X-Men: Joyful NoiXe - First Avenue

[x-bevatron.livejournal.com]

On the second night of the concerts, the Purifiers make their move. Jean-Phillipe and Scott deal with a clump of them as the crowd starts to panic.


One of Jean-Phillipe's boots kept time with the driving rhythm and pulsing bass coming from the stage, and looked down from the balcony where he and Scott were to the main floor, where a large mosh pit was taking place. He wished he could be down in it, but he had business. His eyes flicked back to the team leader, who he was keeping very close to. He'd had to abandon Scott in Genosha, and he didn't want to have to do it again.

Scott grimaced slightly at the sounds of the music that floated up to their position above the crowd. It wasn't that the music was bad or he didn't like it, he quickly assured himself, it just wasn't his preferred genre. It definitely wasn't that he was too old. Pulling his mind back to the task that had brought the X-men to this concert in the first place Scott scanned the venue with his eye hoping to catch some sign of the purifiers, instead he caught Jean-Phillipe's eye flicking away from the older man yet again. "Everything ok Bevatron?" he asked as he continued to scan the crowd

"Just watching your back, Cyclops," Jean-Phillipe replied quickly, trusting to the dimness in the club to cover the slight flush that crept up his neck at Scott's noticing. The man had incredible situational awareness, he didn't know why he was surprised by it. He hunched his shoulders forward and turned to scan the people up on the balcony with him and Scott.

Scott smiled and nodded, "I'll trust you to cover me then," he told Jean-Phillipe as he turned his attention back to the crowd in front of him. The one-eyed man knew that since he'd lost his eye his peripheral vision had been relying on his secondary mutation to help cover for his perception loss. He trusted the younger man to watch his back and tell him if he spotted any trouble brewing; and there were few of the younger X-men Scott would rather have at his back in a fight. As his eye flicked over the crowd he noticed a scattered group of fans who seemed uncomfortable and out of place, "Bevatron," he said quietly his focus locked on the crowd pit.

"I see them." It was a handful of men, who all seemed to shy away from any kind of physical contact with the obvious mutants around them. It appeared that the Purifiers had decided to make good on their threats. Jean-Phillipe peeled off, trusting Scott to keep overwatch, while he tried to make his way quickly to the stairs down to the main floor. He had nearly made it when a series of loud reports went off over the amplified music from the stage, and smoke that was clearly not a stage gimmick began to spread into the crowd. There were a few scattered screams, and then it became a rolling bray of panic as the crush of people tried to all simultaneously rush towards the limited exits. "Merde!" Jean-Phillipe exclaimed as he was suddenly pressed in among the crowd, unable to make his way forward.

Scott cursed softly as he saw the purifiers make their move leave Jean-Phillipe trapped in the crowd, the senior X-man quickly scanned the area for any advantage he could use. Without a clear line of sight on the Purifiers Scott was unwilling to risk a shot unless he had to incase he mistakenly hit a civilian. "I need to drive them out of the crowd," he muttered to himself as hit eye caught sight of the lights and a grin spread over his face. Unleashing a rapid series of blasts Scott shattered a few specific light fixtures, sparks started to fall from the destroyed lights landing around Jean-Phillipe and tracking back to the purifiers. Smiling Scott watched as the crowd scattered away from the sparks, leaving a clear path between his teammate and the purifiers near the stage.

Jean-Phillipe added to the display with small jolts from his power, just enough to encourage the crowd to get out of his way. As he neared the clump of Purifiers, he saw one reach into his windbreaker and begin to pull out a handgun. Abandoning all pretense, Jean-Phillipe broke into a sprint and a running jump, planting both feet firmly in the chest of the man and bearing him to the ground in a jumble of limbs.

From his vantage point Scott saw Jean-Phillipe tackle one of the men as the purifiers went for their guns. Trusting his teammate to deal with his target Scott turned his attention to the other purifiers who were advancing on the younger X-man with their weapons drawn. Unwilling to allow them to start shooting in the packed club Scott took a moment to examine the angles in the room before he launched a series of optical blasts at the walls and ceiling. As the purifiers advanced they found themselves caught in a web of optical blasts as Scott's shots ricocheted around them halting their advance before the next wave of shots from the X-man slammed into their weapons sending them spinning out of their wielders hands, and off across the floor.

