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xp_logsThe X-Men plus Amanda and Julian manage to find the cave where the Minorus are hidding, but they are met halfway with a distraction.
Backdated to December 3rd due to massive fail.
It hadn't been easy, but with some persistence -and a good deal of luck- the place where Nico's parents were holding the girl, Dori and Crystal. Cody's population, small as it was, had managed to easily point them to the series of strange happenings they had experienced lately, all that seemed to lead to some caves not too far. Unpopulated caves, of course, or at least that was what the population at large believed.
Now it was just a matter of getting in, finding the girls, and going out. Easy task, right?
Julian snuck forward, stretching out his powers to feel the cold and damp sides of the tunnels. Unfortunately, after the last few days, his powers and his mind were a bit...off. From time to time they would fizzle out and he'd stumble in the dark.
"Damn," he said, picking himself up out of a puddle.
A hand reached out and helped him up by way of hauling on his collar. "Quiet," Amanda murmured. "Sneak attack, remember? We're fucked if they know we're coming." She glanced over her shoulder to where she could dimly make out the others. "Jean, can you sense them up ahead? How far to go?"
"Not far, about 15 or 20 yards," Jean said quietly, thankful to be able to sense people for once. She paused a moment.
"There are others. More than just Dori, Crystal, Nico and her parents. They're very focused...A lot of gibberish and excitement...something about...blood...the staff...the First?" she said, quirking a brow. Either way none of it sounded pleasant. She was trying to narrow down a total but all of cultist's thoughts was making it somewhat hard to concentrate. They were like little esoteric bees. She also wasn't 100% after LA. Holding up a few tons of rubble for an hour and a half had given her a huge migraine that she'd finally started to ward off.
"Focused, huh?" Tabitha murmured. "Think they could use a little distraction?"
Lex looked at Tabitha and smiled, he knew what her type of distractions tended to do to people. "You lead, I'll cover you." His powers had been functioning just below their pre-India levels and he had gained a better understanding of just how far he could push himself. "If nobody objects?"
"I do not", Kurt said grimly, then looked to Jean. "Phoenix, if you can show me what you see, perhaps you and I could provide our own kind of distraction?"
Jean nodded to Kurt. "Gladly," she said as she "borrowed" the eyes of one of the cultists, a tattoo artist named Clyde who enjoyed knitting and bonsai tree pruning.
Kurt would feel the growing-familiar sensation of the world going topsy turvy for a moment as she sent him a flash of the cave at large by way of Clyde's view, and all the activities there in between. Jean's eyes widened.
"We need to get in there. Now," Jean said.
Tabitha didn't hesitate, bombs formed in both hands even as she sprinted forward. She dropped to her knees to slide past the first two people, tossing a bomb straight up as she went. She threw them as soon as she made them, peppering the cave in light and noise. She jumped to her feet with only a small twinge. "Whoever put the kneepads in? I love them."
Lightning arced off the walls, just above chest height. He let it splay across the walls and the air to create dazzling patterns that would stun anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in their way. The energy poured from him and he rejoiced in being able to wield it again. "This is exactly what I needed," he cried, focusing a burst on a figure who stood in his path. The man fell to the floor with a dull thud.
Three other hooded figures came from when the first had been thrown to the ground, which was already getting to its feet -his feet, if the voice was any indicator-; they were all holding long staffs, each of them gleaming with a different light. "We must defend the rest!", cried out a female voice that come from a hooded figure holding a staff with a hot red glowing sphere floating over it. Without a movement, a wave of fire shot from it at the X-Men. "Stop the infidel!", she shouted again.
"Get us in there!" Amanda shouted to Julian, even as she ducked a random gout of flame. She had to conserve her magic, she knew - with no source nearby, she was going to need what she had for Nico.
Julian smiled and cracked his knuckles as he sent a wave of telekinetic energy toward the attackers, using the wave-form physics he'd learned in high school to bowl them over and carry them a few feet before pinning them to the floor. "Come on," Julian nodded toward the entrance, a spike of pain causing him to wince as the wave dissipated, "They aren't going to stay down forever."
The witch flashed him a feral grin and darted forward, pausing only to kick one of the cultist rather savagely in the knee as he started to climb to his feet. He feel back again with a scream of pain, clutching his broken patella.
Kurt and Jean had appeared behind the cultists and set about creating mayhem. Kurt was using his appearance to as much advantage as he could get from it, laughing as he popped in and out in between hitting people.
