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xp_logsCain chooses a good moment to experiment with plane origami. Lorna, Piers, and Nolan fight for their lives, while Wanda ... and Scott fights to get the surviving two directors to safety. Alison gets some unexpected help that frees her to respond to Nathan's distress call, and Cain has to make a difficult choice. Back at the mansion, the shield on the link falls at last and Moira sees it all.
And in front of the training barracks, the dying continues.
~*~
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
–'Fire and Ice', Frost
~*~
Some of her contacts in Washington teased her for running the Mall loop at her age. Today, it was going to pay off. Ducking around a fallen communications antenna, Carmella Ruiz darted into a Quonset hut that was serving as a makeshift hangar. The small fighter jet inside would be her escape. She could head out to sea, kick it up to supersonic speeds, and be at one of the remaining Mistra safehouses to regroup. A shame Brent hadn't made it out, but then, it was better that he was dead, rather than a prisoner. He had far too much information about her activities. A fresh start was not such a bad thing.
Buckling the flight helmet on, Ruiz ran a cursory pre-flight checkup. Fuel was topped off, electronics were good, navigation read green - escape flight path was clear. Time to go. Everything here was lost, she'd known that from the moment she'd heard the sonic boom. Hence triggering 'Masada'. But she could begin again from what was left elsewhere, use the remaining resources she'd squirreled away.
-- there was a man standing in her way on the tarmac. Arms folded across his chest, he was... was he smirking at her?
Swearing in Spanish under her breath, Carmella steered the nose of the jet directly towards the giant determined to be an obstacle. Eyes on the Heads-Up Display, she centered the crosshairs on his chest, focusing on the ... good god, is he wearing a football jersey?
No matter, she thought, her finger tightening on the trigger. The 30-millimeter cannon in the jet's nose roared to life, spitting shells down the tarmac and blasting away at the man... who was... walking forward right through the cannon fire?
"Fine, then!" Ruiz yelled, flustered for the first time today. She released the trigger and dropped her hand to the jet's throttle, slamming the throttle forward, kicking the engines to full power. As the jet lurched forward, pressing her back into the seat with the force, she centered the red-haired man in her sights. If she couldn't shoot him, she'd simply run him down. Sixteen thousand tons of steel moving at close to two hundred miles an hour would reduce him to thin red paste, she decided with a smile.
Which was why she was so surprised when the plane went from one hundred ninety miles an hour to a dead stop in less than a second, as the man extended one muscled arm, halting the jet dead, crumpling the nose like a tin can. Despite the safety harness, Carmella's head jerked forward, and only the helmet's protection kept her brains from decorating the instrument panel. Even still, she heard and felt things separate in her shoulders, the pain numbed by the sudden shock. She could hear metal creak and complain as her would-be target walked around the jet, pinching air intakes closed with his bare hands and literally choking the engines of oxygen, making them sputter and flame out. More rending of metal, and the cockpit was shrouded in shadow as the plane's wings were bent up and folded over the glass. The Heads-Up Display blinked bright red, informing her that all systems were critical, seconds before going completely offline. For a moment, all was silent, with only the dull roar of battle in the distance. Then Carmella Ruiz saw a grinning face pressed against the cockpit glass, and screamed despite herself.
Cain Marko smiled broadly, checking a folded sheaf of papers he pulled out of his jeans pocket. "Director... Ruiz, is it?" he asked. "Don't go nowhere, there's folks that want to see you." His face disappeared from her view, and then Ruiz felt the world turn upside down as the plane was rolled over. The cockpit glass filled with spiderweb cracks, but did not give. She hung there suspended, unable to move her arms, feeling the blood rush to her head which did nothing to alleviate the splitting headache that was beginning right behind her eyes.
~*~
Lorna grabbed the EM fields the electrokinetics were generating. With a flick of her hands, she hiked the magnetic power, spun their field and then drew it back to herself. Linking that to her shields, she then let go. Anything they did, short of cutting their power altogether was just going to power her defenses now. Hiking it would drain them faster and just make her stronger. "Two down. Yo, Spivak!" She leaped after the last energy projector and hoped it was something she could counter.
The two electrokinetics ignored her completely, all of their attention focused on Nolan and Piers. When their electrical blasts were drawn away, back to her shields, they charged the two operatives physically instead.
Piers dodged a blast from Spivak and went right for Gustafson, knowing he had to get the teek down immediately. Low-level didn't mean she couldn't do damage.
Lorna hated to be ignored. This was probably something she should go into with Samson and not take out on other people during a fight but Lorna never claimed to be perfect. And she wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Whatever Spivak was tossing seemed to be on the far end of the spectrum, almost out of her range and not something she was going to be able to divert. So Lorna did the next best thing and tackled the energy projector, hoping ignored meant that she wasn't about to get blasted. Shield or no, that would suck.
The blue-haired operative, looking the other way when she tackled him, went down fairly easily, his head slamming into the ground. He went limp and still - and an instant later, jerked like a puppet whose strings had just been tugged and started to struggle against Lorna's weight, an ominous glow coalescing around his body.
Gustafson lashed out at Piers, sending him tumbling back head over heels. Dizzily, he lurched back to his feet, seeing Nolan struggling to put Ashland down, and Polaris over there apparently wrestling with Spivak. Maheu slammed into him, and he gritted his teeth, trying to get a clear swipe at her with his claws.
Lorna struggled with him for a minute, metal flowing toward her from every imaginable source. She hit him, knocking his head against the ground, her fist sheathed in metal flexible only because it was her. She registered the glow after several seconds, entirely too late.
The blast flung her away, and Piers saw her hit the ground, in his peripheral vision. Snarling, he lunged at Maheu and slashed her hamstrings, then kicked her in the head when she went down, just to ensure that she stayed down at least for a moment while he ran for Spivak and Polaris. He tackled the younger operative, bearing him to the ground by sheer weight alone.
Yes. Ow. Definitely. Lorna lay stunned for a moment before climbing back to her feet in time to see Piers take down Spivak. The blue-haired man was still glowing. "Piers, get the hell away," Lorna shouted as she ran back toward them. This far away shielding was an iffy business. And given how much that had hurt with shields. "Piers, move!"
Piers heard her yell, but Spivak blasted him away before he could react. He hit the ground hard, and Nolan was there suddenly, dragging him back to his feet and out of the line of fire. "Damn it," the younger man said shakily. "They're going for us, Ian. Scorched-earth, you think?"
But Piers didn't have the breath to answer that very fucking obvious question. He was still trying to make his lungs work.
Lorna blasted back at Spivak the second Piers was out of the way, small pellets of metal impacting over his body, particularly his legs. They were merely scrap metal, didn't even weigh as much as a pocketful of change, but they were deadly as any bullet. Lorna knew enough to avoid vital organs. And injuring him wasn't really the point. She used the resulting enhanced field to pick Spivak up and hurled him away, knocking him into another attacking agent. Lorna sprinted back to Piers and Nolan. "We need to be more organised."
