Capital Turpitude: X-Men Team Rescue

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

 A team is dispatched to save the trapped FBI and DEA agents from the Eulud Plant.

Staring at the smoke protruding through the blown windows of the Eulud Pharm plant, watching the flames get brighter and brighter inside the building, and having to stand and wait for the X-Men team Emma promised she'd dispatch; just watching while knowing that people were inside, that Garrison was inside possibly unconscious or trapped came to be too much for Adrienne. She had been fidgeting on the sidewalk for what felt like ages, eyes focused on the plant but ears straining to catch the first rumblings of X-Men transportation.

Eventually, however, guilt overwhelmed her- all of this was her fault, after all- and unable to stand by and wait any longer, she ran into the building, calling out Garrison's name, coughing already from the smoke, eyes watering as she strode through the reception area towards the offices. It seemed like the fire had started in the shipping area so reception and the offices seemed like mostly smoke so far, and she hoped that the team was concentrating its investigation in the office area.

"Shit. Firestar, call your firefighter buddies, make sure they've got EMT on the way." Kyle's feet had barely hit the ground after Angel had let him go before he was coughing due to the smoke, and he pulled the bandanna he had over his hair off and over his nose and mouth. The smell was wrong - something sweet and chemical in the air, it wasn't just burning building. "This is pretty bad." It had gotten much worse in the time it took to get into the city. "Nightcrawler, get... fuck, I don't care who, the first person you see who knows first aid. Lau... fuck, Wallflower's on comms, grab her for all I care."

Kurt nodded and didn't waste time on a verbal acknowledgment before he vanished. It would be a few minutes before he'd appear again, having had to find someone to take Laurie's place in the comms room.

As soon as Angel's feet touched the ground, she was slapping at the comms unit curved around her ear. They'd programmed it ages ago to allow them to switch between internal calls and external calls for this exact reason. "Paul? It's Angelica. Look, there's a really, you know, bad situation at the Eulud Pharm plant - capital b and everything. We're checking for civilians but you need to scramble the guys." She stared at the billowing smoke and flames; she could smell the chemicals on the air, too, though not as clearly as Kyle could. "And Paul? Better make it a lot of guys."

Monet settled the first aid pack on her back and wrapped her arms around Jean-Phillipe's waist. She made a hard and fast landing, tossing a mask to Jean-Phillipe, before taking to the air to make a recon sweep around the building, searching for the thoughts of survivors as she circled the building in a grid pattern.


The acrid tang of smoke from burning chemicals brought back a host of unpleasant memories to Jean-Phillipe. He rubbed his hands unconsciously over his forearms, where his scars from his manifestation lay under his uniform. Even after he took a mask from Monet and settled it over his face, he still imagined he could smell it, though he couldn't say whether it was the pharmaceuticals or the ghosts of the fumes of the warehouse he had worked in before manifesting and coming to America.

It was strange, the shift in personalities in crisis situations. Jean-Phillipe would not have expected Kyle to assume instinctive command of the situation. The profanity sprinkled in, yes, but it was a far cry from the usual goofiness the feral tended to display. And Jean-Phillipe himself, usually brash and quick to insert himself into a conversation, looked silently to Kyle for direction.

Great, Kyle thought, Kurt was gone and Garrison was in there somewhere, and there was fire. The combination sucked donkey balls. Great big hairy ones. "Firestar, M, recon? Get in there, through the wall if you gotta. How bad is it? Sparky, you can feel electricity? Can you kill the breakers, shut down anything electronic that could go boom? We don't need electrical fires on top of all the rest of this shit. And ... fuck, kill any video cameras you find too. Don't much want the evening news to be 'X-Men interrupt FBI raid" and you know how Fox News is"

Laurie had already gotten someone to grab the medical bag Hank and Jean left in the medlab for emergencies, and she was sitting calmly waiting for Kurt to pick her up as he bamfed into the room. The moment she'd started hearing the chatter over the comms she'd guessed someone would be coming to get her, being the only person currently on duty and easily retrieved who had any sort of first aid/medical knowledge.

