their own people to be caught in the crossfire if they could help it. It just made for that much more noise, though.
Wanda gave him the thumbs up and clapped Sofia on the shoulder as she clipped herself firmly to the interior. They'd lucked out with the chopper. Most of the ones that were still around weren't in any kind of condition to fly but this one seemed to be in pretty decent shape. As far as she could tell, anyway. She held on tightly as their pilot started to take them up, feet braced firmly on the floor. It wasn't like she was new to flying but this was going into battle and it wasn't as sturdy as the Blackbird.
Not especially oddly enough, Sofia had never been all that afraid of heights. Really, it was hard to be afraid of a lot of things when you could bend most things to your will. But, the hand on her shoulder was meant as comfort, and there was something incredibly comforting just in that itself more than the touch, and she smiled without realising, leaning into it as well as the harness would let her. While Wanda's belt connected to a long rope before meeting with the aircraft, she was directly attached to the metal walls, but with enough elastic give and rail lines that she could lean a considerable distance out the door when the time came.
"You sure about this?" she yelled, over the drone of blades in the air.
"Am I ever?" Wanda shouted, her throat growing irritated with the shouting but considering what they were going to do they had decided not to give her any sensitive equipment. They had been preparing to take off when word had come down the line that the crews on the ground were getting nowhere - several groups of mutants had formed almost unbreakable barriers and losses were expected to heavy if they continued to assault it. That's where they were coming in.
Originally, they were going to provide back up from the air but now their first mission was to break up those groups and allow the ground forces the ability to surge forward. Sofia and Wanda had put their heads together and, to the shock of their slightly disturbed and confused pilot and soldiers in the chopper with them, had come up with one hell of a plan.
The young man nearest to Wanda double checked the thick harness and belt while someone else checked the rope. They were a precaution in case something went wrong but she was more concerned with the mob of enraged Apocalypse followers below than a mess death from above. She stood near the entrance and took a deep breath, giving Sofia a half-grin as she braced herself against the edge of the open door. The wind was trying to yank her out but she was waiting ... she got the nod from Sofia, closed her eyes and jumped backwards into thin air.
***
The paramedic wiped his eyes with the back of his gloved hand, bending over the body of a mutant who had been shot out of the air by one of the HRT snipers. The woman was still alive, but blood was seeping from her mouth and her leathery wings twitched as he fought to get the wound stanched so he could try and get her lungs re-inflated. His partner was loading a sixteen year old boy into the back of the ambulance, burned badly but just stabilized enough to hopefully reach the hospital. Chris made a promise to himself that he'd never complain about slow nights ever again.
"Carole, she needs to be intubated!" He called over his shoulder, as she grabbed for their kit to pull the tubes and resuscitator bag from it.
There was a crashing sound, as a mutant swathed in crackling energy landed on the street in front of them, having ridden a current over the buildings and beyond the line of police. Chris looked up, hands still working at stopping the flow of blood. The mutant looked down at him as if he was an insect.
"She was not of the strong, flatscan. Neither are you." A crackle of energy jumped from his fingers, and caught the paramedic square in the chest. The blast knocked him back into the side of the truck, snapping his neck and literally melting his flesh and organs. The mutant raised his hand to the mutant on the ground, and staggered as a bullet ripped through the side of his throat. He tried to turn, as the two National Guardsman emerged from the alley responding to reports of a flying mutant getting through the line. They fired short bursts, ripping the man to pieces.
Carole took one look at her partner, confirming it was too late, before jumping in to try and stabilize his last patient. One of the Guardsman served as her assistant, as the other loaded the bodies into the truck, and got ready to get them back to the hospital.
***
The back of the vans opened, and SWAT pulled out. Kane took one unit to the right, using the vans to shield them as they approached the blockade. Morgan broke back with her longriflemen, seeking higher ground, leaving Bishop and his team in front of the west side apartment block door. Two SWAT with a breaching tool were on the side.
"It's your call, sir." One said.
