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xp_logs2012-08-30 11:10 am
x-firestar.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2012-08-30 11:10 am
Half An Ocean Away: The Fight
Wildchild vs. a telekinetic.
Kyle had his back to one of the many identical dividers in this bit of sewer - he was pretty sure it was one of those 'lots of water lines come into meet and then go off to where-ever sewer pipes go to make giant sewer pipes and also alligators and those creepy-ass albino fish with no eyes. "You are one homely fucker, dude." He'd been chased, briefly, but had the advantage in speed - even if this wasn't his home turf, it was a lot easier to run on uneven and not well lit terrain on all fours. Two whole extra limbs for balance and agility, and on top of that, he could see a lot better in the dark - he hoped -than this guy could. "I mean, I'm not gay or anything but I would not fuck you."
The annoying feral may have had the advantage of speed, but Simon knew these sewers like the back of his hand. He could navigate them blindfolded. He focused on the echoes of his opponent's voice, attempting to track them back to their source. "Well isn't that just such an insult coming from a bloody Yank," he shot back at last, tendrils of invisible energy reaching out to wrap around a piece of nearby debris that then found itself being whipped in Kyle's direction.
Kyle hit the ground, though the block of concrete and tile grazed his back, scraping a tear along his jacket and he snarled out an expletive. "At least my teeth aren't fucking nasty!" He growled as he got back up. "They have dentists in jail, man, stand down and you'll get three hots and a cot and dental care." He kept low to the ground, listening for the splish-tap of footsteps in the puddles.
The sound of the curse bouncing off the walls and columns told Simon what his eyes couldn't; that he had landed a hit. He smirked as he took a step forward, following the direction in which he'd sent the concrete flying. "Stand down?" He scoffed. "The request of a man who knows he can't win." A taunt. As he spoke and moved, more concrete raised itself into the air, following behind him like a marching band following its conductor. He wouldn't waste his ammo, though. Not until he was close enough to see and do actual damage.
It was pure luck, rather than conscious effort, that had kept Simon from stepping in a puddle up to that point. Not far from Kyle now, luck failed him as his foot hit water.
"Dumbass." Kyle muttered. Psis were so freaking -arrogant- sometimes. Ooh, look at me, I can move shit with my brain. Half the time they never seemed to be able to cope with regular old normal things, like being punched in the mouth or kicked in the balls or - like in this case - six and almost a half feet of muscle and fangs and claws coming at them on all fours. This was going to suck, hard - Kyle knew that - the real trick was making it really suck more for the other guy.
Full on charge. Well, he hadn't been expecting that. Pure instinct had Simon's telekinesis lashing out along with his pieces of cement ammo. Instinct wasn't always a person's friend - this knee-jerk reaction cost him what should have been a couple of good blows as the rocks whizzed by his opponent. But for all the misses, there was one good one that managed to land true to its target, barreling into Kyle.
Taking a piece of rock - concrete, asphalt, something, it smelled and felt and hurt like rock - to the shoulder was not in the least bit fun or comfortable. Kyle went down in a tumble, rolling forward and coming up with one arm hanging limply. He wrenched and the pop of his shoulder going back into the socket echoed in the tunnel. "Hey, dickhead. I've fought and -won-against guys who make you look like a toddler." He shook out his injured arm as it went warm and tingly -healing factor kicking in to take care of the dislocation.
"Tch." Bloody Yanks, always so full of themselves. Bunch of wankers. To make up for what he'd lost previously, Simon reached out to find what else he had at his disposal. He was quite pleased when he found an old, loose pipe. And while Kyle was fixing his arm, a new barrage of concrete - and metal flew at him, this one more directed than the last.
Throwing up an arm to block the flying pieces of rock got Kyle a nasty scrape along his wrist, pain in his hand that he was pretty sure was going to mean he'd have to have his fingers re-broken and set properly and a pipe to the ribs. He kept stalking forward, ignoring the throbbing in his side and the slight numbness in his arm. "Don't you tch me. You're really bad at this." He said, shaking his fingers out -the claws wouldn't go back in, but that didn't much matter. He needed them out. "What else you got?"
Bloody hell, this tosser wouldn't stay down. Simon gritted his teeth together, a TK wall forming in front of him. He shoved the wall forward, ignoring that this was going to cost him a good deal in terms of energy and that the wall would likely dissipate once it hit Kyle. He wasn't used to his opponents fighting back like this.