"Kurt," she greeted him calmly, standing up from her chair and pushing a button to send a text message to the next in line for comms duty. "Let's go,"

He nodded, then glanced at the door. "I am sure someone will be here soon. You have gathered the situation?"

"Heard it all over the comms," Laurie noted, moving to pick up the medical bag and giving him a determined look. "I'm ready when you are."

"Then let us go." He stepped over and reached for her arm, waiting only to get a firm grip before they both disappeared.

Kyle pulled his bandanna tighter over his mouth and nose and headed towards the one open doorway he could see, despite the thick smoke. "I'll be right back..." There was someone - he could hear them coughing, and it was even odds by Kyle's guess that they were the arsonist, or some idiot who didn't know to get out of the smoke.

Through the thick smoke, and the associated crackling from the fire and the noises over his comm, Kyle didn't recognize the person as female much less as Adrienne until he was a few feet away. "Miss Frost? Holy shit you shouldn't be in here, you're gonna get hurt!"

"Shoeless Joe?!" Adrienne cried out, and in spite of the situation she was so happy to see someone from the mansion she ran to Kyle and hugged him, letting out a happy squeal. And then the moment was over and she realized she was in her bra, so she stepped back awkwardly. "Garrison's in here. The CEO set it on fire. There's a team of FBI agents too. We have to find Garrison!"

"We know, got a call." Kyle said. "Got first aid and firefighters on the way too." He made a sweeping gesture towards the door - and the sounds of M and Firestar's 'getting them inside'. "We're on it, we'll get 'em out, but you gotta get outside. this smoke shit, kinda bad for you." And hopefully Kurt'd be back with Laurie or one of the docs or someone because he was so not down with people having smoke inhalation.

“I can’t just leave him!” Adrienne told Kyle emphatically, beginning to feel a little hysterical. “Besides, I’ve been smoking for twenty years, so it couldn’t be much worse for me.”

"Look, you're leaving if I gotta carry you out." Kyle said. "Fire bad, smoke bad, Garrison way more fireproof than you are." He made a little shoving motion towards the door out. "Out. I've got M and Firestar and Nightcrawler looking for Garrison, we'll find him." He made a show of hitting his comm. "Yo, guys. Keep an eye out for Dominion, he's in here and I got Miss Frost on the way out." He was clearly not screwing around here.

"You're not fireproof but you get to look for him!" she protested between coughs, eyes tearing up from the smoke.

"I heal, remember?" Kyle wasn't going to go so far as to actually pick her up, not yet anyway, but he did take Adri by the shoulders in an attempt to steer her out. "Come on, we'll go outside and you can get your lungs un-fucked up and as soon as we find him I'll make sure someone tells you."

"I can go myself," Adrienne muttered, beginning to realize there was no way Kyle was going to let her stay and help. "Don't waste any more time- go find him, Shoeless. Please, just find him." If he was adamant about taking her outside they would lose more time, and Kyle did have a better chance of finding Garrison than she did.

"That's why we're here. Your sister called us." Kyle said. "I put on shoes for this. Gar owes me, so yeah, we're gonna find him so I can get a beer outta him." Not to mention that Garrison and Logan had pulled Kyle's ass out of a fire once, so now he could just make things even.

Adrienne put a hand on the wall and did a quick reading. “He didn’t come back downstairs,” she told Kyle, “there should be three people up in the offices, five more on the first floor somewhere. I’ll owe you too if you find him. But hurry,” she warned, as she turned and headed for the exit, coughing uncontrollably now.

With an entire building on fire and it only getting worse, getting in was going to be a problem. Having ended her call with Paul, Angel followed Kyle's instructions and headed closer to the building. Impervious to the heat, she pressed herself against the rough wall of the building and concentrated, switching her vision so that she could see heat signatures. With everything going on, it almost scrambled her brains right out of her ears but she shook her head and squinted. "No good," she muttered and kept up the chant as she moved left against the building, heading away from the door. There were too many spots that were already too hot to go through and she needed to find one ... aha! "M!" she called over her shoulder. "I need you to hit this part of the wall really, really, really hard! It's hot here but still safe for people who still catch on fire!"