Bishop gave them the motion to enter. This was going to be very different than what they had been trained for. Typically the idea was to start at the top and flush everyone out of the building. He had given different orders, they were starting at the bottom and pushing everyone up to the roof. They hadn't talked about it specifically but the team knew what that meant, a slaughter at the end.
The door crashed open with the tool, splintered and knocked off the hinges. SWAT tossed in flash bangs following, and an assault of light and noise washed across anyone who might have been in position to attack the invaders. The team formed up behind Bishop, entering with him.
***
Falling into invisible arms. It was a bit of a jolt, as Sofia tried to adjust for a body falling away from her with any kind of precision - usually it was much more 'keep from splatting' or 'shove into wall' - but eventually felt more like being carried around in a beanbag chair. A very loud beanbag chair. Sofia peeked over the edge, scanning the crowd, and made pushing gesture in towards herself, her wrists bent in such a way that she looked like a very peculiar ballerina. Wanda dropped, a thrown javelin from her hand.
The second that Wanda hit the ground, hard, a surge of human bodies overwhelmed her and she disappeared, the rope connecting her suddenly pulling down fast. There was an explosion of cursing in the helicopter, someone shouting "Pull her up! Pull her the fuck back up!" before a pregnant silence as they frantically tried to work the wrench.
Under the writhing mass, shards of red light pieced out at odd intervals; one at first, and then two and then more than could be counted. They grew until something underneath exploded outward in a wave, taking men, women and pavement with it. A crescent shaped hole stood where people had once been, with Wanda standing - blood pouring down one side of her face, clothing ripped but standing - alone.
Part of the line that had survived wavered and then parted, giving way, to circle around back. Wanda tugged on the rope hard.
Wanda lifted from the ground, spinning against the rope's natural twist, with the infuriating slowness of time versus urgency before Sofia brought her hands up, sending her into a graceful arc onto the edge of the helicopter. She stumbled a bit, a step forward, like a young gymnast dismounting, and Sofia placed a hand on her shoulder, steadying.
"Want to go again?" she asked, her face splitting into a grin.
***
Morgan had split her team in two, leaving the most experienced in charge of her second team that she sent up into the building on the other side of the street from herself. There were just eight of them in total, but most were military trained and they fell in line the way she needed them to. On the third floor she found a mutant who seemed to be made of fire. Children cowered in the corner. The kids saw her and the moment they made eye contact Morgan only said, "Cover your eyes, sweetie."
The noise pulled the attention of the mutant to her. He turned, snarling and immediately something shot out and connected with her thigh. She didn't fall but she growled and nodded. A moment later three shots went off in quick succession. "Well, there was brain under there somewhere," one of the guys behind her commented as the fiery body crumpled to the ground without a head or a left arm.
"Get the kids down to the medics and join us up top." Without further hesitation Morgan continued down the corridor to clear the building of threats and find anyone else who was holed up there. Get the innocents out, execute the rest, set up shop on the top floors and roof. It was a simple plan, in theory.
***
The building was breaking up quickly, far more quickly than Dan Watts had expected. His chest was killing him, and for the first time in a decade, he craved a cigarette. He was sixty-one years old, a career firefighter who had risen to the rank of Deputy Fire Commissioner after thousands of fires under his command. His men and women were running themselves right to the breaking point, but there was nothing else to do for it. He wouldn't admit it, but the emergency had put him back in his yellow and red fire resistant suit for the first time in years, he had an old foe that he knew to face, and part of him was enjoying it.
"Chief, we've got ladder crews bringing people down, but we can't get around the blind side, and they're saying that there's people in the offices there who are cut off by the fire. They can't reach the ladders."
"Shit. I don't know how long this buidling is going to stay up." Watts chewed a char blackened nail for a moment. "Hank, get six volunteers and follow me up. They said the stairs are intact. Grab a couple of supression blankets. We'll punch a hole through the walls as close as we can get, and get them out that way." He called, before grabbed his own fire ax and heading up the building.
Twenty-two people had been cleared that way from the building before it collapsed, taking the remaining trapped workers, firefighting team and Dan Watts with it.
