Fury Said To A Mouse: The Ambush

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Upon returning Penance, Meltdown and Firestar find themselves in the middle of an unexpected Round 2, and the X-Men discover their opponent has a nasty surprise for them.

Warning: Graphic violence.



Yvette emerged from the shadows of a shattered building and approached the meeting point, eyeglow barely visible. It had been a harrowing - and depressing - search for survivors and she'd seen more horrors than she could ever think was possible. The stories told to her by her mother about the atrocities she had seen in Bosnia had been terrible, but this... it was even worse. Tiredly, she crouched down, hands lying limply in the dirt, head drooping. She only looked up when her team members joined her, her face as blank as a china doll.

Angel knelt down beside Yvette - giving her enough distance so as to not crowd her, but staying close enough to offer her as much comfort as her presence was capable of. Not that she was sure she could give much right then - she was as exhausted her fellow teammate. Even going in knowing there were no survivors, it had been heartbreaking not to find one single person - a small child who had hidden under rubble to protect himself, an elderly woman who had been mistaken for dead, hell even a dog would've been nice.

"Guess we're the first ones back," she said after a minute, breaking the horribly oppressive silence. It felt suffocating.

Her whole body felt numb. Tabitha thought she was at least vaccinated against this level of horror, but her face and body felt stiff, barely functional. That didn't stop her from noticing something out of place. "Where did that thing go?"

Yvette's eyes flared brighter, and her long fingers dug into the dirt. "What?" She looked around, taking in the lack of creature, the blood staining the ground where it had been, drag marks in the dust showing it had gotten up and moved, somehow... "Pull back," she said shortly, glancing wildly around. "Find some cover."

Angel's head snapped up, eyes wide. "Oh damn it," she swore, jumping up, eyes scanning the area and landing on a nearby pile of rubble. "Over there, come on. We can hide there until we figure out what's going on."

Tabs formed a bomb in each hand, wary. "You guys head over first, I'll cover." Every nerve stood on end, in stark contrast to the numbness of moments before. "Hurry, please."

It had not been waiting long. Organic damage had been nominal. Skeletal repairs, though more extensive, had been easily accomplished with metals drawn from a half-destroyed truck. Raw materials, properly distributed. Simple fixes.

Most of its time had been devoted to analysis. It had taken heavy damage from a type of resistance it had not yet encountered, and that was problematic. Sheltered by the wrecked truck so it would not be interrupted by nuisance/distraction it studied the available data, paying special attention to energy class and spectrum of effect. Concluding further action would require certain specialized organs, it had taken most of two human corpses and one cat carcass into itself and reformatted the tissue into suitable components. This took a while longer.

It did not wonder what had stopped it. Curiosity was not part of its program. It attacked. If it were defeated it analyzed and repaired. It learned. Then it tried again. That was central to its programming.

The Fury never stopped.

A single shift of metal behind them was all the warning Angel and Tabitha had. Hands like mitts caught them by the leg, and began to squeeze.

Strangely enough, it wasn't the snapping of the bone Angel felt first. Or even the pain.

It was the thing closing around her leg. And all she could think was, It's like a giant lobster.

And then the pain registered.

She screamed -- a sound of mixed pain and surprise -- as her busted leg went out, and she hit the ground, unable to recover herself. She tried uselessly to yank her leg free, but the thing's grip was too strong.

Tabitha had a split second to register pressure before she heard bone, her bone, snap. She may have screamed, she did black out.

The Fury regarded the women with its array of impersonal lenses. The screams did not bother it, but it had detected plasmoid energy from one of its targets: a potential threat.

Its current position lacked leverage. Still clutching an X-Man in each hand, the cybiote uncurled its legs and rose.

"NO!" The sounds was too high-pitched to be a roar, but it carried all the ferocity of one of Wolverine or Wildchild's explosions of rage. A small red figure - bristling with spikes and plates of hardened skin acting as armour - launched at the Fury from atop the pile of rubble, long knife-like fingers spread to rend and slash. Yvette landed on the thing's shoulder before it had a chance to rise to its full height and began to hack away with her hands at the elbow joint of the arm holding Angel, while driving her long toes into the softer skin where the shoulder met the neck.

The Fury did not flinch, but it did conduct an immediate assessment of the new threat. It noted the new attacker was shredding tissue; analysis of bladed edge and force applied indicated a high likelihood of inflicting skeletal damage if left unchecked. It dropped Angel like a broken doll.

The cybiote swung its shredded arm around at an unnatural angle to close its massive fist around Yvette's head. With a single, careless wrench it tore the girl free and hurled her away, completely indifferent to the chunks of flesh torn by her clutching toes. The girl flew through the air, hitting the remnants of a wall with a thud hard enough to shake several bricks loose. She hung there, pinioned by her own spikes, until her weight pulled her loose and she dropped in a small heap among the rubble.

Angel hit the ground with a thud, letting out a pained whimper. She could just make out Jean's voice on the comm in her ear, but it was distorted, like it was coming through water. It sounded like she was asking for a status report. "God," she groaned, lifting herself to try and focus on what was happening.

