xp_logs | The Dark Phoenix

Dark Phoenix ups the ante, providing a lethal response to distraction

Callisto's death was stark and vicious; the attack of someone angry at anyone daring to try and challenge them. X-Men were still falling in range of the Dark Phoenix. Jean's younger doppelganger seemed to take an element of fierce joy in hurting others, looking to continue her thrashing of the team.

"Jubilee, Cammie", Kurt said with a wary eye on where the Dark Phoenix was and whether her attention was on them. "Try to gather the wounded together, I will evacuate as many of them as I can at a time."

Jubilee had already started pulling some of the more badly injured students into a circle, counting them off as she went. "Just how many can you take at a time, Kurt?"

It was a sign of just how serious their position was that she'd forgone all attempts at lighthearted banter or nicknames. She just couldn't bring herself to pretend anymore, not after everything and now this.

"Two", he said simply, moving to take the first of them. "Perhaps three, if one is very small."

Times were bad if Cammie was helping treat injured. Generally she stayed as far away from hurt and recovering people as possible in case she accidentally made things worse. Blood poisoning could be treated later, however. Death? Death couldn't. And in her opinion there had been far too much death already. Cammie was already being uncharacteristically quiet, keeping her arms folded over her chest. Kurt was one of the closest things she felt she had to real family outside her adoptive parents and as such she had been following him around when she could, trying not to look like a lost puppy.

"Yeah, well... don't... don't hurt yourself trying to do it, Kurt, okay? Don't..." Cammie trailed off, not finishing the sentence.

Kurt paused, looking over at her, then abruptly stopped what he was doing and dashed over to give her a quick hug. "I know my limits, little sister. I will be fine."

And then it was back to his planned passengers, with no time to waste.

Close by, Jennie and Arthur were pooling all of their luck to shield the wounded. Discs flew in concert with knives at oncoming alternative attackers. Arthur had given up on smiling long ago, and... he blinked as he patted himself down, tucking into a side aerial to avoid and incoming energy blast. A cartwheel carried him past Jennie.

"All out," he commented while using his momentum to scissor his legs around the of one of doppelganger's waists to bring them both to the floor.

"Stick by me," Jennie panted. "I might be able to absorb your ambient luck and use it as a boost, just keep the bad guys off me," Jennie was sweating, shaking, and barely upright. But she burned with fierce determination, so much so that there was slight sheen of white to her skin, and her eyes, unbeknownst to her, burned red.

Miles had no idea how he'd gotten over here. Everything moved so fast since the arrival of the crazy woman on fire and the collapse of the mansion. Maybe it was fate that had brought him here with these X-Men who were risking their lives to save the injured. Whatever it was, he fell easily into the role of rescuer, and he dug through the rubble to help the trapped escape.

"Mister Sefton! Over here" he called, helping a kid even younger than him get to his feet.

"Miles?" Kurt's head snapped in that direction as he returned from taking his first two passengers as far away as he could, and he teleported immediately to Miles' side to ask the younger boy, "Are you hurt?"

"Kurt, get them out of here, get them all out of here NOW"

Jubilee shot a blast upward as the Firebird as she turned her attention on them, pushing herself in front of Kurt and the kids.

He tried, grabbing for Miles and the boy to remove them from the scene - but the Firebird had them in her sights, and he just wasn't quite fast enough as she flung a telekinetic blast in their direction, disrupting his teleport.

It happened too quickly for Miles to warn Kurt of the incoming attack. Miles's spider sense was almost deafening as the blast tore him from Kurt's arms. He landed hard on his side and heard something crack. A searing pain greater than anything he'd ever felt before suggested that he'd probably broken his left arm. He groaned and summoned every bit of his superhuman resilience to get himself back to his feet, but nearly fell back down when he caught sight of the other kid's blank, unmoving, lifeless eyes staring at him.

From behind them, there was a sound like heavy grinding and the earth was shaking. Out of the rubble rose several cars and trucks, pulled out of the ruined mansion garage. They had quite a fleet of vehicles and now Dark Phoenix was pulling them out one by one, letting them hover ominously as she worked. As the last one rose, she smiled and moved her hand. The vehicles, in one motion, came flying at them; tons of steel moving as fast as if they were been driven, descending on them.

For the fraction of a second, the world beat in time to Jennie's heart. She couldn't hear anything but the breath in her ears, and when she turned she could see the look on Arthur's face, sure it mirrored her own.

She had done well, probability was stretched thin and trembling, but it held. She had learned enough by now that it would not break until she pushed it hard enough to snap.

In that instant, that tiny moment in-between, Jennie looked at the man who had not so long ago asked what being a mutant meant, and her own reassurances it that it was strange and rewarding in it's own way, and felt guilt and shame at her own hollow promises.

They were going to die.

