Crash Landers; an invasion (in eight parts)

[xp_mimetic]

It was dark and cold; the tips of her ears and nose stung, exposed. Her fingers, half hidden in leather sleeves, felt for the worn cuffs of her jacket. At night, grounds that should have been familiar were alien, outdoor lights highlighting clean windows, intact walls, and a groomed lawn that spanned too far, unblemished.

She took a deep breath, and watched it rise, white, when she exhaled. She nodded to herself, a few times. Then she took the last few steps out of the shadow and into the light shining on the side door, and pressed a code into the keypad, shoulders rigid.

The light on the keypad flashed red.

Alani's boots sounded harsh on the sidewalk that led to the side door, quick, abnormally heavy steps seeming to echo. The cold was never her favorite and the urge to get back inside outweighed her logical brain. She almost didn't even notice the person already at the door. Much too short to be Shatterstar for that shade of hair.

Confusion froze her, cocking her head before she waved a hand. "Hey!"

The girl twisted, panicked; the eyes that met Alani's, almost colorless in the dark, showed white and wide. The moment only stretched to a split second. (Deal with threats pre-emptively and definitively..)

Light erupted, too bright, from the girl's left eye, and Alani shot backwards, away from the door, her body caught in a spin that ended with a relatively gentle thump into the snowdrift. The girl's face twisted in regret, but she was already moving forward - solving the problem of the door by blasting it inward.

In the snow, she laid disoriented, attempts to get to her feet thwarted by the nauseating feeling that everything around her was spinning, or she was still spinning. Weakly, Alani attempted to paw her phone out of her jacket pocket to message someone. Oh god, the kids.

The side door exploded inward, splinters flying; the small figure that followed them stopped short.

Get home. Let Midnight loose. Sleep forever. It was a good plan. Topaz liked that plan.

The cat yowled in her crate at the sound of the door exploding, and Topaz whirled, putting up a shield to avoid being skewered by shrapnel. Get home. Let Midnight loose. Sleep forever. It had been a good plan.

"Bloody hell, what in the-"

"Topaz!" Awoken from the reverie of endless TikTok scrolling by the blaring alarms, Rictor had rushed out of the kitchen and down the hall, where he caught sight of his savior facing a stranger with a glowing eye. He had seen enough action cartoons to know a bad guy when he saw one, but there was little he could do. One stomp and he could bring down the whole mansion. Good thing the witch was back. All she needed was a power source. "Use me for your magic!"

If Topaz was a little slow on the uptake, well... she'd just gotten off a seven-hour flight and her body didn't know what time it was. She reached out mentally, sure that Rictor didn't actually know what she used to power her magic, and pulled off enough motion to launch ropes of magic at the odd little intruder.

Drywall dust fell, picture frames shattered along the staircase, and the stairs' banister wrenched halfway off as the figure stumbled, before it paused, regaining its balance with the magical ropes snaking around its ankles, and then an unseen force simply threw Rictor directly into Topaz.

Topaz immediately dropped the ropes to try and slow Rictor's trajectory. It... mostly worked. She even sort of managed to catch him, as much as a tiny witch standing at five-two could catch a young man who was mostly long, floppy limbs. The resulting fall was at least a little controller, and Rictor didn't completely squish Topaz.

One moment Rictor was standing tall, the next he was ass over elbows in a Rictor-shaped dent in the wall. He felt the pain and discomfort of being bowled over, but they did not fully register. He felt his heart pound in his chest and he fought to catch his breath, but the fear or anger that usually accompanied those physiologic reactions were tempered. Was this Topaz's gift? If he'd had the capability to feel awe, he would have. Instead, he just lay in his heap.

The small figure, now unencumbered by magical ropes, hopped nimbly out of the way; seemingly encouraged by Rictor's resignation, the heavy wooden banister of the stairs tore off the last post and landed gently on the Topaz-Rictor pile, and the figure escaped.

Topaz was still on the ground, not quite crushed by Rictor, her head tilted back to watch the figure dance off. Welcome home.

And Midnight, still in her carrier on Topaz's shoulder and unharmed, if not a little rattled, started yowling.

"I think you will have to open the good treats for Midnight," Rictor offered flatly.

