xp_logs | Genosha: Onwards To Victory: Omens In Battle

The escaped prisoners are attacked in the cellblock, but their powers change the odds tremendously.

"Halt!"

The command came from the railing above the holding area, only this time instead of prison guards and Magistrates, the people holding the guns were Special Forces. Military, heavily armed, uniformed in black with face protection that also made them anonymous. They ranged out above the group of mutants, semi-automatic weapons at the ready. Others appeared at the doors, blocking all exits. They were ducks in a barrel.

A far-away smile crossed Amanda's face and her feet sank into the concrete floor. "Haller," she said quietly, almost conversationally. "You get the other half." Then she clapped her hands together, a shielding spell shimmering into existence in a half-dome over the group.

Just as the last word fell from Amanda's mouth, the Special Forces operatives opened fire. They had come expecting resistance, and with the Citadel under attack they were taking no chances.

They had not expected to find themselves facing fully empowered captives.

Thousands of bullets hammered against overlapping shields of invisible telekinesis and semi-visible magic with no more effect than a spring rain. The return of Amanda's abilities had replenished her stores -- and the return of Haller's had brought a cold, hard smile.

Terry blinked and winced at the sudden barrage of gunshots, though the expression morphed into a grin held back only by clamping her teeth on her lower lip for a second. She had not been entirely sure the damage from the power loss would be reversible, and was more than happy to test the recovery. She slid to the front of the group and knelt out of the line of fire from behind, trusting in the others' shielding while getting clear of her teammates both for their benefit and hers. She settled and sucked in and released several breaths before focusing the last one into a wide arc of sound that pushed past the barriers and slammed into the crowd facing them, tearing the bottoms out of the soldier's stomachs and tipping some of them sideways. Or at least making them feel like that. Vertigo's a bitch.

"Mutants are active! I repeat, prisoners are active!" Their commander called out, before a charge chain link struck him in the side of the head and killed him instantly. Remy was moving slowly, favouring his uninjured side.

The first knife appeared in Marie-Ange's hand, a duplicate of the ones in her now visible arm tattoo. The second and third and fourth and tenth and twenty-seventh and more dropped out of empty air, more swords than knives, falling point down into necks and backs and shoulders of the standing Magistrates, and the softer parts of the ones knocked down by Terry's scream. The blades dissolved after impact, leaving wet messy wounds coated in a greyish slime, and further puddles of the same on the floor.

Scott's eye started to glow red and a slow grin slowly spread over his face. Taking a quick look at the magistrates he unleashed a series of 5 optical blasts which he sent bouncing off the walls working their way up to smash into the magistrates by the railing. The blasts swept the feet out from a cluster of the guards leaving them in a sprawled pile on the floor. Satisfied that they weren't going to be getting up anytime soon he steadied himself against the wall, he was weaker than he had expected after being cooped up in the prison, he'd need to be careful not to overstress himself till he managed to get into the sun to recharge.

Lex watched the carnage unfold, looking for his target of opportunity. He saw a man trying to call for reinforcements on a radio and decided to start there. He felt the presence of countless electrical systems - in the form of the magistrate's personal radios - as he found his way to the one the unlucky bastard held, and he increased the power to each as he fed power into the main radio. He could have done it with any of the others, but he'd chosen the man at the back. The one wearing officer's insignia.

With a snicker Lex rerouted the current from the battery into a small feedback loop that made the radio explode next to the man's head. He wouldn't die from the blast, but it would leave him partially deaf for a while. The static feedback from the exploding radio rang out through all of the ones tied into it and he watched with pleasure as the magistrates howled with pain. It was a satisfying display.

Tabitha built a bomb, filling it with as much air as she could muster. It filled her hands, feeling a little bit like a bowling ball. She smirked. What an excellent idea.

She lobbed it along the floor, between the feet of a cluster of magistrates. When it hit about the middle, she detonated. Magistrates went flying. It was very difficult to resist the urge to shout "Strike!"

Grabbing Doug, Clarice created a portal around them to catch any stray bullets. Bullets were bad, especially when Doug was involved. "Weapon?" she asked him, already shifting her portal so they could do just that. Doug needed something more useful than hand-to-hand.

Doug nodded sharply, words unnecessary. But when Clarice opened a portal behind one of the Magistrates in the rear, rather than pulling the man through and relieving him of his weapon, he went headlong through, into a small knot of men. He moved up to the one who'd had his back to the portal, and got an arm around his neck in a chokehold, while his other hand reached down for the sidearm the man was carrying in a holster.

shifting weight for stomp to instep but bluff attack expecting me to shift hips backwards bringing head closer for true strike backward headbutt ignore bluff and buttstroke pistol to temple then-

Doug's brain finally felt like it was working at a normal speed again. In fact, with the change from powers off to powers on, it almost felt like it was working faster, like when he'd been touched by Fabian Cortez, or when Emma had pruned away all of his 'distractions' during Day Zero. The now dazed Magistrate was a body shield, and Doug had no compunctions about using him as such as he picked off the man's compatriots. One, two, three, four, and then his forearm flexed and crushed the windpipe of his 'shield'. The man's automatic weapon was plucked out of his hands as he fell, and the pistol was discarded. No belt on prison jumpsuits to stash it in.

While the bulk of the group worked on killing the attackers, Korvus made himself useful in a decidedly less violent way. He sprinted under the railing and against the wall as shots broke out, following it where he safely could to push lines of soldiers back out of the room and into the hallway before shutting the door on them. It would add to the confusion and control the traffic the others had to deal with.

"Something isn't right here." Remy said, pausing behind cover next to Scott and Haller. "Why send in ordinary Magistrates to stop a prison break after dey know we active? Where's de mutate backup?" Maybe he was wrong and the X-Men had been more successful than they anticipated, drawing their reserves down lower than they'd dare hope. But it still didn't fit in Remy's mind. The Magistrate forces were already badly chewed up and worse, and yet they wouldn't retreat, as if paying for keeping them here with their lives, waiting for something.

He shook his head and muttered, half to himself. "Something is coming."