X-Men Mission: Amid These Storms: It's a Trap

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

The trap is sprung once the soldiers turn suspicious.



The warehouse complex was old and battered from heavy use. It was like the old docks complexes that used to dominate the south end of Manhattan before rising land prices and gentrification drove them further up the river. The rust stained concrete floor was wet and cold, doing nothing for the three girls who were forced to sit on it. Their hands were cuffed, and two of them sported spectacular bruises from when they presumably resisted.

Near them, Jean-Phillipe stood smoking. The plan had been simple enough. The three 'captives' would help draw in whoever was ready for the meeting, and once they got there; the X-Men would come down and subdue them. However, for now, it was simply an uncomfortable wait.

A mission where he had gotten to look fabulous and wear a tuxedo, and now one where his cover required him to stand around with a cigarette. Jean-Phillipe decided that he needed to be involved in more missions like these, and less like the one where he had gotten completely drained by a powers interaction. He appeared to be leaning negligently against a wall and ignoring his 'captives', but in truth he was keeping very close watch out of the corner of his eye as he flicked ash against the brick.

Yvette cast a glance at Laurie and Dori. The awkward position - kneeling on the hard concrete floor with their hands cuffed behind their backs - was taxing for her, but would no doubt be more uncomfortable for them, given their lack of hardened skin over their kneecaps. "It will be soon," she whispered to them. "If they come at all."

"If they don't, I say we hunt them down anyway just for revenge for our poor knees," Laurie quipped, but there was a nervousness in her tone that ruined the lightness she was going for and she grimaced an apology before moving her legs, trying to give each of her knees some resting time.

"It could be worse," Dori pointed out, "At least we don't have to wait in a locker or something," she had plenty of 'fond' memories of things like that before going to the institute. Waiting on her knees was painful, but it could be worse. It could always be worse. "Murrr, if we don't get to move soon I'm going to explode," she muttered.

Out of the gloom, a number of figures materialized. They were black clad, and approached the warehouse slowly. Even in the darkness, the outline of automatic weapons were clear, moving with purpose. Whoever they were, it was clear that they were not ordinary criminals of any type.
Yvette stiffened, her hair shifting slightly like the quills of a porcupine before she regained her control again. "Who are you?" she asked in a quavering voice.

"Quiet, you," Jean-Phillipe snapped at the Albanian. He had to sell that he was the one in authority, and the girls were his captives. "Merde," he muttered, as his 'role' would have probably realized that he had nothing to say except to dumbly repeat Yvette's question. "Who are you, then?" he asked, clearly frustrated at sounding like a parrot.

The men closed, their weapons still trained on both the captives and Jean-Phillipe. The leader motioned forward two men to take the girls, while another stepped over to Jean-Phillipe. His voice was muffled by the balaclava over his mouth, but his eyes were hard.

“Three mutants and it’s just you? Where are your men, pal?” Before Jean-Phillipe could answer, he gave him a hard shove, forcing him back. “Stay sharp. He’s got to have a crew around here somewhere.”

"Speak for yourself, cul," Jean-Phillipe said harshly, the swaggering pissing contests of the docks of Marseilles coming quickly back to him. "The mutants are subdued, and not all of us need a large fusil to wave around and other men to show how large their...equipment is." He blew a stream of smoke in the other man's face. "Speaking of which, what is this bullshit? It is a package to be picked up, not some Legion Etranger mission."

The comment earned Jean-Phillipe a blow to the face, as the man roughly butt-stocked him. On their hidden communicators, they could hear Cyclops give the 'go' order, as the X-Men poured out of their hiding places to engage the mercenaries.

As soon as the man had raised his weapon to strike Jean-Phillipe, Yvette had instinctively yanked her handcuffs apart, hair and digits spiking into long daggers. "Go!" she yelled to her two team-mates, launching herself at the closest mercenary, intent on grabbing his gun and cutting it into pieces.

Laurie quickly snapped the cuffs on her wrists and launched herself at one of the people to the side of where Yvette had launched herself, already coating her skin with a 'sleepy time' whammy.

