xp_logs | Lost and Found, part five: A Tale of Two Helicopters

Haroun makes his move on the Mistra team's helicopter. It isn't undefended, and ambiguity about their mission or no ambiguity, the defenders aren't about to let him take their ride home.

Over by the helicopter, Jackie Valeri, both legs broken by her close encounter with one of MacInnis' broken second-gens earlier, blinked at the sight of a figure approaching through the snow. He or she wasn't announcing themselves. Damn it. "Cole," she called, pushing herself upright and leaning back against the body of the helicopter. "We've got company."

"Fuck," came a disgusted reply from inside the helicopter. "Your head clear enough to blast the bastard?"

"Give me a second," Valeri said with a somewhat halting laugh. Painkillers were such fun. "You get the big gun of yours," she said, extending a hand in the direction of the approaching figure and trying to concentrate.

Haroun hrmmed. No one in their right mind would leave their exfiltration method unguarded, so the chances were good that there was at least one viable hostile in the chopper. He idly wished for a gun. Hell, a _rock_ would do well right about now. He started varying his approach, coming in on an oblique angle, hopefully not making things too easy on whoever was inside the chopper. He had an Idea for that chopper, and unfortunately he needed it whole.

Moving. Valeri's eyes narrowed. She couldn't risk cutting loose, not when she had that many of her own people out there. "Cole, cover the other side of the bird," she ordered, her words coming out a little slurred.

Cole stuck his head out, giving her a measuring look. "You don't look with it, J."

"And we have what precisely, in terms of options? Get your phallic substitute and cover my ass, asshole."

Haroun trotted closer to the helicopter - close enough now to see that there was one figure sitting ouside the helicopter, in the snow, and one moving around inside. Two targets. ~Jetstream to Dazzler. I mark two hostiles in enemy vehicle. Repeat, two hostiles. Permission to engage?~ he subvocalized as he extended out the jetpack, ignoring the flames of agony that doing so caused to rip through his spine.

Valeri gritted her teeth and fired off a blast. Not full-strength; she couldn't fucking concentrate. Beside her, Cole opened fire with the plasma rifle Dyson had left him. "We've got a hostile circling around trying to take out our bird," Cole grated over the coms as he fired. "A little help here, people?"

Well well well, it looks like they'd started the party. The one on the ground had some sort of a power - heat-related, to judge by the shimmer in the air along the beam path. The other had a Big Gun, and that just made Haroun grin. He was Target 1, and the woman on the ground was Target Two. ~Engaging! Am taking fire.~ he subvocalized, and then kicked his power into gear. His target was Target One - take that gun away, first off, neutralize him, then use his shiny beatstick to neutralize Target Two.

"Coming right at us," Valeri hissed, and found her concentration. Snow evaporated in the path of her blast, and beside her, Cole kept firing steadily. "You drop that gun if he gets close enough."

"No shit, J."

Haroun was weaving a little dance that would have given Kurt Wagner the spins. The cyberwear had many wonderful evasive patterns stored in it, and Haroun was using them. He was working his way around so that the one on the ground couldn't fire without endangering either the chopper or the one with the plasma rifle. He instinctively shied away as a blast came perilously close to singing his eyebrows off, but used the dodge to worm his way even closer. A quick burst of speed, and he was finally within reach of the man with the rifle.

Predictable, Cole thought, grinning savagely as he flung the rifle aside and let the flyer - al-Rashid, he reminded himself - get within reach. He grabbed al-Rashid's wrist as the man launched a rocket-power punch, and switched on his own mutant power. The resulting howl of pain was really very satisfying. "Fuck with my chopper? I don't fucking think so," he said, keeping a firm grip on the other man's wrist as al-Rashid hit the floor of the helicopter, spasming as his nervous system went mad.

The MMI was really complaining about all the garbage input, and was just about to shut down to preserve itself when Haroun spasmodically got a coherent command through. It was a simple one, and one oft-used.

~KICK!~

The resulting look on Cole's face when Haroun's artificial leg punted his groin up through his nose was one that would stick with him for _hours_.