Not yet quite managing a run, the small figure burst through the entryway to the hall on the heels of a thunderous crash; and it skidded to a halt, seeing further obstacles. It was backlit by the one overhead light that had survived, haloing red hair against the black leather shoulders of a slightly oversized jacket.

Boris barked loudly at Illyana's side, Eris on his back with wings spread and tiny teeth bared in a hiss as Illyana came to a sudden stop. "You are unknown and making mess." Her eyes narrowed, free hand going to her chest as Soulsword emerged and armor rippled across her chest and down her sword arm. "You will stop." The figure's size wasn't a deterrent, not with the damage Illyana could see behind her. One eye still on the figure, she barked out a sharp command in Russian, watching as Boris turned tail and ran towards an exit, Eris following at his heels with an annoyed flutter of wings that still couldn't quite let her fly.

Shatterstar came up behind the red-haired figure, boxing her in, having been disturbed by the crashing and banging, in just his pajamas and sword in hand. He looked to Illyana and nodded to her over the intruder's shoulder, standing guard to the way she came but looking to Illyana take point.

Red hair flashed under the emergency lights as the figure glanced back; one hand hooked onto one of Shatterstar's braids, jerking his head forward, and used the momentum to sweep his feet. The throw itself aimed Shatterstar directly at Illyana's knees.

Shatterstar cursed as he sucked and rolled to land well, losing his grip on his sword slightly in his attempt not to cut Illyana as he landed, feet and one hand hitting the floor.

Illyana swore loudly in a mix of Russian and a demonic tongue that caused an ephemeral outline to superimpose over her body, sharp horns bathed in red and an equally sharp tail twitching with irritation as she lunged at the tiny menace, sword aimed to neatly separate the girl's head from her shoulders.

The sword made contact - but not with the intruder's neck. The sword hit an invisible shield hard, making the small figure's heels scrape against the floor as it pushed back. Light flared from a left eye.

(Keep moving. Don't get distracted by fights you don't know how to win.)

Instead of fighting back, the shield pushed back hard, and the figure ducked down and rolled, already moving to the exit; as it did, there was a crack heard even over the alarms, and then the ceiling fell.

The reverberations zinged up through Illyana's arms and made her teeth ache, but the crack had her moving instinctively, body flinging itself over Star and sword opening a portal just wide enough to shove their bodies through as the ceiling crashed onto the floor where the three–now two–had just been. She twisted, letting her armor take the brunt of the fall as they landed in a heap of limbs on the floor in front of the vending machine, chips of wood and ceiling dust floating around them.

Shatterstar got to his feet after falling heavily, body slightly bruised from being thrown around like a ragdoll, but it was nothing compared to his bruised pride. But at least neither he nor Illyana were crushed.

Her portal sent the Chapel's alarm screaming, and as Illyana laid on the floor, full of regret and no small amount of rage that she'd been thwarted, there was really only one thing to say.

"Ow."

Flashing lights strobed on red hair and a leather jacket liberally powered in drywall dust as the small figure made it into the kitchen, sliding down on one knee to take cover against an island when she saw it was occupied.

A gutteral profanity came out of one of the men in the kitchen, and then Kyle hit the ground. "Unknown's in the kitchen! I have eyes on them!" He peeked up, cautiously raising until he was back on his feet, glanced at the other man in the kitchen.

When the alert sounded, Doug had taken just enough time to put an earbud in, grab his pistol and sword, and take off at a run to cover an entry point. As such, he was crouched behind another island in nothing but his boxer briefs. He read Kyle's glance easily, and putting just enough of his head up to see, he began firing at the spot the redhead had taken cover - the slow, steady, disciplined firing design to make people keep their heads down.

The ear-jarringly loud gunfire echoed off kitchen tile and chrome appliances and the sturdy well-made wood of the island. The bullets themselves embedded into the island, each leaving a crack and a spray of splinters and chips. Kyle crouched, waited for the moment between metronomically spaced shots, and then went over the island as the last shot rang out. He had been expecting at best, blood, a wounded invader, perhaps a cowering intruder. At worst, a corpse. He'd have handled that, he had a therapist.

He wasn't prepared for a tiny figure with an eye glowing bright enough to cause his eyes to water.

The light in the small figure's eye flared brighter for a moment, and force - not deadly, but strong and determined - caught Kyle mid-jump and pushed.