Jean, while not as jovial as Kurt in her outward appearance, did enjoy being able to enact some of the violence she hadn't been able to do in days prior on some of the robed figures. A couple of men head butted each other a couple of times, then flew in opposite directions, slamming against the walls of the cavern. Jean stared at their suddenly prone forms for a moment, then resumed her version of Thunderdome on any of the others she could find.
A lucky cultist got between him and Tabitha, and Lex had to shift at the last moment to avoid taking both of them out. The burst of energy missed the crazed maniac by a few inches and he drove a knife straight through towards Lex's gut. This is what I was made for, Lex half-thought, and then twisted as the blade came in for the kill. He wasn't able to avoid the strike all together but he'd managed to use his would be assassin's power to redirect the attack.
With a flick of his wrist, and heavy dose of electrokinetic fury, he sent the man sailing across the room and into a wall. The sound of crumpling bones made him wince, he might have been a little excessive.
The Cult of Minoru wasn't particularly old, or experienced, or anything, really. So imagine their surprise -and pain- when faced with a bunch of experienced mutants. It went so badly on them they didn't even have the luxury of screaming in pain. So they basically got turned into living targets, being tossed from one side of the cave to the other. But they were going to fight back, yes. "Idiot", called the same woman to the guy that had gotten himself fried. "Use your staff!" And as if that had been the signal, the other two around her waved theirs, one sending what looked like an electric storm right at Tabitha and Lex, and the other...what looked like a huge ghost made of fog, with fangs and really long claws, right at Jean.
All too familiar with the sound of breaking bones, the series of cracks made Jean turn. Even over all the commotion her ears still picked up certain tell tale sounds.
"Lex! Careful," she called to him. Their discussion about his potentially haywire abilities was fresh in her mind, and she hoped still in his. Though it might've been a little harsh given the severity of other people's attacks on the cultists, Lex's situation was a bit more precarious, and the both of them knew it.
Movement out of the corner of her eye made Jean look back, just in time to see...whatever the hell it was coming towards her. She lifted her hands and jumped back, trying to erect a telekinetic shield, but the creature went right through it, leaving five jagged cuts down her forearm that ripped through her uniform.
"Argh!" she said as she played duck and dodge with the ghost of evil Smokey the Bear, a bit too preoccupied with not becoming hamburger to do much else at the moment.
Kurt was doing his best to keep clear of it. He'd seen where both the attacks came from, and if he could just get to their creators, those staves looked like they wouldn't take much breaking... and he could be there in a moment. And was.
The man with the gray glowing staff, looked from a close distance, didn't look like a threat at all. Small, lanky and balding, he was truly terrified of the sight of Kurt. At the same time he flailed and stumbled back, the 'ghost' flickered and almost vanished. "Gotta stay focused..."muttered as he waved the staff, sending the apparition of sorts towards Kurt now.
A strange sensation flowed through Lex, as though something were calling to him, and he drew down into a defensive stance. It was almost like a voice within his head, but it was more a pulling from his senses. There was an abnormal amount of ambient electrokinetic energy in the room, something so large his senses were taxed just identifying its location.
The lightning storm moved towards him with quick, jagged motions, and he could feel its malevolence. It wasn't sentient, but it was wrong and deadly. "Meltdown! Avoid contact with this thing at all costs... I have the feeling it'll kill on contact." As he spoke the storm jolted to the side, and he decided to act. Reaching out with his powers he connected himself to the system and began to combat it for control of the electricity.
Tabitha once again hit the ground, her bum knee protesting with a lance of pain. Her eyes sought the source of the new bit of fun. She looked for one concentrating on the storm. Then pitched a bomb at him, fastball style.
Lex would feel how the electric storm of sorts, while not sentient, was apparently full of intent; the man's casting it intent, actually. Killing intent. Once they did contact, the electricity tried to hurt him in every way possible, but apparently his mutation was keeping him safe from most of it. Most. It depended on how much could he take. So focused was the man to fry Lex he didn't see the bomb until it was too late; it hit him on a side, sending him away; the electricity seemed to increase for a moment, dangerously attacking friends and foes alike before dying as the man passed out.
The creature disappeared and reappeared for a moment, and Jean used the distraction to twist backward, matrix style, as she narrowly avoided another slash.
When it completely disappeared and reappeared heading straight for Kurt, Jean blinked and quickly doubled back toward the two of them. The staff would fly out of the man's hand and collide with the wall, leaving a wide eyed-cultist for Kurt.
Kurt smiled at him, in a not at all reassuring way, and advanced. His tail flicked out to grab the staff lying by the wall, not very far away, and he held it up. "Would you like a taste of your own work before I break this?"