"Got it!" Monet called as she circled back around, and slammed through the wall and began to clear a path toward the thoughts she'd heard earlier, trapped behind a safety door. "Tell your firies that there's some people, but I don't know how many, in the north west corner. Find Sparky a route through, after me. We'll need him to get the doors open. They're too heavy for me."

Laurie was moving even before the smoke of Kurt's teleportation had ended, gaze taking in the area and the people around her. She needed to set up a triage point, and she just hoped that there weren’t any injuries so major that she couldn't treat them well enough to get them stable for hospital. She pulled the mask she'd brought with her up against her mouth and nose to help with the smoke, it wouldn't do for her to be coughing so badly she couldn't help anyone. "Kurt, go bring me people to treat," she said finally, giving him barely a glance as she got ready.

He nodded briefly, leaving her to get set up, turned and made for the building, not daring to teleport but knowing he still had to do all he could.

Overloading electronics was something Jean-Phillipe could actually do. He spotted half a dozen external security cameras in easy view. He jogged over to the closest one, in an area where the flames had not yet gotten close. The heat and soot were still there. He leapt up, grabbing on to the camera and bracing himself against a windowsill. The best way to make sure no footage of the X-Men existed...

He reached deep with his power, grimacing. He was going to make Kyle buy him a very large steak when this was over. A surge of electricity leapt from the Frenchman's skin, arcing in a dozen places around the metal mounting. The surge traveled through the camera, and back down the bundle of wires inside the wall, until it reached the building's security station, overloading the computer system that monitored the cameras. Once it was done, he dropped back down to the ground, staggering a few steps as he did.

A hand gripped Jean-Phillipe's elbow until he managed to regain his balance. Angel stood next to him, covered in a fine haze of dust from where parts of the wall that M had knocked down had managed to reach her. When she was sure J-P wasn't going to drop down on his butt or anything, she jerked her head towards the gaping hole in the wall. "M's cleared us a path where it's mostly safe! And I really kind of do mean the mostly bit. It's gonna be hot as hell and your mask is goin' to be working overtime. Follow me in and stay close - keep at least one hand on my shoulder at all times, okay? M says there are safety doors you need to punch through and I'll make sure that you get there in one piece."

Jean-Phillipe grunted agreement, leaning rather heavily on Angelica. "Kyle will have to owe me -two- steaks," he muttered in an apparent non sequitur. He fished an energy bar out of a pocket and nudged his mask aside for a moment to cram it whole into his mouth before following Angel into the building. Perhaps concentrating on eating and replenishing at least some of his reserves would take his mind off of the fact that, rather than going away from a fire like any sensible person, he was headed straight for it.

Laurie could hear the sound of distant sirens but they were still several minutes away, minutes that could be crucial as to whether people survived or died of smoke inhalation. She'd managed to get Kurt to wait long enough that she had as much portable medical equipment as she'd been able to carry but she hoped the EMTs got here soon. Looking around, she noted the sandwich shop a little distance away, one that had obviously been set up to service the workers in this area.

They'd have bottled water for sure, something that was going to be needed as people were brought out. It was time to use her most stubborn 'you will do as I say for I am the authority here' persona and get those bottles. It was with squared shoulders that Laurie headed for the shop, determined look firmly in place.

Adrienne was sitting on the curb, head between her knees when she heard Kurt and Laurie arrive. She watched Kurt head into the building and Laurie head over to the sandwich shop to commandeer their water, and followed the young woman. "Need some help?" she asked Laurie between coughs, figuring she could carry some water or something. Christ, the smoke was awful even outside of the building.

"Not from someone who should be sitting down," Laurie replied, pointing Adrienne to one of the benches out front of the store. "Let me check you out first, then we can talk about you being useful."

"I'm fine," Adrienne assured her, coughing some more. "I wanna help. I wanna help save Garrison. Garrison's in there. It's my fault it's on fire, I need to help him!"