~I need help at the training barracks!~ Cable's voice called suddenly over the coms, sounding panicked. ~We can't hold them off, they're swarming the fucking door!~
Nolan looked stricken. "The kids--" he started to say - and stopped mid-sentence, staring down incredulously at the piece of metal protruding from his chest. Blood started to stream from the wound, and he looked up at Piers, blinking in obvious bewilderment as he started to crumple.
Piers managed to ease him to the ground - and looked up to Gustafson standing there, other pieces of metal floating in the air around her, ready to throw. His vision flooded with red and he snarled a curse, up off the ground and sprinting for her, ready to tear out her throat with his bare hands if he had to.
~*~
It was obvious Land was dead from the way the guy was now manhandling him. But -- there, on his belt. Careful to 'hold' the strings in her mind, all of them, Wanda yanked and at the same time, dropped more of the ceiling between them and the rest. A dull explosion came from the other side as the rubble stopped falling and then she was turning, focusing on those in front of her.
Dyson, struggling to get back to his feet, out of range of the two second-gens trying to pummel him into the floor, still realized instantly what Maximoff had done, cutting off the access to the mainframe room. He lashed out at Abbas with a kick, sending him back into Chang, and buying himself just a moment. He dragged himself upright, taking a few staggering steps towards the end of the hall. Draw them away from her, he thought dizzily, not knowing where he'd dropped his guns. His mind was still spinning, providing him with details and schematics, devices he could construct on the fly to balance the situation, but he couldn't focus, couldn't get his hands to obey him and reach for components as he tottered down the hall.
Chang chose that moment to figure out just how to focus his powers, even under the influence of the trigger. The energy blast hit Dyson from behind, square-on, and he hit the floor, the pain towering and immediate. He couldn't breathe, couldn't make his lungs work...
Wanda slammed her heel down into someone's stomach -- she couldn't tell who in the heap that landed in front of her -- and dodged to the right, trying to just stay out of the way of limbs. Clawed or not. Hopefully one of theirs was down but -- oh. Oh no.
The phrase 'and then there was one' suddenly had so much more meaning to her now. Dyson was about to get pulped even more than he already was. She couldn't stand by and just let that happen.
Squaring her shoulders, she slammed into the suddenly born again telekinetic, sending him headfirst into the concrete wall. The red glow around her hands as she landed in a crouch suggested that the crack to the head was not accidental.
The feral, Abbas, rose and lunged at her, claws outstretched. Down the hall, Dyson tried to push himself back upright, still hardly able to breathe. They were turning on her, he thought dizzily. No, that wasn't good, he needed to get their attention back on him... he opened his mouth to shout, but no sound came out, and his hands were slippery with something, blood maybe. He couldn't get a good grip on any of his components.
Catching the movement out of the corner of her eye, Wanda spun around a second too late. A half-shriek of pain and surprise escaped her as she felt the claws sink into and then _through_ the uniform. Her back was suddenly on fire and she lashed out blindly, catching the feral mutant in the leg with a hex bolt.
He went down screaming as well as his thigh muscle atrophied. Stumbling back, Wanda fought to keep herself calm. Movement, there was still movement in her arms, no muscles had been torn. With the leathers, it probably felt worse than it actually was.
Chang was leaning over him. Dyson grabbed feebly at his leg, yanking with what was left of his strength, and the energy-projector fell over. The rubble heaved and Vargas emerged, blank-eyed, stumbling over and reaching down for Dyson, hauling him up off the floor, enormous hands locked around his throat.
The problem with most feral mutations is that they came equipped with healing factors. And this one was certainly no different. Still in a great deal of pain, the man climbed back up to his feet, snarling at her. Wanda cursed under her breath and added a few more once the dust had cleared enough to show her that Dyson was currently being strangled to death.
Hissing in pain as she ducked a pounce from the mutant in front of her, she was desperately trying to weave the strings to do what she wanted them to do. The power was singing in her but it was too loud, too much and she was having trouble focusing it. She would have to settle for pulling just enough to make the big man's hands go numb from gripping too much, dropping the first gen back onto the floor.
And, oddly enough, right next to his guns.
Dyson saw the guns. He managed to grab one, to crank the power output up on it, and level it at Vargas. One shot at that setting and Vargas' head vanished in an explosion of gore. Samuelson, where was Samuelson, he didn't see her... he took aim at Abbas, next, and missed.
The shot that missed actually nearly took off Wanda's head and she ducked as the wall behind her exploded into dust and bits of concrete. The female energy projector suddenly reappeared in front of her, out of the shadows and dust. Perhaps the punishment she had taken was finally adding up, for she moved in to grapple instead of using her powers.
Twisting to avoid it, Wanda managed to grab the other woman around the neck and one arm, shoving it up in a painful chicken wing as she cranked back on her head. They had to end this and soon, she thought, realizing how tired she was as she struggled to retain her hold.
"Oh, hell." A blueish light was suddenly shining from her stomach and she realized, in a panic, that the woman obviously didn't have to see her hands to use her powers. About to push her away, a howl bounced off the walls behind her. Spinning about with the semi-captured woman they were both greeted by a set of claws.
A wet tearing noise reached her ears and the woman in Wanda's arms screamed, the light between them dying as she suddenly went slack.
Dyson fired again. This time, the shot took Abbas in the throat. The feral went down. For the count? Probably not. But the gun slid from Dyson's hand as he sagged back against the rubble, limp, and he couldn't concentrate. Everything was going dim and hazy, unimportant.
Not bothering to think about it, she let the body drop from her hands and headed over to the fallen man. "Dyson?" Oh god, he was a bloodied mess. Carefully, she put her hand to his chest. There was a faint, very faint, heart beat. She had to get him out of there. "Dyson! Can you hear me?"
Her voice penetrated the haze and his eyes fluttered open as he tried to focus on her. "Out," he managed, a bare whisper. "Get... out. Ab... not dead. Go..." She was still staring down at him, still there, and Dyson struggled to say something more, to warn her, but he was choking on blood, unable to draw a breath.
"Not going to spout any cheesy lines about 'no man bei--ouff!" Wanda's words were sharply cut off as the feral mutant slammed into her from the side. Hands thrown up just in time as he decided that the best place to go for was her face and throat. The parts not fully protected by the leather.
Head bouncing off the concrete and she saw stars for a second as she struggled to get the too heavy body off of hers. Her back screamed in pain as the fresh wounds were rubbed raw by the ground. Managing to get an arm up, she saw him latch on like one of those damned police dogs and felt the pressure in her arm as he attempted to chew his way through the leather. "Fuck!"
Abbas tore at the leather with his teeth, reaching out for her throat with his claws. His vacant eyes were fixed on her face, nothing even approaching humanity behind them. Dyson tried futilely to reach for the gun again, but there was no strength left in his arm. Nothing left.
As those eyes gazed so vacantly at her, something snapped. With nothing more than plain survival in her thoughts, as she felt the first pricks of teeth against her arm and a near miss against her throat, she reacted. With a viciousness born of fear and panic, her free hand slammed palm first into his nose and a sickening crunch and a flow of blood answered her action.