The man simply fell to his knees, but before he could say a word, the woman that had first attacked them roasted him alive, leaving dust and a couple of bones. "Weak!", yelled as she sent a fireball at Kurt. "Demon! You shall not pass!"
"Is that the best you can do?" he shot back at her, snapping the staff in two even as he dodged, then threw one piece at her head hard. "That girl is in my sister's protection, and I shall pass."
He didn't wait to see her drop, if she did, before proving it by teleporting away.
When in proximity of a person she was familiar with, Jean had an idea of who a person was, and generally from that an idea where they might be (barring any interference). It had become subconscious.
Their minds were as instantly recognizable to her as the sight or the voice of a familiar person would be to someone else. Somehow, even with just a glimpse of them from behind or in profile, a person usually could tell who it was. It was the same with her telepathy. She just knew.
With Nico Minoru, it was as if she had been enveloped by this new presence.
It had washed across Nico’s mind like a tide, startling Jean. However the ensuing fight with the cultists had happened quickly, leaving not much more to do but hope and pray to find a way to turn back the tide when there was time. But finding a way to reverse the possession was a thought she hadn’t been able to even try to entertain.
Luckily, the new being (she did not give her the dignity of calling her a person), after a short skirmish with Amanda and the others had disappeared in a flash of blinding light that temporarily flooded the room and made the ground quake, leaving Nico once again in her place. Day saved, in theory.
But something didn’t feel right. With a growing, unsettled feeling, Jean started to take a step forward toward Nico and Amanda but suddenly stopped as something small and dark darted in front of her eyes.
She glanced down to find a bird at her feet, its own tiny feet stiffly curled inward, unmoving. She stared at the bird, momentarily transfixed with confusion before her head suddenly snapped up at the sound of Amanda’s shouting in her mind, her face twisted with panic.
Jean looked back to the others. “Julian, please grab Dori. Be careful. Anyone who can carry a cult member, grab one, I’ll get the rest. We need to evacuate!” she said. She didn’t have time to explain, because she barely knew what was going on herself at the moment. She just knew it was bad, and she trusted Amanda's judgment on the situation.
She quickly made her way toward the exit with her cargo of cult members, whoever was left, sparing only a moment to look over her shoulder toward the two women on the ground before slipping through the cave entrance.
Backdated to December 3rd due to massive fail.
It hadn't been easy, but with some persistence -and a good deal of luck- the place where Nico's parents were holding the girl, Dori and Crystal. Cody's population, small as it was, had managed to easily point them to the series of strange happenings they had experienced lately, all that seemed to lead to some caves not too far. Unpopulated caves, of course, or at least that was what the population at large believed.
Now it was just a matter of getting in, finding the girls, and going out. Easy task, right?
Julian snuck forward, stretching out his powers to feel the cold and damp sides of the tunnels. Unfortunately, after the last few days, his powers and his mind were a bit...off. From time to time they would fizzle out and he'd stumble in the dark.
"Damn," he said, picking himself up out of a puddle.
A hand reached out and helped him up by way of hauling on his collar. "Quiet," Amanda murmured. "Sneak attack, remember? We're fucked if they know we're coming." She glanced over her shoulder to where she could dimly make out the others. "Jean, can you sense them up ahead? How far to go?"
"Not far, about 15 or 20 yards," Jean said quietly, thankful to be able to sense people for once. She paused a moment.
"There are others. More than just Dori, Crystal, Nico and her parents. They're very focused...A lot of gibberish and excitement...something about...blood...the staff...the First?" she said, quirking a brow. Either way none of it sounded pleasant. She was trying to narrow down a total but all of cultist's thoughts was making it somewhat hard to concentrate. They were like little esoteric bees. She also wasn't 100% after LA. Holding up a few tons of rubble for an hour and a half had given her a huge migraine that she'd finally started to ward off.
"Focused, huh?" Tabitha murmured. "Think they could use a little distraction?"
Lex looked at Tabitha and smiled, he knew what her type of distractions tended to do to people. "You lead, I'll cover you." His powers had been functioning just below their pre-India levels and he had gained a better understanding of just how far he could push himself. "If nobody objects?"
"I do not", Kurt said grimly, then looked to Jean. "Phoenix, if you can show me what you see, perhaps you and I could provide our own kind of distraction?"
Jean nodded to Kurt. "Gladly," she said as she "borrowed" the eyes of one of the cultists, a tattoo artist named Clyde who enjoyed knitting and bonsai tree pruning.