(Don't let anyone get close. If there's a gun, give them something else to think about.)

The sound of something scraping granite counters filled the intermittent quiet between blasts of the alarm.

The sight of Kyle's vector of movement getting suddenly redirected gave Doug pause. ~TK, or close enough to be going on with,~ he thought to himself. He took a moment to assess his own mental state - telekinesis often came combined with telepathy, after all - and concentrated on actively shielding his mind. Even if a TK wasn't catching bullets, their ability to shield themselves would make unplanned ricochets a very real possibility. Tactically, his best bet was probably hitting the intruder before they knew where he was, so he began to circle around the edge of the island toward the opposite side of the room from where Kyle had been flung, placing his pistol on the ground and unsheathing the sword strapped to his back.

Kyle hit the kitchen counter back first, swore as something wrenched in the muscles, and landed in a ungainly half-crouch. "It's a fucking kid!" He yelled - or tried to. It was interrupted by stove.

The screech of a twelve-top stove with six ovens underneath being torn away from the wall was one thing - a noise that nobody could hear and not cringe from - but the more sinister noise of gas hissing from a torn line was easily missed. That is, until a stray spark from metal scraping against metal ignited it. The blast of fire licked the high ceilings and caught the cupboards, but - curiously - flowed over and around Doug and Kyle, giving them time to get out of the way.

The figure darted out toward the next door, leaving the fire raging behind her.

"What the-" The cut off exclamation covered about three separate confusing things in rapid enough succession that Doug couldn't question them all separately. He tapped his earbud even as he lunged toward the nearest fire extinguisher. "Hawkeye, intruder is through to you, breaking off to...put out a gas fire." Whatever Clint said in reply didn't entirely register as Doug refocused on the emergency at hand.

Any thought of yelling into Doug's comm that their intruder was a child - a teenager at the oldest - was torn away by the rush to grab the other fire extuingisher and lay down a coating of foam before the fire reached the electrical outlets. The sprinklers were doing diligent duty alongside the two men armed with red canisters of fire retardant dust and foam, but it was still minutes after minutes before Kyle set swiped soot off his face, and looked at Doug. "Dude. Where the fuck are your pants?"

The alarm wailed, and smoke billowed out of the kitchen behind the small figure sprinting into the hallway and leaving chaos behind. She skidded to a halt on her heels, breath now coming in gulps, upon seeing that the hallway was not unoccupied.

"Hawkeye, intruder is through to you, breaking off to...put out a gas fire," came through the comm Clint had just shoved in his ear. That was gonna hurt later. "Copy," he answered, half-skidding around a corner, his bow in one hand, quiver at his waist. He was pleased that, for once in his life, he was fully clothed. It was always nice when disaster struck to have real pants on, especially when the disaster... is a child?

"What the fuck?" Clint asked the universe as he nocked a subdue-and-contain arrow, then let it fly. The tensile strength of the polymer-coated alloy that made up the netting was the best he'd come up with so far, meaning it should trap the girl efficiently. What the hell had she done to the kitchen? Was that smoke trailing behind her in the hallway?

April was stalking along the ceiling like a giant shadow, but as Clint trapped the younger looking woman she decided to drop in, freefalling from the ceiling to land crouched in front of the redhead with a loud, menacing hiss and snap of her teeth. Her white eyes stared at the girl unblinkingly, barely acknowledging Clint's existence except for the quick wave of a tendril. She settled, still ready to pounce at a moment's notice. "BAD GIRL" she rumbled. "NO"

There was a strange beat of silence, between the alarm and the commotion behind them in the kitchen; and then a shockwave blasted outward, shredding the net - violent and uncontrolled except that it seemed somehow to skim April and Clint, most of the force flowing around them and racing outward unstoppably. The hallway filled with the sharp sound of glass cracking and shattering outward. In the midst of this, the girl darted forward, momentum restored.

The conversation Clint had had with Rachel years ago flashed through his mind. The mental image of being squashed between two TK shields was vivid and gruesome as he felt himself being pushed gently backward. "Hoo shit," he muttered, little pieces of his netting raining down around him.

April let out a roar of pain as the sound of multiple windows shattering and cracking at once in a confined space assaulted her sensitive ears. She jumped away from the sound instinctively, ending up in the shadows of the ceiling and loping away from the chaos and noise the small redhead was making until she found herself buried in a mound of delightful, sound muffling something.

