xp_logs | Behold A Pale Horse

The X-Men arrive at the Fete des Mutante in France only to discover that their fears were correct and it is a target.

The Blackbird touched down outside of Avignon, just outside of the festival grounds. Even as the plane settled in, the sense that something was already wrong came immediately. Even without feeling the sudden telepathic panic, people in the distance could be seen racing pel-mel away from the grounds. The plane's internal communications linked up with the comms from the mansion over satellite, and Kane's voice came over. Even though he was off the active roster, the Canadian was working from the comms array in their Situation Room in support. Normally comms support would come from the Blackbird, but since it was in Europe, there was no data transmission lag, making the more robust systems in the mansion a better choice.

"OK, this is bad. Social media in the area just erupted that there's some kind of attack." Kane said, flipping through screens. "You better get in ASAP."

Scott eased his hands off the yoke, reaching over to power down the Blackbird before he glanced over his shoulder at the team assembled behind him. "You heard the man everyone, roll out, we're going to have to move fast to get into place."

Maya quickly slammed the last of her body armor in place and slipped the batons Forge had made for her into place on her hips, as well as two more in shoulder harnesses. You could never have too many sticks with which to beat the crap out of bad guys as far as she was concerned. Time to go to work.

Checking that her hair was tied back securely, Clarice pulled a sword, "Ready," she reported. No medical bag today, today was all fight. Let the local authorities handle the medical side.

“Come on, let’s go be Big Damn Heroes,” Maya said, gesturing for Clarice to go first and then following her out of the plane. She looked back at the others. “Good luck,”

"This would have to happen during my two weeks here," Rogue grumbled a little, but she was mainly complaining for the sake of complaining. There was an obvious need here, and she was going to do her best. Plus, it'd been a while she was in the thick of things.

Alison looked back over the controls. "Any chance you could set the autopilot to just sort of hover over the battlefield for a bit?" The Blackbird was many things, but 'quiet' was aaaaabsolutely not one of them. "No?" Alison continued, making it clear the question was mostly meant to ease some tension. "Eh, worth a shot."

"With me, Dazzler," Jean-Phillipe said, all business under Scott's direction to move fast. His fingers flexed in his handguards - the leather was well worn in by now, but it was the only minor bit of pre-mission jitters he allowed himself.

At Scott's direction, Nica had phased out of her seat and through the ceiling of the 'Bird, and was now hovering near the rear hatch. "I hear shooting," she reported as the X-Men disembarked. "And screaming. Lots of screaming." She winced and squinted over at the crowded field. "I think I can see someone in some kind of red and black uniform?"

Sooraya spiraled up next to Nica, then rising higher as she surveyed the entire field. "The crowds are trying to flee away from them, but it's too crowded. Look at about five o'clock." She reported. The sounds of screaming increased as a new burst of gunfire rang out over the field. She'd have swallowed if she could. "We need to hurry. Everyone is just sitting ducks out there."

Jean's eyes fluttered as she recognized a very familiar mental signature coming from the red and black uniform in question. But the mind was...almost like melted cheap nacho cheese, coated in feathers. Seriously wrong. Her eyes widened.

"The gunman....It's Wade."

Blink and Echo are the first to engage, confirming that the man at the centre of the chaos and death is, in fact, their old friend Wade, now Deadpool.

Screams dominated the air over the festival as the panicked crowds ran every which way trying to escape from the man and his lethal barrages of gunfire. Some took shelter behind toppled booths and tents, desperately trying to reach loved ones on smartphones that suddenly could not find service of any kind. A few raced back to try and pull injured friends or even strangers out of harm's way, but many of them earned wounds themselves for their efforts.

Clarice believed a smart mouth was essential for missions if only to keep sane. As she spied the telltale red and black armor Wade, no, Deadpool, wore, she didn't have anything to say. She didn't want to fight him. She didn't want anyone to fight him. They all had to, this was not their Wade, this was Deadpool gone rogue.