Kurt would feel the growing-familiar sensation of the world going topsy turvy for a moment as she sent him a flash of the cave at large by way of Clyde's view, and all the activities there in between. Jean's eyes widened.
"We need to get in there. Now," Jean said.
Tabitha didn't hesitate, bombs formed in both hands even as she sprinted forward. She dropped to her knees to slide past the first two people, tossing a bomb straight up as she went. She threw them as soon as she made them, peppering the cave in light and noise. She jumped to her feet with only a small twinge. "Whoever put the kneepads in? I love them."
Lightning arced off the walls, just above chest height. He let it splay across the walls and the air to create dazzling patterns that would stun anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in their way. The energy poured from him and he rejoiced in being able to wield it again. "This is exactly what I needed," he cried, focusing a burst on a figure who stood in his path. The man fell to the floor with a dull thud.
Three other hooded figures came from when the first had been thrown to the ground, which was already getting to its feet -his feet, if the voice was any indicator-; they were all holding long staffs, each of them gleaming with a different light. "We must defend the rest!", cried out a female voice that come from a hooded figure holding a staff with a hot red glowing sphere floating over it. Without a movement, a wave of fire shot from it at the X-Men. "Stop the infidel!", she shouted again.
"Get us in there!" Amanda shouted to Julian, even as she ducked a random gout of flame. She had to conserve her magic, she knew - with no source nearby, she was going to need what she had for Nico.
Julian smiled and cracked his knuckles as he sent a wave of telekinetic energy toward the attackers, using the wave-form physics he'd learned in high school to bowl them over and carry them a few feet before pinning them to the floor. "Come on," Julian nodded toward the entrance, a spike of pain causing him to wince as the wave dissipated, "They aren't going to stay down forever."
The witch flashed him a feral grin and darted forward, pausing only to kick one of the cultist rather savagely in the knee as he started to climb to his feet. He feel back again with a scream of pain, clutching his broken patella.
Kurt and Jean had appeared behind the cultists and set about creating mayhem. Kurt was using his appearance to as much advantage as he could get from it, laughing as he popped in and out in between hitting people.
Jean, while not as jovial as Kurt in her outward appearance, did enjoy being able to enact some of the violence she hadn't been able to do in days prior on some of the robed figures. A couple of men head butted each other a couple of times, then flew in opposite directions, slamming against the walls of the cavern. Jean stared at their suddenly prone forms for a moment, then resumed her version of Thunderdome on any of the others she could find.
A lucky cultist got between him and Tabitha, and Lex had to shift at the last moment to avoid taking both of them out. The burst of energy missed the crazed maniac by a few inches and he drove a knife straight through towards Lex's gut. This is what I was made for, Lex half-thought, and then twisted as the blade came in for the kill. He wasn't able to avoid the strike all together but he'd managed to use his would be assassin's power to redirect the attack.
With a flick of his wrist, and heavy dose of electrokinetic fury, he sent the man sailing across the room and into a wall. The sound of crumpling bones made him wince, he might have been a little excessive.
The Cult of Minoru wasn't particularly old, or experienced, or anything, really. So imagine their surprise -and pain- when faced with a bunch of experienced mutants. It went so badly on them they didn't even have the luxury of screaming in pain. So they basically got turned into living targets, being tossed from one side of the cave to the other. But they were going to fight back, yes. "Idiot", called the same woman to the guy that had gotten himself fried. "Use your staff!" And as if that had been the signal, the other two around her waved theirs, one sending what looked like an electric storm right at Tabitha and Lex, and the other...what looked like a huge ghost made of fog, with fangs and really long claws, right at Jean.
All too familiar with the sound of breaking bones, the series of cracks made Jean turn. Even over all the commotion her ears still picked up certain tell tale sounds.
"Lex! Careful," she called to him. Their discussion about his potentially haywire abilities was fresh in her mind, and she hoped still in his. Though it might've been a little harsh given the severity of other people's attacks on the cultists, Lex's situation was a bit more precarious, and the both of them knew it.
Movement out of the corner of her eye made Jean look back, just in time to see...whatever the hell it was coming towards her. She lifted her hands and jumped back, trying to erect a telekinetic shield, but the creature went right through it, leaving five jagged cuts down her forearm that ripped through her uniform.
"Argh!" she said as she played duck and dodge with the ghost of evil Smokey the Bear, a bit too preoccupied with not becoming hamburger to do much else at the moment.
Kurt was doing his best to keep clear of it. He'd seen where both the attacks came from, and if he could just get to their creators, those staves looked like they wouldn't take much breaking... and he could be there in a moment. And was.