Clint stopped resisting the backward push, choosing partially parkour off a wall before kicking himself through an open doorway. Hitting the comm in his ear, he broadcast, "Uh, intruder's a kid, massive TK, last seen making a run down the main hallway outside the kitchen toward - shit, I dunno where to." He flopped onto the floor, the carpet plush beneath him, and listened as the hurricane finally settled in the hall. He was not looking forward to cleanup.

In the space between blares of the alarm, the sound of shattering glass preceded the entrance of a small figure to the main entryway of the mansion. The security lights flashed on a different cadence, deliberately disorienting. Though it moved with purpose, it was a little unbalanced, off-kilter, as though uncertainty was beginning to take hold. It was likely for this reason that it crashed directly into Sharon.

Sharon was already unhappy. First, because she had been enjoying a relaxing chew on an empty Amazon box with Match and Liam when the world had suddenly exploded. Second, because when you were trying to drag two teenaged boys to safety four legs were more hindrance than help, and thus she was forced to do it as a biped. The advantage gained by no longer being a trip hazard was immediately offset by the disadvantage of poor coordination. And the alarms were still blaring.

It was perhaps understandable that when something slammed into her around rib-height her instincts engaged -- specifically, the instinct to transform into a shape better suited for disemboweling.

(Shapeshifter. Animal. Don't get into close-quarters combat.)

The front doors slammed open - one hanging off a hinge - and, almost in the same moment, the large cat flew through the strobing lights, out the exit, and more than a hundred yards further before hitting a snowdrift. The figure - a girl - regained her feet.

(If there's an unknown at play, attack their senses - sight is best.)

It was easy to pull the boy's loose t-shirt over his head, though it briefly caught on something - ears?

Claws out and tail poofy, Liam did his best to at least hurt whatever was attacking, everything happening too fast for him to figure out if this was a friend or foe. He was assuming foe since it wasn't Sharon and he doubted it was Match. Hissing and yowling, he flew out the front door ass over tea kettle landing near Sharon.

While Liam was arcing toward Sharon's snowdrift, the intruder had turned on Match, breath coming faster now. A hand came up to wipe blood off what the flashing lights intermittently showed to be a pale, determined face, and she started forward.

Match's stride was longer, though, and a handful of quick steps led his arms wrapping around the figure. They were shorter than he expected and the grip was awkward, made worse by the fact that they immediately started to struggle, weight thrown to escape his thin arms as he tried to tighten them.

Then he screamed, yelped he would correct, and threw himself away from them. "You fucking bit me?!"

As the boy - man - young adult shouted, heat flared in the room, and his hands sparked.

(Use your powers. Distract. They're not prepared for something like you. Now.)

The heat in the room rose further, abruptly. Fire licked the carpet near the intruder's feet, slowly at first, and then bursting into wild flame - briefly illuminating a dirty, bleeding face and a worn leather jacket, a size too large, before spreading to the walls as the intruder fled.

The flames on his own hands had vanished, confusion followed by a panicked shock as Match realized he hadn't started that fire. Staring at the wall, he snapped the fingers of his left hand. Put out the fire then - check on Sharon and Liam? Call Jessica? That boxing guy? Fuck.

By now, the small figure making its way through the mansion was moving desperately, keeping close to the ground, and emanating a worrying heat. That it was heading toward the elevator was now clear, but the path was not. It — obviously a she, if you caught a glimpse under the flash of the security lights — skidded to a stop.

Perhaps it was a change in air pressure, perhaps it was feeling the lines of force as some telekinetics might claim, or perhaps it was an instinctual monkey brain reaction to "something big coming fast," but the small figure’s short reprieve was ended when a figure moving at speed and with a casual disregard for gravity slammed into her with enough acceleration to rattle the furniture. A super strong grip ensured that this intruder wasn't going anywhere but straight down.This act demolished a perfectly innocent plush armchair and side table, and the expensive hardwood floor rippled from the impact with a sonorous, accompanying THOOOM.

“That looked like it hurt,” Jubilee noted idly, happy to let Namor deal with the possible(?) threat for now.