The smell hit him first. The wall of force carried with it the compressed air and dank sewer water and some of the muck coating the walls and it was concentrated nasty. Kyle gagged as it assaulted his nose, and covered it by growling. It was not so different than being battered by one of Crystal's gale-force winds, without the finesse, and his claws scraped against the ground as he tried to fight against the telekinetic wall. He was pushed back several yards before the force and the smell seemed to fade away. Ahead of him he could see the man - not much of one, close to his own age and definitely looking the worse for his time in the sewers. "One more chance, man. Give it up."
Simon scowled, ignoring the exhaustion threatening to come down on him. Number one rule of a fight: never let the other bloke see that you're weak. "Or what?" He called back cockily.
The running leap, from all-fours and a good ten meters back was impossible looking. Kyle certainly didn't land with any sort of grace, he was sure as hell not Catseye, or even his own girlfriend, but it did put him an arm's length away from the other man. "Or I kick your ass." From all fours he planed one hand, and swung his legs, an ugly-looking and graceless sweep meant to get his opponent on the ground where opponents belonged.
Given the distance, the attack hadn't exactly been expected. Simon managed but the barest sweep of his hand, meant to send his opponent flying - though it clearly didn't have that effect - and before he knew what was happening, he was on the ground, his head spinning from its forced contact with the concrete that had previously been under his feet, and his surprised yell was cut off when he landed.
The twist and kip-up felt weirdly familiar, and Kyle's aim was poor, like he'd be fighting someone built very differently - smaller, perhaps, as he twisted to pin the other man. Instead of landing atop him, he came down knees first into the telekinetic's legs. It had the intended effect, even if it was ugly and he grabbed at the man's arms to pin them.
"Argh!" The cry of pain bounced off the walls. Simon struggled furiously, his TK lashing out, but with his currently weakened state, it seemed to have the barest effect, pushing the feral back for only a moment each time before he recovered. Not that it mattered; even if Simon could have gotten his opponent off of him, he was pretty sure his legs wouldn't support him; they may not have been broken, but they bloody hurt.
For all that the guy was tall, he was skinny, and Kyle hauled him up onto his feet without much in the way of effort. "This is how this works. Either you give up, or I break both your arms." He yanked hard on the arm he had pulled behind Simon's back until the other man yelped again. "Can't much throw rocks at me if I'm dislocating your elbow, huh?"
A low growl escaped Simon's lips on the heels of the pained yelp. There was no verbal surrender, but his body slackened under Kyle's grip. One victory for the Yanks wouldn't matter much. Fin and the others would wipe the floor with the bugger's little friends.
"See, you can learn." Kyle said. "I get even one hint you're making rocks fly around again..." He dug his claws into Simon's forearm. "Just don't even think about it."
Penance and Nightcrawler square off against a super-strength mutant.
"Please, you do not have to do this," Yvette told the large man as she dodged out of the way of a heavy blow. "All we want to do is take Chloe home."
The response she got to this was another swing of the man's meaty fist. "Don't know why you're bothering," he snarled, annoyed. The red girl was quick and hard to get to a bead on. "She's just a human, who cares about her anyways?"
"Many people care about her", Kurt said flatly, appearing behind the man to grab his fist and haul it back with a wiry grip. "Including us, Firestar especially."
Yvette sighed. "They never listen," she complained, diving through the man's feet and twisting around to slash at the back of his legs. Hamstringing him would hopefully slow him down.
He yelled in surprise and pain, stumbling forward a bit. "Bloody hell!" He growled, turning the best he could. "You'll pay for that!" And he half-dove, half-stumbled towards Yvette and Kurt, ignoring the pain the movement caused.
"Please", Kurt said with a roll of his eyes, dodging out of the way. "If you touch Penance here, you will only bring yourself more pain. And as for me, you will have to catch me first."
"This will be much better if you just let us find Chloe," Yvette reiterated. Another wild swing interrupted her and she scrabbled up the bricked wall of the tunnel, holding on by her fingers and toes. "We do not want to hurt you, really."
With the little one up a wall, he turned and focused his attention on Kurt, taking his words as a challenge. "C'mere you bloody yank," he growled, grabbing at Kurt. He was quite pleased when he managed to grab the man's arm, and reared his fist back to take a swing.