The man with the gray glowing staff, looked from a close distance, didn't look like a threat at all. Small, lanky and balding, he was truly terrified of the sight of Kurt. At the same time he flailed and stumbled back, the 'ghost' flickered and almost vanished. "Gotta stay focused..."muttered as he waved the staff, sending the apparition of sorts towards Kurt now.
A strange sensation flowed through Lex, as though something were calling to him, and he drew down into a defensive stance. It was almost like a voice within his head, but it was more a pulling from his senses. There was an abnormal amount of ambient electrokinetic energy in the room, something so large his senses were taxed just identifying its location.
The lightning storm moved towards him with quick, jagged motions, and he could feel its malevolence. It wasn't sentient, but it was wrong and deadly. "Meltdown! Avoid contact with this thing at all costs... I have the feeling it'll kill on contact." As he spoke the storm jolted to the side, and he decided to act. Reaching out with his powers he connected himself to the system and began to combat it for control of the electricity.
Tabitha once again hit the ground, her bum knee protesting with a lance of pain. Her eyes sought the source of the new bit of fun. She looked for one concentrating on the storm. Then pitched a bomb at him, fastball style.
Lex would feel how the electric storm of sorts, while not sentient, was apparently full of intent; the man's casting it intent, actually. Killing intent. Once they did contact, the electricity tried to hurt him in every way possible, but apparently his mutation was keeping him safe from most of it. Most. It depended on how much could he take. So focused was the man to fry Lex he didn't see the bomb until it was too late; it hit him on a side, sending him away; the electricity seemed to increase for a moment, dangerously attacking friends and foes alike before dying as the man passed out.
The creature disappeared and reappeared for a moment, and Jean used the distraction to twist backward, matrix style, as she narrowly avoided another slash.
When it completely disappeared and reappeared heading straight for Kurt, Jean blinked and quickly doubled back toward the two of them. The staff would fly out of the man's hand and collide with the wall, leaving a wide eyed-cultist for Kurt.
Kurt smiled at him, in a not at all reassuring way, and advanced. His tail flicked out to grab the staff lying by the wall, not very far away, and he held it up. "Would you like a taste of your own work before I break this?"
The man simply fell to his knees, but before he could say a word, the woman that had first attacked them roasted him alive, leaving dust and a couple of bones. "Weak!", yelled as she sent a fireball at Kurt. "Demon! You shall not pass!"
"Is that the best you can do?" he shot back at her, snapping the staff in two even as he dodged, then threw one piece at her head hard. "That girl is in my sister's protection, and I shall pass."
He didn't wait to see her drop, if she did, before proving it by teleporting away.
When in proximity of a person she was familiar with, Jean had an idea of who a person was, and generally from that an idea where they might be (barring any interference). It had become subconscious.
Their minds were as instantly recognizable to her as the sight or the voice of a familiar person would be to someone else. Somehow, even with just a glimpse of them from behind or in profile, a person usually could tell who it was. It was the same with her telepathy. She just knew.
With Nico Minoru, it was as if she had been enveloped by this new presence.
It had washed across Nico’s mind like a tide, startling Jean. However the ensuing fight with the cultists had happened quickly, leaving not much more to do but hope and pray to find a way to turn back the tide when there was time. But finding a way to reverse the possession was a thought she hadn’t been able to even try to entertain.
Luckily, the new being (she did not give her the dignity of calling her a person), after a short skirmish with Amanda and the others had disappeared in a flash of blinding light that temporarily flooded the room and made the ground quake, leaving Nico once again in her place. Day saved, in theory.
But something didn’t feel right. With a growing, unsettled feeling, Jean started to take a step forward toward Nico and Amanda but suddenly stopped as something small and dark darted in front of her eyes.
She glanced down to find a bird at her feet, its own tiny feet stiffly curled inward, unmoving. She stared at the bird, momentarily transfixed with confusion before her head suddenly snapped up at the sound of Amanda’s shouting in her mind, her face twisted with panic.
Jean looked back to the others. “Julian, please grab Dori. Be careful. Anyone who can carry a cult member, grab one, I’ll get the rest. We need to evacuate!” she said. She didn’t have time to explain, because she barely knew what was going on herself at the moment. She just knew it was bad, and she trusted Amanda's judgment on the situation.
She quickly made her way toward the exit with her cargo of cult members, whoever was left, sparing only a moment to look over her shoulder toward the two women on the ground before slipping through the cave entrance.
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