The feral's head jerked back out of pain and Wanda managed to grab him around the jaw as he let out a sound of pain. A flash of red so bright it blinded him and then a gurgled scream as he jerked back, clutching at his throat.
Rolling to her side in obvious pain she met Dyson's eyes as she struggled to energy from the red haze of her mind. Behind her she had to guess the sounds emerging would be normal for someone who had just swallowed a bolt of pure entropy, the flesh constricting and dying too fast for even a healing factor to cope with. In essence, the mutant was choking to death as his flesh caved in on itself.
All of them, down, Dyson thought. He could close his eyes now..
"Dyson?" Wanda knew she really didn't have to bother, it was obvious. Struggling to her feet, she tapped the comm. ~Scarlet Witch to Cyclops,~ she said, leaning against the wall and viewed the carnage before her -- behind and around -- with tired eyes. ~Come in Cyclops.~
It wasn't Scott's voice that crackled over the coms suddenly, full of desperation. ~Damn it, I need help at the training barracks!~ Nathan cried out. ~I can't hold them off, they're going to get through!~
~Scarlet Witch -- I copy that Cable. I'm on my way, just hang on,~ she sent, pushing herself off the wall with a groan. Taking a deep breath, pushing the pain to the back, she set out again.
~*~
"DOWN!" One of the directors hit the ground, but the other hesitated, and Scott tackled him, just in time for the energy blast to cross through the space where he'd been a moment before. From the ground, Scott fired, an optic blast catching the operative attacking them square in the chest and hurtling him backwards.
"Get off me!" the director screamed, struggling with a strength born of panic. Scott, distracted by shooting at another flyer who swooped in dangerously close to them, was caught off-guard as an elbow landed solidly in his ribs. It was a hard enough hit to rock him, even through the armor, and the director managed to squirm free and join his companion, both running across the rocky ground.
In the open, damn it... Scott hauled himself to his feet and took off after them. ~Cyclops here, I could use some help!~ he snarled over the coms, even as he caught up to the two men and shoved them in the direction of a large boulder, the only cover available.
Haroun, circling overhead and trying to keep track of the chaos of the battle, heard Scott's cry for help. ~Jetstream to Cyclops. I see you, and I'm on my way.~ he subvocalized as he kicked down into a dive, headed straight for the fleeing figures before Cyclops.
The redesigned visor had improved his peripheral vision, but it was still a weak point. He heard, rather than saw the operative running at them from the left, and those few lost seconds let the man, who'd dropped down from the rock face or some such thing, had to have, get inside Scott's guard.
He knew damned well that the operative was only fighting him because he was between him and the two directors. But he'd already lost two of them, he wasn't going to let these two be slaughtered, too.
The other man was fast, definitely a physical mutation of some sort, and Scott was already exhausted. He managed to land a couple of solid blows, hits the triggered operative shrugged off, before a kick dislocated his knee and left him sprawled on the ground.
Haroun saw Scott go down, and changed course just slightly. Bugger the fleeing men, he wasn't going to let some Mistra goon smoke his CO. The air screamed as Haroun dove steeply down at the physical augment, an aerial tackle that nearly jarred Haroun's shoulder out of its socket. However, the nice solid stone wall stopped all forward motion quite nicely, and the caved-in ribcage meant that this one wasn't getting up any time very soon. ~Jetstream to Medical. Grid square G2, got a physical augment with what sounds like a sucking chest wound. Cannot evac.~ he subvocalized, then scanned the area near Cyclops, looking for additional targets.
Gasping, Scott pushed himself up to his hands and knees, nearly biting through his lip at the pain. "Fuck," he wheezed, then spotted the two directors, still running. "Damn it," he spat, and blasted both of them - the blasts carefully measured, just enough to knock them down, but not out.
Haroun flicked his power into gear, and recovered both men by the simple expedient of slinging them into a shoulder carry easy and flying back to where. "Here you go," he said, dumping them roughly onto the ground. "You all right? Want a medevac to get that knee looked at?"
Scott tried to get up and slumped back to the ground, going pale. "Think I'll have to," he said hoarsely. "Don't think that leg's going to work. You need to take them first, though..."
~I need help at the training barracks!~ Nathan's voice came over the coms, sounding desperate. ~We can't hold them off, they're swarming the fucking door!~
Haroun looked at Scott, and then nodded. "No rest for the wicked." He reached out to Scott, intending to hoist him up. "We need to back Cable up. Hold on tight, this is gonna get a little hot..."
Scott was shaking his head. "You've got to get them back first," he repeated doggedly, jerking his head at the directors. "Leave them here and one of these triggered operatives will come along and kill them, and I will be damned if we got through this and none of these bastards live to be punished." He pulled away from Haroun, sinking back to the ground. "Drop them off, then get to the barracks. I can hold out here until one of the government teams gets here."
Haroun nodded, having received his marching orders. "Got it. Once these two are secured, you want me to come back, pick you up? Might still be useful in mop-up, and your power makes you a lethal sniper from the skies..." he suggested. He aided Scott into resting himself against a nearby outcropping of rock, and then moved to pick up the two stunned directors. "I don't think I'll be too gentle on this trip."
"If there's time," Scott said hoarsely, leaning back against the rock and listening to the coms. ~Cyclops to all X-Men,~ he said. ~If you can make it to the training barracks, do.~
Haroun picked up the two directors, slinging them over his shoulders like bales of rice. "You want me to come back here and get you, or head straight for the barracks?" he asked, lowering his goggles and getting prepared to power up and launch into the air.
~... reinforcements to the training barracks, ASAP!~ Nathan's voice crackled in and out on the coms, most of his message lost in the interference.
"Leave me here," Scott said, cursing himself for not being more careful. "Get them out, get over there. Go."
Haroun nodded and then rocketed into the air, taking the two directors with him.
~*~
Communications discipline was well on its way to breaking down entirely. There were too many voices, too many people reporting in with frantic details and calls for assistance, too many of the team leaders trying to give orders, none of which included 'fall back'. The situation was falling apart fast, even before one voice broke through the others with the worst news of all.
~I need help at the training barracks!~ Nathan sounded desperate, rattled and out of breath. ~We can't hold them off, they're swarming the fucking door!~
Cain caught the distress in Nathan's voice and tapped his earpiece. "I'm across the runway, I'll get there fast as I can." He looked around at the carnage surrounding him, then over to the jet that was folded into an immobile chunk of metal. That particular director wasn't going anywhere fast.
Training barracks, right. Cain glanced around and figured the fastest route. Fire wouldn't slow him down, just so long as he didn't run into any hostiles... well, he decided, they wouldn't slow him down either.
Two flyers dove at him as he moved away from the runway and back towards the heart of the complex. One was tossing fireballs as she came, the other moving quite a bit faster but not projecting any kind of visible energy.