***
Garrison moved up on the barricade, mostly made from overturned cars, designed to create a choke point. It was hardly a fortress, but it would slow down their men and give Apocalypse's troops something to rally around. The SWAT and HRT with Garrison held up at the edge of the vans, and Kane motioned them to hold. There were a couple of firing positions that they could use, but deploying was going to be trouble. Which is why, of course, the mutants were there in the first place.
"Stay back until I call for you. When I do, there's parked cars on either side. Get men behind both, and get the vans pulled around to punch through the barricade." Kane said, passing over his submachinegun. He did hold on to the two tear gas grenades, clipping them to his belt. Checking around the area, he caught sight of Morgan's men moving up the building and twisted his comm.
"Morgan, think you can keep their heads down for ten seconds? I need to cut across the street."
"Get moving." Morgan said, sighting down the scope at the first line of opposition and all of them fired in unison. The shots hit their targets with pinpoint accuracy, and the people manning the barricades ducked in response to the attack.
Kane was moving with the first guttural coughs of the sniper rifles, using his super speed to propel himself across the street and to the relative safety of the corner. There was a meat spore there, lumbering about, but his body block smashed it into paste against the bricks, and Kane caught himself up against the wall. Returning fire had started, mostly energy blasts of all types from the few mutants in the barricade, and the scattered shots of a variety of firearms, all aimed at the vans and the building behind him.
Garrison rushed back into the street, from the opposite angle they were expecting, sliding down behind the first parked car and wrenching it up with one hand like a massive shield. Impacts shuddered the vehicle, but Kane used his great strength to shoulder it forward enough that he could flung the two grenades into the midst of the barricade, already hissing and venting tear gas.
"Move, now!" He said over his comm, and the SWAT team divided themselves up between excellent firing positions, forcing the forces manning the barricades to take cover amidst the gas, choking and weeping. A few shots hit the pavement around him, and Kane levered the car down to hide behind and grabbed his mike.
"Bishop, we're taking fire from the roof! Where are you?"
Gun shots could be heard over the radio as Bishop pressed the mic on. "The roof? Oh, that's where I was supposed to go, was it?" His response was heavily sarcastic as the SWAT team he was with finally made it up, kicked open the only door to the roof, and began firing immediately. They took the people firing down onto the street entirely by surprise.
As soon as the fire from above let up, Garrison's men poured into the gaps. The gas was wafting out, and now the barricade faced a direct assault. Kane vaulted the first car, slamming both feet first into a Prime, and crushing its chest easily. Around him, the armed mob was facing trained men, and double-taps from the submachine-guns dropped those carrying weapons, with a weak retort of fire against them. A feral mutant came up from behind a car, and disemboweled the SWAT member in front of him, claws going through the Kevlar like butter. His partner fired two blasts into the man's chest, but was driven back as the mutant's healing factor went to work.
Kane smashed into him from the side, feeling ribs give as he rolled with the clawing feral over the pavement and up against the buildings bracketing the street. A claw tore open his shoulder, and Garrison returned the blow with a pivot, driving his fist into the mutant's knee and feeling the bones all but explode under the impact. Howling, it backed off, bobbing back and forth to give his healing factor time to work; time that Kane wasn't going to give it.
His tactical chip had been soaking up information, and looking at the mutant, it finally matched up Kane's nervous system to what his brain was receiving; it was an untrained Kyle, and Garrison spared a wry smile for the responses he'd no doubt get from the young man during the post-mission. The feral had gone deeply into his mutant nature, relying on senses, speed, and animal cunning. In short, he had no chance against a thinking, trained opponent.
The feral dropped to all fours, and loped to Kane's right, a feint to draw him into a wider area where the speed of the mutant would help. Instead, Kane yanked the nearest newspaper box out of the sidewalk moorings and hit the mutant dead circle with a baseball like pitch of the steel cube. It rolled over twice, tumbling like a ragdoll from the impact. Kane was on it before it could get back up, a sweeping right hook that shattered his face. The mutant clawed weakly at Kane's arms, and Garrison grabbed him by the head, hitting him with his neural emitter. The feral jerked twice and went limp, unconscious as Kane ziptagged his hands and feet together. The police would pull him back into custody with the others.