Perhaps, this is why she reached out and pulled him towards her, hugging him against her. If she was going to die, she would die on her feet. On her own terms. And she would protect her charges until her very last heartbeat. She felt the swirl of luck that poured out of Arthur, part of his ambient mutation, and she pulled it forward, mixing it with chaos and with a final shuddering breath she pushed out.

And in a great crackle of white and red energy, probability exploded.

Jubilee had always assumed her death would be a quiet thing, somewhere in a back alley when she'd misstep or made one too many insane plays and luck ran out. But she knew what she was about to do had a good chance of killing her. She did it anyway, sometimes you had no real choice and without C4 to give her powers a little help she was going to have to rely on her own body to fuel what would need to be some hellishly big explosions.

"Camster, you're gonna have to pull me out if I'm alive, okay?"

A multitude of sparks spread out from Jubilee's body - growing bigger as they moved away from her and toward the vehicles currently headed toward them. She fed every last ounce of energy and power she had ever been able to summon into them and then let them go in an explosion of sound, light and heat. She could only hope she'd done enough as darkness spread it's way across her vision and she collapsed.

"God damnit, Jubby, if you're dead I'm going to fucking kill you!" Cammie said, rushing over to check on her friend, after she strangled Jubilee for this stunt then she could go check on Kurt. A quick check did confirm that the idiot was indeed alive, but out cold. Cammie grabbed her under the arms and started to pull her friend to safety.

"You're such a fucking dipshit, Jubby, you know that?" she grumbled.

What Jennie had done made sure most of her charges were safe, as vehicles collided with each other mid-air, sending them spinning off out of their trajectory and away from the injured they'd been meant to hit - and, in at least two cases, parts of the walls collapsed at just the right moment to bear a car or a truck beneath them to the ground.

One of the trucks, however, was still coming directly at Kurt where he lay unconscious.

"MISTER SEFTON!" Miles was on auto-pilot. He'd already seen too many people murdered by this witch and he couldn't let Kurt be the next victim. Miles made a great leap to get in the way of the oncoming pickup that had been so easily flung towards him. Broken arm be damned, he could catch it and save him. True Spider-Man heroics, just like when he'd saved both Mary Jane and the gondola full of people from Green Goblin's dilemma. If Peter Parker were real, he'd be proud.

But conviction wasn't enough. The truck had too much momentum for even a super-strong mutant to stop and everything went black.

Longshot's eyes during all of this, one bathing Jennie's face in a swath of golden light, were wide and locked upon the girl who held him. He'd only known he was a mutant for a month, but this was the first time he could feel his power in action as she sucked every last ounce of good luck from the surrounding area and weaponized it outward. Yet the more she drew, the more reality buckled to give Arthur more -- the ground started to boil as multiple earthquakes were coaxed, the weather overhead became of nimbus of opposing weather patterns, and any tiny tears and imperfections in any remaining alternate's clothing hobbled their movement as the spinning cars finished their grim work and equalized the playing field.

Arthur heard Miles's scream and the sickening crunch as squealing metal broadcasted his sacrifice. The blonde man shook Jennie, "Com'on, snap out of it. We did good. You did good."

"I--" Jennie coughed, her nose gushing with blood. She could barely stand, and she gripped Arthur's shirt. The lucksnap had taken what she had left, and the edges of her vision were threatening with grey. "Help me," she said, coughing. "We can--"

Kurt moved, waking at first gradually until yellow eyes snapped fully open with horror as he saw Miles' arm sticking out from under the twisted pickup, and he began crawling in that direction.

"Miles? Are you - "

No sound. No movement. Desperately, he tried to push the wreck over and off the boy, just in case -

Jubilee had managed to gain consciousness and she tapped weakly against Cammie's arm.

"Get Kurt, port us...port us somewhere safe."

She slumped again, blackness taking her as her body attempted to pull enough energy to keep her internal organs working.

"Jubbs?" Cammie said, trying to get her awake again, "Fuck. Okay," she put Jubilee down gently and went running towards Kurt.

"Kurt! Hey! We need you over here! Jubby - Jubilee - we need to get her out of here!" she said, stopping by him and seeing the wreckage, "Shit... Kurt, hey, we need you to get us out of here," Cammie suddenly felt guilty that she was a boy she barely knew was there instead of Kurt. But she didn't say it. Even she knew when to bite her tongue.

A blonde head appeared instead. Not Kurt, but Arthur gently carried the slumped form of Jennie in his arms. He smiled weakly at Cammie, reaching the two, but it didn't reach his eyes. Hell, it didn't even reach the corners of his mouth.

"All set for evac," the man provided horsey, "What's the plan?"

Kurt looked up slowly, dazed with the residual effects of his injury and seeing Miles dead on the ground, but eventually nodded, reaching for Cammie and Jubilee.

"Yes. Yes, we must go. I will take you to the others."

One teleport. Two puffs of smoke. Soon, all that was left of the battle were those who would not be leaving scattered among the remains of mansion garage. Nearby the firebird still burned -- it wasn't over yet.