She carefully folded the shawl she’d been wearing over her evening dress and placed it beside the large liquor cabinet.

“Like, you got this, Your Majesty?”

On the tail of Jubilee's words, the room suddenly became very hot. The heat almost bulged for a moment, before the fabric of the destroyed armchair caught fire, burning hot and catching a table, a plank in the floor, moving in an ominous line toward the wall. The girl twisted in the man's grip, and the flames flared, hot and bright.

To Namor's credit, he held onto the girl who had gone hot potato tightly for more than others in the mansion might have put money on. Not many of those same mansionites had ever really asked about the Atlantean's special relationship with water or where his doubly oxygenated strength came from — super powers were plenty in this locale, afterall. As it turned out, though, the impact of intense heat was powerful enough to quickly dehydrate and sap away the once-king's advantages. He was forced to throw Hope away from him with all he had left into the nearby elevator bank.

Floating backward, Namor bared his teeth in a hiss as his wings buzzed in agitation.

"Jubilation, We believe this guest needs a lesson in respect. Your turn."

The girl hit the wall near the elevators hard, and the fire intensified, some flames leaping up to lick the ceiling. The girl's eyes glanced from Namor over to Jubilee.

(Just accomplish the mission. That's all.)

The fire didn't cease to exist, but it calmed, the heat in the room receding very slightly; and, with a flash of light from what seemed to be the girl’s left eye, the liquor cabinet behind Jubilee rose a few inches, shifted, and then fell on her with a crash, simultaneous to the steel screech of elevator doors being peeled open by sheer force.

Jubilee had managed to get a shield built from plasma up in time not to be squashed but the resulting heat had definitely caused some melting of both glass and alcohol. Jubilee looked at the elevator from her position under the cabinet and watched as the girl pulled the elevator doors open. While she could quite easily explode the furniture and go after her, she couldn’t do it without the possibility of injury or further damage to the surrounding building.

She let the girl retreat. Better to let others deal with these things, honestly.

Namor was, however, noticeably worse for wear. The heat of the room made him look both sickly and paler than normal. He did try to go after the girl, more out of pride than anything, but he could barely manage keeping himself aloft.

"Water," he commanded, "I need water."

“Uno Memento, yer Majesty, just gotta get out from here and then I’ll like, find you a seltzer bottle or somethin,” Jubilee noted with a grunt, as she finally pushed the cabinet off her and went looking for the water.

Apparently the intruder had taken the time to scarper down the elevator shaft, which definitely made her someone else’s problem now.

“Alright, where does Kev keep his mixers?”

The doors to the room opened, and the girl stepped in, wiping blood from her nose on the back of her hand. She was almost staggering now, energy spent, but there was anticipation in every line of her body as the automatic lights turned on, one after another. She swiped again at blood on her face, seeping from a scratch above her eye, running freely from her nose.

She stopped; she froze completely.

Empty.

There was nothing here.

She stepped further in, head swiveling like she could have missed it. One breath hitched. Another step, hesitant now, all forward momentum nullified.

Artie had rolled out of bed when the alarms started, dressed hastily and followed the trail of destruction and chaos through the mansion, armed with baton and taser. When it started to appear that the intruder might have had a goal other than just damage, he'd headed for the basement to secure first Vi and then the medbay.

That done, he'd moved back out to start to go for the less immediate threats - blackbird, weapons rooms, gear - anything that needed to be locked down before stopping. movement in the corner of his eye drawing his attention to the room that had once housed Cerebro and his first clear look at the intruder. She looked, in that moment, absolutely dejected.

She was also outside his taser's reach. Artie began to run. Toward, not away.

There were tears standing in the girl's eyes, her hands opening and then closing like she didn't know what to do with them; but the movement caught her eye, and she raised her hand defensively, a fresh line of blood snaking from her nose to her top lip.

The pattern of damage he'd seen so far suggested telekinesis not energy or strength. The bad news was, that was a distance power and he really wasn't entirely comfortable shooting a kid. Also, he hadn't brought a gun. His powers were stuffed - try not to think about that - but worked for this. Once, he'd have generated a mirror image of the room, flipped it and rotated until she was upside down. He couldn't do that right now.

He was limited to pure colour and shape, filling the room and the hallway with jagged pieces of light and dark and a kaleidoscope of different shades of bright colour.

Rogue was glad that for once, she had put on pajamas. Fighting in her underwear would have made things awkward. For Artie -- not for her. Trying to look past the colours, she realized that this was a young girl.... and her therapist mode kicked right in. "Hey there," she said calmly but loud enough to be heard over the alarms. "Don't be scared... I'm Rogue. You look tired, kiddo..... can we get closer, help you find somewhere to sit maybe?"

The girl didn't give an indication that she had heard - much less processed - what Rogue was saying; her head whipped around, flinging a few droplets of blood from where they were hanging on her chin, and the tight whipcord of her body sprang into motion, running for what she thought was an exit.

It was, of course, a wall. One that she hit at speed.

Rogue visibly winced. "Hey now," she called out, throwing caution to the wind and coming up to the girl quickly. She looked a mess, but a quick visual scan showed it didn't look as bad as she'd initially thought. "Y'all need to simmer down. Ain't no one here to hurt you. Artie, can you call out and let people know we're having a situation here?" A situation that was probably being felt throughout the Mansion. Someone far more appropriate than Rogue could handle this one.

Artie gave her a thumbs up and turned to the armory and medbay, rummaging through both and locking them down again. Only then did he take a moment to type a message on his phone. Fuck his powers. This was so annoying. At the intercom point, he hit the button and hit play. "All X-Men, intruder located and subdued. Basement, East end. Request backup. If you're not an X-Man, stay the hell upstairs or evac." He hit repeat, letting it run, loud and annoying.

When he came back to Rogue, he was holding a pair of medical restraint mittens and a set of handcuffs. He held them out to her with one hand and with the other, pointed to the girl on the floor. He'd considered grabbing a pillow case for her head but had thought better about it. Where his colleagues would understand, Rogue probably wouldn't.

While Artie was gone, Rogue tucked Hope's head on her lap and lightly brushed the hair away from the young girl's face.

"You're just a kid, ain't ya," she murmured softly. It may have been over 20 years ago but she still remembered waking up in the Mansion, confused and angry and scared. She stroked the top of Hope's head until Artie came back. She visibly brightened at the sight of the kevlar mittens but not so much at the handcuffs. "Alright girl, now.... we gotta get you to put on these gloves for ya own safety. Then maybe we don't need the handcuffs... I don't wanna force ya... it's just something that's gotta be done."

"There's nothing here," the girl muttered plaintively, but she allowed the mittens to be put on, though her brows drew together. Combined with the blood from her nose, the blood from the scratch across her forehead, and various patches of soot, drywall dust, and dirt, it was a gruesome visage. "Why mittens, though?"

Artie raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'really?’ and pointed to the girl, miming her coming, fighting and blowing something up and then pointed at the glove and crooked his fingers into claws, slashing at the air. He tightened the handcuffs that went with the mittens after that was done.

Rogue frowned a little bit at the handcuffs and wondered if that was a bit excessive, but she wasn't going to say that in front of Artie. "Can ya stand up, girl? Maybe we can get out of here and get you somewhere to get ya all cleaned up and bandaged up, hey?"

As the girl was shakily getting to her feet, steadied by Rogue in her bunny slippers, footsteps made her look up. The people who had rushed down the emergency stairwell were beginning to arrive: A shirtless man with wings. A woman with long red hair in a big white t-shirt and green leggings; a man in a loose blue-and-white jersey.

A taller redheaded woman, walking in a way so familiar that it arrested attention. The girl squinted as she tried to make her blurry vision cooperate. She leaned forward, almost losing her balance, catching herself on Rogue's arm; she squinted through blurry vision at the woman, unsteady on her feet.

She said, almost to herself, quiet and hoarse: "Grandma?"

And then Hope Summers sagged in Rogue's arms, unconscious.



-Buddy Wakefield, "In Landscape"

Comments

[xp_daytripper]

This is such a well done series of logs. Everyone involved should feel proud of themselves. <3

[xp_shatterstar]

[man that last line- I knew it was Hope of course but it still got me!]

[xp_madin]

Love the way this played out together

[xp_longshot]

This was so lovely to read — action packed, cleanly edited to flow, and filled with clever interjections and Hope's internal monologue (which I read in Cable's voice in my head). Excellent work to everyone. So many great moments.