Maya for her part had released the two stun batons from her back and now pushed the button on each of them that telescoped them out into slightly longer weapons. She had on the armor that Forge had made for her, even though she wasn't stupid enough to think going into battle with Wade of all people was a good idea. Most of her major organs might currently be protected but that didn't mean she was entirely bulletproof. She pulled a young man from behind a booth and pushed him toward a makeshift alleyway between two sets of tents before placing herself between it and the man she'd come to think of as family.

"Wade! What the hell are you doing?"

Deadpool slashed halfway through a woman's abdomen as she attempted to pass him, swinging around like a marionette on a string when he heard someone call his true-dead-mad-give-up-weak name. The woman now on the ground behind him moaned and he took a moment to flick some of her blood off the blade of his katana before partially bending at the waist and giving little Echo the tiniest of finger waves. "Sorry, baby-mimic-super-lady, Wade's not here right now. He's fucked off to Writer only knows." Dodging a paddle that might've been used to stir kettle corn very recently, Deadpool aimed his handgun and barely paid attention to where he was aiming as he shot a few rounds into the crowd from the direction from which the padding had swung. "But don't worry. Deadpool's here to take care of you and all your friends."

Without thinking, Clarice teleported his trigger finger away and part of the gun as well. Shooting people was easy. Drawing her sword, she teleported herself behind him, emerging to slash his throat, but only got his shoulder.

"Goddammit, Skittles," Deadpool pouted in the most recognizable tone they were likely to hear that day.

"Fuck off, Deadpool. Or better yet, pick on someone your own size."

"Stop it," Maya yelled, unsure of who she was yelling at more, Wade or Clarice..both maybe?

She ran, dodging out of the way of fleeing people as she tried to get close to the fight, hampered by the general melee and just how many people were trying to escape to anywhere but where they were. She had to remind herself that she was the heroic one here, and knocking people out of her way would not be considered particularly hero-like by any sense of the word. Well, maybe if this was The Boyz but she suspected Kane would give her one of those 'Why did the universe curse me with training you?' looks if she mentioned that in an incident report.

"Just, would you both hold up on killing each other or anyone else until I get there maybe?"

He had to give Blink props, though. He'd figured she'd go for something bigger, like his arm or his leg when she portal-amputated something from him. Just the trigger and his finger with it was some precision work. Ejecting the mag from the gun and tucking it in his pocket, Deadpool threw the empty firearm at a passing civilian, hitting him in the face and making him stumble into a group of people frantically trying to climb onto one of the nearby stages. They went down like squealing, flailing dominoes.

Shaking out his rapidly regrowing thumb out, blood flying everywhere, Deadpool completely ignored the already healed slash mark on his shoulder and began circling Blink. He kept an eye on Echo as her attempts to reach them were thwarted, but pointed the end of his katana directly at his inferior self’s former roommate. "C'mon, clang for clang." He didn't give Blink a chance to respond verbally, moving in smoothly despite the shifting of the tumors growing beneath his armored suit.

Her own sword already drawn, Clarice just shifted her stance, Maya forgotten. Not forgotten. Just.... not important. All that mattered was stopping Wade from killing or maiming civilians right now and she was happy to be the distraction. It worked well since all she felt was hurt. "Skittles isn't here right now," she returned, mocking him and meeting his sword with every move, "I'm Blink!"

She portaled herself behind him, running her sword through his liver and other squishy bits before rotating her wrist to pull it out, "And I'm not here to play."

It was like a gnat, really, the buzzing little wings flying close to him. Deadpool felt the sword go in and twist, but before the X-Person could pull it out, the mercenary turned until the blade inside him hit bone and then flung himself backward. The plan was to disarm her and take her little toy away. Just in case it didn't work, he shoved his katana-less, bloody hand in her face.

She refused to let go, not even a bloody hand could make her, though ew, biohazard. Because of this she was jerked around like a toy on a flirt stick, falling half on top of Deadpool and rebounding, grip still firm on her sword even as her shoulder burned. She was pretty sure she hadn't torn anything, so onward!