A plasma burst nearly killed them both, as Kane avoided the white hot stream of energy at the last moment. Pulling the feral up and over his shoulder, Kane dodged back towards the barricades, as the street behind him erupted in flame and magma. He tossed both of them over the cars, and scrambled for his mike as his SWAT troops fell back.
"Morgan! We've got some kind of mutant team way down the road tearing us up! Can you spot them and take them out?" He called over the mike, hoping that the blue mutant was as good a sniper as she'd claimed to be.
***
Morgan was as good of a sniper as she claimed to be. Mutant powers that could punch through a car, set fire to a street, and even topple a building still offered no protection to an enemy that could see you from a mile away, which you didn't know was watching. Her first shot took the telekinetic's head off, hitting him just beside his right eye and removing most of the skull as it transited through. The second shot gutted an ice manipulator, leaving him howling in pain on the street to draw out the flyer. She made it three steps before the heavy round punched through her back, lungs and heart on its way through the body.
The rest of the snipers worked with equally patient skill, clearing what had been reinforcements for the barricade before they could even get close. By the time they safed their weapons, the armored vans were already shoving aside the cars, and clearing the street. Bishop, Morgan and Garrison met back up on the ground, listening to the radio as Wanda and Sofia targeted another choke point further north in the city, before re-assembling their teams into the vehicles and heading out.
***
And so it went, strongpoint by strongpoint. Over the hours, the human forces slowly reclaimed the south of the city block by block, pushing back the fractured forces of Apocalypse. The mutants were the blunt weapon, hitting their strongest points hard, and sending the reeling forces directly into coordinated units which swiftly dispatched them or arrested them. The resistance retreated, and retreated, and finally just south of Columbia Park, broke. As the few remaining defenders fled, only one stronghold remained between them and the Citadel; Columbia Park, where the last of Apocalypse's South Manhattan forces and the Church of the Madri waited.
"Ladies and gentlemen, is everyone reading me?" Fred Duncan said into his headset, and got a series of all clears and thumbs up in response. "Good. Remember the plan. We go block by block, street by street, and keep heading north. Any refugees you come across, get them south of the line. Firetrucks and paramedics are going to be following close behind, and the National Guard is our strategic reserve. Any part of the line starts to buckle, you start yelling for them to plug the gap."
Fred shook his head. "Serve and protect, people. Anyone with a gun, any mutant using his powers to attack, any of those monsters or the insane cultists you find are considered a terrorist threat. That means weapons fire. I don't care how violent a mob gets, if they're human and not waving shotguns at you, back off and let the riot teams break them up and get them to safety. This is a city full of a lot of scared people, and it's up to us to show them that law is returning."
"We got our own mutants behind us. Apocalypse made a mistake coming to New York. He thought showing up and declaring it the new mutant homeland would rally mutant New Yorkers to his side. Inside, they're out here with us, ready to hold the line against him. These are your streets, your people that he tried to steal. Let's take it back."
***
Through out south Manhattan, centred around the Pershing Armory and extending out in a radial pattern, the people under Duncan's command began to move. It was slow at first, as they started bunched up and slowly breaking away down streets and alleys, across parks, and through complexes. New York was a huge city, but south Manhattan was just a fraction of it. With each block, the police found a few people, trapped in their homes or shops, afraid to move and unable to evacuate days ago. They were firmly but kindly vetted and escourted behind the line, were paramedics and firefighters organized them, sending those wounded to barely functioning hospitals, treating the desparately injuried on the spot, but slowly re-introducing order amoungst them.
Slow burning fires and collapsing buildings were swarmed by firefighters as soon as they were behind the thin blue line, and more people were pulled from dangerously fragile buildings by the men and women manning the trucks and the ladders. As the line stretched out, and grew, the fires behind it began to abate, the sounds of destruction to fade. Only luck had left the water system undamaged, and more than one firefighter kissed a St. Florian medal or a cross when the hydrants worked. It was happening.
