Reality Coming Down - Log 4

[x-gambit.livejournal.com]

Sue's team focuses on the rear of the mansion, closing it off and fighting back attackers



Given the attack that just had been prophesied, the grounds of the Xavier Institute felt surprisingly calm. Had those inside not known what was coming, it might have been easy to be lulled into a false sense of security.

Sue sat in a window, her eyes flicking back and forward between the view and the tablet on her lap, which was flicking through images from the cameras scattered around the grounds. The mansion, which was normally so busy and loud, was utterly silent, as if the grounds themselves were holding their breath waiting for the first strike. It was the eerie kind of silence you didn't want to be the first to break, the kind of silence you knew would become something bad once it was broken.

Yet someone needed to say something, she realized as she glanced around at the others all wrapped up in their thoughts, and for her crimes, she was in charge of her friends. "We're sure we bared the downstairs door, right?" she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

In contrast to Sue's constant vigilance, Topaz was sitting with her back against the wall, knees pulled up to her chest, eyes closed. It was a mostly relaxed position, though the young witch was anything but – she had her shields down completely, reaching out as far as she could, waiting for the first sign of something she didn't recognize. At Sue's question, her eyes snapped open, and she tilted her head up to look at the blonde. "Yeah." Her voice sounded a bit odd in the otherwise silent atmosphere. "It's all set." She didn't add that she didn't think it would do much good - if whatever was coming wanted in, it would get in. But nobody needed her pessimism right then.

Six, five, four, three, two, one. Quickly Hope counted the windows from her shadowy cover, and then her astral form was flitting through the sky and making her way inside, straight to the window. With a deep breath, she slipped back in her body and blinked a few times, rising quickly to perch next to Sue, looking over her shoulder at the camera images. "I haven't spotted anyone in this area..." She pointed at the edge of a picture. "... visually or by their auras. The same goes for the corner by the road, though the camera there seemed melted. It might be a corner that needs watching..."

Meggan stood from where she had been seated and looked out the window. She saw there was at least one area of cover near that corner, even if it wasn't much. “I could watch from there. From that tree,” she offered. Nobody would have to stand out in the open, then, was her reasoning. She could blend in and signal if she saw something approaching.

Sue bit her lip glancing nervously back and forth between her teammates before nodding, "Do it," she decided, "If one of the cameras here is melted then it wasn't by mistake, someone's probably sneaking around there. Meggan," They needed codenames, they were a team, her team, after all if only for this mission, "be careful. If there is someone out there, don't let them see you. If anything looks suspicious, then just get out of there." she said wryly. It sounded like trite advice, but none of her friends were going to get hurt on her watch.

While they talked, Topaz closed her eyes again, feeling around the shields she'd established and after a moment of thought putting a bit more energy into them. The stronger the better, though she highly doubted they were going to do any good. But every extra minute counted, right?

Of course, if this actually came to a fight she was going to be in trouble. Hopefully whatever was coming had viable emotions, because draining her friends in the middle of a fight wouldn't be an option.

"Wait..." Hope leaned closer to Sue, peeking over her shoulder and studying the tablet intently. "Was that just a flicker I saw in the trees, or am I just seeing things?" She frowned at the tablet, scanning the area where she thought she had seen the flash.

"Maybe?" The blonde replayed the feed from the camera, "It's hard to tell, it could be anything." The blonde nodded at Meggan, "we should probably swing by on patrol and check it out? It may be nothing, or it may be someone sneaking up on the mansion." she sighed and gestured at the tablet, "It's just too hard to tell."

Meggan looked closer, but it was too quick to be certain of anything other than it was just there. It could even be an innocent reflection, but right now she supposed it was better to check than to be disastrously sorry later, or have only one person left behind and get pounced on. “That sounds like a good idea,” she nodded.

Easily rising from her position behind Sue, Hope returned to her pillows by the wall, the flower unfolding already taking shape in her mind. Yet she held back, waiting for the rest of the people to get ready. And who knew, she might actually take her body with her this time, just to be sure...

Topaz dropped her shields, shoving past the panicked, scattered emotions of the other students and Xavierites. It was surprisingly easy to pick through that and find the outliers - the ones who were calm, the ones who weren't worried. "Three... four maybe," she muttered, shaking her head. "Can't pinpoint locations, but they're out there -- shite," she cut herself off with a curse as she felt something brush against the shields she'd erected outside. "And one of them's magic."

Sue dropped her tablet as she pushed herself up of the windowsill, "Four of them, we can handle that," she said with a confidence she didn't feel. Please don't let me screw up, she thought as she led the way towards the door. "Topaz, let us know when we get close to them, don't want to let anyone get the drop on us."

With magic involved, could they be certain that there were only four out there? That more weren’t hidden away? Meggan didn’t want to voice that thought, as it would only worry everyone more than they already were. Then again, another option popped into her head. “They might be using magic to only be picked up as those tiny flickers,” she commented as she followed.

Hope kept an eye out for a place to drop her body out of the way... fighting in her astral form was not her strongest suit, as Egypt had shown her, and she knew herself well enough that fighting in her physical form would be even worse. Scouting and S&R was something she was far more suited for, she muttered to herself.

Topaz opened her mouth to respond to Meggan's suspicions - only to freeze when she felt the strangest sensation run through her mind. Like something was sticking her straw in her mind and siphoning off of it. Having never been on the receiving end of her own draining, it took her a moment to realize exactly what was happening. "What the hell?" She gasped, slamming her shields back up and whirling around to see - well, herself, standing at the back of a small group much like the one she was in, with a Sue and a Meggan and a Hope to accompany her. "That is starting to get annoying." Once was bad enough.

This was so strange. The other Meggan even felt like she might have been her, aside from the whole presumably evil twin thing. Which she settled on by the fact Topaz wanted to hurt Topaz. Would it hurt to kick at someone that might be you? She’d find out eventually, unless there was something like a paradox to worry over, in addition to everything else! Meggan was watching the one that looked like her warily.

Sue stared across the gap trying her hardest to resist the urge to raise her hand and wave it back and forth like they did in the movies, only she wasn't in front of a mirror. Aside from the clothes though, she'd never owned a blue dress quite like that. It looked almost Victorian, if not for all the brass... gadgets. The blonde couldn't help but try and figure out what they did, while recognizing the smirk and set of the shoulders. "This is freaky," she murmured.

"Not again..." Hope shook her head as she looked over her counterpart, who was dressed in a strange combination of cream lace and brass decoration, with even an lace parasol. "I already faced punk me in India!" She muttered in a low voice, trying to lighten the sudden tension a bit.

"Well, I have to say, this one's a bit more attractive than the last alternate me," Topaz muttered back. "The lack of horns is refreshing." She was distracted by the energy she saw sparking between her alternate self's fingers. "Shite. Down!" She hollered, just barely managing to get a shield in front of them before the other her attacked.

Sue pushed herself up off the ground coughing up dirt as she glared across the way at their doppelgangers. "That wasn't very nice," she cautioned angrily, a forcefield flaring to life around her fists as she took a menacing step towards the other group, "not very nice at all."