"Death roooooolllllllllllllllllllllll!" Deadpool proceeded to roll, the sword still lodged in liver and bone - still attached to its owner as the mercenary rolled right over top of her, making sure he paused just enough to ensure she was really bloody before grabbing the bowie knife from his belt with his pointer-fingerless hand and stabbing viciously behind him in an effort to hurt her. He didn't actually need all of his liver at the moment, but she should hurt the same way he was hurting now.

One day Maya was going to have a long talk with her fellow X-men about what constituted having an actual plan beyond ‘pointy end goes here’ before engaging bad guys. Sure, it was a good plan most of the time but at least making sure the person working with you was anywhere near you before you engaged would be a nice change of pace.

Maya finally made it through the crowd, and rushed into the battle that was Clarice and Wade, her power automatically inserting her into the correct position to not be accidentally skewered.

“Could we stop this?” she asked, using a baton to smash down on the hand currently trying to stab Clarice with the Bowie. “Wade, you need to stop, please.”

"Can't stop, won't stop, LL Cool," Deadpool responded, not even really registering any pain in his hand given the trufax sword slicing up his insides. Still, fighting between Wade W. Wilson's former roommate and technically his still legal ward, something wavered and clicked in the mercenary's mind and, despite his words, he did stop. "Oh. Oh, hey." The sword didn't stop its movement, but Wade held onto himself because of it, jaw clenched tight.

"Hey, I'm sorry, you gotta - fuck. You gotta tell 'em. This isn't it. This isn't - they shouldn't be here. It's somewhere else. And I'm so sorry - I didn't even." He paused, grunting as Clarice managed to dislodge the sword from where he'd wedged it between his ribs and his spine. "I didn't know. I didn't know - they said. Fuck, it doesn't matter."

Wade dropped the bowie knife and reached out for Maya's ankle. Sleight of hand had never really been his thing, but the author said it was important and he might be insane, but you didn't disobey the writer, especially not for your remaker. With a twist of his wrist, a piece of many-folded, yellow paper fell into his palm and, as he grasped the outside of her boot, Wade looked up at Maya, eyes perfectly clear, to say, "It was always gonna be this way, Maya. That's why I left. You gotta get away from here. Get away from me. I'm -- " He choked on nothing as Clarice wiggled beneath him, and tucked the paper into the top of Maya's boot.

"Sorry, Skittles," Wade muttered, eyes already fogging back over, ready to shine with pure, gleeful insanity once more even as he laid back and put all his weight on the X-Person beneath him. A moment later and the Merc with a Mouth did a textbook kip-up off the sword, landed on his feet, and turned to smile through his mask at the women. He palmed yet another gun, drew it, and had already aimed it right at Echo before seemingly freezing again and then shaking himself violently. The muzzle of the gun dropped and when Deadpool fired the shot, it hit the younger X-Person in the foot - miraculously not the important boot. Something about the boot, but the writer wasn't being helpful and he had an actual job to do today.

Vaulting away from the two of them, Deadpool caught sight of another familiar figure and he started toward it as he began shooting at everyone and anyone around him. Sweet, merciful chocolate bunny in candy foil, what was wrong with him.

"Oh fuuuck," the pain was kicking in and Clarice was sporting several new holes in her. Sword loose in one hand and her other holding her wounded side. "He fucking stabbed me! I'm going to port off something important." After. Definitely after. Standing was about all she was managing at the moment.

Maya would have commiserated but she was too busy inventing new swear words and trying not to pass out from the pain of having been shot in the foot.

“Maybe go for help?” Maya gasped out, collapsing to the ground to take the weight off her foot as she watched Wade leave.

Rogue and Spectrum take over for Blink and Echo, engaging Deadpool to keep him away from the fleeing festival participants.

Even as the X-Men engaged, Wade still seemed able to lash out around them, killing innocents fleeing the scene at will.

Rogue had been in chaos before but this ... this was a lot. She had never been more thankful for her years of training as right now. The screams of injured people surrounded her, and if she tapped into Logan's powers, she was sure she'd be overwhelmed by the smell of blood, fear, and terror. From Wade though, she knew she'd find pleasure and that bothered her more than the fact that he had been a friend .