***
The SWAT teams moved out, their armored trucks rumbling ominously as they navigated the damaged streets. Beat cops on the ground, and Wanda and Sofia in the air were providing information on the block by block advance by their forces. Their job was simple; to clear out the heavy pockets of resistance, deal with the high powered mutants and meat spores, while the human police and FBI unraveled the mobs. A fist pounded the reinforced glass, signaling they had a target.
"Agent Kane, we've got a group that's blocking access north near NYU, just about the top of the Village. Hang on-" The SWAT Captain pressed his headset closer to his ear. "Your people say definitely one energy caster, and they're supported by those meat things. Spread between a blockade in the street, and a four story apartment block beside it."
"Sounds like fun. Where are the mutants?"
"Two on the blockade, at least two directing things from the roof."
"Great. Bishop, you want the building or the street?"
"I'll go with the building. I'm good with those and if they're directing things then our energy projector is probably up there. I can deal with that better then anyone else here." He laid out his rationale out of habit, in case someone caught something he missed.
"Makes sense to me. Morgan, where do you want to send your fire team?" Kane turned to the blue skinned woman, sitting with her weapon across her lap.
Morgan had remained mostly silent, busy thinking and only bothering to even look up when she heard her name. "The buildings around the blockade area. We'll find the tallest and most convenient angles nearby to set up shop in. We'll give you closer eyes than the ladies up in the air can. We'll get high enough to help you both out. Getting shot will distract anyone, even an energy caster if he starts to overpower Bishop so I want to know which building he's on. From up there we'll also help thin out your mob by targeting the people further back so you've got less to wade through."
"That's the plan then. Captain?"
"Thirty seconds to contact."
***
"You ladies ready?" the pilot shouted, raising his voice to be heard over the thrum of the helicopter blades. The doors were to be left open - with all the chaos in the streets, Wanda needed more of a visual and none of them wanted their own people to be caught in the crossfire if they could help it. It just made for that much more noise, though.
Wanda gave him the thumbs up and clapped Sofia on the shoulder as she clipped herself firmly to the interior. They'd lucked out with the chopper. Most of the ones that were still around weren't in any kind of condition to fly but this one seemed to be in pretty decent shape. As far as she could tell, anyway. She held on tightly as their pilot started to take them up, feet braced firmly on the floor. It wasn't like she was new to flying but this was going into battle and it wasn't as sturdy as the Blackbird.
Not especially oddly enough, Sofia had never been all that afraid of heights. Really, it was hard to be afraid of a lot of things when you could bend most things to your will. But, the hand on her shoulder was meant as comfort, and there was something incredibly comforting just in that itself more than the touch, and she smiled without realising, leaning into it as well as the harness would let her. While Wanda's belt connected to a long rope before meeting with the aircraft, she was directly attached to the metal walls, but with enough elastic give and rail lines that she could lean a considerable distance out the door when the time came.
"You sure about this?" she yelled, over the drone of blades in the air.
"Am I ever?" Wanda shouted, her throat growing irritated with the shouting but considering what they were going to do they had decided not to give her any sensitive equipment. They had been preparing to take off when word had come down the line that the crews on the ground were getting nowhere - several groups of mutants had formed almost unbreakable barriers and losses were expected to heavy if they continued to assault it. That's where they were coming in.
Originally, they were going to provide back up from the air but now their first mission was to break up those groups and allow the ground forces the ability to surge forward. Sofia and Wanda had put their heads together and, to the shock of their slightly disturbed and confused pilot and soldiers in the chopper with them, had come up with one hell of a plan.
The young man nearest to Wanda double checked the thick harness and belt while someone else checked the rope. They were a precaution in case something went wrong but she was more concerned with the mob of enraged Apocalypse followers below than a mess death from above. She stood near the entrance and took a deep breath, giving Sofia a half-grin as she braced herself against the edge of the open door. The wind was trying to yank her out but she was waiting ... she got the nod from Sofia, closed her eyes and jumped backwards into thin air.