"Right, you sons of bitches," Cain growled, starting to jog faster. Reaching down to pick up a bent steel girder, he spun in place like a discus thrower and heaved the chunk of metal at the fireball-throwing flier. Noting the flight path of the other, he sidestepped, putting himself in the direct line of flight.
Gesturing with both hands, Cain dropped into a half-crouch. "You want a go?" he hollered, "Come on!"
The pyrokinetic flyer tried to dodge, but the girder still caught her a glancing blow, sending her spinning away. Her companion started to dive at Cain - and then stopped on a dime, his attention obviously drawn elsewhere. A short distance away, two of Mistra's security personnel were herding half a dozen youngsters in trainee gray into one of the native stone buildings. The flyer switched directions smoothly, higher imperatives kicking in.
Cain smirked, giving the finger to the retreating flyer. "That's right! Turn tail, you yellow son of a bitch, run back to..." Realization set in when he noticed where the flyer's trajectory was taking him. Years of experience with the art of destruction led to a quick calculation of inevitable outcomes - all brought to bear when the flyer torpedoed through the second story of the stone building like a meteor. Under its shadow, the trainees and their handlers froze, watching the wall begin to crumble. Tons of rock, nowhere to run.
Cain could hear Nathan's voice over the link, sounding just on the verge of panic. "Cable!" Cain shouted over the airwaves, "Gimme a sitrep, how much time you got there?"
~Cain? Cain, I can't--~ Some sort of explosion cut off Nathan's reply for a moment, but then he was back, breathing hard enough for Cain to hear over the coms as he gasped out the rest. ~Everyone else is down! I can't keep them away from the door--~
Nathan needed him.
Cain took another step, then turned to watch the stone building begin to crumble. Eight kids, two handlers. Ten lives. The first rock gave way, and Cain saw the rubble begin to fall in slow motion. There was no way there would be any survivors.
They needed him.
Time seemed to stop for one moment, and Cain could hear Charles' voice in the back of his head, as if his brother was standing right there.
There is always a choice, Cain.
"No there ain't," he breathed. "No choice at all."
Keying the earpiece as he took the first step, Cain simply whispered, "I'm sorry, Nate. I ain't gonna make it."
The world sped back up. Tons of stone and rubble fell like rain, as Cain took three lunging steps, lifted the transport truck off the ground, and hoisted it over his head, shielding the trainees from the falling rubble.
Dust filled the air, and fist-sized rocks were still tumbling. Cain heaved, his muscles straining under the weight. But he would not give. He could not give. It was not a matter of willpower, it was a simple fact.
Looking down and blinking, he saw the grey-shirted trainees on the ground, crawling for cover. As he heard the metal of the truck strain under the weight, he noticed that the oldest of them couldn't have been more than thirteen years old. Bastards, he thought, taking one slow step forward. "Get... to... wall!" he grunted, leaning forward to make an arch with his own body.
Poised for one second like Atlas with the world across his shoulders, Cain Marko heaved one more time, then felt the metal frame of the truck collapse under the stone and give way.
Dust, rubble, and silence.
~*~
Again. He had to try the Trojan Horse again. Thy songs were made for the pure and free... he thought and slammed it at the two closest operatives. Nothing. It was still like trying to run through water, and he couldn't do it, couldn't reach...
It had to be one of the conditioning telepaths. Some sort of suppressant field, but how could they know? Unless they didn't, unless they just knew something had happened, to him and Mick and Tim and now the other operatives from Canada.
~This is Cable,~ he called out desperately, willing someone to hear him. ~We need reinforcements to the training barracks, ASAP, and someone's got to account for all of Mistra's telepaths! Someone's jamming the Trojan Horse!~
More. There were more operatives running down the hall, towards the door, and Nathan cursed desperately, and waded in, the patterns of close-quarters psimitar fighting coming to him as smoothly as if he'd been doing it for years. Morgan was right beside him, only using a partial exoskeleton - there wasn't enough room in the hall for him to switch it on all the way. Openings in his armor, Nathan thought disjointedly and tried to stay a little ahead of him, so that he could fling up a shield around them both if he had to.
Not enough room. Mick dropped the operative in front of him with an elbow to the throat and cut loose with another sonic blast once he saw that none of his teammates were in front of him. The triggered operatives tumbled to the ground, some of them bleeding heavily from the nose and ears.
But it didn't stop them. He was beginning to think that nothing short of lethal force was going to stop them.
~Reinforcements to the training barracks!~ Nathan pleaded over the coms. A pyrokinetic got inside his guard and Nathan bit back a scream as the edge of the white-hot blast slipped around his hasty shield and seared through his body armor at the shoulder. ~Someone shake your team loose and get over here, please!~ he gasped, swinging his psimitar around and sending the pyrokinetic into the wall.
Beside him, Tim stumbled suddenly. "Nate..." The call of his name was breathy, barely audible. Nathan grabbed at him to steady him, but the support didn't seem to be enough. Tim kept crumpling, and Nathan opened his mouth to shout at him to get back on his feet, to...
Tim fell face-down on the floor, and Nathan stared blankly for a precious split-second at the smoking hole in the back of his armor.
No.
A flicker of confused thoughts, of pain, from the man lying on the ground.
And then nothing.
Something hit him from behind and Nathan staggered as an arm came around his throat and started to squeeze. He focused desperately on the bones in the arm, shattering them, and managed to throw the operative off him and into another who was charging him head-on.
~Reinforcements to the barracks!~ he rasped out, unaware of the fact that he was repeating it telepathically, screaming it out at the top of his lungs. ~Get your asses over here, damn it!~
Anika vanished under the sheer weight of bodies, and Mick tried to blast his way through to her, calling her name. A young woman barely out of her teens was there in his path suddenly, her empty eyes fixed on him, and as Mick ramped up the sonics to knock her out of the way, she lunged forward, claws of energy extending from her hands, and slipped under his guard.
They went right through his body armor, and Mick staggered. The shock hit first, well before the pain. He managed to knock her away with an unfocused sonic blast, but his knees gave out and he was falling, reeling back against the wall. He heard Ani shriek, a sound of pure rage that turned suddenly into a cry of pain.
Nathan saw Mick go down, couldn't see Ani at all, and for the first time in years in the middle of combat, felt himself on the verge of outright panic. He started to call out again, but then Cain's voice was on the coms, asking for a sitrep. Asking how much time he had. Time?
~Cain? Cain, I can't--~
And the world blew up in his face. The explosion - one of the energy-projectors, had to be - flung him back down the hall and against his own shield, hard. He fought for breath to answer, not registering Mick dragging himself doggedly over bodies, crawling towards the door. ~Everyone else is down!~ he wheezed, hauling himself back to his feet. ~I can't keep them away from the door--~
But he charged them anyway. Hurled himself forward, knowing that it was futile, that there were too many and he was injured already, wearing down more and more by the moment.
It didn't matter. He didn't have a choice. And even if he'd had one, even if he could have walked away, he wouldn't have. There were fifty children behind that door, and every moment he kept the operatives away from the door was one more moment for reinforcements to arrive, one more moment for Kylun and his team to get the kids out through the emergency access.