"Nica, we gotta go in go hard, girl," she murmured to her teammate. "Y'all can't pull any punches now, ya hear? I'm going to go all in, and I ain't gonna stop. I'll be fine though, and I can take it. You cannot hesitate. At all. And you cannot worry 'bout me. I got this, and I'm a big girl. Got clean panties on and everything, alright."

Despite the situation, the carnage around them, Nica snorted a brief laugh at Rogue's words. "I'm good," she said as confidently as she could. "We need to stop this, so whatever it takes." And with that she shimmered red, heat radiating off her as she prepared a blast of pure infra-red.

Rogue nodded approvingly as she lifted herself into the air. "Wade," she yelled out loudly. "I know you can hear me, so don't bother pretendin' you can't. How about you leave those good people alone and come at me? I won't hold back and neither will you. Let's see who passes out from blood loss first." She motioned to 'Nica to back away. If Rogue took Wade head-on, 'Nica could sneak around and get some extra hits in.

"Oooooooooo," Deadpool croned, his gravel and gasoline voice somehow still seeming to echo over the mass hysteria surrounding him. "The prodigal powers thief returns! Very good -- yes, very good. No, stop -- yes, good." He waved the hand holding his gun at his ear as though trying to brush a buzzing insect away. "Let's see," he muttered, "No, I'm not forgetting the -- they're right here." He flipped down a pair of infrared glasses, the yellow of the lenses clashing horribly with the red of his suit. "Innie meanie mineie moe..." For every word he spoke, Deadpool shot someone attempting to escape him. "Catch a debutante by the toe," he continued shooting, breaking out into the Macarena as he started making his way toward the run-away-roguelette-hide-in-plain-sight-so-sorry-so-afraid-be-brave-you're-a-good-heroine-girl.

He stopped several meters from her, poised on the balls of his left foot, his other leg stretched and curving into the air behind him, then started shooting again. "You've got Dirty Daddy Wolverine's powers, but I gotta tell ya, I got 'em, too, and man, are they good." On the last word, Deadpool hopped forward on his one leg and fired a shot right at Sweet Marie's forehead.

It was all she could do not to flinch at the gunshot and fly to intercept the shot, but Nica gritted her teeth and instead flew to intercept Wade from behind. At the very least her infra-red would interfere with his glasses and give people a chance to get cover.

Rogue moved her head enough that the bullet skimmed the side of her head. It was small enough that she wasn't going to tap into any healing powers, although she could feel the slow trickle of blood create a warm trail down her face. Gritting her teeth and shaking her head in anger, she balled her hands into fists. "Foul move, Wade," she cried out, launching herself at Wade with all the fury she had in her, fist first, connecting directly to his jaw. There was an audible crack, and the sudden pain in her knuckles told her it was a true hit. At best, it was broken hard enough that it would take a few moments to heal, giving 'Nica time to attack as well. Worst case, it would just distract him enough to come right back at her ....actually that'd be okay too.

Nica winced at the sound of breaking bone, but focussed herself and blasted Deadpool in the face and chest as momentum spun him around to face her.

Power, power everywhere, Wade thought, listening to his skin and muscle sizzle as baby-infrared-lightshow-army-daddy's-girl hit him fullblast. His chest took the worst of it, meaning his suit in that area was obliterated, but he could already feel his tissue regenerating, tumors bubbling up to fill the void with scars and cancer. He smacked the side of his jaw from the side Rogue hadn't hit, smashing it back into place so his bones could fuse back together faster. "Ignoring the laws of physics is rude, Hotlanta. Seriously rude," Wade said, going for one of his multitude of pockets.

Pulling a Mylar blanket out, he flailed his hand around to make it open, then attempted to tuck it around himself by anchoring pieces of it with all his not-bondage-gear-straps. It was almost like he didn't actually care that he'd left himself entirely open for further injury.

Rogue knew punching Wade wouldn't do much, but she still hoped for a bit of lee-way. Seemed his powers were stronger now.