"Trap! Abort! Abort!" One of the men shouted, as he dropped the pieces of his weapon and backed off from Yvette. Mutants seemed to be everywhere, as he pulled a canister from his belt and pulled the pin. His balaclava would protect him a bit from the tear gas, and he rolled into the midst of the fight. The one Laurie attacked caught her in the stomach with his boot, but her momentum carried her into him regardless, tangling him up from raising his weapon.

Jean-Phillipe spat blood at the mercenary who had buttstroked him, and grinned in gruesome fashion as the tables turned. The man was still in arm's reach, and Cyclops' 'go' order had come before the yelled abort, and so he was already in motion as the other man was still catching up. One hand slapped the rifle away as it was starting to come up, and the other one grabbed at the balaclava and pulled. St. Elmo's Fire crackled around the Frenchman's head, and he brought it forward and down, striking his opponent at the bridge of the nose with the most solid part of his skull. Payback with interest, as it were.

Finally, was all Dori could think as she bounced to her feet like she hadn't been sitting at all. Having stood still for so long she had more than a little energy to let out, she happily sprang into the fight, the long nails on her hands ignored as weapons in favor of using her legs. As gently as she could, anyway.

At the sight of the tear gas grenade, Yvette yanked her googles down off her forehead, covering her sensitive eyes as she shouted: "Tear gas!" as a warning to her team. Her powers wouldn't stifle the gas, so she continued after the man who had thrown the canister, hoping to corner him so one of her less lethal teammates could take him down.

While she'd spent a lot of time training for scenarios in the X-men, Laurie could honestly say that no amount of training could really prepare you for the feeling of taking a boot to the stomach. She held onto the enemy who'd hurt her, giving him a double dose of sleepy time before wrenching the gun away from him. The others could finish him off if he got back up, but for the moment she had other people to worry about. She held the gun, pointing it upward before pressing down the trigger, she hoped that the loud sound would draw attention to herself and away from the other X-Men.

The soldiers stayed focused, but the sudden collapse of part of their line had them reeling back, as the assaults came from all sides.



Lorna's team reveals themselves and draws fire away from the 'bait'.



They watched the men come into the warehouse silently, weapons up and handled professionally. Definitely not your run of the mill criminals or hired goons. They moved and looked like well-trained soldiers. As they closed, one of them shoved Jean-Phillipe back, and Cyclops’ go order clicked on the comms. The battle was on.

Lorna heard the order as she turned towards their foes. Instinctively she tossed up a force field around herself and her team members that were nearby. Her next focus was to disarm the men, without weapons it would give them an advantage.

Having already come in a dull metal form, Paige carefully placed her feet as she placed herself in a more obvious branch off position. The cement would be loud against her running, but she had the time to be careful as she waited for a pair to pick off, and sure enough, there they were now.

Kane followed Paige up, seeing her target a pair and readying behind her. He motioned to Lorna, to start with those two and then follow them in. Paige was now the point person on this flank.

Lorna nodded seeing what Kane wanted, her eyes turned back towards the pair. She stayed hidden for the most part as she crept up carefully behind the two. Focusing on the weapons in their hand, she did her best to seal the bullets inside, rendering the weapons useless.

A stack of crates on either side of their targets seemed an obvious choice for a diversion, but either stupidity or ego led them straight down the middle. Paige smiled at her DR partner, motioning Lorna to still in the cover behind, as the two of them circled around quickly, now on either side of them.

Paige drew the attention, revealing herself first. She wasn't close enough for a direct hit, but with the seconds of shock when their guns would not function, and Kane's efficient knock in her direction, she efficiently came between them to use rather dense hands to smash their skulls together.

The sudden puff of tear gas exploded to their right, and Kane jerked, grabbing one of the crates and bulls-eyeing one of the soldiers with a throw before he could ass a second one to the mix. Already, the 'captives' has abandoned their facade and joined the fight.

Lorna eyes stung from the tear gas when she heard the sounds of gun fire. Quickly she held up her hand, towards the sound and concentrated on the bullets, which stopped in midair, hovered for a second before falling harmlessly to the ground.