Body armor or no body armor, Cole went down. Valeri, groaning, managed to pull herself half-around, enough to be facing the inside of the helicopter and the hostile rather than out into the snow. One hand free. That was all she needed. She extended it at al-Rashid, her eyes watering with the pain, but heat gathering around her already.

"I'll take out... the bird... Cole... and you, before I let you take it," she grated, feeling the edge of the doorframe she was leaning on beginning to melt beneath her already.

Haroun grinned ferally at the crippled mutant. "Go right ahead. Two-for-one, plus your ride is fucked. We win." he said. He slide a foot outwards, to try to hook the plasma rifle in such a way that he could easily lift it into his own hands. "And you can't guarantee that I'm not fast enough or tough enough to live through the explosion." he pointed out.

Valeri let off a short blast at the plasma rifle, melting it into an unusable mess before she focused back on al-Rashid. Heat grew around her, a visible glow now. Get up, Cole, damn it, she thought at the other operative, who was in fact stirring. "Well, then," she hissed through gritted teeth, "seems we have a standoff."

"Standoff still means that I win." he said, cursing the loss of the plasma rifle. Just to be sure, he kicked Cole in the groin again, just to make the point absolutely clear. Then, he used his superhumanly strong legs to hook a boot into Cole's gear and _kick_ the semiconscious mutant over at Valeri. He followed right behind, using Cole's body as cover.

Valeri groaned as Cole's limp body came down across her legs, but she grabbed at al-Rashid as he came by, ignoring the pain, holding on with everything she had. She caught leather only, but hell, leather burned, didn't it...

---

Another pair of Mistra operatives move in on the downed helicopter. One gives Hank a choice he doesn't take, and then proceeds to demonstrate why the X-Men maybe should have had a couple more energy-projectors along. The Darkforce shield goes down.

Perched in his tree, Dyson sighted on the large blue shape of Hank McCoy and kept firing. The recoil on the plasma rifle was down to nearly nothing, he was pleased to see. Tinkering had its merits. "Got him on the run, Pull," he murmured over his coms. "You want to take him out for me, or move in on MacInnis?"

"I want him to drop Piers, so I'll take him first," was the reply from the woman who appeared out of the snowy forest like a ghost, yellow-green energy crackling around her fingers. "Low-level shockwave - don't want to hurt Ian," Ellen Pulaski said, and let rip.

Hank crumpled, curling automatically around the unconscious man he was carrying, trying to shield him from whatever it was. Ow. OW. The sporadic twitching wasn't fun either. Years of training lurched him back to his feet after a moment, looking around worriedly, still holding onto the wounded attacker. Healing factor or not - he wasn't sure - he couldn't leave him in the snow this heavily sedated, he'd freeze...

There was a crackling noise from several steps behind him. "Drop him," Pulaski said quietly, her voice low, but audible even in the howl of the storm. "Drop him and go, McCoy, and I won't have to hit you full strength and fry your nervous system."

Hank wobbled around. "If I drop him, you'll hit me anyway," he pointed out. Okay. Head all woozy. Not good. "And I can't drop him in the snow, he's heavily sedated. He'll get hypthermia." Had that made sense? Hypothermia. That was bad. Yeah.

"No, actually if you drop him, you can walk away," Pulaski said just as softly, smiling faintly at Dyson's silence over the coms. "Loophole, McCoy. Surely Nathan's told you about them. You weren't in our orders."

Hank glanced back at the shield. There were wounded in there, more than Maddie could handle alone, and he was pretty sure that he was up against a power he couldn't handle. And no rocks in sight. "Well..." he said reluctantly, then sighed, lowering the feral gently to the snow. "He has at least one dislocated shoulder. Possibly both. And he's going to be out for at least another couple of hours, if he has a healing factor. Until tomorrow, if not. He put up a considerable fight." There. He didn't want the man to be punished for his moment of near sanity, and hopefully that would cover for it...

"Damn it," Pulaski hissed as McCoy took a step towards the elevator, her calm beginning to fracture as her tactical imperatives started to push. "I said you could walk away, man, not walk to the helicopter. You put yourself between us and a priority target and we have to go through you." Dyson chose that moment to fire at the ground right in front of McCoy, in warning.