Tabitha struggled to see through the black spots dotting her vision. One bomb remained clutched in her hand. It was a clumsy, half-hearted aim, but she threw it at her assailant and set it off.

The Fury automatically seized Tabitha's outstretched arm with radius-splintering force, but it was too late. The bomb detonated point-blank, shearing away flesh to expose the metal jut of a hip joint and lower rib. Momentarily staggered, the Fury dropped its target and took a step back.

The explosion, strangely enough, helped Angel to focus a bit. She pushed herself up the best she could, breathing hard as she focused on heating the air around her, projecting the microwaves at the monstrosity. "Come on bastard, be flammable..." She hissed through clenched teeth.

It was. Necrotic flesh started to bubble and peel; tissue around the ragged wound left by Tabitha's bomb began to blacken and shrink. A stench like charred fat and battery acid filled the air.

The Fury showed no distress. Though it registered the damage its capacity for cellular repair was equal to the task. It did, however, require more raw material.

Scans revealed two targets were largely disabled. The third was merely stunned, but appeared to have no ranged capability. It had some time.

Turning its back on them even as its flesh sizzled under Angel's attack, the Fury stooped into the rubble and pulled out a corpse. Something like a ridged scoop formed on its mitt-like hand.

Without ceremony, the Fury plunged its hand into the corpse's abdomen and used the ridge to flense free a chunk of meat like a melon-baller.

Strangely enough, Angel's mind flashed back to the play-doh she'd played with when she was little. She blamed the pain messing with her head.

"Oh god," she moaned as she watched. Part of her thought she should try to stop it -- dead or not, that body deserved more respect. Plus the thing was obviously trying to rebuild itself, and that was bad.

But she was pretty sure if she moved she'd lose her lunch.

Over by the wall, Yvette stirred, pulling herself painfully upright. Nothing broken - her armour had taken the brunt of the impact and cushioned her from any internal damage - but she was certainly going to feel it for weeks afterwards. Angel and Tabitha were hurt, however, so it was up to her to get them clear. "Firestar," she wheezed, crouching for a spring at the creature while it was occupied in its revolting repairs. "You and Meltdown to be getting clear while I am doing the distracting, yes?"

Normally Angel would have protested, but of the three of them Yvette was probably the least beat up and most mobile. "Right," she groaned, grabbing Tabitha and dragging the woman and her useless leg out of harm's way. "All you, Penance."

Yvette nodded and flexed her fingers. "I will try to hold it as long as I can."

The Fury rocked back and forth, testing its repairs like a person testing a new pair of jeans. The salvaged flesh merged seamlessly with the rest, differing only in the color.

Strips of meat still hung from one arm, but primary integrity was returned. The burnt skin was already sloughing away to reveal a new, supple layer, and the heat-shortened tendons in one side had been rendered pliable again; it could now proceed. The Fury turned back to its prey.

Yvette came in low this time, aiming at the knees in an attempt to cripple it long enough for Angel and Tabitha to get away. Her fingers fused and melded, becoming foot-long razor sharp blades that cut deeply into the dead flesh as the small X-Man ran between the creature's feet and behind it, where she turned and began hacking away behind the knees, long, deep slashes.

Her blades quickly found the tendon, but organics were only a part of its design. Rather than allow itself to be staggered the Fury chose to freeze its joints. Working knees were not critical.

Instead of running, the cybiote spun its spine 180 degrees and caught Yvette across the side of the head with a backhand so powerful her spikes tore the flesh from the metal of its fist. As she reeled the Fury spun itself on a locked leg with almost comical speed and seized the X-Man by the arms.

It lifted her high enough that her feet dangled above the ground. The target was heavily armored and deceptively dense. It occurred to the Fury that crushing her would not be the most expedient method of elimination.

It would just have to tear her arms off.

"NO!" As the shout echoed a red force beam slammed into the shoulder of the Fury. The cybiote's locked knees prevented it from staggering, but it slid forward as the blow slammed into it. A second and third blow followed quickly, both impacting on the same spot on the shoulder, spinning the Fury around and knocking it to the floor. "Penance, get clear!" Scott called as he skidded to a stop, Jean, Garrison and Marius only a pace behind him.

It still had hold of one of her arms and her head was ringing with the force of the previous blow, but the survival instinct is a powerful thing. Yvette desperately hacked at the wrist of the hand holding her, fear and adrenaline lending her strength and heightening her powers. Flesh parted like butter under her attack, her blade-hand cutting deep into the metal beneath and half-severing the joint. The Fury's grip on her loosened and she dropped to the ground, scuttling clear on all fours like a crab.

Something like irritation crossed the Fury's mind. Four new targets had appeared, and skeletal integrity was now compromised. Repairs were an unwanted distraction.

"What's it doing?" Marius asked as the Fury declined to pursue Yvette and instead turned to the remains of the truck. It tore off a door and wrapped the metal around its damaged arm as if it were handling tin foil.

"I think it's trying to protect itself?" Scott replied cautiously. He'd never seen anything like it. "It's almost like an armour cast to protect its arm," he noted, "at least we know that we can make it defend itself." The Fury was acting differently from before, but any action they could recognize, could exploit would be something the X-Men could use to beat the weapon. They'd need every advantage they could get.