"I am German", Kurt retorted, offended, and used the man's grip on him as leverage to swing up and kick him in the face. "And she is not American either, are you deaf?"
"I am surprised he can hear anything, with the cauliflower ears that he has," Yvette observed from her position on the arched ceiling of the tunnel. As Kurt's kick landed and the man staggered back, she took the opportunity to drop down onto his head, covering his eyes and nose with her large, splayed hands.
"Argh!" He reached behind him, trying to get a grip on Yvette and only succeeding in cutting his hands and fingers. "Bloody hell, piss off!" He shook his entire body, desperately attempting to throw her off.
Yvette clung on, holding tightly. "This one is not going down so easily!" she called to Kurt. "I think we need to be taking him out of this fight, yes?"
Kurt nodded grimly, and the next moment the man found himself standing alone and disoriented on one of the river's many bridges.
Back in the tunnels, sneezing a little at the cloud of brimstone their return had created, Yvette gave Kurt a wan smile. "Some people do not know when to be giving up, do they?"
"He is just lucky I did not drop him in the river", he said with a wry smile in return, already turning to move on down the tunnels.
Firestar vs. a waterbender.
With the fight swinging into action, Angel turned to the mutant closest to her, blue flames already dancing around her fingers. "I could say we can do this the easy way or the hard way," she told her opponent conversationally. "But I'm pretty sure we both know what your answer to that would be."
The young man grinned, but not in a friendly way. "That's what you think is it, sunshine?" he replied. He raised his hands, fingers splayed, and made a clenching gesture with both fists. There was a loud groan from the pipes above them and suddenly they burst, water pouring down on top of Angel in a torrent. "What fights fire? Ooh, I dunno. Maybe water?" he mocked over the sound of the water gushing down.
There was no time for surprise as the water poured down on her, soaking her instantly and extinguishing the flames. Angel dodged out of the way of the waterfall a moment too late, shaking the water out of her eyes. She would get the person who was the exact opposite of her. "Bring it on, dude," she called as the air around her began to heat up, the water evaporating off her skin and uniform. She sounded cockier than she felt. The ceiling was too low to allow her to fly, so she didn't even have the air as an advantage. She was a sitting duck for this guy to go fire hose on.
"You Yanks," he sneered, making another gesture. Several rope-like tendrils of water rose up from the growing puddle at their feet, wrapping themselves around Angel's arms and legs in an attempt to immobilise her. "You think you're so bloody great, coming here and telling us how to do things. We got along fine without you!"
Angel decided against pointing out that living in a sewer wasn't fine. "What I can say, it's a complex," she said as the tendrils of water attempted to wrap around her and evaporated. The distance between them wasn't doing her any favors - in the small space, a misplaced shot could end up hurting a friend. She was going to need to get closer to do any damage. She started to dart forward, diving in headlong.
The water on the ground rose up underneath her in a wall, hitting her solidly in the torso. "Bugger off," he growled, sounding frustrated - usually people went down after the first couple of hits.
In retrospect, Angel would realize she should have seen that coming. "Oof!" She groaned as she hit the floor, shaking her head and pushing herself up again. "Sorry mate," she mocked as she kneeled. "But American education skims over the art of how to give up." Headlong didn't work. So what was Plan B, exactly? Improvise. Of course. "Hey, look." She held up her hands, showing the fire that was forming over each palm. "Fire!" One fireball flew at the ground, exploding on impact and spraying water. At the same time the second fireball arched through the air, and Angel flew out of her crouch position, using the water and lack of traction to help her skid along as she tried to get around the man.
Instinct took over as the fireball came towards him. Lee threw his arms up protectively over his face, a wave of water sweeping up to mimic the movement. The fireball hit the water-wall with an explosion of steam and fizzled out, but the cloud it created left him momentarily blinded to Angel's location and before he realised it, she'd gotten behind him.
It wasn't very often things went exactly as they were supposed to, Angel thought triumphantly as she skidded to a halt behind the man, now significantly closer - and able to do more damage. "Boo," she said simply, and a wave of heat and fire exploded in the tiny space between them.
With a choked-off cry, Lee went flying across the small space, crashing against the tunnel wall with a thud. The impact knocked the wind out of him and he lay in a crumpled heap in the muddy water, gasping for air.
Angel watched the man go flying with some amount of interest. She'd kind of hoped that blow would knock him out, but oh well, can't have everything in life, right? Plan B still rocked, she decided as she made her way over to her fallen opponent, a bubble of warmth wrapping around her and extending out, catching the man, and the temperature in the air around them started to kick up. When in doubt, fall back on the basics. Heat exhaustion was always a great way to knock someone out.
In his already weakened state and with his affinity for water, Lee wasn't able to hold out long. The gasps for air became panting for breath that wasn't super-heated, and before long, he passed out, the ground beneath him bone-dry from Angel's heat-bubble.
All right, one down - Angel's thought process ground to a halt as a very disturbing realization barreled into her. "We're in a sewer!" She exclaimed, gagging. No amount of showers would ever make this okay. "Gyah...Okay Angel, focus. One down. Time to go find Chloe."
Cyclops and Polaris face down with Fin.
Scott gestured Lorna to circle around as they approached Fin, "We don't have to fight," he told the young mutant. "Give up the girl and come in with us and no-one needs to get hurt."
Fin was in his element, he had the whole thing planned out. He stood there, lazily, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slacked, "Man, what a bother. You idiots really want to do this?" he asked, his tone completely bored. "I'm not the arseholes you should be fighting." His voice might have been calm, but his eyes smoldered.
Lorna walked around, she could feel the metals around her she could use that to her advantage. "We don't want to do this, but we will do this if we have too."
Scott nodded, his eye starting to glow, "You can still walk away from this Fin, don't do anything stupid."
"Psh," he muttered, his hands still in his sweater. "I'm not the one doing the stupid thing here, mate," Fin said, his eyes moved between the two, "Man, I really hate fighting girls. Greenie, you get one more chance to walk away." Attention turned to Scott, the shadows on the other man aiming his head straight up. The glowing eye was a bit obvious.
"But you have no problem kidnapping girls." Lorna's glared at him, "How civil of you." Her tone was laced with sarcasm. "I guess he wants to do this the hard way."
"Looks that way," Scott replied with a sigh, "Why do they always pick the hard way?"
Fin muttered under his breath and the shadows darted out towards both of them, without him so much as moving, "What waste of time."
The moving shadows threw Scott for a moment, but only a moment before his instincts kicked in an he dived to the side, rolling clear o the shadows path. "Watch out Lorna," he warned.
Lorna flew up to dodge the shadows, taking the metal on her, Lorna sent them flying back to Fin, maybe if she distracted him that would give Scott time to blast him.
It wasn't as if he didn't plan for this. When the glowing eye arsehole moved, it was right into another line of shadows. Think at least two hundred moves ahead. And have a way out should the game change suddenly. All his life people had been underestimating him for one reason or another, so now, Fin was more than able to show that no, he wasn't just some lazy, idiotic freak. Dark eyes looked at the flying metal, all of which stopped, seemingly stuck on it's shadows and in a tug of war with the green haired bint.
"Ain't the hard way for me, tossers. Just a waste of my bloody time."
Scott stared at the suspended metal in alarm, Fin was obviously much more powerful than they had given him credit for if he was able to manipulate so many shadows at once. The X-man smiled, if the boy wanted to show how powerful he is then Scott would be more than willing to obliged. "Polaris more metal, we need to overwhelm him," he shouted as he fired a series of blasts into the ceiling above Fin's head sending a series of stones cascading down at the shadow wielder.
Lorna's eyes started to glow green as she focus on anything metal in their surrounding area. The green magnetic flare ripped apart anything from the walls that it could as she continued struggle against the shadows that were pressing back her precious metals.
While his face didn't show it, Fin was indeed working hard. He still stood there looking bored as he played tug of war with the green haired girl. In the mean time he was going through every outcome he could think of.
"Fifty moves, mate. That's how long until I send your sorry arse packing," he said to Scott. And he started by reaching out with the shadows to pull the red eyed one right into the path of suddenly released flying metal.
"Check."
Scott smiled as Fin tugged him into the middle of Lorna's metal storm, and he span to face the metal unleashing blast after optical blast. As his blasts slammed into the cloud of detritus the started to ricochet bouncing from object to object and pushing them out of the way to fall around the X-man. Freed of the metal Scott's optical blasts bounced of the walls as the ceilings before converging on Fin. The young man found himself pummeled from all directions driving him backwards before leaving the dazed Fin at Lorna's feet. "Check mate."
Lorna could still feel the metal around her and pulled them together towards her - she knelt over Fin. The metals formed around his hands bounding them together. "You wanted to do this the hard way."
Kyle had his back to one of the many identical dividers in this bit of sewer - he was pretty sure it was one of those 'lots of water lines come into meet and then go off to where-ever sewer pipes go to make giant sewer pipes and also alligators and those creepy-ass albino fish with no eyes. "You are one homely fucker, dude." He'd been chased, briefly, but had the advantage in speed - even if this wasn't his home turf, it was a lot easier to run on uneven and not well lit terrain on all fours. Two whole extra limbs for balance and agility, and on top of that, he could see a lot better in the dark - he hoped -than this guy could. "I mean, I'm not gay or anything but I would not fuck you."
The annoying feral may have had the advantage of speed, but Simon knew these sewers like the back of his hand. He could navigate them blindfolded. He focused on the echoes of his opponent's voice, attempting to track them back to their source. "Well isn't that just such an insult coming from a bloody Yank," he shot back at last, tendrils of invisible energy reaching out to wrap around a piece of nearby debris that then found itself being whipped in Kyle's direction.
Kyle hit the ground, though the block of concrete and tile grazed his back, scraping a tear along his jacket and he snarled out an expletive. "At least my teeth aren't fucking nasty!" He growled as he got back up. "They have dentists in jail, man, stand down and you'll get three hots and a cot and dental care." He kept low to the ground, listening for the splish-tap of footsteps in the puddles.
The sound of the curse bouncing off the walls and columns told Simon what his eyes couldn't; that he had landed a hit. He smirked as he took a step forward, following the direction in which he'd sent the concrete flying. "Stand down?" He scoffed. "The request of a man who knows he can't win." A taunt. As he spoke and moved, more concrete raised itself into the air, following behind him like a marching band following its conductor. He wouldn't waste his ammo, though. Not until he was close enough to see and do actual damage.
It was pure luck, rather than conscious effort, that had kept Simon from stepping in a puddle up to that point. Not far from Kyle now, luck failed him as his foot hit water.
"Dumbass." Kyle muttered. Psis were so freaking -arrogant- sometimes. Ooh, look at me, I can move shit with my brain. Half the time they never seemed to be able to cope with regular old normal things, like being punched in the mouth or kicked in the balls or - like in this case - six and almost a half feet of muscle and fangs and claws coming at them on all fours. This was going to suck, hard - Kyle knew that - the real trick was making it really suck more for the other guy.
Full on charge. Well, he hadn't been expecting that. Pure instinct had Simon's telekinesis lashing out along with his pieces of cement ammo. Instinct wasn't always a person's friend - this knee-jerk reaction cost him what should have been a couple of good blows as the rocks whizzed by his opponent. But for all the misses, there was one good one that managed to land true to its target, barreling into Kyle.
Taking a piece of rock - concrete, asphalt, something, it smelled and felt and hurt like rock - to the shoulder was not in the least bit fun or comfortable. Kyle went down in a tumble, rolling forward and coming up with one arm hanging limply. He wrenched and the pop of his shoulder going back into the socket echoed in the tunnel. "Hey, dickhead. I've fought and -won-against guys who make you look like a toddler." He shook out his injured arm as it went warm and tingly -healing factor kicking in to take care of the dislocation.
"Tch." Bloody Yanks, always so full of themselves. Bunch of wankers. To make up for what he'd lost previously, Simon reached out to find what else he had at his disposal. He was quite pleased when he found an old, loose pipe. And while Kyle was fixing his arm, a new barrage of concrete - and metal flew at him, this one more directed than the last.
Throwing up an arm to block the flying pieces of rock got Kyle a nasty scrape along his wrist, pain in his hand that he was pretty sure was going to mean he'd have to have his fingers re-broken and set properly and a pipe to the ribs. He kept stalking forward, ignoring the throbbing in his side and the slight numbness in his arm. "Don't you tch me. You're really bad at this." He said, shaking his fingers out -the claws wouldn't go back in, but that didn't much matter. He needed them out. "What else you got?"
Bloody hell, this tosser wouldn't stay down. Simon gritted his teeth together, a TK wall forming in front of him. He shoved the wall forward, ignoring that this was going to cost him a good deal in terms of energy and that the wall would likely dissipate once it hit Kyle. He wasn't used to his opponents fighting back like this.
The smell hit him first. The wall of force carried with it the compressed air and dank sewer water and some of the muck coating the walls and it was concentrated nasty. Kyle gagged as it assaulted his nose, and covered it by growling. It was not so different than being battered by one of Crystal's gale-force winds, without the finesse, and his claws scraped against the ground as he tried to fight against the telekinetic wall. He was pushed back several yards before the force and the smell seemed to fade away. Ahead of him he could see the man - not much of one, close to his own age and definitely looking the worse for his time in the sewers. "One more chance, man. Give it up."
Simon scowled, ignoring the exhaustion threatening to come down on him. Number one rule of a fight: never let the other bloke see that you're weak. "Or what?" He called back cockily.
The running leap, from all-fours and a good ten meters back was impossible looking. Kyle certainly didn't land with any sort of grace, he was sure as hell not Catseye, or even his own girlfriend, but it did put him an arm's length away from the other man. "Or I kick your ass." From all fours he planed one hand, and swung his legs, an ugly-looking and graceless sweep meant to get his opponent on the ground where opponents belonged.
Given the distance, the attack hadn't exactly been expected. Simon managed but the barest sweep of his hand, meant to send his opponent flying - though it clearly didn't have that effect - and before he knew what was happening, he was on the ground, his head spinning from its forced contact with the concrete that had previously been under his feet, and his surprised yell was cut off when he landed.
The twist and kip-up felt weirdly familiar, and Kyle's aim was poor, like he'd be fighting someone built very differently - smaller, perhaps, as he twisted to pin the other man. Instead of landing atop him, he came down knees first into the telekinetic's legs. It had the intended effect, even if it was ugly and he grabbed at the man's arms to pin them.
"Argh!" The cry of pain bounced off the walls. Simon struggled furiously, his TK lashing out, but with his currently weakened state, it seemed to have the barest effect, pushing the feral back for only a moment each time before he recovered. Not that it mattered; even if Simon could have gotten his opponent off of him, he was pretty sure his legs wouldn't support him; they may not have been broken, but they bloody hurt.
For all that the guy was tall, he was skinny, and Kyle hauled him up onto his feet without much in the way of effort. "This is how this works. Either you give up, or I break both your arms." He yanked hard on the arm he had pulled behind Simon's back until the other man yelped again. "Can't much throw rocks at me if I'm dislocating your elbow, huh?"
A low growl escaped Simon's lips on the heels of the pained yelp. There was no verbal surrender, but his body slackened under Kyle's grip. One victory for the Yanks wouldn't matter much. Fin and the others would wipe the floor with the bugger's little friends.
"See, you can learn." Kyle said. "I get even one hint you're making rocks fly around again..." He dug his claws into Simon's forearm. "Just don't even think about it."
Penance and Nightcrawler square off against a super-strength mutant.
"Please, you do not have to do this," Yvette told the large man as she dodged out of the way of a heavy blow. "All we want to do is take Chloe home."
The response she got to this was another swing of the man's meaty fist. "Don't know why you're bothering," he snarled, annoyed. The red girl was quick and hard to get to a bead on. "She's just a human, who cares about her anyways?"
"Many people care about her", Kurt said flatly, appearing behind the man to grab his fist and haul it back with a wiry grip. "Including us, Firestar especially."
Yvette sighed. "They never listen," she complained, diving through the man's feet and twisting around to slash at the back of his legs. Hamstringing him would hopefully slow him down.
He yelled in surprise and pain, stumbling forward a bit. "Bloody hell!" He growled, turning the best he could. "You'll pay for that!" And he half-dove, half-stumbled towards Yvette and Kurt, ignoring the pain the movement caused.
"Please", Kurt said with a roll of his eyes, dodging out of the way. "If you touch Penance here, you will only bring yourself more pain. And as for me, you will have to catch me first."
"This will be much better if you just let us find Chloe," Yvette reiterated. Another wild swing interrupted her and she scrabbled up the bricked wall of the tunnel, holding on by her fingers and toes. "We do not want to hurt you, really."
With the little one up a wall, he turned and focused his attention on Kurt, taking his words as a challenge. "C'mere you bloody yank," he growled, grabbing at Kurt. He was quite pleased when he managed to grab the man's arm, and reared his fist back to take a swing.
"I am German", Kurt retorted, offended, and used the man's grip on him as leverage to swing up and kick him in the face. "And she is not American either, are you deaf?"
"I am surprised he can hear anything, with the cauliflower ears that he has," Yvette observed from her position on the arched ceiling of the tunnel. As Kurt's kick landed and the man staggered back, she took the opportunity to drop down onto his head, covering his eyes and nose with her large, splayed hands.
"Argh!" He reached behind him, trying to get a grip on Yvette and only succeeding in cutting his hands and fingers. "Bloody hell, piss off!" He shook his entire body, desperately attempting to throw her off.
Yvette clung on, holding tightly. "This one is not going down so easily!" she called to Kurt. "I think we need to be taking him out of this fight, yes?"
Kurt nodded grimly, and the next moment the man found himself standing alone and disoriented on one of the river's many bridges.
Back in the tunnels, sneezing a little at the cloud of brimstone their return had created, Yvette gave Kurt a wan smile. "Some people do not know when to be giving up, do they?"
"He is just lucky I did not drop him in the river", he said with a wry smile in return, already turning to move on down the tunnels.
Firestar vs. a waterbender.
With the fight swinging into action, Angel turned to the mutant closest to her, blue flames already dancing around her fingers. "I could say we can do this the easy way or the hard way," she told her opponent conversationally. "But I'm pretty sure we both know what your answer to that would be."
The young man grinned, but not in a friendly way. "That's what you think is it, sunshine?" he replied. He raised his hands, fingers splayed, and made a clenching gesture with both fists. There was a loud groan from the pipes above them and suddenly they burst, water pouring down on top of Angel in a torrent. "What fights fire? Ooh, I dunno. Maybe water?" he mocked over the sound of the water gushing down.
There was no time for surprise as the water poured down on her, soaking her instantly and extinguishing the flames. Angel dodged out of the way of the waterfall a moment too late, shaking the water out of her eyes. She would get the person who was the exact opposite of her. "Bring it on, dude," she called as the air around her began to heat up, the water evaporating off her skin and uniform. She sounded cockier than she felt. The ceiling was too low to allow her to fly, so she didn't even have the air as an advantage. She was a sitting duck for this guy to go fire hose on.
"You Yanks," he sneered, making another gesture. Several rope-like tendrils of water rose up from the growing puddle at their feet, wrapping themselves around Angel's arms and legs in an attempt to immobilise her. "You think you're so bloody great, coming here and telling us how to do things. We got along fine without you!"
Angel decided against pointing out that living in a sewer wasn't fine. "What I can say, it's a complex," she said as the tendrils of water attempted to wrap around her and evaporated. The distance between them wasn't doing her any favors - in the small space, a misplaced shot could end up hurting a friend. She was going to need to get closer to do any damage. She started to dart forward, diving in headlong.
The water on the ground rose up underneath her in a wall, hitting her solidly in the torso. "Bugger off," he growled, sounding frustrated - usually people went down after the first couple of hits.
In retrospect, Angel would realize she should have seen that coming. "Oof!" She groaned as she hit the floor, shaking her head and pushing herself up again. "Sorry mate," she mocked as she kneeled. "But American education skims over the art of how to give up." Headlong didn't work. So what was Plan B, exactly? Improvise. Of course. "Hey, look." She held up her hands, showing the fire that was forming over each palm. "Fire!" One fireball flew at the ground, exploding on impact and spraying water. At the same time the second fireball arched through the air, and Angel flew out of her crouch position, using the water and lack of traction to help her skid along as she tried to get around the man.
Instinct took over as the fireball came towards him. Lee threw his arms up protectively over his face, a wave of water sweeping up to mimic the movement. The fireball hit the water-wall with an explosion of steam and fizzled out, but the cloud it created left him momentarily blinded to Angel's location and before he realised it, she'd gotten behind him.
It wasn't very often things went exactly as they were supposed to, Angel thought triumphantly as she skidded to a halt behind the man, now significantly closer - and able to do more damage. "Boo," she said simply, and a wave of heat and fire exploded in the tiny space between them.
With a choked-off cry, Lee went flying across the small space, crashing against the tunnel wall with a thud. The impact knocked the wind out of him and he lay in a crumpled heap in the muddy water, gasping for air.
Angel watched the man go flying with some amount of interest. She'd kind of hoped that blow would knock him out, but oh well, can't have everything in life, right? Plan B still rocked, she decided as she made her way over to her fallen opponent, a bubble of warmth wrapping around her and extending out, catching the man, and the temperature in the air around them started to kick up. When in doubt, fall back on the basics. Heat exhaustion was always a great way to knock someone out.
In his already weakened state and with his affinity for water, Lee wasn't able to hold out long. The gasps for air became panting for breath that wasn't super-heated, and before long, he passed out, the ground beneath him bone-dry from Angel's heat-bubble.
All right, one down - Angel's thought process ground to a halt as a very disturbing realization barreled into her. "We're in a sewer!" She exclaimed, gagging. No amount of showers would ever make this okay. "Gyah...Okay Angel, focus. One down. Time to go find Chloe."
Cyclops and Polaris face down with Fin.
Scott gestured Lorna to circle around as they approached Fin, "We don't have to fight," he told the young mutant. "Give up the girl and come in with us and no-one needs to get hurt."
Fin was in his element, he had the whole thing planned out. He stood there, lazily, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slacked, "Man, what a bother. You idiots really want to do this?" he asked, his tone completely bored. "I'm not the arseholes you should be fighting." His voice might have been calm, but his eyes smoldered.
Lorna walked around, she could feel the metals around her she could use that to her advantage. "We don't want to do this, but we will do this if we have too."
Scott nodded, his eye starting to glow, "You can still walk away from this Fin, don't do anything stupid."
"Psh," he muttered, his hands still in his sweater. "I'm not the one doing the stupid thing here, mate," Fin said, his eyes moved between the two, "Man, I really hate fighting girls. Greenie, you get one more chance to walk away." Attention turned to Scott, the shadows on the other man aiming his head straight up. The glowing eye was a bit obvious.
"But you have no problem kidnapping girls." Lorna's glared at him, "How civil of you." Her tone was laced with sarcasm. "I guess he wants to do this the hard way."
"Looks that way," Scott replied with a sigh, "Why do they always pick the hard way?"
Fin muttered under his breath and the shadows darted out towards both of them, without him so much as moving, "What waste of time."
The moving shadows threw Scott for a moment, but only a moment before his instincts kicked in an he dived to the side, rolling clear o the shadows path. "Watch out Lorna," he warned.
Lorna flew up to dodge the shadows, taking the metal on her, Lorna sent them flying back to Fin, maybe if she distracted him that would give Scott time to blast him.
It wasn't as if he didn't plan for this. When the glowing eye arsehole moved, it was right into another line of shadows. Think at least two hundred moves ahead. And have a way out should the game change suddenly. All his life people had been underestimating him for one reason or another, so now, Fin was more than able to show that no, he wasn't just some lazy, idiotic freak. Dark eyes looked at the flying metal, all of which stopped, seemingly stuck on it's shadows and in a tug of war with the green haired bint.
"Ain't the hard way for me, tossers. Just a waste of my bloody time."
Scott stared at the suspended metal in alarm, Fin was obviously much more powerful than they had given him credit for if he was able to manipulate so many shadows at once. The X-man smiled, if the boy wanted to show how powerful he is then Scott would be more than willing to obliged. "Polaris more metal, we need to overwhelm him," he shouted as he fired a series of blasts into the ceiling above Fin's head sending a series of stones cascading down at the shadow wielder.
Lorna's eyes started to glow green as she focus on anything metal in their surrounding area. The green magnetic flare ripped apart anything from the walls that it could as she continued struggle against the shadows that were pressing back her precious metals.
While his face didn't show it, Fin was indeed working hard. He still stood there looking bored as he played tug of war with the green haired girl. In the mean time he was going through every outcome he could think of.
"Fifty moves, mate. That's how long until I send your sorry arse packing," he said to Scott. And he started by reaching out with the shadows to pull the red eyed one right into the path of suddenly released flying metal.
"Check."
Scott smiled as Fin tugged him into the middle of Lorna's metal storm, and he span to face the metal unleashing blast after optical blast. As his blasts slammed into the cloud of detritus the started to ricochet bouncing from object to object and pushing them out of the way to fall around the X-man. Freed of the metal Scott's optical blasts bounced of the walls as the ceilings before converging on Fin. The young man found himself pummeled from all directions driving him backwards before leaving the dazed Fin at Lorna's feet. "Check mate."
Lorna could still feel the metal around her and pulled them together towards her - she knelt over Fin. The metals formed around his hands bounding them together. "You wanted to do this the hard way."