No surrender, no retreat. He'd always known that it would come down to this in the end.
~*~
Footsteps - loud, echoing foosteps - and a seven-foot tall steel woman burst into the room, shrugging off the bullets as the other two government soldiers opened fire. She spotted Nash and headed right for him.
The floor disappeared from underneath her, vaporized instantly, the closeness of the laser fire likely giving the medic a heart attack. Light simultaneously slammed into the woman's face, both to blind and to unbalance. "Get out of her way! Now!" The medic was refusing to move though, staring at the new arrival but sticking close to her patient nonetheless.
A blurred form came through the door and slammed hard into the running second-gen. The shape resolved into a slender Asian woman, who took one look at Nash, blanched, and then threw herself at the much larger steel woman. Matsuda blurred in and out, somehow managing to elude the other operative's strikes and land solid hits, steel hide or no steel hide, until the bigger woman was reeling.
Matsuda being there was both good in that it gave the time to the medic and his companions to tend to Nash and work on getting him further away from the two women fighting, somehow. And bad because clearly Caffrey was now solely focusing on Matsuda. Alison took aim again, carefully, until Matsuda took that one moment to pause - and lasered right through both of Caffrey's knees, aiming for the tendons.
Motion from the corner of her eyes caught her attention at that moment, just in time for her to notice the man heading for Matsuda with single-minded intent.
Caffrey fell, her metal skin rippling as the shock snapped her back to human form, but even as she hit the ground she reached out for Matsuda, trying to grab at her, yank her down as well. Matsuda blurred and dodged - and dodged again, desperately, as she saw Alvarez coming at her.
One of the government soldiers grabbed another sedative-loaded syringe from the medic's kit and tried to do his almighty best to pounce on the fallen Caffrey, who was still moving, trying to get back up even with both knees not working.
"Stay clear!" Alison snapped at Matsuda, even as she shielded up and lunged for Alvarez - getting him down was imperative, the neurotoxins nothing any of the people in this room other than herself would be able to deal safely. Alvarez was still entirely focused on trying to get to the first gen still left standing in the room, and it was without a second thought that Alison, using the impulse she still had from trying to get to him before he reached the other woman, simply diverted the arm away from Matsuda and then pulled it along with her in an arc, holding on to his wrist tightly. Either he followed, the rest of his body likely flipping over or, as she suspected, it would break. But either way kept him away from Matsuda and focusing on her.
Behind her the other soldier had joined his companion in trying to keep Caffrey down, long enough for the needle to go in - perhaps a bit hard, but the metal soon faded entirely from sight, and the medic stared for a moment at the woman's legs before nodding sharply. "Cauterized. No massive bleeding. Here, use these." A packet was flung from her pack to the man who'd pounced on Caffrey first and while one put on restraints on both wrists and ankles, the other saw to her knees. The medic kept working on Nash, ignoring the fight only a few meters away with supreme disregard.
Alvarez's arm snapped, but he didn't appear to register the pain. He lunged at Alison, seemingly heedless of her shield. Matsuda, not willing to stand back - she didn't know for sure that the neurotoxin couldn't penetrate Blaire's shield, it certainly had gone through Morgan's exoskeleton that one time in training - blurred back towards them and launched a quick kick at the younger operative's head, hoping to take him out fast and put an end to this.
Without hesitation, Alison incorporated Alvarez's sudden forward shift of balance in her next move, Matsuda's kick having sent his upper body in a sharp, sudden motion which was encouraged along forcefully. A smooth leg sweep took his own from underneath him and then her arm which had finished it's previous arc regardless of the breaking sound earlier, hit his chest solidly, helping Alvarez in his downward fall fast, face first towards the ground. The air left his lungs in a sharp exhalation, even as he was blinded by a bright burst of light.
Matsuda backed off, watched Alvarez struggle and fail to draw air back into his lungs. "Here," the medic said sharply, extending another syringe to her. She blurred over to take it and then back, while Alison still had Alvarez safely down, and injected him quickly.
"There aren't enough," Matsuda said hoarsely, looking up at Blaire and trying to ignore the fact that Nash was lying there on the floor, obviously badly hurt. She had to stay focused on the here and now, on the fight. "Not enough of us, too many of them, and most of the government troops are finding it next to impossible to get close enough to the second-gens to take them down in any kind of non-lethal way."
"They can't balance things out in the condition the second gens are now," Alison replied flatly, before turning to look at the medic, still working over Nash. "It worked before, but not now, with whatever mental switch was flipped..."
One of the men standing over Caffrey sighed miserably. "It's not their fault. This is wrong." He had another dose of the sedative ready, she noticed, willing to take the risk of Caffrey waking up rather than killing her outright just to be on the safe side - his partner seemed less thrilled with the notion, but the flat look the medic gave him stilled any protest he may have had.
"Matsuda - stay here. Stay out of sight. Right now you're a liability to us if you're seen." Alison stepped away from Alvarez, and soon he was restrained, just as Caffrey was. "Keep this room secure, and help them keep Nash safe. We ha-"
A voice filtered through the comm, slicing over the low level chatter which had been going on non-stop.
~I need help at the training barracks!~ Nathan shouted. Not identifying himself, and the lack of proper communications discipline from him, of all people, told everyone listening just how serious his situation was. Even if the panic in his voice hadn't been perfectly audible as well. ~We can't hold them off, they're swarming the fucking door!~
She only looked at Matsuda long enough to ensure the woman would stay as asked, before turning on her heel, exiting the room at a dead run, light bleeding into being around her. ~Incoming.~ She ran out of the building housing the generators, right into chaos, and never stopped. Cain's voice echoed over the comm, and for a moment she hoped. A second gen trying to club someone with a rifle was blinded as she raced by, long enough to give those facing him a chance to regroup, another hurtling towards her simply dodged and she kept heading for the training barracks. And then Cain spoke again, a deathly quiet tone to his voice.
Alison ran faster, light blurring around her as she focused on only one thing.
Reaching the barracks in time.
~*~
Moira had been rearranging the medical supplies for the third time in an hour when her world turned upside down. The link between Nathan and herself suddenly blazed to life, going from the dim, yet still present feeling in the back of her mind when it was closed down to an anguished roar.
A startled gasp escaped of her and she grabbed her head, wincing at the sudden noise. Nathan obviously was not doing this on purpose. The concentration he'd been using to shield the link had to be needed elsewhere. Whimpering, Moira forced herself to focus but when the sudden onslaught of images and sounds assaulted her brain, that was the end of that.
Tim.
Mick.
Ani.
Where'd Mick go? Where'd he...oh no, no no no, those wounds, he couldn't possibly survive those wounds. Anika, she'd just been there, a second ago, fighting. Now under a swarm of bodies.
And Tim. Oh no, Tim, please...
Moira suddenly found herself retching onto the floor, one hand bracing, the other one clutching her stomach as the images didn't stop. Nathan, why was Nathan on the ground? Why wasn't he, oh God, no no no, Cain promised he promised and now...