Yvette had managed to join the others, hovering anxiously by Angel and Tabitha. "Firestar and Meltdown need help," she said, a little unsteadily. "We need to stop this thing before it hurts anyone else."

Glad she had brought her doctor's bag along, Jean cast a wary eye at the monster before turning back to give Angel and Tabitha her attention. There was not much time to do anything more than a fast rudimentary once over.

"There are some broken bones and crush injuries that need addressing but it's not life threatening if we can get them treated quickly," Jean said, pulling herself back up to stand.

"I need to get them back to the medical complex. There are some examination bays where I can set the bones."

There wasn't much around them, but he could see a wheeled table in the corner of a destroyed shop. It took only a second to lift them both up and onto the table.

"If someone wants to push them along, I'll see if I can... discourage it from following us."

Jean shook her head. "It might be a good idea to stay back for now, Dominion. That goes for everyone until we get a better handle on things. So far physical confrontation has only resulted in broken bones, or worse. Cyclops, can you cover me? I have a feeling it's not going to let me get very far."

The cybiote did not hear the comment, nor would it have comprehended it had it done so. It didn't matter. Four targets had clustered in one location.

The Fury leaped.

Scott reacted without thinking; he instinctively knew the Fury's path would land it in the middle of the group right on top of Jean. Without a conscious decision another force beam speared out, slamming into the monster's chest and knocking it backwards to crash into the ground.

"Phoenix, Dominion, you need to get the girls out of here, they're in no state to keep fighting. Emplate, I need some help here," the older man noted, holding his hand out to the Australian as a forcebeam played out continuously from his eye, slamming into the Fury and pinning it to the ground, "It doesn't want to stay down, and 2 blasts are always better than 1."

"Right." Marius forced himself not to look at the semi-conscious Angel and almost certainly unconscious Tabitha. If Yvette hadn't been able to keep it down Kyle's mutation probably wouldn't do much good, but Scott's had the advantage of distance.

In one swift movement, the Australian pulled out his switchblade, nicked his own palm, and reached for Scott's hand.

The cybiote processed the situation. It had encountered this ability before. A beam of concussive force, issued from a single point. Cells created to collect and refine solar energy struggled initially, then began to soak in the blast.

It was taking no significant damage, but it could not move. Raising its head, the Fury made minute adjustments to one of its secondary lenses.

Then, with mechanical precision, it fired a single, needle-thin beam of its own.

Scott's eye widened in shock as the Fury's attack cut through his own optical beam like a warm knife through butter. He desperately poured more energy into the beam but the Fury's attack just kept on coming. He'd never seen anything like it. Part of his brain was already analyzing how it was doing this, setting a more focused beam of energy against his more dispersed one. The rest of his brain was already reacting to Scott's body flinching back from the beam. But while it seemed like minutes to his adrenaline-flushed brain the Fury's beam crossed the distance to them in mere seconds. The X-Man was still flinching backwards when he felt something like a punch to the head which spun him around into a world of blackness. One second, the world was awash with a red haze and the next blackness and the feeling of the ground coming up hard to meet him. The X-Man didn't even feel any pain or shock, just a surreal sense of floating as if the world was drifting away as he lay there. The sounds of combat and the X-Men just a background noise now.

"SCOTT!"

Jean hadn't realized just how shrill her scream was, nor that she'd said his real name. All she was focused on was the blood and clear, viscous film that poured from where his eye had been, his prone form on the ground, how he didn't move.

But she didn't feel him die. He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead.

Marius stood frozen in dumbfounded confusion, unsure of what he'd just seen. One minute the X-Man had the Fury pinned, the next he'd just -- dropped. His gaze fell to Scott's face and he almost vomited a second time.

His eye--

Marius didn't have time to dwell on it; he could hear the Fury getting up, and that meant it was time to leave. He grabbed the older man and hefted him over his shoulder, hoping he wasn't agitating any injuries but in no position to be gentler. "Keep goin', I've got him!" he called. Jean could at least cover their backs.

Garrison's strength was enough to shove the table through the debris, keeping it moving. In the same motion, he grabbed Jean's arm, snapping her out of shock and pulling her along with him as they fled the area.

Now upright, the Fury homed in on the nearest targets. Repairs to its joints were nearly complete, but its options had expanded. Instead of initiating direct pursuit the cybiote lifted the arm savaged by the small, red target. Flesh had almost fully consumed the metal it had wrapped around the forearm to create an organic tube running up its radius.

A new scent filled the air: something hot and sharp, and strangely familiar. Marius risked a quick look behind him and saw the Fury leveling what had formerly been an arm. Now it looked like a cannon -- and the barrel was glowing.

"Phoenix, weapon!"

Jean spun around, lifting her hand instinctively to raise a telekinetic shield as she saw the orb of energy fire from the monster's rebuilt arm. The energy ball should have easily deflected off the shield and cleared the group by yards, but instead it only served to shift the attack off course barely a few inches or so as she felt it tear through the shield like it wasn't even there until it wasn't. The resulting snap-back caused Jean to wrench her hand back like it'd been slapped. She had no time to yell out a warning.