Hank nodded slowly. "In that case, since I am without weapons, without backup, and without supplies, I am going to run away. That way." He pointed along a path that would take him past the helicopter but not directly towards it. "This is me fleeing. Taking advantage of your distraction by a fallen teammate and running away like a big blue coward. That all right with you?"

Pulaski was silent for a moment. "You have one of your people in the helicopter."

"I have no idea," Hank said truthfully. "I was busy fighting this fellow at the time, I didn't see where she went."

Pulaski began to circle around him, keeping a shockwave at the ready until she was several steps in front of him instead of behind. "She is," the operative said with real regret. "And I'm sorry. But this wasn't your fight to begin with." Without breaking eye contact with Hank, she extended one hand in the direction of the helicopter. Unlike the other members of her team, she had trained with Neil Bourne when he'd still been an operative. She knew that her shockwaves could eventually crack his shield if she kept it up for long enough. Some sort of odd interaction with the Darkforce. Energy crackled around her fingers and then exploded outwards.

Madelyn ducked, automatically shielding Malcolm with her body as the energy blast hit the shield. The children cried out, one or two close to panic. "Damnit!" Madelyn half-growled. "What the hell was that? Her attention turned automatically to Bourne, however - how was he going to manage direct attacks against the shield?

"Ellie," Bourne gasped, shuddering. The flow of shadows from him was slowing, visibly slowing, and blood started to trickle from his nose as energy danced on the outside of the shield. "I can feel it... it's Ellie..."

"Hold on, Neil," MacInnis said, and this time, it came out as a plea, not an order. Beside Bourne, Malcolm gave a choked curse and his eyes start to emanate a ghostly glow, the scream of the winds outside the shield picking up.

Hank inched back, keeping his hands where they could be seen... and bent, slowly, to check the feral's pulse. Slow, but steady, although he needed to get out of the cold soon. "He can't stay out here much longer," he said earnestly. "He'll go into shock." He straightened up, still keeping his hands in plain sight. Under the snow, he hooked one foot under the limp body.... and kicked it straight into the backs of the woman's knees. She'd been watching him, not her teammate, and the impact buckled her knees and landed her on her back in the snow with a surprised yelp. Hank didn't stay to watch... as soon as the feral hit her he was off and running... and not towards the helicopter. He aimed well off to one side of it, running directly away from the fighting, doing his very best imitation of the better part of valour.

"We need to get the kids and wounded under cover," Madelyn said, not daring to move Bourne and disturb his concentration. There wasn't a lot of actual cover withing the ambit of the shield, but the helicopter provided some. Carefully, with Elliot's help she slid Carey further into the shelter of the downed machine, gesturing for the kids to gather close. The pair watching the medic refused to abandon their post until she came over and took over. "Watch the others for me, okay? Keep them from panicking?" she asked quietly, and they nodded, the boy's expression grim.

"Fuck," Pulaski spat, pushing herself up to her hands and knees on a swell of helpless anger. "Dyson, do it." She glanced down at Piers, but then dragged herself to her feet and let another shockwave go at the shield. McCoy was on a different trajectory, she could let Dyson... no, she could let Dyson! she insisted, her eyes tearing up at the growing pain in her head. But she focused on the shield, on keeping up the pressure. Sorry, Neil...

"I hear you," Dyson said, sounding unhappy, and started to fire at McCoy again. Damn, the man could move quickly.

Inside the shield, Bourne cried out again as the shockwave hit. The shadow-dome started to flicker, visible cracks appearing. "Get them... get them back..." he choked out.

Hank kept going, moving as fast as he could, keeping to his trajectory until he passed the helicopter, until the wavering shield was between him and the two attackers still on their feet... then he swung around, doubling back and racing towards the dome, using all four limbs for added speed. They couldn't see him now, and they'd seen him go past the helicopter without slowing. There might, at least, be some doubt as to where he'd gone... A larger crack opened in the shield and he dived through it before it could close again. "Sorry about the delay," he said, giving Maddie a rueful smile. "The traffic out there was murder."