"You'll help him more if you don't fall over because you haven't taken proper care of yourself," Laurie replied, not unkindly but with a firmness that brooked no argument. "You've breathed in a lot of smoke, and human lungs aren't designed to deal with heated particulates like that."

She reached out and placed a palm against Adrienne's neck, knowing she wouldn't have placed any of the lotion she used on her hands in that position. She gave her a dose of calming hormones, and one that would increase production of red blood cells, which would hopefully counter any damage that had been done by her temporarily damaged lungs.

"My lungs are... hey..." Laurie had caught her completely by surprise, but her protest was stymied by a wave of calm. She stopped coughing and sagged against the bench. "Heyyyy... Laurie... oh, okay." For the first time all week, possibly the first time in more than a year, Adrienne wasn't worried or afraid, only calm. And calm was gooooooood. "You shouldn't've done that... I have an addictive personality, y'know." She gave Laurie a joking smile and shook her head like a dog to clear it. "Whew. Okay. Calm. Taken care of myself, or rather you took care of me. Thank you. That's some good stuff you got there. Now can I help?"

"I'll take that under advisement should you turn into a stalker," Laurie replied with a small grin, motioning that Adrienne should drink more water. "And only if you promise not to run back into the burning building. You can help me get this water across the road and start handing it out to people as they come out if you like."

Adrienne chugged the water, and ended up choking and sputtering on it, trying to aim herself away from Laurie. "Shit! Sorry! I guess with twenty years of smoking my lungs already had a head start on being screwed up by smoke."

"I'd take this as a good excuse to quit then," Laurie noted, fishing a small handkerchief from a back pocket and holding it out to her. "It's clean, I just put it in there this morning. If you really want to quit, by the way, there's medications that can help with the nicotine cravings."

"You carry a handkerchief? Are you a Golden Girl?" Adrienne asked incredulously, though she took it with a nod of thanks and mopped up her chin. "Yeah I keep trying to quit, I've tried all the medications, but I'm afraid if I don't have nicotine I'll start to drink way too much and end up living in a box under the overpass. Or worse, get fat. And wow, now I'm so calm I'm sharing my innermost fears with you while there's a fire a few feet away and someone I love could be dead!" She drained the rest of the water and stood up. "I would love to help you with that water carrying."

"I have an honest face," Laurie replied mildly, by now used to the reaction of people when she used her powers on them. It was amazing what people would share with you when they felt completely at ease. She ignored the crack about her handkerchief, used to how people, reacted to her 'better ready for all situations then not' behaviours. You never knew when you might need to wipe something, and cotton fabric was more absorbent then tissue when trying to stem wounds. "How about you take this crate over and I'll go back in and get another. We can talk a bit more about your need to drink when I get back, if you like."

"Did you change careers and become a therapist while I was away?" Adrienne grumbled with a smirk, taking the crate.

"Only on special occassions," Laurie replied with a wink, heading back inside the shop and then exiting several minutes later with another crate. "Come on, you can help me get things ready for the walking and non-walking wounded as they come out. I'm not sure how long it'll take the EMTs to get here, and I'm sure they'd appreciate some sort of set up even if they do get here before we finish."

"I suppose I could. Or maybe I'll just run back into the building again and not let you fix me up with the good stuff this time so I'll be a non-walking wounded and then I won't have to carry things around or set things up," Adrienne smirked again.

"You could do that," Laurie replied, giving Adrienne a look somewhere between amusement and exasperation. "Although why you'd prefer burning to death over a little light manual labour is beyond me. If you really have something against moving things around you can just hand out water."

"I can move things," Adrienne grinned obediently. "I'll do whatever you say, I promise. I don't have any other plans for this evening, anyway," she joked.

"Good, because they've begun to bring people out," Laurie noted, heading back toward the people being dragged out of the building. "Come along, Adrienne."

Eyes widening with the prospect of Garrison coming out, Adrienne turned quickly and followed obediently after Laurie.