The rubble to Marius' right exploded, sending both men flying. Coughing, the X-Man scrambled across the debris and instinctively positioned himself over Scott. Dust was everywhere; he wasn't certain which way he'd been going or where the danger was. Smells were muddled, all powdered stone and blood. His ears rang.

The cybiote was satisfied despite the fact it had missed its mark. Its modifications were functioning well, and repeated exposure rapidly improved them. Switching to infrared, the Fury zeroed in on its target and fired again.

Now telekinesis was no obstacle at all.

As the ball of plasma burned through the dust Marius had only enough time to think: It looks like one of Meltdown's bombs.

This time the explosion caught him point-blank in the chest.

Jean gasped, then narrowed her eyes as she decided to trade horror for rage. She pressed her finger against the communicator in her ear.

"Blink, Polaris, Anchor, report back to our location immediately. I've sent coordinates. The target is not deceased, I repeat, target is not deceased. We have X-Men down," she said, then turned back to the remaining X-Men still standing. There was a certain calmness to her that was clearly anything but.

"Penance, guard Firestar and Meltdown. Emplate, get to the Blackbird, call for help. We need more backup." She could tell Marius was injured but still conscious and moving. She normally would've let him stay there but they didn't have that luxury. More would join Scott, Tabitha, Angel, and the dozens of others if they didn't take this monstrosity out.

"Dominion, you're with me. I need you to distract it while I try something else."

Marius almost protested; he didn't want to leave. However, logic intervened. He wasn't equipped to help. His powerset inadequate, and more, though his uniform had prevented plasma burns the explosion itself had done serious damage. His side was screaming and his breathing wasn't right; this was a lot more than just a broken rib.

Moving painfully, Marius gave Jean a curt nod. A quick search located another frankensteined-bicycle with, mercifully, what proved to be a functioning motor. With one final look back, the X-Man sped off.

As the team set to work with their assigned tasks, Jean focused on one of the only remaining tactics she had left: telepathy. She had gotten into its mind before, so she had a vague sense of how it worked. If she could perhaps latch on to the organic portion that was there and shut it down, perhaps that would slow it down enough for reinforcements to get there, or, with luck, take care of the problem altogether.

So she reached out her mind again, finding a far more complex being than she had when she'd went in the first time. What had started out as a creature of pure instinct had seemed to...evolve...into something more, much more.

She blinked rapidly with growing horror at the cycle of images, men, women and children fleeing for their lives, and failing. A spray of blood and the shriek of a man as his arm was ripped from his socket, the gurgle of a woman and the crunch-squish of bone as her head was stepped on. No emotion. No hate. No pleasure in the act.

But it had started to learn these things.

The cybiote did not evince the normal discomfort of an invaded mind. On the contrary, it received Jean with something like familiarity. The presence in its mind groped for its biological systems. The Fury obliged, temporarily disconnecting the organic part of its consciousness and allowing the telepath full access to its nervous system. To the cybiote, nerves served only to supply information on areas in need of repair. From its invader's understanding of human physiology, it learned that other organisms experienced such sensations as "pain".

Its processor worked rapidly, pulling new readings through the now-reciprocal telepathy. On the most basic level it found itself in contact with an organic system which, though lacking in cybernetic components, shared similarities with its own. On a psychic level it found what it interpreted as a sophisticated array of firewalls. Telepathy was new to it; it did not have the skill to penetrate these defenses on its own.

But Jean had invited it in.

The work of a telepath was often perceived as quiet to outsiders, their eyes staring into everything and nothing as their minds traveled to different places. For those who were practiced, the work could be easy. Jean had years to learn and hone her skills. But those skills were against the human brain, and this was decidedly not. The fact of this became abundantly clear the moment Jean felt the creature turn her abilities against her and latch on, tearing into her mind like a bear trap.

Time passed differently in the astral plane. What was only a few seconds in the real world had felt like hours as the creature ripped past her defenses, leaving open a chasm for which everything could pass through, but leading the way first and foremost every ounce of injury the monster itself had incurred. It was something that should have killed a normal person, or two, or three. And for a normal person to feel that amount of damage well...

Two tendrils of blood dripped from Jean's nose, and she let out a piercing shriek as her face twisted into a mask of agony. Her hands didn't know what to reach for to try to dull the pain when every nerve felt like it was on fire, so they clenched around her head. Had she not had gloves on her nails would have dug into the skin of her temples. Her body teetered dangerously, but the link with the monster kept her from blacking out.

Unlike Jean, the cybiote did not require total concentration to maintain the assault. The moment it detected Jean's lapse in concentration it unleashed a clumsy blast of telekinesis. Unable to block, the X-Man was flung hard into a half-collapsed wall. She struck the concrete in a cloud of dust and debris.

Yvette had been watching in increasing horror and disbelief, crouched by Angel and Tabitha. They'd been in tough fights before, but this... When Jean went down, Yvette cried out in despair. Without Jean, without Scott, without Angel and Tabitha, what could they do?