"Perfect timing as always, Hank," she told him with a brief grin. Then Bourne cried out again and she nodded at the woman she was shielding. "Skull fracture. I don't dare move her in case I start a haemorrhage - can you and MacInnis get everyone undercover? Looks like we're about to be sitting ducks." She'd already loosened the tranq gun in its holster - now she drew it. "This thing's going to be practically useless for distance in this wind, but if someone comes in close... What are we looking at out there?"

"Two, that I saw. One has a weapon, the other is using powers." Hank rummaged in his pack... aha. Because the weight was negligable to him, he was the one carrying the stretcher. Tempered steel, jointed and folded flat into a heavy but compact square. He unfolded it, looking around. "Maybe this will help." He knelt beside her, inspecting the skull himself. "Damn. Even the stretcher would be a risk... we could put it over her as a shield, perhaps... " He glanced towards the wounded, torn. He still felt oddly fuzzy-headed... an aftereffect of whatever the woman had hit him with, he assumed.

Bourne slumped back against the snow, the shield finally shattering. Beside him, Malcolm swore, pushing himself up on his elbows, and the storm whipped itself into out and out madness around them. A few of the children shrieked, huddling closer.

"Dyson," Pulaski snarled, plunging through the snow as she saw the shield go down. No choices left. "Dyson, back me up!"

"On my way," Dyson said, and slid down the line he'd already secured for those purposes, reloading his rifle with standard ammo as he headed for the wreck.

Hank cursed, flipping the stretcher over the unconscious woman. The steel would shield her somewhat, and he had to risk moving those who wouldn't die of it. He grabbed Bourne as the man collapsed, slinging him over a broad shoulder. "You stay with the children, I'll move these two!" he barked at Maddie, grabbing Malcolm under the arms. "I'm sorry, my friend, but this is going to hurt...." He didn't risk lifting him, instead drawing him over the snow, his legs sliding more easily thus than if he'd tried to handle him. Get them under cover and then... what then? Well, he'd think of something...

Madelyn nodded, moving slightly so she was at a point eqidistant from the unconscious medic and the huddled children. "MacInnis, you know these people... what are we looking at here?" she asked as Hank lay the unconscious Bourne next to Carey.

"Pulaski..." MacInnis was pulling out a gun as he spoke, checking the clip. "Generates neural shockwaves. Dyson's your average jack of all trades. Designs his own weaponry." He leaned over Bourne. "Neil," he muttered, almost desperately, but Bourne didn't stir. Malcolm appeared semi-conscious, his eyes still white but his eyelids fluttering. "Neil, come on, son, we need you..."

Hank growled softly, digging in his pack. He was a lousy shot, and hadn't brought a trank gun of his own, something he was regretting now. He had a collection of the darts, though, and a small cylinder of oxygen that would make a handy club. All close-fighting stuff, unfortunately. "If push comes to shove," he muttered to Maddie, smiling wryly, "I can always fall on her and crush her."

"Hopefully she won't get that close..." Madelyn looked at Bourne, then at the approaching operatives, biting her lip. "I've got an adrenaline shot that might help keep him conscious," she told MacInnis, hoping Hank would understand the necessity. "Will that screw with him too much?"

MacInnis hesitated, then nodded. "Can't lose the cover of the storm," he said, his eyes resting on Malcolm for a moment before he turned his attention to Bourne. "Elliot," he said suddenly, and the telepath looked around, then winced, focusing on his unconscious teammate with a familiar sort of intensity.

And Bourne came awake - and up to a sitting position - with a cry, his chest heaving. Before any of them could react, he was staggering back to his feet, broken arm and all. "No," he snarled, shadows pooling around him. "Not getting them... they're not getting them!"

Hank cursed under his breath. "No," he said grimly, "they're not." He shifted to shield the children as much as he could with his own bulk. They would have to go through him... and tunneling through that much mass would take them some time, at least, he thought with bleak humour.

Madelyn winced at the way Bourne was jolting his injury, but said nothing more as she dug out the adrenaline shot. "Sorry to do this to you, Malcolm, but we need you," she muttered, not even hesitating as she jabbed the needle into the muscle of his thigh through his torn pants. She did, however, offer up a small prayer as she returned to her attention to the approaching Mistra operatives.