***
The paramedic wiped his eyes with the back of his gloved hand, bending over the body of a mutant who had been shot out of the air by one of the HRT snipers. The woman was still alive, but blood was seeping from her mouth and her leathery wings twitched as he fought to get the wound stanched so he could try and get her lungs re-inflated. His partner was loading a sixteen year old boy into the back of the ambulance, burned badly but just stabilized enough to hopefully reach the hospital. Chris made a promise to himself that he'd never complain about slow nights ever again.
"Carole, she needs to be intubated!" He called over his shoulder, as she grabbed for their kit to pull the tubes and resuscitator bag from it.
There was a crashing sound, as a mutant swathed in crackling energy landed on the street in front of them, having ridden a current over the buildings and beyond the line of police. Chris looked up, hands still working at stopping the flow of blood. The mutant looked down at him as if he was an insect.
"She was not of the strong, flatscan. Neither are you." A crackle of energy jumped from his fingers, and caught the paramedic square in the chest. The blast knocked him back into the side of the truck, snapping his neck and literally melting his flesh and organs. The mutant raised his hand to the mutant on the ground, and staggered as a bullet ripped through the side of his throat. He tried to turn, as the two National Guardsman emerged from the alley responding to reports of a flying mutant getting through the line. They fired short bursts, ripping the man to pieces.
Carole took one look at her partner, confirming it was too late, before jumping in to try and stabilize his last patient. One of the Guardsman served as her assistant, as the other loaded the bodies into the truck, and got ready to get them back to the hospital.
***
The back of the vans opened, and SWAT pulled out. Kane took one unit to the right, using the vans to shield them as they approached the blockade. Morgan broke back with her longriflemen, seeking higher ground, leaving Bishop and his team in front of the west side apartment block door. Two SWAT with a breaching tool were on the side.
"It's your call, sir." One said.
Bishop gave them the motion to enter. This was going to be very different than what they had been trained for. Typically the idea was to start at the top and flush everyone out of the building. He had given different orders, they were starting at the bottom and pushing everyone up to the roof. They hadn't talked about it specifically but the team knew what that meant, a slaughter at the end.
The door crashed open with the tool, splintered and knocked off the hinges. SWAT tossed in flash bangs following, and an assault of light and noise washed across anyone who might have been in position to attack the invaders. The team formed up behind Bishop, entering with him.
***
Falling into invisible arms. It was a bit of a jolt, as Sofia tried to adjust for a body falling away from her with any kind of precision - usually it was much more 'keep from splatting' or 'shove into wall' - but eventually felt more like being carried around in a beanbag chair. A very loud beanbag chair. Sofia peeked over the edge, scanning the crowd, and made pushing gesture in towards herself, her wrists bent in such a way that she looked like a very peculiar ballerina. Wanda dropped, a thrown javelin from her hand.
The second that Wanda hit the ground, hard, a surge of human bodies overwhelmed her and she disappeared, the rope connecting her suddenly pulling down fast. There was an explosion of cursing in the helicopter, someone shouting "Pull her up! Pull her the fuck back up!" before a pregnant silence as they frantically tried to work the wrench.
Under the writhing mass, shards of red light pieced out at odd intervals; one at first, and then two and then more than could be counted. They grew until something underneath exploded outward in a wave, taking men, women and pavement with it. A crescent shaped hole stood where people had once been, with Wanda standing - blood pouring down one side of her face, clothing ripped but standing - alone.
Part of the line that had survived wavered and then parted, giving way, to circle around back. Wanda tugged on the rope hard.
Wanda lifted from the ground, spinning against the rope's natural twist, with the infuriating slowness of time versus urgency before Sofia brought her hands up, sending her into a graceful arc onto the edge of the helicopter. She stumbled a bit, a step forward, like a young gymnast dismounting, and Sofia placed a hand on her shoulder, steadying.
"Want to go again?" she asked, her face splitting into a grin.