"Fucking hell..." Kane muttered, moving quickly to her side. The red-head was breathing, but past that, he couldn't tell how badly she was injured. The dust and blood had made a mask of her features, leaving him without any option but to carefully cradle her out of the rubble and back safely to the table. The thing was still coming, and there weren't any options left.

"Keep falling back, Penance. Regroup with the rest of the team and get the injured out. I'm going to..." Kane looked at the creature. "...see if I can keep its attention for a while."

Target disabled, the Fury focused its full attention on the final obstacle. Its strength was not equal to the Fury's own, and despite the physiological abnormalities in its dermis it did not possess the exceptional density of the female. Though its anticipatory actions were creating some difficulty its stamina was not infinite.

Besides, the Fury learned, too.

Kane took in the creature for a moment, rubbing his knuckles as Yvette struggled behind him to pull the rest of the X-Men further away from the path of their attacker. Unless Kane could hold out, it would be on them long before they could find any kind of security, and in their current state, it would kill them. The last time he'd been in this situation, it hadn't been an unknown bio-horror. It had been a god and he had killed Garrison as easily as a person would crush a bug. It wasn't exactly the cheeriest memory to bring into the situation, but that was all he had.

The Fury tilted its head, as if trying to analyze the X-Man standing there, between him and his prey. Kane saw an all too human hesitation. Nothing paused a rampage as quickly as a person between them and their target, looking unafraid. He must be a better actor than he thought. As the X-Men scrabbled behind him for distance, Kane let go the limiter on his tactical chip. He braced for one second, like a runner on blocks, and then with a powerful lunge moved.

It was rare for even the X-Men to see Kane go full out. The mutant tended to stay in a mid-range until necessary, keeping his powerful physical abilities restrained. However, this time, Kane blurred as he moved, his quantum density muscles providing the kind of quick twitch muscles sprinters relied on at a level that no human could hope to match. The Fury was bringing up his arm when Kane appeared, his forearm crushing the shoulder with a hit strong enough to stop a semi in its tracks. Almost before the hit registered, Kane grabbed the wrist and with his hand on the outside shoulder, tore the weapon arm clear away, tossed it behind him. The momentum was harnessed as Kane let his body continue the circle of impact and tossed the Fury into the steel beam beside them hard enough to nearly cave it in.

Before it could find its feet, Garrison was on it, two powerful kicks stomping the midsection, looking to overwhelm the creature and keep it down. It managed to parry a third kick, lurching forward, but Kane turned the defensive move into an opening, smashing it with a powerful right cross. Against the blows, the Fury pushed to its feet, soaking up damage in order to deprive Garrison his current leverage. Garrison knew he was causing damage; the blows were starting to encounter a crushed interior structure, lending hope that his attacks might disable it alone. A forearm shiver and then an elbow spun it around, and he dropped a massive two-fisted blow down on the point of the spine, rewarded with a sound like a building shattering. The Fury stumbled forward and collapsed. Kane paused momentarily, gasped air before moving over to finish the job, stomping the thing into the ground. He put all his weight into the stomp, coming down with the force of an industrial hammer.

But the Fury's head was no longer there. The thing was rolling, moving and before Kane could catch it, had regained its feet. He came in again, trying to overwhelm it, but this time, his blows were parried or pushed aside. The Fury seemed more agile; its movements more fluid and open to Garrison's fighting style. Even as his blows were turned aside, Kane found the creature start to regain the momentum of the fight. The first few blows were tentative, testing his defenses. But in seconds, the Canadian found himself fully on the defensive as increasingly strongly blows rained down on him. Most were rolled away from or parried, but enough got through to trigger his Omni-skin to start to increase the density of his skin, trying to armor his against the kinetic strikes. Garrison took a gamble and lashed out low, intending to use the block as the brace for a high kick. Instead, it leg-blocked his kick and met his turn with a blow to the stomach that sent him reeling. Before he could get his feet under him, it tackled Kane around the midsection and smashed them both through the far concrete wall.

Kane was able to push away, rolling as the impact separated them. Realization had finally struck; it was using his tactical chip against him. The more they fought, the more the creature absorbed, so much that its curve was ahead of the chip. There was no way to win with it.

"Alright then." He spat out some blood as he disengaged the chip. "Time to do this old school."

The Fury showed no signs of acknowledging, simply rushing him with its now tremendous strength and speed, already Garrison's better. If it was adaptive, it still lacked one thing Garrison had. He parried two blows that would have ended the fight then and there, letting it close with him. With a move straight out of his RCMP training, it soaked two body blows to grab Garrison in a throat lock.

Between its strength and technique, he had seconds. Unlike the Fury, Garrison had been trained in hand to hand combat by Logan and Eugene Judd; men who had spent a long time showing Garrison that his chip and his physical abilities were only one part of a fight. The other was the understanding that fighting was about really wanting to hurt the other person and that every part of him was a weapon in doing so.