The blanket would definitely prevent some of Nica's stronger powers but it wouldn't stop physical brute force...it was time to finally tap into Logan's power. With a growl, she braced herself for the pain -- bone claws came out, and she came flying at Wade, scratching at him in a flurry. Would it break up the blanket? She wasn't sure -- after all, she couldn't manifest adamantium.

"Good thing you're not a speedster," Deadpool commented, wiping on and off with both hands to deflect Rogue's flurry of attempted slicing. "I might actually have trouble keeping up with you." What else could she do? Deadpool's mind flickered briefly, something about skin and he couldn't remember but. But was briefly glad his suit covered him from head to toe. "Little powers thief," he half-sang, allowing two claws from each of her hands to stab through his wrists.

With a twist and a yank, he snapped them off, cycling through handless dodging of both women as he pulled the bone claws out and then used them almost like throwing knives to take down four random strangers just running for their lives. "Doesn't work so good when Dirty Daddy's not around for backup, huh? Where is he, anyway? Leave his wicked princess for someone who's not so... you?" His palms had already stopped bleeding as he gestured toward her.

"Stop killing people!" Nica almost shrieked at him, watching as the four bodies fell twitching to the ground. And while he could shield from her infra-red, Nica could channel more than that. With a wild cry, she raised her hands and let loose with a massive beam of visible light, straight into his eyes. It was large enough that it left her momentarily weakened and, more importantly, solid.

Actual throwing knives dropped into Deadpool's palms just before the light actually blinded him. "Killing people's literally my job today!" He could feel his eyeballs fixing themselves, though, so he launched both blades at the toward where she'd paused. He heard the distinctive sound of them thunking into flesh before he drew his katanas and set them to twirling around himself just in case anybody got any bright ideas (haha) while his eyes finished healing.

The pain of the broken claws were excruciating, so much so she could barely manage to retract the splintered nubs. Healing was easy but the sheer throbbing and agony was hard to ignore. Gritting her teeth, she was about to launch herself again when she saw Nica get thrown back from the impact of the knives. One was buried in the younger girl's shoulder, the other in her lower thigh. Rogue was confident she wouldn't bleed out but the girl would be sore. "Just fuck off, already, Wade!" Rogue screamed, reaching for the nearest block of stuff she could grab. In this case, it was a busted up mailbox but that was fine. She threw it at his feet, hoping to knock him off balance.

The mailbox made contact with Deadpool's shins which hurt like a bitch but not for long enough to slow down his katanas. "Motherfucker," he growled, hooking the 2" by 4" post the mailbox was mounted on with his ankle to bounce it up like a football. "Wade's not here anymore!" Deadpool yelled back. God, couldn't any of these people get that through their thick skulls? As he said the last word, he kicked the whole mailbox back at Rogue.

There were knives sticking out of her. There were knives sticking out of her. As the battle continued on, Nica could only lay on the blood-stained grass and gape at the throwing knives protruding from her shoulder and her leg. They'd been so sharp she'd barely felt them slice into her - it had been the force behind them that had knocked her down. There wasn't a lot of blood yet, but the involuntary movement of the muscles around the injuries was enough to send searing pain down her arm to her fingertips and up her thigh to her groin and she let out a strangled wail.

But the killing was still going on. And Deadpool needed to be stopped and she couldn't let Rogue down... Gritting her teeth, Nica shifted back into light form and then nearly exclaimed aloud as the pain suddenly vanished and the knives simply dropped to the ground visible through the transparent Nica-shaped light form. Of course; no body meant no pain and no bleeding, which meant she could carry on the fight! What might happen when she turned solid again wasn't something she wanted or needed to think about just then, and she took to the air, without another thought, honing in on the battle.

Rogue was also an unfortunate recipient to the mailbox-in-the-shin but thankfully it wasn't much more than an annoyance that she kicked out of her way. Flying into the air, she hovered around Wade, opposite of Nica, like a mini angry woman tornado. Catching what she hoped was Nica's eye, she gave a nod and motioned downwards, with her own legs following suit. With a prayer on her lips, she kicked down, hoping to knock him in the head, and miss the katanas entirely.

