Genosha - Step by Step: Fight on the Roof

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

The rendez-vous point at the GBC is compromised by the arrival of Mutate 1337 and a team of Magistrates.


The two groups had just met up to coordinate their escape when suddenly a team of Magistrates swarmed the roof, surrounding them. They had pistols but weren't firing yet at the risk of hitting their own men, closing in on the mutants instead with their batons. A lone female figure stood among the advancing group of soldiers- Sarah Vale.

Angelo took one look at Sarah, taking in the shaved head and tattoo with a scowl, then turned back to the others. "From what Mutate 17 said, one of those guys will be Sarah's handler. Take him down and she's lost."

It didn't take long for Sarah to assess Jean as the alpha threat amongst the group, so the very first move on her part was to shut down Jean's powers and to keep them locked down while they dealt with the rest. It required a lot of concentration on her part - Jean was no weak mutant, after all - but with the remainder of her focus and the help of the henchmen she was confident she would make her handler proud.

"I'm not the lost one here. I strongly suggest you surrender immediately and allow Genoshan justice to run its course. I can assure you that justice shall be far more merciful and swift than any I will hand out should you resist." She grinned wickedly at them, arms crossed and waiting for their decision.

Putting her hand to her head, Jean's eyes started to flutter. She felt a buzzing in her head that sounded like the sound electronics made when they were running--except it seemed to resonate through her.

"Something's--" The familiar connections of the others flickered in and out before cutting out completely.

"Something's wrong with my powers."

Finding the way through the vents had luckily not been too hard. It was a fairly simple matter of going straight up and then hunting around a little till she found an exit. Arriving there Sooraya paused for a few moments, giving herself a few seconds to take in the situation. Which turned out to be a lucky choice when she saw the group of Magistrates accompanied by a mutate on the roof. Remaining low to the ground she poured out of the grate as silently as possible, remaining low, hopefully out of view of the Magistrates.

Jean-Paul didn't know Sarah. He had no emotional connection to her, but he knew that wasn't true for everyone. Angelo had mentioned taking out her handler - if someone was doing something that interfered with Jean's powers, then the chances were it was either another suppressor. He lifted himself just slightly from the top of the roof. Not a suppressor, then. That didn't mean whatever was messing with Jean wouldn't decide to mess with everyone else.

After signalling to Angelo that he was going to do something - he did. Moving faster than the speed of sound often came in handy. He flew up straight, then arched over and headed for the few Magistrates behind Sarah, thinking one of them, perhaps, was the handler and he could take them out, hopefully, before whatever affected Jean began affecting him. He hit two before they had time to turn their weapons on him, their pistols clattering loudly against the roof.

Maddie dropped to the ground as she saw one the pistols sliding across the roof and stopping only a few yards from where she hung back from the fighting. Scurrying on her hands and knees toward it, the sounds of chaos around disappeared as every breath she took, every heartbeat echoed loudly in her head. Every foot felt like ten, and the few seconds it took to reach the gun seemed to stretch forever.

She reached out, and breathed a sigh of relief as her hand wrapped around the cool medal. Her thoughts raced and her hands shook; she needed to gain control of the pistol, and fast.

"Put the gun down." Maddie whipped her head to face the speaker. Two Magistrates stood over her, guns drawn, looking like they were ready to shoot first and ask later. They had managed to sneak up on her while she was trying to ready the pistol to fire. She hadn't even had time to switch off the safety. But these guys clearly meant business, and Maddie was in no mood to die today, so she lay the pistol on the ground.

Shit had just gotten really, really real.

One of the Magistrates kicked the gun away. "Hostile neutralized," the other said and paused as if listening to a reply.

"Kill her."

Those two words were enough to get Sooraya moving immediately. Tendrils of fiery anger shot through her as she rose up from the ground. No one was dying on her watch, especially not one as young as Maddie. She rushed forward, imposing herself between the two Magistrates and Maddie as a whirling, stinging cloud of sand.

Various small tendrils immediately lashed out, aimed at their hands in the hope they would drop their weapons and at other various parts of their bodies, in the hope of driving them back and away from Maddie. Even though she could not speak in sand form, the message was clear: "Do not touch her!"

Maddie backed away, watching in awe as the sandstorm attacked the two Magistrates. Their arms covered their mouths, muffling the sounds of their coughs as they stumbled blindly backwards, hands swatting at the dust as it encircled them, the cloud growing larger as it whipped up dirt from the roof.

The diversion was enough for Maddie to grab the gun and settle it comfortably in her hand, just in time to look up and see the two men coming toward her once more. Their initial reaction was not long-lived (they were soldiers after all) as they pushed forward, eyes red and stinging, their guns focused on the redhead once more.