As the Fury's fingers tightened on his throat, Kane twisted, neck muscles screaming, to the right, pulling the arm forward just enough to open the vulnerable joint to a hammer-like blow. The blow numbed its fingers long enough for Garrison to twist out, using his other hand to gouge the face. Normally a combatant would spin out and go for distance. Instead, Kane dropped, ducking beneath the anticipatory strikes and putting all his strength into an elbow directly into the braced knee. There was a satisfying crunch as the blow hit, and the Fury staggered back from the blow, his balance badly compromised. Garrison tried to follow up immediately, but a burst of TK energy forced him back, putting them face to face once more.

This time, it was the Fury that charged him, and he was intending to use the rush against him, a Judd special. But even as Kane's unorthodox response slipped past its grip, when his shoulder met the torso there was a massive dull sound. The Fury reeled back, but it was Kane who was knocked down. Obviously, the creature's skin had found the same trick as Kane's, and the density had been like smashing into solid ground after diving off a skyscraper. Black spots swam in front of his eyes as the Fury grabbed him and almost contemptuously threw him through a section of damaged brick wall. The brick exploded as Kane went through and he huddled up the best he could as he skipped off the ground twice and finally slammed into some rubble. His body was already telling him that he was coming to the end. Garrison fought to his feet as the Fury appeared beside him, enhanced speed and reactions now fully integrated. It ignored a punch and grabbed him again. This time, it was a solid concrete section of the building that Kane smashed through.

Garrison tried to get to his feet, but his knees gave out, leaving him to reel back drunkenly. He was seeing double as the Fury approached, heels and hands scrabbling in the dust as he crawled back, away from his attacker. He twisted over, wriggling on his stomach over the rubble and destruction. The Fury caught him easily, grabbing him by the back of the neck. As it did, Garrison's right hand closed on something in the shattered brick as he was abruptly pulled up to his feet. The Fury held him at arm's length as it plucked him from the floor, ready to snap him in two with a blow to his spine. But the moment of pause to make the perfect blow had given Kane a infinitesimally small window to act.

The curved piece if rebar caught it on the side of the head, forcing it to drop Kane. The Canadian spun, rebounding with a blow to the other side of its head, making it reel. He slammed two more thunderous blows down on him, suddenly seeing the Fury vulnerable and with a cry, turned the rebar and plunged it deep through the torso of the Fury, until the rusted, twisted end tore out through the back and it sagged against him. Kane's punch-drunk brain took a moment to catch up with the blow. It was over. It was dead.

He barely had time to process that thought before the Fury suddenly straightened and the blow the Canadian took kept him airbourne for almost a full hundred metres. He landed with a terrific impact and pinwheeled end over end like a ragdoll before finally fetching up against a pile of rubble, still and broken. The Fury wrenched the rebar from its body and tossed it aside, already looking for new targets.

This? This was Bad. Capital B. They were outgunned, out maneuvered and their heaviest of heavy hitters just took a swan dive the length of an Olympic pool. Fuck. There was no where to run. There was no where to hide, even with teleporting and they had injured. Brains wasn't always her strong suit, but smart-ass bravado was. In truth, Clarice knew the score and she knew the most likely outcome. It wasn't the first time she had looked potential death in the face. She hoped it wasn't the last either, but...you didn't sign up to be an X-Man for glitter and giggles, at least she hadn't.

"You want me?" she shouted, tossing a handful of pennies into a portal, trying to give Garrison some time to get up. He was their only hope right now. "I got nuked you son of a bitch and I'm still standing! So you want me? Come on!" So long as her knees didn't give out, she was good. Sorta.

The Fury turned, but Clarice was ready. She couldn't teleport the entire thing away, it was too big, too heavy, but she could still do damage. The pennies rained down on it, hurtling through the atmosphere faster than bullets. It didn't do enough. Oh shit.

The cybiote, its head so badly caved by Garrison's attack it looked like a deflated football, didn't even flinch as the coins sheared through its already damaged skull. The damage was largely cosmetic; in addition to cracking several of its lenses, the previous assault had already disabled its primary processor. The Fury had simply rerouted its consciousness to one of its half-dozen redundant nervous systems.

While the sounds she made were of no interest to it, the newcomer appeared to have the capability of spatial displacement. Not an ability the Fury could predict, even with its new-found tactical anticipation. It would exercise an acceptable degree of caution until the limits of that power became clear.

Almost lazily, the Fury raised its cannon-like arm and fired a ball of plasma.

When Lorna arrived on the scene it was gruesome and one that would burn in her mind for a long time. "BLINK!" Polaris yelled as she tossed a car to block the plasma ball and watched the car melt. "I thought this thing was dead." Lorna's hands glowed green as she sent out another EMP towards the IT.

It sensed the change in the electro-magnetic field long before it saw its newest combatant; the green-haired female distorted the fields around her. This was a familiar target.

Aspects of the EMP the Fury did not automatically disperse were disrupted by the cellular-sized Faraday cages it had constructed, protecting its vulnerable substrata and grounded through the exposed metal filaments running through the bottoms of its feet. It analyzed the assault even as it absorbed it, anticipating several potential variations and adjusting itself accordingly.

Rather than giving Lorna the same opportunity to counter a return electro-magnetic attack, the Fury switched to another energy spectrum: microwaves.