Jean-Phillipe's fighting style was...well, to call it a style was giving it too much credit. But the Frenchman had been schooled in brawls in countless dingy taverns around the docks of Marseilles, and he was at his best in the chaos of knees and elbows and whatever was closest to hand. He lashed a leg out from where he had landed on top of the first Purifier, smashing into the knee of a second. As the man staggered and buckled on a leg that no longer held his weight, Jean-Phillipe was rising back to his feet, and clipped him under the chin hard, rendering him unconscious as well. Between him in close, and the force of Scott's beams from afar, they made quick work of their foes, leaving them in unconscious heaps on the floor.

The fight over Scott made his way down fro the balcony to stand next to Jean-Phillipe. "Are you ok?" he asked the younger man glancing at him to make sure his teammate didn't have any obvious injuries.

Jean-Phillipe kept his gaze on the Purifiers. If he actually looked at Scott, he might run the risk of blushing like a schoolboy. "Just fine, Cyclops," he murmured as he bent down to rifle through the jacket of one of the Purifiers.


Dori covers Lorna as she shores up the structural integrity of the club.


The club was crowded and loud and packed with a ton of different smells that Dori didn't know quite what to do with. Especially now that things were actually going wrong.

"I liked this better when it was just listening to bands with my boyfriend!" she said, socking a purifier in the face.

Lifting her arms into the air as she was trying to mend the metals together to keep the structure from collapsing on herself, Dori and others. "You're telling me...at least then the only complaint was that once in a while there was an off key tone of the guitar." Lorna winced a bit but kept strong. "They just keep coming..."

Dori kicked one in the shins, sending the man down to the ground screaming. She couldn't say she felt that sorry for them, "I didn't hear anything that bad," she returned, "Did you watch the Cats Laughing show?" she called pushing another back. They were always so surprised that she was as strong as she was.

"Yup, but is bad that I kept thinking of lolcats when thinking of the band?" Lorna flew up and melded the metals together but it wasn't stable enough to hold together without Lorna's extra help.

"No, I totally was too," Dori said, having to break to kick another guy and then push someone back. Where were all these twits coming from? Did they crawl out of the walls? "Still was a really cool show!"

Lorna managed a smile as she placed another metal beam in place, to keep the roof from caving. "It was. It was. Is everyone out? Or do we still have civilians in?"

Dori looked around, "Looks like it's mostly full of jerkfaces now," she said, "Mostly. Can't really smell the difference between the two."

Lorna looked around herself, "Don't want to let go until I know all it is safe." Not like she was going to kill anyone, mostly like trap people from the roof of the club.

"Well, I'll let you know," Dori said, puching another one in the face, "Promise!"


Laurie does her best to help keep the panicking crowd calm while Korvus addresses the low number of exits in the club.


The cramped concert venue's already dim lighting was darker still, and making things worse, two of the bands had used fog machines. The small fires added smoke to that, and the press of panicking concertgoers was not helping at all. In short, it was loud, crowded and chaotic. Occasionally shouts could be heard, and sirens, and the shrieking of smoke alarms from nearly everywhere in the building.

Laurie stood outside beside Korvus, listening to the chaos inside as she regarded the crowds of people trying to make their way out. The panic had caused them to bunch up around the exits however and there was a real danger that someone would be crushed by those pushing behind them. "We need to get into the middle of that, make it less panicked so we can start directing people properly."

"Agreed. The building is lacking the appropriate amount of exits for this situation." Korvus raised his hand up into the air, open as if he was waiting to catch a baseball. "You are capable of calming people with your mutation, correct? I believe I'm about to startle them... any second now." He waited in position awkwardly for another moment. "Forgive the suspense. I am still new to this."

"I can...although maybe," Laurie didn't finish her caution as the sword appeared in his hand, and she blinked, mind going off track for a moment as she wondered if bi-location was a telekinetic off-shoot, or if Korvus's abilities had something in common with Amanda's or Nico's more magic enhancing mutant abilities. She wondered if Korvus would be opposed to a few experiments along those lines to find out.

