xp_logs | GSIH: Smoke and Mirrors

Angelo and Jean-Phillipe face an actual demon as an attempt to start a riot lands firmly on them.

At the end of the train, the patients began to move nervously, fearful of the explosions in the distance and the sudden movements of the soldiers. The feeling of danger was palatable in the air, and what had been a relatively organized process was now turning into an overfull train full of people almost ready to panic. Suddenly, at the end of the train, a giant figure appeared from no where to grasp to the end. It was twenty feet high; a monstrous black skinned woman, with eyes glowing and lips blood red. A necklace of skulls hung over her flattened dugs, and the corpse smell of rot hung against her hot presence as she leaned over the patients, who where paralyzed by fear.

The two young men at the other end of the carriage, however, were not paralyzed at all. Angelo proceeded to yank a cushion off one of the seats and throw it at her.

"Hey, puta fea! Come take on someone who can fight back!"

The rather obvious projection of Kali, the death goddess, had very little effect on an agnostic (at best) Frenchman whose cousin wielded powers very similar to the ones being unleashed on the train. The smells and other sensations were somewhat new, but fairly easily dismissed by Jean-Phillipe since he had already recognized the tall projection as...not quite illusion, but definitely artificial. He pushed his way through the press of people trying to move away from the end of the train. Unleashing his powers in such tight quarters was...probably not a good idea at the moment. He elbowed his way towards Angelo and cursed.

As the figure hissed and panicked the wounded passengers, the car shuddered for a moment as if something had impacted it. On the opposite end of the car, a large hand grasped the open side of the car and hauled itself up into the car. He was big, not impossibly so, but certainly a very large man, and his skin gleamed with a metallic sheen, like a burnished copper. One of the USACE soldiers raised his weapon to fire, and was decapitated as he was hit with the side of the man's hand, shearing his head from his neck from the force of the impact.

The cushion had flown straight through the huge figure and dropped to the ground, to Angelo's disgust, but the other enemy in the car was very definitely real. "Jean-Philippe!" he called out, trying to meet the other man halfway. "Double-team the metal guy?"

Jean-Phillipe had already shifted to the second threat, the metallic sheen of the large man's skin drawing his attention like a magnet drawing iron filings. "Down!" he yelled at the soldiers between him and the end of the car. Whether from his direction or from the threat in their midst, the aisle between Jean-Phillipe and the metal attacker cleared, and the Frenchman cut loose with a low-intensity bolt of electricity, enough to stun a person, but no more, in case he missed his target. Besides, it wouldn't do to go straight to full power without seeing what effect he had on the burnished enemy.

The electricity rippled on the man's form, and he jolted as it struck. However, instead of him collapsing, the Guardsman shook himself and started forward at them. Their job was to cause panic, and make the refugees try and flee the train. Tearing off the head of one of the mutants protecting them seemed like an effective strategy to accomplish that.

The Kali figure morphed, and suddenly they were all struck with a wave of heat as walls of fire began to engulf the back of the train. The screams got louder, and now a few refugees threw themselves over the side of the moving train to try and escape the conflagration.

"Nobody move!" Angelo yelled at them, and changed his game plan yet again, heading towards the Kali figure. "The fire's not real. Stay on the train. Bevatron, I'll be with you in a second."

Jean-Phillipe grunted an acknowledgment, not that he thought Angelo's optimistic plan would get him back in time to deal with whoever this metal person was. "Down!" he yelled again, shouldering one of the train's passengers aside and trying to get him to take cover behind a seat by sheer virtue of intimidation. "Come and get me, morceau de merde," he taunted the other mutant, ducking under a powerful punch to place his hand against his stomach and discharging a more powerful electrical blast.

Neutron jolted at the blast, covering his stomach and snarling. The kickback from the energy _hurt_. He grabbed two terrified children from the closest bench and held them next to his body as he advanced, gambling that the Western mutant wouldn't try and use his energy attack against him with two innocents next to his conductive skin. The children wailed in terror.

As Angelo reached the flames, a fiery figure suddenly lunged out of it, skin the colour of the flame itself. All around it was the reek of brimstone and rotten meat; foul decay and hot bleak burnt carbon. It wrapped it's arms around Angelo, and he could feel his skin start to scorch under the grasp.

"I will bring you to Hell!" It said in a stilted deep voice.

"C'est rien de que la merde," Jean-Phillipe muttered to himself. Even when he had followed Magneto in his most militant of moods, there were still lines that one did not cross. And he did not trust himself enough to use his powers with children in the balance. His control was good, but not necessarily -that- good, especially at the levels it was clearly taking to deal with this man. So he fell back on the other weapon in his bag. Insults.