Sooraya growled silently as she willed the particles that made up her sand form to move faster, increasing their stinging effects. If she increased the speed much more, they'd become sharp enough to cut, but she was trying to avoid a repeat of what had happened with Mahad. More tendrils shot out, hitting the Magistrates on every place where it could hurt. Armor covered much of their bodies, but it could not protect them everywhere.

Slowly one of them stumbled back once more, vigorously rubbing his eyes, trying to get rid of the stinging sand. The gun dropped from his hand and that was what made Sooraya decide to risk it. The others were far too engaged with their own opponents to help and she needed to take them down before they got through to Maddie or even worse in a way, before Maddie would be forced to use the weapon in her hands.

She focused her attention on the other Magistrate for a moment and rushed downwards, forcing herself under his shoes and pulling away just as quickly again, sending him to the ground and hitting his head on the pavement, leaving him stunned.

Maddie aimed her gun at the guard who was still standing, but there was no one there. The man had just vanished, probably into the fray to go concentrate on another target. She sighed in relief and scooted further away from the main din.

"Gimme that you little mutant bitch," Maddie heard in her ear as a hand wrapped around her left wrist. She gritted her teeth as the Magistrate pressed firmly on her pressure point, and fought as hard as she could to keep from dropping the gun. If she dropped it, she knew she was dead.

"Sooraya," she called out, hoping her friend was able to hear in her sand form. "Soo-." The Magistrate's other hand clamped over her mouth.

"Shut up, you little cunt."

Sooraya 'whirled' around around when she heard Maddie calling her name. If she had been in human form, adrenaline would have raced through her, but now the only sign was were the particles of her sand form moving very erratically and speeding up even more. She had to be careful here though, otherwise she would hurt Maddie.

But she was already moving forward without thinking, fighting to keep the panic leashed. Maddie was fairly short, so aiming at the area around her head meant there would be less risk of hurting her. One tendril lashed out at his eyes, hoping to completely blind him, while other while other tendrils lashed an this exposed face, really scraping and scouring this time.

The man screamed suddenly and he let go of Maddie, stumbling backwards again, but Sooraya did not stop. She had to get him away from the young girl now and for good. But she had seen a possible solution. There was a lower roof next to the building and if she could drop him there. She lessened the pressure on his face and lashed out with more whips, hitting wherever she could. His exposed face, his hands, the places where his clothes had torn, his vulnerable neck...

Suddenly the Magistrate went to his knees, falling down on the ground, his hands grabbing frantically for his throat. Something red oozed through his fingers and his head also hit the roof and his body became unnaturally still.

He was dead. Callisto didn't even have to look to know that - she'd heard the terminal crunch of skull on unforgiving concrete, but she looked round anyway from across the chaos on the roof, lifting a hand to connect squarely with the face of the magistrate who apparently thought he could sneak up behind her. Broken nose. And blind for a couple. Check. The whirls of dust were slowing slightly now, rippling in eddies, withdrawing from the prone figure. It was impossible to read what Sooraya might be feeling at that moment, of course, given she, y'know, didn't have a face an' all, but Callisto's jaw tightened as she took in the scene, and just for a split second she was back in Sri Lanka, that young soldier lying on the ground beneath her, blood frothing up out of his mouth.

Whirling round, Callisto landed a roundhouse kick to the side of her would-be attacker's head that sent him flying into another magistrate, both of them toppling to the ground.

They're like dominoes, kid. After the first one, the rest just come tumbling down, one after the other. You'll lose count.

Sam had looked over as he'd heard some of the men threaten Maddie but he'd been tied up with a couple of Mutate 1337's lackeys jumping him. He'd struggled to get free but wasn't able to, not until he took to the air, one goon on each arm, flying into a nearby wall to knock them off of him as they smashed hard against its surface. He then turned in midair to see Sooraya had stepped in and taken command of the situation. Before he could say or do anything further, he was wracked with pain and fell hard to the roof, perilously close to the edge, paralyzed by the mutate's attack.

Mutate 1337 was getting annoyed by her henchmen's lack of success. "Enough. I grow tired of this." No longer content to just watch them fail, she'd swatted Cannonball out of the sky and turned around to see who her next target would be.

Jean was really beginning to be beyond annoyed at people dampening her powers. This was a more invasive type of dampening, however, as the buzz was really starting to give her a headache and made it hard for her to concentrate. It disoriented her to the point where everything happened in a blur of movement, screams of men, people she knew, people she didn't. A couple of the magistrates came at her and she managed to duck the blow of one only to walk into another as a fist connected with her eye, causing an explosion of pain as she hit the ground.