"Nightcrawler, head to me, I've got a lead on people." Kyle relayed the information Adrienne had given him while he went up the stairs four at a time, ignoring the smell of burning chemicals.. In the office, there were three figures huddled on the floor, barely moving and he didn't stop for explanations, Kyle just grabbed the smallest and tossed them over his shoulders. It wasn't Garrison, and that was not a decision he really enjoyed making, but Garrison was lower priority than his fellow policemen. Gar could heal, they could get Kurt to port him to the mansion if they had to, and he had that skin that kept him from being burned in India. Kyle -had- to get the other people first. Not that he liked it much - he felt like a shit leaving a guy he considered a friend for last.

Kurt was there within seconds, judging the situation and coming to a conclusion rapidly - which turned out to be much the same as Kyle's. He scooped up the other figure who wasn't Garrison, holding him up. "Wildchild, I will be back for him when I can", he said hastily, and vanished.

Jean-Phillipe followed Angel through the smoky hallways, his hand
grasping firmly on her shoulder as she led him to the door that Monet
had spoken of. She had not been kidding, if anything she had
understated the size of it. He placed his hand flat against the door,
trying to get a feel for its internal workings, and why it would not
open.

He sent small trickle of electricity through the exposed wires behind
the ruptured keycard scanner, then grimaced. "I think that there are
electromagnets in the door, and when the power is cut to them, they
are meant to seal shut," he told Angel briefly. "This...is not going
to be pleasant." He ripped the last pieces of the scanner away, then
plunged an already crackling fist directly into the hole. Sweat broke
out on his brow, and sparks scattered from where his arm met the wall.
The door groaned, then parted an inch or two, and then finally began
to open more fully. "Jam it..." he said over his comlink. "I
cannot hold it for long," he said, unconsciously slipping into
French.

"That's okay. I've got it, mate," Monet said, slipping her hands into the gap and dragging the door open as far as she could before flying up to grab the tracks it ran on and using all her strength to bend the metal far enough that the tracks no longer moved and it couldn't slam closed again straight away. It wasn't going to hold forever, though, so she moved over to a metal and wooden shelf, knocking it over and tearing two of the side pieces off. She was panting from exertion as she jammed them in the opening, too, in case the door tried to slam closed again.


"Good job, guys!" Angel commented, moving to be ahead of the other two. "Now both of you just stick behind me and if I tell you - eewwww that's disgusting!"

The 'disgusting' thing that Angel was referencing was Jean-Phillipe
being very noisily sick as he leaned against the wall, his filter mask
pushed hastily up on his face. With that, and the tingling numbness
in his fingers and toes... "I believe that I do not have any more in
me," he said wearily.

Seeing that Angel and Monet had the situation well in hand, and after
a stern look from Angel that rather clearly said 'get back to the safe
area before you pass out', Jean-Phillipe staggered back down the
hallway, and out to where Laurie was doing her best to try and be
everywhere at once, checking on every person that came out of the
building. He waved off a concerned look from her, and murmured "I
just need to sit..."

"Sure, but how about you take a sip from this first," Laurie replied, voice calm and efficient as she held out a bottle of water. "I don't need you passing out on me, I've got enough patients as it is."

She reached out and grasped his wrist, using her power to give him a boost of adrenalin and a shot of help with the nausea, keeping a close eye on his colouring to see if it helped at all.


Jean-Phillipe's eyes widened slightly at the immediate jolt of
adrenaline hit him. He raised an eyebrow at his suitemate. "Clever,
with the misdirection," he told her, before taking the bottle of water
and making a firmer shooing motion. "Go, I will be fine."

The officer Kyle carried out was coughing but still unconscious when
he set him down as gently as possible on the ground next to Laurie.
"Firestar knows the EMT guys, as soon as they get here, call her
over." Kyle suggested as he set the man down. "Dominion's
unconscious inside, I'm gonna bring him out but I got no idea how bad
he is." At worst, he'd hand him off to Kurt and they could port him
straight to the infirmary. He paused long enough to cough out a
mouthful of phlegm and snagged a bottle of water.

Kurt reappeared in time to catch the last words, having handed off his own patient and gone to check on the team. "We will both go in", he suggested. "Then if need be, I can take him straight away."