***
Morgan had split her team in two, leaving the most experienced in charge of her second team that she sent up into the building on the other side of the street from herself. There were just eight of them in total, but most were military trained and they fell in line the way she needed them to. On the third floor she found a mutant who seemed to be made of fire. Children cowered in the corner. The kids saw her and the moment they made eye contact Morgan only said, "Cover your eyes, sweetie."
The noise pulled the attention of the mutant to her. He turned, snarling and immediately something shot out and connected with her thigh. She didn't fall but she growled and nodded. A moment later three shots went off in quick succession. "Well, there was brain under there somewhere," one of the guys behind her commented as the fiery body crumpled to the ground without a head or a left arm.
"Get the kids down to the medics and join us up top." Without further hesitation Morgan continued down the corridor to clear the building of threats and find anyone else who was holed up there. Get the innocents out, execute the rest, set up shop on the top floors and roof. It was a simple plan, in theory.
***
The building was breaking up quickly, far more quickly than Dan Watts had expected. His chest was killing him, and for the first time in a decade, he craved a cigarette. He was sixty-one years old, a career firefighter who had risen to the rank of Deputy Fire Commissioner after thousands of fires under his command. His men and women were running themselves right to the breaking point, but there was nothing else to do for it. He wouldn't admit it, but the emergency had put him back in his yellow and red fire resistant suit for the first time in years, he had an old foe that he knew to face, and part of him was enjoying it.
"Chief, we've got ladder crews bringing people down, but we can't get around the blind side, and they're saying that there's people in the offices there who are cut off by the fire. They can't reach the ladders."
"Shit. I don't know how long this buidling is going to stay up." Watts chewed a char blackened nail for a moment. "Hank, get six volunteers and follow me up. They said the stairs are intact. Grab a couple of supression blankets. We'll punch a hole through the walls as close as we can get, and get them out that way." He called, before grabbed his own fire ax and heading up the building.
Twenty-two people had been cleared that way from the building before it collapsed, taking the remaining trapped workers, firefighting team and Dan Watts with it.
***
Garrison moved up on the barricade, mostly made from overturned cars, designed to create a choke point. It was hardly a fortress, but it would slow down their men and give Apocalypse's troops something to rally around. The SWAT and HRT with Garrison held up at the edge of the vans, and Kane motioned them to hold. There were a couple of firing positions that they could use, but deploying was going to be trouble. Which is why, of course, the mutants were there in the first place.
"Stay back until I call for you. When I do, there's parked cars on either side. Get men behind both, and get the vans pulled around to punch through the barricade." Kane said, passing over his submachinegun. He did hold on to the two tear gas grenades, clipping them to his belt. Checking around the area, he caught sight of Morgan's men moving up the building and twisted his comm.
"Morgan, think you can keep their heads down for ten seconds? I need to cut across the street."
"Get moving." Morgan said, sighting down the scope at the first line of opposition and all of them fired in unison. The shots hit their targets with pinpoint accuracy, and the people manning the barricades ducked in response to the attack.
Kane was moving with the first guttural coughs of the sniper rifles, using his super speed to propel himself across the street and to the relative safety of the corner. There was a meat spore there, lumbering about, but his body block smashed it into paste against the bricks, and Kane caught himself up against the wall. Returning fire had started, mostly energy blasts of all types from the few mutants in the barricade, and the scattered shots of a variety of firearms, all aimed at the vans and the building behind him.
Garrison rushed back into the street, from the opposite angle they were expecting, sliding down behind the first parked car and wrenching it up with one hand like a massive shield. Impacts shuddered the vehicle, but Kane used his great strength to shoulder it forward enough that he could flung the two grenades into the midst of the barricade, already hissing and venting tear gas.
"Move, now!" He said over his comm, and the SWAT team divided themselves up between excellent firing positions, forcing the forces manning the barricades to take cover amidst the gas, choking and weeping. A few shots hit the pavement around him, and Kane levered the car down to hide behind and grabbed his mike.
"Bishop, we're taking fire from the roof! Where are you?"