Something wrapped around her mind like a firm blanket, warmed by the fire, and the images were gone, replaced by a familiar voice in her mind. As Moira lay sobbing on the floor, struggling to regain control and composure, Charles did his best to soothe her from his study, the sound of Amanda's running footfalls echoing in the hall outside.
And in front of the training barracks, the dying continues.
~*~
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
–'Fire and Ice', Frost
~*~
Some of her contacts in Washington teased her for running the Mall loop at her age. Today, it was going to pay off. Ducking around a fallen communications antenna, Carmella Ruiz darted into a Quonset hut that was serving as a makeshift hangar. The small fighter jet inside would be her escape. She could head out to sea, kick it up to supersonic speeds, and be at one of the remaining Mistra safehouses to regroup. A shame Brent hadn't made it out, but then, it was better that he was dead, rather than a prisoner. He had far too much information about her activities. A fresh start was not such a bad thing.
Buckling the flight helmet on, Ruiz ran a cursory pre-flight checkup. Fuel was topped off, electronics were good, navigation read green - escape flight path was clear. Time to go. Everything here was lost, she'd known that from the moment she'd heard the sonic boom. Hence triggering 'Masada'. But she could begin again from what was left elsewhere, use the remaining resources she'd squirreled away.
-- there was a man standing in her way on the tarmac. Arms folded across his chest, he was... was he smirking at her?
Swearing in Spanish under her breath, Carmella steered the nose of the jet directly towards the giant determined to be an obstacle. Eyes on the Heads-Up Display, she centered the crosshairs on his chest, focusing on the ... good god, is he wearing a football jersey?
No matter, she thought, her finger tightening on the trigger. The 30-millimeter cannon in the jet's nose roared to life, spitting shells down the tarmac and blasting away at the man... who was... walking forward right through the cannon fire?
"Fine, then!" Ruiz yelled, flustered for the first time today. She released the trigger and dropped her hand to the jet's throttle, slamming the throttle forward, kicking the engines to full power. As the jet lurched forward, pressing her back into the seat with the force, she centered the red-haired man in her sights. If she couldn't shoot him, she'd simply run him down. Sixteen thousand tons of steel moving at close to two hundred miles an hour would reduce him to thin red paste, she decided with a smile.
Which was why she was so surprised when the plane went from one hundred ninety miles an hour to a dead stop in less than a second, as the man extended one muscled arm, halting the jet dead, crumpling the nose like a tin can. Despite the safety harness, Carmella's head jerked forward, and only the helmet's protection kept her brains from decorating the instrument panel. Even still, she heard and felt things separate in her shoulders, the pain numbed by the sudden shock. She could hear metal creak and complain as her would-be target walked around the jet, pinching air intakes closed with his bare hands and literally choking the engines of oxygen, making them sputter and flame out. More rending of metal, and the cockpit was shrouded in shadow as the plane's wings were bent up and folded over the glass. The Heads-Up Display blinked bright red, informing her that all systems were critical, seconds before going completely offline. For a moment, all was silent, with only the dull roar of battle in the distance. Then Carmella Ruiz saw a grinning face pressed against the cockpit glass, and screamed despite herself.
Cain Marko smiled broadly, checking a folded sheaf of papers he pulled out of his jeans pocket. "Director... Ruiz, is it?" he asked. "Don't go nowhere, there's folks that want to see you." His face disappeared from her view, and then Ruiz felt the world turn upside down as the plane was rolled over. The cockpit glass filled with spiderweb cracks, but did not give. She hung there suspended, unable to move her arms, feeling the blood rush to her head which did nothing to alleviate the splitting headache that was beginning right behind her eyes.
~*~
Lorna grabbed the EM fields the electrokinetics were generating. With a flick of her hands, she hiked the magnetic power, spun their field and then drew it back to herself. Linking that to her shields, she then let go. Anything they did, short of cutting their power altogether was just going to power her defenses now. Hiking it would drain them faster and just make her stronger. "Two down. Yo, Spivak!" She leaped after the last energy projector and hoped it was something she could counter.
The two electrokinetics ignored her completely, all of their attention focused on Nolan and Piers. When their electrical blasts were drawn away, back to her shields, they charged the two operatives physically instead.
Piers dodged a blast from Spivak and went right for Gustafson, knowing he had to get the teek down immediately. Low-level didn't mean she couldn't do damage.
Lorna hated to be ignored. This was probably something she should go into with Samson and not take out on other people during a fight but Lorna never claimed to be perfect. And she wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Whatever Spivak was tossing seemed to be on the far end of the spectrum, almost out of her range and not something she was going to be able to divert. So Lorna did the next best thing and tackled the energy projector, hoping ignored meant that she wasn't about to get blasted. Shield or no, that would suck.
The blue-haired operative, looking the other way when she tackled him, went down fairly easily, his head slamming into the ground. He went limp and still - and an instant later, jerked like a puppet whose strings had just been tugged and started to struggle against Lorna's weight, an ominous glow coalescing around his body.
Gustafson lashed out at Piers, sending him tumbling back head over heels. Dizzily, he lurched back to his feet, seeing Nolan struggling to put Ashland down, and Polaris over there apparently wrestling with Spivak. Maheu slammed into him, and he gritted his teeth, trying to get a clear swipe at her with his claws.
Lorna struggled with him for a minute, metal flowing toward her from every imaginable source. She hit him, knocking his head against the ground, her fist sheathed in metal flexible only because it was her. She registered the glow after several seconds, entirely too late.
The blast flung her away, and Piers saw her hit the ground, in his peripheral vision. Snarling, he lunged at Maheu and slashed her hamstrings, then kicked her in the head when she went down, just to ensure that she stayed down at least for a moment while he ran for Spivak and Polaris. He tackled the younger operative, bearing him to the ground by sheer weight alone.
Yes. Ow. Definitely. Lorna lay stunned for a moment before climbing back to her feet in time to see Piers take down Spivak. The blue-haired man was still glowing. "Piers, get the hell away," Lorna shouted as she ran back toward them. This far away shielding was an iffy business. And given how much that had hurt with shields. "Piers, move!"
Piers heard her yell, but Spivak blasted him away before he could react. He hit the ground hard, and Nolan was there suddenly, dragging him back to his feet and out of the line of fire. "Damn it," the younger man said shakily. "They're going for us, Ian. Scorched-earth, you think?"
But Piers didn't have the breath to answer that very fucking obvious question. He was still trying to make his lungs work.
Lorna blasted back at Spivak the second Piers was out of the way, small pellets of metal impacting over his body, particularly his legs. They were merely scrap metal, didn't even weigh as much as a pocketful of change, but they were deadly as any bullet. Lorna knew enough to avoid vital organs. And injuring him wasn't really the point. She used the resulting enhanced field to pick Spivak up and hurled him away, knocking him into another attacking agent. Lorna sprinted back to Piers and Nolan. "We need to be more organised."