Scott's squad drives back the attack, forcing the soldiers on their heels.



The team of black clad soldiers moved professionally, covering both the captives and Jean-Phillipe before their leader motioned forward a pair to collect the girls. These were definitely not normal criminals – they looked well trained, disciplined, and unlikely to make mistakes or panic. There was a long moment as the shoved Jean-Phillipe back, and it was clear that the time to move was now.

Scott stood up from his hiding spot, gesturing to Terry and Tabitha. "Meltdown sends some bombs their way, Siryn throw in a sonic scream. We need to throw them onto the back foot, these guys look tough." As he spoke he started moving forward quietly, trying to line up a shot at the pair or soldiers moving towards the girls.

Tabs started rolling bombs out like bowling balls. Most of them were flash-bangs, the easiest to make given their frequency of use. A few extra seconds of concentration made bigger explosions. Those went toward the larger concentrations of soldiers, away from potential innocent parties. She wasn't particularly worried about the soldiers taking permanent damage.

"Watch your ears," Terry warned and shifted her position just enough to cover the widest area while leaving the innocents on the fringes. She braced herself and opened her mouth, expelling a sonic wave that brought those in the direct line of fire to their knees with vertigo, clutching their heads.

Scott smiled as the black-clad soldiers went reeling backwards under the combined assault of Terry and Tabitha. He unleashed two optical blasts at the pair of soldiers who had broken off from the main group. As they were both thrown back he slunk away through the shadows avoiding the return fire and slowly working his way closer to the young mutants.

Bombs sailed through the air and rolled along the floor as fast as Tabitha could make them. She kept her eye on their team leader, intercepting anyone who turned attention to him with a particularly nasty bomb. Her lips twitched in a satisfied smirk as the latest one flew off his feet. Nobody was going to touch her boss.

Terry picked her way closer in, turning to look back at Tabitha as one bomb rolled right in front of her. She widened her eyes and said "Hey!" though she smiled a little to take any sting out of it.

Return fire forced them to duck for cover. They didn't know where the explosions were coming from, but they didn't care. Anything ahead of them was a threat. As bullets ripped through the crates around them, one of the men pulled a pair of grenades and tossed them into the murk at the back of the warehouse, hoping simply to flush out their attackers. Over by the decoy hostages, they had engaged the ones closest and their leader, but plume of tear gas started to billow around them from a canister dropped into their midst.

Scott threw himself backwards trying to get some cover between him and the grenades thrown by the black clad soldiers. He launched an optic blast at the grenades hoping to bounce them further away from his position. His attack attracted the attention of a few of the soldiers and he scrambled to get away from their fusillade of fire.

Tabs ducked her head in apology and tried to be more careful about bomb placement. That was okay with her; it just meant she had more time to punch people. It was different with the leather gloves of her uniform, there was significantly less pain in her knuckles. She'd have to remember that.

Terry got a lungful of tear gas after inhaling to launch another sonic song. The gas made her eyes water and double over coughing as she ducked behind a crate until she could get her breath and reorient herself. She quickly recovered enough to inch her way around the perimeter of the fight until she found a group of enemies taking cover. Instead of aiming for them, she narrowed her vocal focus into a a lance and aimed for their cover, splintering it.

The soldiers scattered, still firing but becoming quickly aware that their position was going increasingly tenuous. Half of their numbers were already down, and despite the quality of the training and the discipline, they couldn't help to match the power of the mutants.

Scott grimaced as the soldiers scattered, he had wanted to capture all of them if they could. The more of the soldiers they captured the more chances they had to figure out what was going on. Gesturing to Terry and Tabitha he fired a series of optical blasts at the scattering soldiers harassing them as he slipped out of cover and over to the captives.

Taking the cue from their team leader, Tabitha made her bombs scary and flashy in an attempt to herd the soldiers. She kept Scott in her periphery, Terry in a clear line of sight. She tried to keep her actions in line with Terry to ensure nobody escaped.