It was enough and Nica caught the signal. Focussing on the non-stabbed arm, she grabbed Deadpool by one of the many straps he seemed to have happening and launched them both upwards. She glanced briefly at Rogue, hoping she'd take the hint.

The hint was fully taken. Rogue loved it when a plan was coming together. Also grabbing a handful of straps, she lifted with Nica, still trying her best to avoid the katanas before giving a sharp look and letting go at the same time as Nica. From the height they were at, the landing would be exceptionally hard. Rogue hoped more than one bone broke and internal damage was plentiful.

Deadpool didn't shriek when they picked him up and he didn't scream when they dropped him from a height that would definitely have killed someone with a lesser healing factor, even. No, he knew what was going to happen - he'd been through this before.

Suddenly, as he plummeted, Wade found himself looking at a different sky, a different place as his feet flew past Genoshan windows. He still had his arms held in front of him, twin handguns firing over and over even though he couldn't see anyone attempting to look down at him as he fell. Oh shit. Oh shit, I'm leaving him again - I'm leaving Doug behind again - fuck, fuck --

The thing about his super awesome, brand new and shiny healing factor was that this time, Wade wasn't knocked entirely unconscious when he hit the ground. He felt nearly every single one of his ribs cracking, several puncturing his lungs, but the physical pain was different this time, stabbed through with Wade's memories and Deadpool finally shook them off. They weren't part of the show, they weren't part of the distraction, they weren't part of the plan. They made him weak and he'd already disappointed his remaker once, already failed. He wouldn't when it came to this.

So the Merc with a Mouth forced himself to sit up as lungs ejected bony shrapnel and ribs snapped back into place. Standing despite whatever was wrong with his spine and his hip alignment, it took him a moment to locate his katanas, but once he had, he was off again. There were plenty of people who needed killing today. Maybe he'd stick with the baselines for a little while. They were fun to kill and didn't bring up memories that left his chest feeling like it was caving in, like it'd taken the brunt of blunt force trauma when he hit the ground.

Just as the X-Men engage Wade, a new player enters the combat zone.

Deadpool being bounced off the ground like a failed egg drop experiment quelled the carnage for the moment, as the X-Men not directly engaged with him continued to expedite the escape of people from the festival. However, just as a group were directed towards one exit, the path was speckled with explosives, and those not outright killed in the blast were forced back, torn and bleeding. Through the smoke stepped a new figure: Malice.

“It would be you,” Malice noted as she cast a dispassionate eye on the panicked civilians, the X-men and then settled again on Wade. She gestured for her team to engage the man who had once counted as a friend. “I always did wonder where you’d jaunted off too.”

"There's just... something different about you," Deadpool said, shaking his arms and legs out as the bones finished relocating themselves from their untimely breakage. "Did you change your hair?" He continued, already sheathing his katanas and drawing one gun and pulling a grenade from one of his pouches. "Nooooooo... but there's definitely a difference." Biting onto the pin, the mercenary pulled it and chucked it into a crowd of festival-goers who, for some reason, still hadn't made an actual run for it yet.

As dirt, blood, and body parts rained down upon them, Deadpool laughed. "Oh I know!" Half-crowing, he pulled his second gun and started taking potshots at Marauders and X-People alike. A Globblet of Unknown Origin landed on his head but Deadpool wasn't even a little bit phased. "Whoever your master is now, they tried to graft on some kind of personality, didn't they?" He stopped shooting for a minute, bending at the waist with the sides of his hands braced against his knees. "Oh fuck, that's too funny. You're more facade-y than Facade and no amount of grafting's gonna help your roboticism."

If two teams of pissed off, super powered individuals hadn't been coming right for him, Deadpool might've sat himself down on the ground and just let himself dissolve into hysterics. Instead, he straightened abruptly, fired four shots directly at Malice since not hitting her would've been like some kind of miracle according to the author, and then dove directly into the poor, unfortunate people who'd only wanted to listen to music on this fine... shit, what day was it, even? Oh well. He didn't care.

Despite narrative causality, or perhaps because of it, Malice moved fast enough to dodge all but one of the bullets from Wade and the last one clipped her arm, as she shed her more human appearance for a more battle ready form.