Even with the velocity at which Nandaki arrived, Korvus' body didn't react to the impact as it hit his hand. The weapon was indeed nearly weightless to him due to their link. "Please, finish your thought." He said with a smile while lowering his hand. He knew the giant blade was distracting.

"No, no, that's okay," Laurie replied, watching the people who been milling about them as they exited the building start to mill as fast as possible in any direction other then the one she and Korvus were currently standing in. "How about you make a few exits while I calm these people down?"

She reached out as people streamed past, touching wherever she could reach an inch of bare flesh. It had become easier and harder since her powers upgrade, it took even less time now to get someone under the sway of her abilities, but it also meant much more fine control and practice in order not to overdose someone, or accidentally effect someone when she didn't want to. She'd considered wearing gloves, but something inside refused to back down, she was not going to give up on gaining complete control of what she could do, and that meant not avoiding situations where she needed to use it.

As Laurie began to calm the crowd, Korvus made his way for the wall. The crowd parted for him immediately, giving him quite the wide berth, which allowed him to approach directly and quickly. A few firm raps with his left hand helped him find where the weight bearing supports were so he could avoid them. A quick thrust and twist of Nandaki into the wall and the bricks began to crumble. It only took a moment for him to make a new exit, then he moved on to make another.

"I am so glad I am not responsible for paying for damages," Laurie noted, moving behind Korvus as he made exits, slipping the controls she had on her power to allow it to spread across her skin, her face turning a translucent violet as her pores released calming pheromones into the air around her.

"It's going to be okay," Laurie said to the people now streaming past her. "Just keep moving, there's no reason to be afraid."

After creating the second lane to accommodate more traffic, he moved back toward Laurie. Korvus kept Nandaki up and angled, eyes on the side of the building so he could intervene if any debris began to fall. "Comparatively speaking, this is progressing quite smoothly in light of more recent events."

"It helps that it's physically impossible for people to freak out while in range of the particular pheromones I'm currently putting out," Laurie noted, a slight edge to her expression. This was the first time she'd been in any sort of crisis situation since Genosha, and she'd have been lying if she said using her powers against basically helpless civilians didn't bother her. She knew it was needed, but was what she was currently doing any better then what had been done to her? "But you're right, this feels too easy given recent events."

"Perhaps we were due for a task that is easy and safe." Korvus offered optimistically. A bit of rubble fell but was easily and safely deflected by Nandaki. Though the broad side of the blade had been offered to shield a few of the people escaping, a projected umbrella of blue energy had done the work.

"Please don't say things like that," Laurie replied, waving her hands in an effusive 'quit it' gesture. "Saying things like that leads to vampires, and zombies and people who think jeggings are the height of fashion."

Korvus looked at Laurie curiously for a long moment. "I do not know what a jegging is but I do not imagine fashion problems are comparable to supernatural entities."


Not every person from Xavier's at the concerts is an X-Man. Fred helps get Meggan, Pixie, and Artie out safely.


The main floor of the concert was a chaotic mess of people, everyone shoving against each other trying to escape the venue. Unfortunately, the available exits were sadly limited in the face of such a panic. The likelihood that people could get trampled underfoot grew with each passing moment.

Artie grabbed for Pixie's hand and braced himself against the surging crowd. None of them were particularly large: if they were separated, they'd probably be trampled and none of the three were tall enough to see above the crowd. That hadn't actually been an issue five minutes ago. He flung an image of a phone in front of Pixie's eyes, with the text "call help!!!" under it and more text in front of Meggan's eyes: "can u fly?"

“Yes,” Meggan said with a quick nod at Artie’s floating words, following a quick duck to avoid a stranger’s elbow colliding with her head. Good idea. If she weren’t knocked to the ground by the swell of the increasingly terrified crowd first after another hard shove, she could. She should be able to go high enough up to see how near they were to either escaping the stampede, or to finding someone that they knew. Or for them to see her. “Up enough to see over this crush,” she quickly added, as she moved to do exactly that.

Pixie nodded frantically, fumbling with her phone with one hand while gripping Artie with the other. She hovered up in the air, just a head above the crowd so she could see, as she brought up her contact list on the screen. "Who should I call? Who could come help?"