~I need help at the training barracks!~ Cable's voice called suddenly over the coms, sounding panicked. ~We can't hold them off, they're swarming the fucking door!~
Nolan looked stricken. "The kids--" he started to say - and stopped mid-sentence, staring down incredulously at the piece of metal protruding from his chest. Blood started to stream from the wound, and he looked up at Piers, blinking in obvious bewilderment as he started to crumple.
Piers managed to ease him to the ground - and looked up to Gustafson standing there, other pieces of metal floating in the air around her, ready to throw. His vision flooded with red and he snarled a curse, up off the ground and sprinting for her, ready to tear out her throat with his bare hands if he had to.
~*~
It was obvious Land was dead from the way the guy was now manhandling him. But -- there, on his belt. Careful to 'hold' the strings in her mind, all of them, Wanda yanked and at the same time, dropped more of the ceiling between them and the rest. A dull explosion came from the other side as the rubble stopped falling and then she was turning, focusing on those in front of her.
Dyson, struggling to get back to his feet, out of range of the two second-gens trying to pummel him into the floor, still realized instantly what Maximoff had done, cutting off the access to the mainframe room. He lashed out at Abbas with a kick, sending him back into Chang, and buying himself just a moment. He dragged himself upright, taking a few staggering steps towards the end of the hall. Draw them away from her, he thought dizzily, not knowing where he'd dropped his guns. His mind was still spinning, providing him with details and schematics, devices he could construct on the fly to balance the situation, but he couldn't focus, couldn't get his hands to obey him and reach for components as he tottered down the hall.
Chang chose that moment to figure out just how to focus his powers, even under the influence of the trigger. The energy blast hit Dyson from behind, square-on, and he hit the floor, the pain towering and immediate. He couldn't breathe, couldn't make his lungs work...
Wanda slammed her heel down into someone's stomach -- she couldn't tell who in the heap that landed in front of her -- and dodged to the right, trying to just stay out of the way of limbs. Clawed or not. Hopefully one of theirs was down but -- oh. Oh no.
The phrase 'and then there was one' suddenly had so much more meaning to her now. Dyson was about to get pulped even more than he already was. She couldn't stand by and just let that happen.
Squaring her shoulders, she slammed into the suddenly born again telekinetic, sending him headfirst into the concrete wall. The red glow around her hands as she landed in a crouch suggested that the crack to the head was not accidental.
The feral, Abbas, rose and lunged at her, claws outstretched. Down the hall, Dyson tried to push himself back upright, still hardly able to breathe. They were turning on her, he thought dizzily. No, that wasn't good, he needed to get their attention back on him... he opened his mouth to shout, but no sound came out, and his hands were slippery with something, blood maybe. He couldn't get a good grip on any of his components.
Catching the movement out of the corner of her eye, Wanda spun around a second too late. A half-shriek of pain and surprise escaped her as she felt the claws sink into and then _through_ the uniform. Her back was suddenly on fire and she lashed out blindly, catching the feral mutant in the leg with a hex bolt.
He went down screaming as well as his thigh muscle atrophied. Stumbling back, Wanda fought to keep herself calm. Movement, there was still movement in her arms, no muscles had been torn. With the leathers, it probably felt worse than it actually was.
Chang was leaning over him. Dyson grabbed feebly at his leg, yanking with what was left of his strength, and the energy-projector fell over. The rubble heaved and Vargas emerged, blank-eyed, stumbling over and reaching down for Dyson, hauling him up off the floor, enormous hands locked around his throat.
The problem with most feral mutations is that they came equipped with healing factors. And this one was certainly no different. Still in a great deal of pain, the man climbed back up to his feet, snarling at her. Wanda cursed under her breath and added a few more once the dust had cleared enough to show her that Dyson was currently being strangled to death.
Hissing in pain as she ducked a pounce from the mutant in front of her, she was desperately trying to weave the strings to do what she wanted them to do. The power was singing in her but it was too loud, too much and she was having trouble focusing it. She would have to settle for pulling just enough to make the big man's hands go numb from gripping too much, dropping the first gen back onto the floor.
And, oddly enough, right next to his guns.
Dyson saw the guns. He managed to grab one, to crank the power output up on it, and level it at Vargas. One shot at that setting and Vargas' head vanished in an explosion of gore. Samuelson, where was Samuelson, he didn't see her... he took aim at Abbas, next, and missed.
The shot that missed actually nearly took off Wanda's head and she ducked as the wall behind her exploded into dust and bits of concrete. The female energy projector suddenly reappeared in front of her, out of the shadows and dust. Perhaps the punishment she had taken was finally adding up, for she moved in to grapple instead of using her powers.
Twisting to avoid it, Wanda managed to grab the other woman around the neck and one arm, shoving it up in a painful chicken wing as she cranked back on her head. They had to end this and soon, she thought, realizing how tired she was as she struggled to retain her hold.
"Oh, hell." A blueish light was suddenly shining from her stomach and she realized, in a panic, that the woman obviously didn't have to see her hands to use her powers. About to push her away, a howl bounced off the walls behind her. Spinning about with the semi-captured woman they were both greeted by a set of claws.
A wet tearing noise reached her ears and the woman in Wanda's arms screamed, the light between them dying as she suddenly went slack.
Dyson fired again. This time, the shot took Abbas in the throat. The feral went down. For the count? Probably not. But the gun slid from Dyson's hand as he sagged back against the rubble, limp, and he couldn't concentrate. Everything was going dim and hazy, unimportant.
Not bothering to think about it, she let the body drop from her hands and headed over to the fallen man. "Dyson?" Oh god, he was a bloodied mess. Carefully, she put her hand to his chest. There was a faint, very faint, heart beat. She had to get him out of there. "Dyson! Can you hear me?"
Her voice penetrated the haze and his eyes fluttered open as he tried to focus on her. "Out," he managed, a bare whisper. "Get... out. Ab... not dead. Go..." She was still staring down at him, still there, and Dyson struggled to say something more, to warn her, but he was choking on blood, unable to draw a breath.
"Not going to spout any cheesy lines about 'no man bei--ouff!" Wanda's words were sharply cut off as the feral mutant slammed into her from the side. Hands thrown up just in time as he decided that the best place to go for was her face and throat. The parts not fully protected by the leather.
Head bouncing off the concrete and she saw stars for a second as she struggled to get the too heavy body off of hers. Her back screamed in pain as the fresh wounds were rubbed raw by the ground. Managing to get an arm up, she saw him latch on like one of those damned police dogs and felt the pressure in her arm as he attempted to chew his way through the leather. "Fuck!"
Abbas tore at the leather with his teeth, reaching out for her throat with his claws. His vacant eyes were fixed on her face, nothing even approaching humanity behind them. Dyson tried futilely to reach for the gun again, but there was no strength left in his arm. Nothing left.
As those eyes gazed so vacantly at her, something snapped. With nothing more than plain survival in her thoughts, as she felt the first pricks of teeth against her arm and a near miss against her throat, she reacted. With a viciousness born of fear and panic, her free hand slammed palm first into his nose and a sickening crunch and a flow of blood answered her action.
