xp_logs | The Dark Phoenix

First group of injured hits Dark Phoenix, but are rebuffed quickly, forcing a temporary holding action as they pull others out of the rubbish.

The mansion was in a shambles, the roof gone and vast chunks torn out of the walls. The telekinetic winds buffeted them as they left the shelter's door, ducking to avoid the rubble as more holes were punched into the dying building. The firebird hovered at the eye of the storm, surrounded by the debris being torn out and tossed aside. She hadn't appeared to have spotted them yet and the mutants crouched behind a half wall to plan.

"OK, that's a fuck of a lot more terrifying than I was expecting." Kane said grimly. "If we can distract her one way, we might be able to surprise her coming the other."

The swirls of probability were giving Jennie a headache, and she covered one eye to focus. "I can't see anything set, it's all changing too fast." It still hurt to breathe, her ribs hadn't fully healed from the night on Muir, but she had distance and range. "We've got heavy hitters, not much range. Someone'll have to try and get up close. I can luck whomevers going at her so... well, something good will happen." Hopefully it meant she wouldn't crush their skulls like an egg. "Marius, do you want a top-up, or a full deck?"

Marius flicked yellow eyes to his teammate, well aware of her injuries. "A disc will do for now. I'm going to hazard a guess that probability's wild enough at the moment, and if the last few days are to judge there are even odds we'll end up fighting ourselves; let's not complicate the issue. Besides, it's telekinesis. Barring creative use of debris, I can deal with a direct hit." He nodded at Garrison. "So yes, I volunteer as tribute. Still got enough feral in my system that I'm agile enough. Any volunteers for an assist?"

"Thought you'd never ask, Bitey"

Jubilee looked like one solid bruise, one eye was swollen shut and while she was capable of movement, the look of pain when she did was obvious. Luckily for them all, Jubilee was used to working injured and pushing past all but fatal injuries.

"I can give her something interesting to look at, at least."

North knew he'd snap like a twig under a boot in the face of that power, notwithstanding the fact that he was recovering from multiple gunshot wounds. So he hunkered down beside Kane, closed his eyes and started focusing on the elevated beating of his heart. Visions flashed past in the mind's eye and when he opened his eyes again, his eyes lacked its usual pale blue irises. The next couple of minutes would be a whirlwind of motion either way and a heavy weight settled in his stomach.

"Start flinging shit at her," he said to Angelo after a moment, swinging one the rifles he had slung over his back to the front - his only mode of attack. "It will not like that. And I hope no one is thinking of taking it down because..." Well, one thing at a time. "Can't see it yet."

There was no shortage of shit to fling, and Angelo nodded curtly and set about it. One of the good things about his power was that he didn't have to rely on the strength of his muscles - he still had limits, but with his skin he could throw heavier things than he could ever have lifted.

Jean-Phillipe was better close up with his power - the farther he had to project electricity, the more effort it took. But he could do some - supplementing Jubilee's fireworks and Angelo's thrown debris with crackles of energy. At that kind of range it was more flash than impact, but given that their aim was distraction, it didn't matter quite so much. Sweat dripped down the Frenchman's face as he gestured and a ribbon of electrical energy went forward.

The blast grounded against her shield, spider-webbing out as it skittered along the TK, washing across looking for a weak point. She didn't seem to noticed until the first chunks of concrete smashed into the shield, stretching it slightly. She looked back and with a flick on her hand, a heavy beam pulled up from the ground and smashed into Jean-Phillipe, knocking him flat.

Kane waited for Jubilee's fireworks to crackle against the shield before he hefted the heavy piece of rebar he'd cleared from the rubble and rushed forward. His range was more limited than normal, but he still hit the shield like a steam engine, punching the rebar in front of him like a lance. The impact made the shield shudder. Unfortunately, it held and Kane was tossed back with the force of a car crash, punching through a wall before rolling to a stop.

Marius forced himself to ignore Garrison and Jean-Phillipe; he wasn't going to let this escalate. Not this time.

The X-Man bounded towards the woman's back, eyes slitted against the strobe of Jubilee's plasma and trusting in the good luck Jennie'd given him to ensure his path wouldn't put him in front of Angelo and North's ballistics. There was a painful pulse of pressure as his mutation struggled to compensate for the telekinetic shield, and then he was through. He leaped, hands outstretched and mouths gaping. It didn't matter how strong she was; he'd never met a mutant able to sustain full power once he'd begun to feed.

A slab of concrete tore itself from the rubble and slammed him from the air as if he were nothing more than a ping-pong ball. The woman never even turned.

Jennie reacted first, tossing a white disk, realizing half a second too late that she could not affect the outcome of her friend, as he only absorbed her power. She could only look on in mute horror as he hit the ground hard, and she thought she heard bones snap. He lay there for a moment, horribly still, and then his face twisted in agony.

"You moron," she sighed in relief.

She turned to the older man at her side. "She's fucking bulletproof, isn't she?" she said, raising her voice as she cast another disk, causing the chunk of concrete headed towards them to miss them by inches and take out another wall.

“Yes,” North replied solemnly, and she saw that while he had his gun trained on their attacker, he had long since stopped firing. “Her telekinetic shields are too strong. Even a rocket launcher would bounce off them. There is nothing…” He turned to give Jennie a blank look, eyes still a filmy white before they snapped back to the battlefield.

“Jubilation, down!”

Jubilee dropped to the ground as a well aimed piece of building sailed over her. She rolled onto her back and blasted the chunk with several plasmoids in order to turn it into gravel rather then a weapon.

"Thanks, Grumpy. So, any ideas? Gar, you conscious?"

She flipped herself up onto her feet and went to peer into the hole he'd made in the wall, confident North would warn her if something came at her again.

"If you're dead Adri is gonna be pissed."

"How you are a secret agent is beyond me." Kane slowly levered himself up, head ringing from the force of the blow. "We haven't made a damn dent in her yet, have we?"

"Remy's probably been hit in the head a few too many times and your Uncle Pete needed all the strays to unlock the special bonus level, or the other way round. Either way, they saved me."

Jubilee squinted against the fiery form of the Phoenix and tried to judge as to whether she actually looked stronger then before.

"I think maybe I saw her laughing her ass off before, but I could be wrong. You got any super crafty strategic advice, or do we just keep throwing ourselves at her and hope she breaks a nail?"

Marius, who had limped back to join them behind cover, looked from Garrison's bloodied face to where Angelo was hastily working to dig out Jean-Phillipe. He turned to Jubilee, half his face already beginning to swell.

"If the latter," he said, "this time, I vote ladies first."