Lost and Found, part seven: On The Brink

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

While Nathan and Morgan have at it, Alison tries to head for the helicopter. Konstantakis, looking for another opponent since Nathan left her mid-fight, finds her. Alison, with some effort, finds a way around her ten-second advantage. But something's happening to the world around them, thanks to the two telekinetics battling in the forest.


Getting out of the way had been something of a priority. That Nathan was far better suited to take care of Morgan was without question or doubt, Mistra kill order or not. Nathan would obviously know about that, would know Morgan far better. And Alison suspected that Morgan would fight the imperatives as best he could - he'd been doing so for her and had less personal reasons to, after all.

The ground shook again and she cursed, slipping and going down, barely managing to roll with it and come back up in a crouch, snow dripping down the back of her neck for all of a heartbeat before she vaporized it neatly. The promises of bruises and aches was there, just at the edge of her awareness, as was the sting of a scrape on her cheek - but the adrenaline was still high and they weren't done yet and there was no time to linger on that for now. Instead she stopped and focused, again making sure that the downed helicopter and the children were there, out of her range unless she decided to go nova.

At least Morgan and Nathan were further away than even she was, from the location flatly pinging in the back of her mind, reminding her that she wasn't to stay away when using her power. But she wasn't using it now and a quick check on the comm comfirmed that the others were either dealing with their own opponents or were at the heli wreck. Which left one person unnacounted for that she could think of, if they had the full count. And it was better that she head for Mac's team and check in, just to make sure. Better safe than sorry. Far better so.

Konstantakis moved as silently as she could through the forest, trying to ignore the increasing red-golden light coming from where Nathan and Morgan were clashing. That couldn't end well. Her tactical imperatives weren't even pushing her to get involved.

She saw Blaire moving away and stopped, concentrating ahead on what her path would be over the next ten seconds. There. Her precognition laid it out for her, and she drew her sidearm and fired. A warning shot, aimed at the body armor. No need to kill the woman. Just to keep her away from the priority targets.

Something hit her in the side, hard - no warning, whatever sound the gun might have made, Alison realized belatedly even as she flung herself to the side and for cover, either deadened by a silencer or drowned out by the wind. The body armor the suit was composed of was still stiff in reaction to the impact, though it had absorbed the worse of the shot. She took a short breath, anger sparking through clearly for the first time that night. "I hate guns." The murmur was low and Alison thanked once more the weather as she summoned up a body shield before stepping out of cover to scan the surroundings.

Konstantakis ducked behind a tree, still careful to keep Blaire in line-of-sight. Ten seconds ahead. Still heading in the wrong direction. Konstantakis gritted her teeth and starting to circle around. Needed to get in close. Distance was the X-Man's friend, not hers.

No one in sight. Someone was still there though, Alison had no doubt about it - but who? There were a few possibilities, and there was also the fact that it might be another Mistra agent they had simple no awareness of in the first place. She could keep up the shield for now and the hit hadn't been for the head - which is what it should have been, if whoever was aiming at her meant to kill. Alison stuffed down the little voice howling in anger at the fact that she'd been shot with a 'what did you expect?' and stayed well in sight, deliberately moving towards the crashed helicopter. Even one more shot would give her a direction and possibly flush out whoever was out there. Even if she hate the idea of getting shot at on purpose.

Konstantakis froze, Seeing herself fire again at Blaire and light coming back in the other direction. Crap, she's trying to flush me out... smart, though. Holstering her gun, she gritted her teeth and ghosted closer, drawing first one knife and then the other as she approached. Hand-to-hand it was. Not that the woman's powers were any less dangerous up close, but at least if she closed the gap, narrowed the variables, she could react more quickly to what her precog gave her.

Slow and deliberate, almost making it a challenge, Alison kept moving towards the place she'd been aware of since their arrival, the constant concentration on it triggering the warning signs of an incipient headache. A shimmer in the body shield, only briefly and the cold wind slipped inside, refreshingly soothing against the warmth of her light. "Come out, come out, wherever you are..." she hummed the words for her own benefit, pausing for a moment to tilt her head to the side, to let whoever it was out there worry that perhaps they'd been heard, somehow. And then turned around slowly to scan her surroundings, ever so carefully.

Konstantakis froze, checking ten seconds ahead again, and ducked immediately behind the nearest tree. She waited until Blaire started moving again, then picked up the pace, running as silently as she could.

The sounds of her own feet in the snow as she resumed her progress were even and methodic, Alison paying close attention to each crunching step and the intervening howls from the wind over everything else. The off pace sound of someone running towards her was registered at the last moment only, the storm just as effective for others as it was for her, really. She turned at the last second, aiming a burst of bright light in the right direction to hopefully blind or at least give whoever it was enough pause for Alison to get the first hit in.

Until she saw who it was.

Light burst. Yes, that was predictable. Konstantakis fixed Blaire in her mind and closed her eyes just in time, but kept running. The light flared and faded, and by then Konstantakis had her eyes open again and was right there, within knife-range. She threw herself at Blaire, full-out attack, knowing that the close quarters wouldn't save her if she let up on the pressure.

Aw crap. Throwing herself back, the body shield wavering as it still required a fair amount of concentration for her to keep it up, Alison tracked the knives, reminding herself that the leather cat suit, for all the snide comments it sometimes earned, was more than able to deal with the blades. She let Konstantakis push her further backwards, stepping back some more while diverting the strikes as best she could - and then blocked in empty air, a sinking feeling accompanying the motion even as she attempted to pull out of it and fall back into a defensive position.

Back away from the crashed helicopter. Konstantakis flinched at the burst of light ten seconds ahead - not coming from Blaire, but from the dueling telekinetics over to their left - and lashed out with a kick, trying to drive the woman back even further. Distance was good. Distance was very good. Come on, Tim, don't let the old man pin you down, she thought desperately.

The kick hit solidly, though Alison refused to back down - despite the way drawing air was briefly problematic she took the hit and pushed forward suddenly instead, hoping that this wasn't something Konstantakis had looked ahead for, whatever the flinch had been about. The heat at her side as the armor slowly relaxed from the bullet was a reminder and even though there was no talking at all this time, Alison knew this wasn't near as black and white as some would have thought - or liked - it to be.

Drive her back. Doing her a favor, really, Konstantakis told herself. There was a soundless explosion, just as she landed another solid hint on Blaire, and only the fact that she knew it was coming let her brace herself for it. It threw her to the ground, but she extended the fall into a roll, was back on her first before the X-Man was. The snow was hissing around them, the ground beneath... glass, Konstantakis thought. Shit. Her Sight blinded by the flash, she hadn't seen that right away, and it threw her, just for a moment.

Looking over was bad, looking over, Alison reminded herself continuously was very very bad. The explosion had knocked her clean to the ground, and she'd hit hard, despite a last ditch attempt at softening the blow somewhat, not having expected to land on the hard surface she'd encountered instead of snow. Konstantakis was predicting nearly her every move and Alison had yet to land a single blow herself, every time she'd tried giving the woman far too big an opening to get to her instead.

Seeing the glass gave her pause for a moment, though she rolled away as quickly as possible once she realized what she was doing, trying to keep track of her opponent at the same time.

Konstantakis threw herself forward again, cursing herself for having dropped her knives at the moment of impact, but she didn't dare take the time to retrieve them, if they were even intact after hitting the ground at the moment that it had changed. She launched herself straight at Blaire, concentrating on taking the openings the woman was and would be giving her, focusing hard on both the now and the ten seconds from now.

How the hell, Alison thought dazedly, the leather suit nearly the only thing allowing her to weather the blows she somehow simply couldn't block or redirect in time no matter what she did, did you stop someone who knew everything you were going to do? The ground trembled underfoot again, Konstantakis not even bothered by this - another thing she'd seen coming - and Alison knew she had to find something soon. Lasers were useless, so was attempting to blind her or trying to knock her out. Anything target specific was useless unless somehow she beat that ten second frame. Somehow.

Oh, shit! Konstantakis saw, spotting Blaire's answer to the problem, ten seconds into the future. There was a way out, she just had to...

Another explosion from off to their left, and red-gold and pale-gold light was spiraling upwards through the storm, as more snow here on the ground melted away, trees shimmering into glass. And Konstantakis found herself blinded again, Seeing the light from another source, ten full seconds before it came into existence.

The Mistra agent was faltering and Alison frowned for a moment - but only that, the solution suddenly bright and clear in her mind, even as Konstantakis' eyes widened just that much more, the pupils diminishing to mere pinpricks. Just as everything around them was a heartbeat later, bright light flooding the area. Clear of the crash site, stay clear, don't touch that shield... This kind of light, all razzle dazzle and blinding strobes wasn't hard to keep up at all, considering Alison had been using a less powerful version of it for years already, when on tour. But at the levels she was keeping it up now, the only person who would be able to see anything at all in the area would be Alison, and no one else.

She literally does see. Visually.

And it had blinded her ten seconds earlier to boot, more than enough to disorient her - and for Alison to move in to take her out.

Konstantakis managed to put up something of a fight, even unable to see. Instinct was instinct, and she could still hear, if nothing else. But ten seconds ahead was her on the ground and Blaire standing over her, and fuck but this was bad, her and Tim both out of the equation?

Ten seconds went along awfully fast, in truth, when one was bent on taking out someone fast and effectively while suddently not at all being hampered in the process by being entirely anticipated. Alison, having no second thoughts at all about knocking Konstantakis out hard if it meant both protecting Mac's team and the children and not having to do something worse, had no hesitation in landing the final elbow strike hard.

Her foresight went black, and Konstantakis wasn't all that surprised when consciousness vanished an instant later. She hit the glassy ground hard and didn't move, blood trickling from dozens of small cuts inflicted by the glass shards.

Red-gold and yellow-gold light turned incandescent white, and the explosion that rocked the forest this time had incalculably more force behind it. Trees was obliterated by the shockwave and the ground started to collapse inwards, spiderwebbing cracks spreading through the glass.

---


At the wrecked helicopter, the defenders try to hold out, amid panicking children and worsening medical conditions. Then the explosions start.


MacInnis swore suddenly, opening fire at a shape moving through the storm. "Don't think I don't see you, Dyson!" he called out, his voice harsh as he tried to make it carry over the howl of the winds.

"Give it up, old man!" a voice called back.

"We can't let him get close," MacInnis grated at Hank and Madelyn. "Who the fuck knows what he's got up his sleeve, weapons-wise..."

"At least one light-based blast weapon," Hank said grimly. "He was aiming it at me. Fortunately, running four-limbed gives me a significantly different gait to someone running on two legs, and he didn't have quite time to adjust his aim." He wished for white fur, glaring out into the storm. He was too dark against the snow to creep out without being spotted, but if he'd had white fur...

Madelyn nodded, squinting at the shape barely visible through the wind-whipped snow. She fired off an experimental shot in Dyson's direction with the tranq gun, and swore as the wind carried the dart far off course. Too light. "If you draw his attention, maybe I could sneak 'round, get closer," she suggested to MacInnis. "I can't get off a decent shot in this mess."

"No!" Elliot said sharply. "There are more out there, other operatives... you get out in there in the open, and one's liable to pick you off."

Gasping, Malcolm pushed himself up on his elbows and peered in the direction MacInnis had fired. The winds picked up another few notes, shrieking like tortured souls, and the snow blew with sudden, driving forces towards where Dyson had taken cover.

Hank made an admiring noise. "Nice use of wind-vectors," he told Malcolm, peering out into the driving snow. "I'm glad I'm not him." He'd been on the receiving end of Storm's wind-blasts, in training, and they weren't pleasant. "And Madelyn, please don't sneak out anywhere, I think we're going to need you right here."

"Well, if any of those bastards get too close, a doctor's not going to be much good," she pointed out, but remained where she was. "But I'm not about to go out there with unknown numbers I can't see." She reloaded the tranq gun. "We really need to work on something a bit more all-conditions with these darts," she complained, mostly under her breath. By her elbow the medic's breath hitched irregularly, and Madelyn's attention immediately refocussed. "Crap, if we don't get her out of here soon, we're going to lose her. And I sure as hell can't intubate her in the middle of a firefight."

There was a sudden shout from another direction, and Bourne came stumbling out into view, grappling with Pulaski. Yellow-green energy mixed with glowing shadows washed around them both. Bourne was clearly at a disadvantage, with one arm in a sling, and Pulaski was taking every opening he gave her, mercilessly driving him back towards the wreck. He was doing his best to hold her off, but all he really succeeded in doing was blocking any shot that might have been taken by those in the wreck.

"Damnit..." Hank muttered, tensing and slowly gathering his limbs under him, his instincts urging him to go to the rescue of the injured man. "If I move fast enough, maybe..." It didn't occur to him that this, perhaps, wasn't the best plan.

"Hank, no! You'll open your back to Dyson!" Madelyn snapped out, seeing Hank preparing to dash out. She had on hand on Gibbs' neck, monitoring her pulse and praying it didn't fade any more than it was, the other training the tranq gun on the battling pair. "Come on, just give me a clear shot..." she muttered under her breath. "Just one..."

And one of the children shrieked. One of the girls, fear finally getting to her and making her break from cover, running out into the storm in an obvious panic. Malcolm made a strangled sound of denial, reaching for her as she ran past him but managed only to grasp the edge of her shirt, and only for a second.

Hank reacted without thinking, launching himself up and after the child. She could NOT fall into their hands again, no matter how great the risk! She was fast, but not as fast as he was, and he caught up with her quickly, lifting her off her feet and holding her gently but firmly as she screamed and kicked in panic. "It's all right," he said gently, praying that they wouldn't risk shooting at one of the children they were trying to reclaim. "Shh... we won't let anyone hurt you anymore."

"I want to go home," she sobbed, abruptly going limp in his grasp. "I want to go home, please..."

There was a sudden, dazzling flash of light above them, red-gold light that resolved into a great bird of fire that swooped through the storm, off to the west. Hank ducked instinctively, looking up in surprise, then headed as fast as he could back towards the helicopter, cradling the child protectively in one big arm. "We'll take you home," he murmured soothingly. "Everything's going to be okay." He hoped it was true...

Back at the helicopter, Madelyn had been just as startled by the firebird as Hank had been. "What the hell...?" she asked, glancing across at MacInnis, who looked just as surprised as she felt. Not one of his then. Bourne cried out as Pulaski hit the broken arm, and Madelyn's head whipped 'round at the sound. "Goddammit, no-one hurts my patients," she growled, edging slightly out from behind the stretcher-shield to see if she could get a lucky hit in. Knocking out their defence would be a cataclysmically bad idea.

"Damn it, Neil," Pulaski was hissing, low enough for only the two of them to hear. "You just had to get involved in this, didn't you? You couldn't have gone away, lived your fucking life..."

"No... I... COULDN'T HAVE!" Bourne screamed at her, and Darkforce blazed around him, a sledgehammer of it erupting from him, throwing her through the air like a rag doll. It sapped the last of his strength and he crumpled, sliding down into a limp heap in the snow.

Hank stifled a curse, reaching the helicopter and passing the little girl in his arms to Madelyn. "Back in a moment," he said as cheerfully as he could manage, and turned to go after Bourne. Couldn't leave patients lying in the snow, definitely not... hypothermia, frostbite, shock...

She needed both arms to hang onto the child, who wasn't trying to flee any more, but who was in shock herself, shaking and crying and almost blue with cold. Holstering the useless tranq gun, Madelyn took the girl from Hank, trying to use her own body heat to reassure her. "Is she down?" she called over her shoulder to MacInnis, meaning Pulaski.

Out in the snow, Pulaski groaned and rolled back to her feet, seeing McCoy come out after Bourne. Hating herself, but unable to resist the scream of her tactical imperatives, she raised both hands, a full-strength shockwave building around her.

At that moment, there was a soundless explosion of light off to the west, in the direction the bird of fire had gone. The ground beneath their feet rumbled as something very close to a mushroom cloud of mingled red-gold and pale gold light erupted from among the trees. Pulaski, still dazed from Bourne's Darkforce attack, stumbled and went down.

Hank took advantage of her distraction to get to Bourne, scooping him up in one arm. He glanced at Pulaski, lying in the snow some distance away, and was more than a little tempted to go over and make sure she was solidly unconscious... but no, he had to get Bourne back to - well, not safety, but slightly less danger. He headed back as fast as he could, tucking the unconscious man in between two of the children, in the hopes that they'd help each other stay warm, before rejoining Maddie and MacInnis.

"Okay, I'm guessing one of the heavy hitters is going all-out over there..." Madelyn said, trying to see more through the snow still being whipped into a maelstrom around them by Malcolm. And speaking of which... She glanced over at the wind manipulator, not liking his colour at all, but the adrenaline was doing its job and he didn't look like he was going down any time soon. "But that doesn't make us any safer in the meantime. Hank, can you get anyone on the mic? We need backup and we need it now."

MacInnis fired twice more in the direction Dyson had been firing from, his bruised face grim. "Nathan," he grated under his breath, his eyes flickering to the mushroom cloud. "Nathan and Morgan, if I had to wager..."

Elliot swore, sounding appalled. "We've got to move," he said worriedly. "It is, and they're not holding anything back."

Another explosion. This time the light spiraled upwards in enormous streamers, and the tremor that ran through the ground was more violent, enough to rock the wrecked helicopter dramatically.

Hank swore quietly in German, figuring the kids probably wouldn't understand what he was saying, and moved hastily under the swaying overhang of metal. If it tipped towards the children, he'd be able to hold it up until everyone was clear. Probably. ~Beast here, pinned down by definitely two operatives, maybe more. Could use some help here, if anyone's bored.~ He didn't mention the children, or the wounded... the X-Men would know who he'd headed for, and if anyone else could hear him, he wasn't going to bring to their attention what a precarious situation the children were in.

"No answer," he told Maddie, after a moment. "I guess there's enough excitement here for everyone."

"Elliott." Madelyn turned to the telepath. "Can you sense anyone else behind us? We need to get clear of the chopper at least." She gestured at a huddle of rocks and trees about a hundred feet behind them. "If we could take cover there, we can at least not be crushed by falling chunks of metal." Almost without realising it, she had turned to MacInnis for his opinion, since Hank's tactical skills weren't exactly firing today.

Elliot looked out into the snow, an almost frantic intensity on his face as he concentrated. "I can't... there's something out there, someone, but I can't lock onto their psi-signature..."

MacInnis cursed. "Matsuda," he said in his gravelly voice. "Invisibility specialist," he said in response to Madelyn and Hank's looks. "Can't track her visually, can't track her psionically..." Malcolm was wheezing, trying to catch his breath, and the furious pace of the winds was slowing. MacInnis looked down at him, cursed, then back up at Hank and Madelyn. "We've got to take our chances," he said. "If we--"

White light blotted out everything. The roar that followed was deafening, and the wreck of the helicopter was knocked from its side to flat on its belly. Children were screaming, the wounded were thrown around, and there was nothing to do for an endless moment but hold on.