The feral's head jerked back out of pain and Wanda managed to grab him around the jaw as he let out a sound of pain. A flash of red so bright it blinded him and then a gurgled scream as he jerked back, clutching at his throat.
Rolling to her side in obvious pain she met Dyson's eyes as she struggled to energy from the red haze of her mind. Behind her she had to guess the sounds emerging would be normal for someone who had just swallowed a bolt of pure entropy, the flesh constricting and dying too fast for even a healing factor to cope with. In essence, the mutant was choking to death as his flesh caved in on itself.
All of them, down, Dyson thought. He could close his eyes now..
"Dyson?" Wanda knew she really didn't have to bother, it was obvious. Struggling to her feet, she tapped the comm. ~Scarlet Witch to Cyclops,~ she said, leaning against the wall and viewed the carnage before her -- behind and around -- with tired eyes. ~Come in Cyclops.~
It wasn't Scott's voice that crackled over the coms suddenly, full of desperation. ~Damn it, I need help at the training barracks!~ Nathan cried out. ~I can't hold them off, they're going to get through!~
~Scarlet Witch -- I copy that Cable. I'm on my way, just hang on,~ she sent, pushing herself off the wall with a groan. Taking a deep breath, pushing the pain to the back, she set out again.
~*~
"DOWN!" One of the directors hit the ground, but the other hesitated, and Scott tackled him, just in time for the energy blast to cross through the space where he'd been a moment before. From the ground, Scott fired, an optic blast catching the operative attacking them square in the chest and hurtling him backwards.
"Get off me!" the director screamed, struggling with a strength born of panic. Scott, distracted by shooting at another flyer who swooped in dangerously close to them, was caught off-guard as an elbow landed solidly in his ribs. It was a hard enough hit to rock him, even through the armor, and the director managed to squirm free and join his companion, both running across the rocky ground.
In the open, damn it... Scott hauled himself to his feet and took off after them. ~Cyclops here, I could use some help!~ he snarled over the coms, even as he caught up to the two men and shoved them in the direction of a large boulder, the only cover available.
Haroun, circling overhead and trying to keep track of the chaos of the battle, heard Scott's cry for help. ~Jetstream to Cyclops. I see you, and I'm on my way.~ he subvocalized as he kicked down into a dive, headed straight for the fleeing figures before Cyclops.
The redesigned visor had improved his peripheral vision, but it was still a weak point. He heard, rather than saw the operative running at them from the left, and those few lost seconds let the man, who'd dropped down from the rock face or some such thing, had to have, get inside Scott's guard.
He knew damned well that the operative was only fighting him because he was between him and the two directors. But he'd already lost two of them, he wasn't going to let these two be slaughtered, too.
The other man was fast, definitely a physical mutation of some sort, and Scott was already exhausted. He managed to land a couple of solid blows, hits the triggered operative shrugged off, before a kick dislocated his knee and left him sprawled on the ground.
Haroun saw Scott go down, and changed course just slightly. Bugger the fleeing men, he wasn't going to let some Mistra goon smoke his CO. The air screamed as Haroun dove steeply down at the physical augment, an aerial tackle that nearly jarred Haroun's shoulder out of its socket. However, the nice solid stone wall stopped all forward motion quite nicely, and the caved-in ribcage meant that this one wasn't getting up any time very soon. ~Jetstream to Medical. Grid square G2, got a physical augment with what sounds like a sucking chest wound. Cannot evac.~ he subvocalized, then scanned the area near Cyclops, looking for additional targets.
Gasping, Scott pushed himself up to his hands and knees, nearly biting through his lip at the pain. "Fuck," he wheezed, then spotted the two directors, still running. "Damn it," he spat, and blasted both of them - the blasts carefully measured, just enough to knock them down, but not out.
Haroun flicked his power into gear, and recovered both men by the simple expedient of slinging them into a shoulder carry easy and flying back to where. "Here you go," he said, dumping them roughly onto the ground. "You all right? Want a medevac to get that knee looked at?"
Scott tried to get up and slumped back to the ground, going pale. "Think I'll have to," he said hoarsely. "Don't think that leg's going to work. You need to take them first, though..."
~I need help at the training barracks!~ Nathan's voice came over the coms, sounding desperate. ~We can't hold them off, they're swarming the fucking door!~
Haroun looked at Scott, and then nodded. "No rest for the wicked." He reached out to Scott, intending to hoist him up. "We need to back Cable up. Hold on tight, this is gonna get a little hot..."
Scott was shaking his head. "You've got to get them back first," he repeated doggedly, jerking his head at the directors. "Leave them here and one of these triggered operatives will come along and kill them, and I will be damned if we got through this and none of these bastards live to be punished." He pulled away from Haroun, sinking back to the ground. "Drop them off, then get to the barracks. I can hold out here until one of the government teams gets here."
Haroun nodded, having received his marching orders. "Got it. Once these two are secured, you want me to come back, pick you up? Might still be useful in mop-up, and your power makes you a lethal sniper from the skies..." he suggested. He aided Scott into resting himself against a nearby outcropping of rock, and then moved to pick up the two stunned directors. "I don't think I'll be too gentle on this trip."
"If there's time," Scott said hoarsely, leaning back against the rock and listening to the coms. ~Cyclops to all X-Men,~ he said. ~If you can make it to the training barracks, do.~
Haroun picked up the two directors, slinging them over his shoulders like bales of rice. "You want me to come back here and get you, or head straight for the barracks?" he asked, lowering his goggles and getting prepared to power up and launch into the air.
~... reinforcements to the training barracks, ASAP!~ Nathan's voice crackled in and out on the coms, most of his message lost in the interference.
"Leave me here," Scott said, cursing himself for not being more careful. "Get them out, get over there. Go."
Haroun nodded and then rocketed into the air, taking the two directors with him.
~*~
Communications discipline was well on its way to breaking down entirely. There were too many voices, too many people reporting in with frantic details and calls for assistance, too many of the team leaders trying to give orders, none of which included 'fall back'. The situation was falling apart fast, even before one voice broke through the others with the worst news of all.
~I need help at the training barracks!~ Nathan sounded desperate, rattled and out of breath. ~We can't hold them off, they're swarming the fucking door!~
Cain caught the distress in Nathan's voice and tapped his earpiece. "I'm across the runway, I'll get there fast as I can." He looked around at the carnage surrounding him, then over to the jet that was folded into an immobile chunk of metal. That particular director wasn't going anywhere fast.
Training barracks, right. Cain glanced around and figured the fastest route. Fire wouldn't slow him down, just so long as he didn't run into any hostiles... well, he decided, they wouldn't slow him down either.
Two flyers dove at him as he moved away from the runway and back towards the heart of the complex. One was tossing fireballs as she came, the other moving quite a bit faster but not projecting any kind of visible energy.
"Right, you sons of bitches," Cain growled, starting to jog faster. