X-Men Mission: Repent Harlequin, Said The Tick-Tock Man - log 5

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

The next level is trapped with blades and cutting traps, nearly slicing the team to pieces.



Shutting down the power conduit had stopped the traps and locked gates between them and the next floor up, but even after the cutoff, they could still hear sounds of gears and machinery working all around them. The hatch that covered the entrance was easily torn aside from Julian and Jean's combined telekinetic powers and Kane took point, hauling himself up to the next floor.

Unlike the previous floor, this one was cool, almost cold, and silent. The creaking metal and whumps of flame were gone, replaced only by the faint sounds of metal scrapping against metal. The space was filled with a complex maze of struts, piping and pillars, leaving them no option but to follow the path.

"Looks clear so far."

"You just had to say it," Julian grumbled, following closely behind Garrison with his wrist raised in the air, illuminating the corridor in a pale green light. They were moving slowly, with Julian pushing out with his telekinesis every so often to try and get a sense of what horrors their host had planned for them. The unstable pulses weren't returning much good information, as the stress of being back in the field so soon was starting to wear on him.

"What? It's not like it's going to mysteriously become untrapped if I-" Kane suddenly stopped and yanked himself and Julian back as a spinning blade no thicker than a piece of paper whirred out, nearly slicing them both across the chest. It disappeared into a slot that was so thin it was easy to miss even when looking for it. "OK, so they're being subtle with this one it seems."

Julian patted at his chest with his wrists, momentarily feeling like an idiot from imagining what everyone else just saw. He peered down the hallway, "How do you want to handle this one, boss-man?" A list of possibilities flew through his mind, ranging from the practical, to the going back and grabbing Quire to use as a trap detector.

"Low and slow. Can you use your TK to hit the surfaces ahead of us? See if we can set off the traps ahead of us, figure out what we're dealing with first?"

"I'm already doing that," there was a hint of annoyance in his voice. The practice of sending telekinetic pulses forward in unknown situations was now second nature to him, "I'm not getting much information back. I could try to bubble-up and just take whatever hits it."

"That works right up until we get something that is strong enough to cut through your bubble. Just keep pinging. I'll go on ahead." Kane knew he was being overly cautious, but the last time he'd led Julian in the field, he'd gotten him crippled. "My reflexes and your warning should be enough."

Kane moved forward slowly, crouched and ready to move. He was almost through the hallway when he stopped. Or was stopped. Looking down, he could see just barely wires dug into the flesh of his forearms and legs. The monofiliment was so thin that he didn't even register walking into it and only his omni-skin toughening in response had stopped it before it severed a limb. He pulled back, tearing the wires out at odd angles.

"Ow! Fuck fuck!" He said, rubbing the bleeding flesh. "Ultra-thin wires. Some kind of cut yourself to pieces trap."

The wires had been so thin that Julian hadn't sensed them. He winced as the group caught up with the injured agent, "This isn't working, boss." Sighing, Julian let the shields drop, still sending out the soft pings of telekinetic energy, "I could just try to rip down the walls ahead of us...but that may bring the building down on us. Hostage situation solved, but not really optimally," he smirked.

"You okay, Dominion?" Sooraya moved forward, frowning at the rivulets of blood, but the flesh was already pulling closed. "How about I go to the back and go sand form. I can probably catch stuff if they want to try to stab us in the back?"

"I'm fine. Healing factor will... son of a..." Kane suddenly smiled. "Dust, can you give us a suspended sand cloud? The particulates will cling to the monofiliments and show us where they are, so Scion can snap them one by one."

"Sure." Sooraya nodded and dissolved into her sand form. Moving forward, she hovered around the filaments, the sharp little things... Finally she thinned the cloud, so Scion could see them as well.

With a nod, Scion moved forward into the cloud and stopped pinging the path ahead. He whispered into the cloud, "Let's give it a shot, Dust. Worst case scenario, I lose a couple more body parts, right?" he chuckled...nervously.

As they began to move forward, he strained his eyes to spot anything ahead of them, his heart rate rising in his head to drown out the sound of sand scrapping against the metallic walls. Finally, something rippled ahead, and Julian reacted as quickly as he was able, sending a sharpened wave of force out ahead of himself. A moment passed and Julian took a moment to double check that he hand't been diced to a thousand pieces. Satisfied that he wasn't going to tumble into a heap of meat-cubes, he gave the thumbs up to Kane, with a small streak of blood on his cheek the only indication that anything that been stopped.

"That was particularly nasty." Kane muttered as they continued their tromp through the icy halls. Julian's TK saved them numerous times as blades spun out or pits opened all, all intended to cut them to ribbons. After a long and careful crawl through a low section of halls, they emerged in the midst of a cylindrical room, which was rotating clockwise. Beyond it, they could see an access way, likely the way to the next level. However, between them was an eye-watering collection of spinning blades, sharpened rotating propellers and twisted, jagged spikes driving in from the rotating wall. Worse, the slight crackle of ozone indicated another trap; EM pulses. One at the wrong time would kill their mutant powers for a moment.

Julian halted at the point and turned back to Kane, "This may be more than Dust and I can handle," quickly adding toward the cloud of swirling sand, "no offense." The young telekinetic thought for a moment about trying to pull one of the blades from the bunch to use against the others...but that could trigger other traps. "Thoughts?"

Glancing up at the obvious death trap, Jean tilted her head. "I may have an idea. Might I give it a go?" she said.

"Does this mean I don't get turned into a sushi roll? Go crazy, Rusty."

Jean's only reaction to Garrison's nickname for her was a faint smirk before she stepped forward. "Everyone please step back and out of the room," she said.

Once the others did as she requested, Jean took a couple of moments, studying the way the mechanisms worked before she lifted her hands like she were conducting a symphony. A wave of energy radiated outward, blowing through the blades, propellers, and spikes like a reverse trash compactor and smashing them against one another. Another moment passed and a sickened whirr, followed by the faint smell of smoke caused the room to stop spinning as one of the spikes was driven into the motor.

Jean turned back toward the others.

"Occam's razor," she said with a light smile, then motioned them forward.

"Nice," Kitty said, stepping ahead. She glanced over her shoulder. "How many more traps you think they got?

"Oh, I'm certain she just destroyed every one in the tower," Julian raised up his arms sarcastically. "We can go home now, right? Job finished?" He was trying very hard not to think resentful thoughts about Jean at the moment, trying to keep how he could have helped her with it. The attempt was likely unsuccessful, but he avoided eye contact, just in case.

"Let's keep going... cautiously. I doubt that this is the end, even if this floor is now clear."