And then the light died. One of the girls, gasping, pulled herself up to look through one of the shattered windows and let out a moan. "The trees are all funny," she wailed.

Elliot popped up beside her, blood running from a fresh gash along his hairline, and he swore. "Holy Mother of God," he said, sounding stricken. "Half the trees are gone. The rest are glass."

Hank looked himself, and blinked. "I sincerely hope that that's a good sign for us," he said softly. "Because if not... well. We'll hope it is." He patted the little girl's shoulder gently. "But let's move over to those rocks while everyones distracted by the funny trees... just in case."

Madelyn nodded. "I like that plan. A lot." She glanced at the medic. "Looks like we get to use the stretcher as an actual stretcher after all."

---


Haroun manages to take out the two operatives at the helicopter. Unfortunately for him, he's too focused, and not paying much attention to the pyrotechnics behind him. This winds up biting him in the ass, but he's saved by the final explosion - which has some unexpected effects on the Mistra operatives around him.


Haroun felt the leather smoulder, the anti-heat gel give up entirely, and the heat radiate into the flesh of his arm. But that didn't matter - he kicked the body off of her legs and savagely stomped her broken leg, just to get her attention. With any luck, she'd pass out from the pain.

She probably should have, but Cole had doped her up sufficiently that what should have been excruciating, 'sayonara, world' sort of pain was merely excruciating. She'd fought through worse. Been expected to fight through worse, and Valeri held on, fighting to concentrate, turn her power up higher. She hadn't come in wanting to kill any of the X-Men, had been glad when Morgan had turned the radio off, but the bastard was not allowed to take out their helicopter.

Haroun gritted his teeth and stomped again - this time on the other broken leg. "Just go DOWN!" he swore at her, ready to kick her back teeth up into her skull if she continued to give him a hard time. "Face it - you've lost."

A cry wrenched itself out from behind Valeri's gritted teeth, but she held on, cranking the heat up further. "With my shield or on it," she hissed at him, half-delirious from the pain and the drugs.

"Your choice." he said, then swung a kick upwards, aimed right for the point of her jaw. Should be more than enough to knock her silly, and he was careful to pull it enough so that the snap wouldn't break her neck and kill her.

The kick connected, and Valeri hit the snow, the flames licking around her dying like a candle in a sudden wind. There was a choked growl from behind Haroun, and Cole was barrelling into him suddenly. No mutant powers, just a more than slightly uncoordinated tackle.

"Why don't you people just _stay down_!" he growled, fighting protesting muscles and growing fatigue to get out of the other man's grasp and put him down once again. The other man had shoulder-tackled him in the lower back, and Haroun nearly passed out entirely from the pain. He also felt something sticky and flaky peel off back there, and he knew that he'd burned himself again.

"Not--getting--my helicopter," Cole grated, holding on and fighting for the concentration he needed to scramble the other man's nervous system again.

"It's not your helicopter any more. It's my helicopter. And I'm going to go drop it on your boss." he said with an insane grin. He wasn't even _trying_ to keep himself under wraps any more - he just let it all go and let come what may. He rolled onto his back, ignoring small ephemera like pain, and raked at the other man's eyes with both hands.

There was a sudden blaze of light through the storm, from the direction Haroun had come. Deep, fierce red-gold light, joined in an instant by a paler golden light in a soundless explosion that made the ground beneath them tremble, hard. There was a hissing sound, large amounts of snow evaporating, and Cole lost his grip on al-Rashid and his footing, at the tremor.

Haroun, in his current state, would take any advantage. He broke the grip on him and then struck out again at Cole, elbows aimed for the head, looking to cause some pain. The eruption was important, but it was Over There, and he had a target Right Here. That's all he needed to know.