He gave her an image of Fred. "Him! He was here just before!"

"Oh, right, right, right. Fred!" Pixie's fingers flew over the keypad, scrolling the contact list back up to Fred's number and dial Artie turned his head at the sound of Fred's voice and craning to look, he was able to see him towering over the crowd. He took a deep breath and flung some text up in the air, large and bright neon with an arrow pointing toward the three of them. "FRED. WE'RE OVER HERE. HELP."

“Here we are, over this way,” Meggan shouted out, as she continued to wave her arms along with the others. Floating free of the wave of people, keeping her legs just out of range of scared people that were prone to accidentally grabbing onto or shoving anything in front of them had been no easy task.

Fred spotted Artie's signal, and looked around the crowd, grunting as he tried to figure out what to do. It took him several agonizing seconds to expand his form even more, and slammed his foot down on the ground once he'd pushed himself as far as the safety of those around would allow. Shouting, "EVERYONE MOVE! NOW!" and stomping his foot again did the trick; as panicky and frightened as those around were, they still cleared a path for Fred to meet up with the smaller Mansionites. Craning to look over the smaller trio, Fred did his best to keep the boom in his throat to something a little more friendly, "Are Ya'll Alright....?"

Artie nodded. "were okay. just cant get out of here thru the crowd." He staggered slightly as the near riot around them ebbed and flowed before jabbing a rabbit punch into the solar plexus of a man who tried to push between the three of them and followed it up with an image of something with too many teeth, sending it at the man's eyes. He wasn't going to let the three of them get separated.

"Yeah, we're fine," Pixie agreed, relief shining in her all-black eyes. "I'm glad you're here. Help us get out?"

Artie followed in Fred's wake as they moved toward the exit, trusting to the girls to stay close to him. The crowd got worse and worse as they got closer to the door but well... Fred. He didn't have any warning. None of them did, concert goers, mansionites... Just a flicker of motion too quick to respond to.

None of the mutants noticed the car coming in at high speed, the driver with a death grip on his steering wheel. He let go of the wheel, took a deep breath and pressed the detonator and floored the accelerator.

Fred didn't thinking. Doing that would lead to thoughts like 'What the hell is going on?' and 'Wait, wait! I don't know if this'll kill me'. He had enough time to note that the speeding, hissing, smoking, honking, roaring car was a Volvo, and that it was on a collision course with the X-Kiddies and a few more bystanders. Fred turned on his heel, and yelled back at the car, hoping maybe he could convince the driver that ramming into the huge Cave Troll-looking guy was a bad idea.

He couldn't. There were loud, screeching sounds, like old rusty machines. Those closet to him could hear the horrible squelching noises of Fred's layers of flesh folding and muffling the light and explosion...and the sounds of him continuing to shout...

The smoking, almost alien looking remains of the car hissed and popped around Fred. He turned back to his group, blinking and heaving with breath, his body glittering with small flecks of tiny debris...

"Ya'll...all...right...?"

“Yes,” Meggan quickly assured him, confirming she was not hurt after that. There wouldn’t have been time (or room) for anyone to dodge, so she was nothing but grateful for the save.

"Mmmhmm," said Pixie, nodding. Everything had happened so fast. One minute they were enjoying the concert, and seemingly the next they were outside as Fred absorbed an explosion. She'd already almost forgotten about being trapped in the concert hall with the mad rush of bodies. "Artie?"

He nodded. "yeah. I think."

"What just happened? Were we just attacked by terrorists?" Pixie asked as the events of the evening began to click in place in her head. She suddenly felt ill and wrapped her arms around herself.

Fred shook some of the sharp, metallic debris from his hands before patting the pink haired girl lightly on the shoulder. His ears were still ringing, but it didn't take hearing every word from her to know she was more than a little upset. With the explosion still bouncing around his head, Fred had difficulty controlling the volume of his voice, "We're fine, Pinky. We're all A-OK. Let's get outta here and find the others, yeah...?"


Terry and Lex act as the mobile reserve, and go a-hunting when they get a report that Risman is at neither of the concert locations.