Gun shots could be heard over the radio as Bishop pressed the mic on. "The roof? Oh, that's where I was supposed to go, was it?" His response was heavily sarcastic as the SWAT team he was with finally made it up, kicked open the only door to the roof, and began firing immediately. They took the people firing down onto the street entirely by surprise.
As soon as the fire from above let up, Garrison's men poured into the gaps. The gas was wafting out, and now the barricade faced a direct assault. Kane vaulted the first car, slamming both feet first into a Prime, and crushing its chest easily. Around him, the armed mob was facing trained men, and double-taps from the submachine-guns dropped those carrying weapons, with a weak retort of fire against them. A feral mutant came up from behind a car, and disemboweled the SWAT member in front of him, claws going through the Kevlar like butter. His partner fired two blasts into the man's chest, but was driven back as the mutant's healing factor went to work.
Kane smashed into him from the side, feeling ribs give as he rolled with the clawing feral over the pavement and up against the buildings bracketing the street. A claw tore open his shoulder, and Garrison returned the blow with a pivot, driving his fist into the mutant's knee and feeling the bones all but explode under the impact. Howling, it backed off, bobbing back and forth to give his healing factor time to work; time that Kane wasn't going to give it.
His tactical chip had been soaking up information, and looking at the mutant, it finally matched up Kane's nervous system to what his brain was receiving; it was an untrained Kyle, and Garrison spared a wry smile for the responses he'd no doubt get from the young man during the post-mission. The feral had gone deeply into his mutant nature, relying on senses, speed, and animal cunning. In short, he had no chance against a thinking, trained opponent.
The feral dropped to all fours, and loped to Kane's right, a feint to draw him into a wider area where the speed of the mutant would help. Instead, Kane yanked the nearest newspaper box out of the sidewalk moorings and hit the mutant dead circle with a baseball like pitch of the steel cube. It rolled over twice, tumbling like a ragdoll from the impact. Kane was on it before it could get back up, a sweeping right hook that shattered his face. The mutant clawed weakly at Kane's arms, and Garrison grabbed him by the head, hitting him with his neural emitter. The feral jerked twice and went limp, unconscious as Kane ziptagged his hands and feet together. The police would pull him back into custody with the others.
A plasma burst nearly killed them both, as Kane avoided the white hot stream of energy at the last moment. Pulling the feral up and over his shoulder, Kane dodged back towards the barricades, as the street behind him erupted in flame and magma. He tossed both of them over the cars, and scrambled for his mike as his SWAT troops fell back.
"Morgan! We've got some kind of mutant team way down the road tearing us up! Can you spot them and take them out?" He called over the mike, hoping that the blue mutant was as good a sniper as she'd claimed to be.
***
Morgan was as good of a sniper as she claimed to be. Mutant powers that could punch through a car, set fire to a street, and even topple a building still offered no protection to an enemy that could see you from a mile away, which you didn't know was watching. Her first shot took the telekinetic's head off, hitting him just beside his right eye and removing most of the skull as it transited through. The second shot gutted an ice manipulator, leaving him howling in pain on the street to draw out the flyer. She made it three steps before the heavy round punched through her back, lungs and heart on its way through the body.
The rest of the snipers worked with equally patient skill, clearing what had been reinforcements for the barricade before they could even get close. By the time they safed their weapons, the armored vans were already shoving aside the cars, and clearing the street. Bishop, Morgan and Garrison met back up on the ground, listening to the radio as Wanda and Sofia targeted another choke point further north in the city, before re-assembling their teams into the vehicles and heading out.
***
And so it went, strongpoint by strongpoint. Over the hours, the human forces slowly reclaimed the south of the city block by block, pushing back the fractured forces of Apocalypse. The mutants were the blunt weapon, hitting their strongest points hard, and sending the reeling forces directly into coordinated units which swiftly dispatched them or arrested them. The resistance retreated, and retreated, and finally just south of Columbia Park, broke. As the few remaining defenders fled, only one stronghold remained between them and the Citadel; Columbia Park, where the last of Apocalypse's South Manhattan forces and the Church of the Madri waited.
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