Once Angel was certain that Jean-Phillipe had managed to make it out of the fire, she turned back to the now open doors. "According to Kyle, there's still more people trapped in there," she said towards M, voice raised to be heard over the sounds of fire and parts of the building groaning under the pressure. "With Frenchie out of danger, I'm less worried about you - I don't think you're as flammable as others but be careful, okay? If it starts being too much, let me know."

Not having bothered with a mask, Angel's words were clearer than they might have been as they turned towards the interior. Even with her training and the ability to withstand any fire, plus M's invulnerability, their going was still going to have to be slower than Angel would have liked. But there was no real way to rush in without potentially rushing into a collapsing floor, wall or ceiling and they'd get to those who were injured faster if they didn't have to dig themselves out first.

Monet nodded, bowing to Angel's experience with fire as they entered the room, walking carefully across the floor. The heat was intense and the visibility was crap, with the air so thick with smoke.

Eventually after several false turns and one collapsing wall that M had yanked Angel out of the way of, Angel finally threw up her hand and signaled them to stop. Her head whipped back and forth for a moment as she tried to get a bead on ... "There!" she cried, pointing. Through the thick smoke, she could just barely make out a prone form. She cast a nervous glance above them as the two hurried over. "I think we gotta move fast, M ..."

Monet nodded in agreement. "Yeah..." she muttered, grabbing one of the three prone figures and throwing her over her shoulders. She took the other two, one under each arm, keeping their heads off the ground but leaving their feet to drag. "You'll have to steady the one on my shoulders," She said, bent double to keep him from sliding off and already moving toward the door.


Quickly, Angel did as Monet had asked, making sure the woman hanging upside down was as stable as she was going to get. The last person was an average looking sized guy and, if it'd been one of the X-Men in their (mostly) fire proof clothes, she would have just grabbed him and flown since she was stronger there. But considering that he wasn't wearing anything fire proof, she couldn't chance it.


Ironically, the fireman's carry had gone out of style thanks to
studies showing that there was a large chance of further injury or
worse smoke inhalation but Angel didn't trust the floor's stability or
the distance they'd have to go if she dragged him like she'd been
trained. She'd just have to quick about it. Grabbing him carefully,
Angel quickly drew the fed into the fireman's carry and, making sure
she was balanced, levered herself into a standing position. He was
heavy but it wasn't that hard to carry him like this. Angel gave a
quick glance to the ceiling and winced - she'd really have to
hurry. It sounded like it was about to come down on their heads.
==
Kyle had sprinted back to the little office as soon as possible,
ignoring the smoke, he could be miserable later, and getting a burn on
his leg for his troubles. He'd arrived just after Kurt, and for once
the sulphurous smoke the blue teleporter brought with him didn't make
a damn bit of difference to Kyle's overtaxed nose. "This is getting
worse, we're gonna need to hustle." Garrison was unconscious, prone
on the floor and only barely breathing and the chemical smells were
getting much harsher, not to mention the alarming noises as parts of
the building burned out.

"I fear teleporting would be more taxing than not." Kurt said,
muffled slightly behind the filter mask. "His lungs are not protected
as his skin is."

"Fuck." Kyle grunted. Leaving Garrison for last had been necessary,
but damn if he didn't feel like shit over it. "Kay, get under one of
his shoulders. We'll haul him out the hard way."

It wasn't that Garrison was heavy - he wasn't, and weighed a touch
less than Kyle himself, but he was tall and broad shouldered and
unconscious fix foot tall people weren't exactly easy to move. "Spot
me on the stairs, I'm stronger than you are." Not by much though.
It took way too long by either man's estimation to get Garrison out of
the building and to the EMT's. They'd arrived, finally and in better
than average time, even if the entire rescue felt like forever - it
had taken much less time than it felt like from when the X-Men arrived
to getting the last man out.

"Gott se Dank, I think we have them all." Kurt gave a brief glance
skyward, and then nodded at his teammates. "Perhaps a swift departure
before the news vans arrive, ja?"