Off-balance, Cole couldn't block in time, but he did manage to move, so that it was only a glancing blow and he didn't quite go down. "Idiot," he spat, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision but held back by a sudden, overwhelming frustration. He stumbled backwards, trying to regain his balance. "You take out our helicopter, we can't get out of here and we have to kill EVERYONE!"

"Sure you do." Haroun said dismissively, and then struck again. And again. And again. He didn't care that each shot caused his forearms and hands to ache even more. He didn't care that he was running a real risk of killing the Mistra operative he was attacking. He was in Haroun's way, and therefore had to die. End of discussion.

Cole, despite the hits he had taken and was taken, was finding something close to his own berserk rage. He had been in the cockpit when Morgan had shut off the radio, had known what that meant, what his field leader was trying to give them... them, and the X-Men, and those poor damned kids, and now this idiot was trying to jeopardize all of that? "Son... of a.. BITCH!" Cole snarled and for the first time in years, gave in to his tactical imperatives, fully.

Haroun saw it easily when Cole shifted gears upwards, and he matched him blow for blow, shot for shot. Finesse was forgotten. Defense was forgotten. Only thing that mattered was hurting the other guy, as many times and as badly as possible. Haroun kicked hard at Cole's knee, holding nothing back.

Another soundless explosion rocked the forest, just as the kick connected. Cole went down, but so did Haroun, and great swaths of the ground beneath them were suddenly barren of snow and shifting to shimmering glass. Over to the west, the mingled red-gold and pale gold lights writhed and flared upwards in giant streamers of radiance, cutting through the storm.

Haroun didn't even give the pretty lights any attention. He leapt back to his feet and launched another series of kicks at Cole, aimed for knees and ebows. Crippling strikes, with more than enough force to destroy joints.

"Jetstream!" It was Nathan's voice, followed by Nathan himself, limping out of the forest, looking considerably the worst for wear.

Haroun launched another few attacks at Cole, just to make sure he was Down and Out. "What?" he said irritably to Cable, once his current playmate went down.

Nathan staggered over, though not before looking back over his shoulder at the lightshow behind him. He looked back at Haroun, then down at Cole and Valeri. "Nothing," he said, his voice tight, and then went to his knees suddenly, doubling over.

Haroun blinked stupidly at Nathan as the adrenaline rush finally started to ebb from his body. All of a sudden, he was exhausted, and just about everything hurt. "Got a chopper." he said stupidly, gesturing at the Mistra vehicle. "Wanna go drop it on somebody?"

"Help me up?" Nathan said in a choked voice. Haroun came over to do just that, and Nathan let him do the bulk of the work, pulling him to his feet. So that he'd be just that little bit off-balance - and Jaeger shifted back to his own form all at once, launching a flurry of attacks at the dazed-looking X-Man.

Haroun went from Being A Nice Guy And A Good Team-Mate to Getting The Shit Beat Out Of Him in about four seconds. "Fuck!" Haroun swore, then started to deal with this new playmate. But he was hurt, and hurt fairly badly. He was fairly well spent, while Jaeger was fresh. This, in other words, was Not Looking Good. ~Jetstream to X-Men. I've got a problem on my hands. Two Mistra ops down, but am engaging a shapechanger. Someone want to get over here and kick its ass for me?~ he said in short, sharp bursts as he fought the shapechanger.

The light in the forest changed. Red-gold and pale-gold flashed into blazing, incandescent white, and the force of the explosion that followed tore trees apart like tissue paper and the ground started to buckle beneath it. The shockwave knocked both men off their feet, although the damage didn't reach quite as far as where they had been standing.

But Jaeger, on the ground, screamed suddenly, a raw animal noise of pain, blood abruptly pouring from his nose. The unconscious bodies of Valeri and Cole started to convulse.

Haroun took a few seconds to Get With The Program. "Heh." he said with a grin, looking back at the now-undefended helicopter. Temptation warred within him, but something more important took precedence. He needed to rest. Just for a second. So he leaned his aching back against the skin of the helo, and promptly passed out.