Angelo darted over to stand protectively over Jean, returning the blow that had downed her just as hard and following it up with a gut shot to the magistrate. "Didn't your mama teach you not to hit women?"

Artie had been tracking the movements of the remaining magistrates and he frowned, enclosing the heads of three of them in black, opaque globes. It was such a simple image that he could keep it following them, blocking their vision even as they moved, staggering blindly, one moving toward him. He had his stolen knife and he just reacted, self defense training coming together again to kick the man's feet out from under him before stabbing him with the knife and leaving a long deep cut on the magistrate's stomach. He'd think about it later.

Grunting as he rolled onto his back, moving away from the edge of the roof, Sam blinked and shook his head, trying to coax his vision from seeing double. Hopefully he wouldn't end up with a concussion out of it, and as it was he'd gotten his bell rung pretty hard. He got to his feet shakily, thankfully unmolested by any of the other Magistrates who were all otherwise engaged or down now.

Cannonball was off of her radar now, even though Mutate 1337 saw him getting to his feet. One of her Magistrates would deliver a coup de grace once they were free, she figured. Jean was down as well, it seemed to be going well for them. With that many mutants down it seemed logical to loosen her power dampening on Jean and use it to shut down more of the others to bring the battle to a close. Mutate 1337 did just that, but before turning her focus onto another mutant she smirked and lashed out at Jean one more time, the psychic equivalent of a hard slap on the face, adding insult to injury as it were.

Angelo had seen Jean-Paul coming in to land but still blinked at the sheer speed of the assault. Throwing the Magistrate he'd just punched into one of his colleagues, he raced forwards to join and support his friend.

Considering the complete lack of reaction that Jean-Paul had received from the mutate, he could only deduce that he had not, in fact, found her handler amongst the men he'd been dealing with behind her and so he thought to add his support to those dealing with her frontal assault. Which was, of course, when he started to feel a strange buzzing in the back of his mind. He blinked, still moving at speed, and it took him several long moments to realize he was actually slowing down. The white noise wasn't so loud as to be completely debilitating, but it left him unable to concentrate. Cursing everything about Genosha, the Quebecois felt the entirety of his weight hit his feet for the first time in decades as his own powers began to flicker alarmingly.

Things were going according to plan, it was only a matter of time now before the battle was done. Mutate 1337 grinned, pleased that they'd wrangled in the terrorists. Her handler was going to be oh so proud of her, and she took a moment to communicate with her powers to advise of the battle's status. For good measure while doing so she knocked Cannonball back to his knees, just because she could.

It felt like a radio signal, as thought cut through the buzzing static. Jean's eyes flickered toward a telephone cable that was mounted to the wall.

Can-- Cannonb--ll I have an idea.

From his position on his knees Sam stole a glance over at Jean, then realized she'd been speaking to him telepathically. He stayed down, not wanting to attract further attention.

I'm all ears, Jean. What can I do? Things were going downhill fast and Sam was open to any and all suggestions as to how they could take down their former - and hopefully future - fellow mutant.

"Listening" to her plan, Sam eyed the distance between him and Mutate 1337 and calculated roughly how long it'd take him to blast across the distance. When the telephone cable Jean had been eyeing made its move through her TK he leaped into action, blasting just behind it. The cable snaked its way around Mutate 1337's ankles several times before knotting itself tightly, and just as it finished the task Sam collided with her, sending her flying over the edge of the building.

Angelo finished doing something painful that could only be classed as 'fighting dirty' to a magistrate, then looked up, only looking twice at what had happened to Sarah to check the cable was holding her weight. "Looks like everybody's here, can we go now?"

After dispatching a final Magistrate with vicious elbow to the face, Jean-Paul looked and saw the remaining forces either retreating entirely or paying far more attention to the mutate who'd gone over the side of the building than to their group. The interference with his powers seemed to have ceased, and so he nodded. "Oui, now would be good." Looking toward Jean, the Quebecois said, "I can take two, if it makes things easier for you. Artie and Maddie might be best, since they are smaller."

"That'd be great, thanks," Jean said as she finally climbed to her feet. If her eye hadn't already started to swell shut she would've felt like it was about to pop out. Wonderful.

"I can take Angelo and Callisto. Either way, faster would be better," she added as she glanced over the edge. They'd be here soon.

As soon as the others had left the roof Sooraya followed them, streaking away from the roof where the Magistrate still lay, his unseeing eyes 'staring' at the heavens above him...