“That’s rich from a man who has entirely lost what little marbles he once claimed to have.” she gritted out as she launched herself at Deadpool, claws out, her healing factor already taking care of the bullet graze.

This was a clash between monsters, between those whose healing factors allowed them to take a punishment, blows that would drop anyone else and keep fighting. "Be careful of those two for now, just focus on getting the civilians out of the way before we deal with them." Scott's commands held no doubt, no wavering as he stared at Deadpool and Malice going at it, he'd figure this out, by the time the civilians were cleared out he'd come up with a plan. He had to.

"Hey, hey, hey - no, Purple People Eater. Those claws aren't yours," Deadpool said, springboarding himself off a table and onto the roof of a food truck. "Those aren't your teefies, either, and lemme tell you, you cannot work them like -- oh hey. Genosha. Right. Well, still not yours. Gonna take 'em away." It took him a moment, having made a target of himself, to smack some sense back into his own head, but he managed. "Wrong timeline, Jesus Christ, writer, get it right. With another running leap, Deadpool jumped and skipped his way over all the panic and fighting below, making his way toward his never-ever-thank-you-no girlfriend so he could slice her into itty bitty pieces.

"The civilians, we need to get them out..." And then Nica stopped, a wave of pure shock and horror swamping the switchboard for a moment. ~He'sherehe'snotdeadhowisthatpossibleIkilledhimIknowIkilledhim...~ The babble overwhelmed things for a moment, their mental 'vision' filled with the sight of Prism with the rest of the Marauders, alive and whole and smirking at the X-Men.

~Monica.~ Jean's mental voice cut through her thoughts. ~I need you to breathe. We'll figure that part out later, but we need to help these people now, okay? Are you with me?~

~But I...~ The commanding note in Jean's mental voice cut through the panic; it was a similar voice to her father's when he was drilling recruits. ~Yes, Phoenix,~ she sent back with an effort to pull herself together. Later. She'd deal with it later.

Of course this was still happening. There was no way that someone like Wade would just casually disappear ....and now ...Laurie? Rogue recanted her earlier thoughts of being grateful for being on a team again. Right now, she'd be very happy, curled up on her chaise lounger, a harlequin in hand, and chocolate on the table. Alas. Alas. "And here we go again..."

As the native Frenchman on the scene in France, Jean-Phillipe felt some responsibility for getting as many innocents away from the fighting as possible. "Degager! Evacuer! VITE!" he roared loudly in his best approximation of the 'command voice' he'd seen Garrison use to get crowds moving before. He cast a fan of relatively harmless sparks up and outward to encourage the concertgoers away from the fighting. He yelled again, herding the panicked throng.

Alison lept to assist JP with the CC, gently using pulsing light orbs and ribbons of aurora to herd the panicky crowd away from danger. She didn't really speak French but she was pretty good at recreating sound if nothing else.

And hey, if she was butchering the language, all the French people were too busy running away to give her dirty looks about it, so she took that as a win.

There wasn't high ground for Clarice to stage from, but she started moving groups of people that she could into portals that took them out to a nearby park that as hopefully far enough out of the way to be safe, but not so far that they were lost or couldn't get home. "I fucking hate Laurie," she muttered, annoyed by everything.

Scott clenched a fist by his side as his eyes swept over the battlefield. "Keep it up, you're doing good and we need to get everyone out of here before they get caught in the crossfire."

"Fan out." Greycrow said, gesturing at the X-Men. "Engage as necessary. Death is the one we want, not the X-Men." He said and they deployed mostly in pairs, angling to box in Deadpool while Malice engaged him directly.

“Never thought I’d agree with the random bad guy,” Maya muttered as she waved some running civilians past her and pulled the batons from her side sheathes as she attempted to get closer to Wade.

“We should concentrate on Wade and getting the civilians out, the Marauders are a distraction.”

"Don't forget to watch your back." Dust warned her teammate. "A scorpion doesn't change colors because he's focused on something else. They'll stab you in the back just as easily if they have the chance to take you out."