"What..." Lorna had not expected that the Fury would absorb her EMP. "That's..." Before she could start her sentence, Lorna was hit with with the immense heat. Covering her face with her arms as the area around her started to sizzle, her leather suit started to melt away leaving exposed skin. Gritting her teeth before letting out a scream in pain.

It was safe to assume that Fred was upset.

He'd been upset when he saw the state of Yvette, trying to help Jean and the others, and when he saw Kane crumpled against the ground where he'd fallen. The monster was currently trying to cook one of his friends, and that wasn't improving Fred's mood at all. He was spry, but had been well behind Lorna when she'd engaged; he was still closing with the Fury as it bathed her in that ungodly heat. Fred barely felt it...save for at the ends of his eyes, the insides of his ears, and the tip of his nose...this weird, watery, pulsing heat pushing through all his senses. He shouted, trying to get the thing's attention. Fred had no idea how the thing decided who it targeted, but he'd be expanding and growing with each step into the fight. He was nearly eight feet and twice his normal girth by the time he managed to cut in between the Fury and its line of fire. He was pretty sure he had its attention.

"Goddam sumbitch!" Fred put his hand up over his face as he approached the Fury. The monster didn't seem all too phased by Fred's appearance, and its biggest move seemed to be focusing the microwave blast on the larger, closer mutant. The more intense blast melted much of Fred's uniform, but did nothing to stop him from slamming his fist into the midsection of the humanoid thing with enough force to send a car tumbling.

Timing her next attack with Fred's punch, Clarice teleported its cannon away, the piece just falling helplessly. It wasn't the entire thing and with it being robotic, at least partially, there was no guarantee that the brain was in the head. For all they knew, it was in the foot or anywhere in the middle. This thing was designed not to go down quickly or neatly. "Can you do it again, Polaris?" she called, thinking a multiple whammy between them all might work better.

Lorna winced but was relieved that it cooled down around her. "I can't. It will just absorb it again." The woman looked around and called the metals around her to take form into long spear-like shapes. She raised into the air and moved closer to the Fury as she unleashed the long spears towards the creature.

Fred throttled the Fury as Clarice made one of its weapons vanish, and he punched at the 'wound' the attack made. The Fury retaliated by striking Fred once, twice, thrice, knocking him in the head with the last two blows. It didn't seem to let up when Fred covered his face, and kept punching and thrashing into Fred's midsection. But Fred wasn't as easy to move around or to hurt as the other people the Fury had fought. Holding his position, Fred caught sight of Lorna readying another attack and grabbed the shoulders of the monster, shoving it as hard as he could backwards to both give Lorna a more clear line of fire and give himself a moment to catch his breath.

The spears struck the cybiote directly in the center mass and drove it back hard. The creature found itself pinioned to the concrete as each lance began to twist, immobilizing it further.

It lasted only for a moment. Rather than struggle, the Fury used the same power that had formed the spikes to render them malleable. It took the metal directly into itself, using its new resources to repair the skeletal trauma caused by Fred and Garrison. Structures unnervingly like fingers exuded from the stump Clarice had left; a new barrel began to take shape.

Its temporary attunement to the EM fields also revealed the presence of uncomplicated electronic devices such as it had encountered from previous civilian and military engagements. The Fury had already noted the correlation between use of such devices and the arrival of additional targets; a development that had caused it something like annoyance. Its only previous option had been manual destruction. It now had a more efficient method.

The next EMP was inelegant but powerful, messily entangled with the barest touch of telekinesis. The communicators in the X-Men's lapels sizzled and died. Nearly two miles away, Marius pitched off the motorized bicycle as the engine died. A half mile further, the Blackbird's systems went dark.

The EMP blast coming from the creature caught Lorna off guard as she held her head. "Fuck..." Her senses were screwy and her head felt like it was splitting into two. "That thing is going down now!" Lorna took off into the air again and attempted to dislodge the metal from within, but was only met with resistance that wasn't helping her growing migraine. She flew over to Blink, "It is repairing itself. And it is resisting my magnetic powers."

"Fucking A!" there was really nothing to encompass what Clarice was feeling so that would have to do, at least for now. Creating another blink portal, she lobbed off a good chunk of the upper torso, sending it far away. It was all she could manage weight-wise. Distance meant nothing, but mass affected how much she could send and whatever this thing was made of, it was heavy. Dense, like fruit cake. And nutty.

The connection between half the Fury's processors disappeared. Suddenly it received no readings from its lower half; its biosensors screamed that most of its mass had vanished, and it could not comprehend why. A picosecond later it realized the female had displaced a section of its upper body mass, including the chip-encrusted nerve bundles currently housing its consciousness.

The cybiote fell to the earth, armless, helpless, but even as it did two subroutines triggered: "ELIMINATE HIGHEST PRIORITY TARGET" and "INITIATE IMMEDIATE REPAIR".

As the portal closed, Clarice flew backwards, heat spidering out in waves from her shoulder. "Wha?" she barely had time to ask as she hit the ground, seeing stars. Staring, she realized something was in her shoulder. In and through. That's when the pain began. Oh, shitfuck.

A slender metal spear jutted out through her back. Though its aim had been imperfect, the creature had succeeded in skewering her through the meat of the joint. The exposed blade was barbed like a fishing spear.

Like a harpoon.

A rope of glistening yellow tendon went taut. Clarice was jerked off her feet, reeled towards the dismembered hunk of flesh like a fish on a line. As it dragged her closer the Fury's sternum split down the middle to reveal a blood-streaked chasm lined with macerating ridges of bone: the Fury's mouth, gaping wide to receive its prize.

No. No no no. Fuck this thing.

Fred had tried to remember all the lessons Scott and Kane had spent so long teaching him. How to properly fight and move and coordinate. But as the damned thing started pulling Blink closer to some kind of-holy shit-mouth!?...no. Fuck this thing. It died now.

Fred screamed. The more noise he made at the thing, the more it seemed to pay attention to him. He picked up the sharpest piece of rubble he could find, the chuck of rock easily hundreds of pounds, and brought it crashing down on the disgusting tether that was reeling in Clarice it before he threw it at the 'mouth' on the fucking thing's chest.

Lorna flew over to Blink, "Hold on, I'll get it out." Her hands glowed green as Lorna warped the metal so it could easily detached from holding onto the girl. Once the metal was removed Lorna moved the metal so it would go straight down into the ground. "Are you okay Blink?" Focusing on the injured X-Man.

"Ow," Clarice replied, her voice feeling distant to her ears, "That fucking hurts, Polaris," she at least remembered their code names. "Tell me we're gonna kill that thing. Because I don't think I can teleport more away right now," with or without her shoulder being discombobulated. "Am I bleeding?" She tried to twist to see.

"It isn't that bad." She lied about the wound as she put pressure on it with her hand. Lorna looked over at Fred. "Anchor! Be careful! Don't get caught!"

Fred would've heeded the advice, had he any inclination to do anything but kill the thing.

As he closed on the damaged monster, it tried again to blast him with another flurry of microwaves. Fred lifted the entirety of it, lifted it with two handfuls of that disgusting chest-mouth-thing, and slammed it on the ground. It was still making noise. He slammed it into the large chuck of rubble he'd thrown at it a moment ago. It was still twitching, still swinging its gross clubbed arm around. Fred rammed it into a nearby car, pounded it against the remnants of a tree, and tried to fold it across piece of road now jutting out from the ground. But it just wouldn't stop squawking and beeping and flailing and swinging and fighting and he just wanted it to shut up and shut up and stop moving and be dead and shut up and stop.

Fred dragged the thing towards the closest building, and swung it like a bag of potatoes at the corner of the nearest wall. Shouting and cursing, Fred hit it over and over and over, occasionally hitting the wall itself, not noticing the groaning from the already demolished building as he tenderized the techno-organic creature that just refused to stop moving. When it managed to writhe from his hands Fred kicked the thing, knocking a huge chunk from the wall that began to sway, until the whole side of the damaged and worn structure collapsed right on top of him and the handfuls of monster he was still trying to kill.

"FRED!" Yvette bolted from her position protecting the injured, a small red blur. Spikes and spines erupted from her skin as she frantically dug into the rubble, hands turning into shovels in response to her actions. "NoFrednotFredplease." The words were a jumble as she dug, oblivious to everything and everyone around her.

A hand finally latched on to a red spike on her back and plucked her right out of the rubble. Kane's face was covered in blood and his skin was mottled with metallic and stone like features as his Omni-skin was trying desperately to soak up the damage his body absorbed from the creature. He could barely move, but Yvette was completely unhinged and could easily hurt Fred by causing the rubble to shift if he was still alive under there.

At the grip on her back, Yvette instinctively lashed out, twisting and scratching like a cat. When her toe-claws skidded across Garrison's omni-skin, something seemed to register and she went limp, hanging in Garrison's hand like a naughty kitten. "Please," she managed, sounding choked up, although her face was stony and expressionless. "We have to help him."

The rubble shifted under where Yvette had been sitting, and Fred pushed and clawed from under the loose flotsam. He was coughing, breathing hard, dirty, and his eyes were watering where the microwave damage made his face looked sunburned. Fred looked up at Kane and Yvette after he'd freed himself up to about his waist. He looked at the two, then down to the rubble, and looked back at them almost sheepishly, "Sorry guys. That, uh...may've been the dumbest thing Ah've done in a while..."

"Fred!" Yvette squirmed out of Garrison's hold and dropped to the ground before flinging herself at Fred, spikes and all. "Oh, Fred, I thought you were killed!" she exclaimed, hugging him tightly. "Please, never be doing such a thing again!"

Fred hugged back, finally chuckling when he managed to catch his breath, "Long as we don't have tah fight something like that fuggin thing again, Ah'll do mah best, Vette."

Kane wiped the blood off his chin. "We've got wounded here, people. Let's fall back and get them some treatment before we start celebrating, eh?" His healing factor was trying to catch up with his internal injuries. Jean, Clarice and Scott were in obvious pain, others unconscious. The line between winning and losing was thinner than any of them would be willing to admit.