"Hey! Cow-fucker!" He pointed at Neutron when his step paused. "Yes, you! Is your cock so limp that you have to hide behind children? Fight me like a man, saloppe!" He pivoted and slapped a hand against his rear end before making a loud mooing sound. "Come and get some!"

If Angelo said a single thing about taunting a second time, he was
going to be electrocuted in his sleep.

Angelo was a little busy grappling with the... demon? Not that it looked anything like the demons he'd seen before, but... "You're not bringin' me anywhere, sorry. Or anyone else. You need to breathe?" A strip of skin went around its neck, tight.

Angelo was in sudden agony, as a precise blow struck his kidney from behind. He gasped, and a second blow hit him in the base of the neck, pitching him forward and disorienting him. The demon was gone, and as he fought to stay on his feet, a small, almost elven looking Indian woman in a strange uniform hit him against, a jab that rocked him in the jaw. She fought like a trained professional; silent and a total economy of movement.

He twisted, retracting the skin he'd been using on the demon, and turned fully to face her. "You're the illusionist, huh?" he gasped out through the pain, and lashed out at her with fists and skin, hoping to get through her guard. "Don't go thinkin' I won't fight a girl."

She took one blow, rolled with another, and when he grappled with his skin, came out with a short knife from her wrist and slashed open a neat wound. Behind him, the flames still danced, the heat and sound designed to distract him.

At the other end of the car, Neutron's human shield carried him close enough to reach Jean-Phillipe, and he tossed the children aside and lunged at the Frenchman, looking to tear him in half with his great strength.

He might not have had a speedy aspect to his power like Noriko, or enhanced reflexes like Garrison, but what Jean-Phillipe did have was instincts from a number of rough-and-tumble brawls in dockside bars. He ducked aside from the lunge, pushing his long sleeves hastily above his elbows, exposing as much bare skin as he could. In the same motion, he scrambled up Neutron's back, wrapping one arm around the man's throat and the other up under his armpit. He pressed the side of his face against his opponent's back, and after a quick breath, even as Neutron was reaching back to attempt to pull his French limpet off, Jean-Phillipe cut loose with every bit of bioelectricity he could
muster.

Angelo was trying not to let the fire distract him from the fight, conscious as he was that it couldn't be real (it had started too fast, for one thing), but she couldn't have picked a better illusion if it had been personally designed for him. Setting his jaw resolutely, he sent every skin strip he could muster at her face and throat.

Neutron jerked as the electricity hit him. He tried to stand his ground but in seconds, the charge grew enough that he staggered back. His skin was running rife with tendrils of energy and in a sparking explosion, finally grounded. The shock flung the Guardsman into the air, and he crashed down at the side of the train, unconscious and swiftly left behind.

Magique dodged deftly, but the blanket of skin was too wide, and she was momentarily smothered under the wave. Her knife was still clear, and Angelo only had moments before she'd try and cut herself free from his attack.

She wasn't the first to try that tactic, and Angelo hadn't forgotten the knife. He dragged her into his normal arm reach, still determinedly mothering her, and grabbed her wrist with the aim of disarming her.

She twisted against the hold on her wrist, and abruptly changed tactics, grabbing the loose skin and jerking Angelo towards her, so she could slam her forehead into his face. The blow caused stars in his vision, and Magique broke his hold. Seeing that Neutron was no longer in the car, she scowled and lept up on the back step. With a wicked smile, she tossed a pair of grenades to opposite sides of the still crowded car, before billows of smoke obscured her escape.

Jean-Phillipe had barely gotten out from under the falling Neutron before he had been carried away with the unconscious Indian as well, and he staggered against a seat, leaning heavily on it. He saw the grenades and knew that he would never reach them in time. Electricity would have been useless against the explosives even if he weren't completely drained. He shouted a wordless warning to Angelo, and pivoted to do the only thing he could do, pressing a young mother and her infant down against a seat and shielding them with his body.

There was no way he could shield everyone in the carriage, but Angelo could do better than that. The car wasn't all that wide, certainly not for him. Head snapping from one side to the other, he stretched out to grab the grenades, tossing them simultaneously into the empty countryside beyond the nearest windows as far as he possibly could.

Slingshotted like chestnuts out over the landscape, the train was already a good hundred feet from the grenades as they exploded harmlessly in the dirt at the sides of the track.

The train rocked briefly on its carriage before continuing onward, and Jean-Phillipe uncurled slowly back to his standing position. He took a wobbling step, then collapsed into an empty seat. Even the barest brain-to-mouth filter that he usually possessed was gone, and he looked at one of the USACE soldiers. "Who do I have to suck off to get an energy bar?" he asked weakly.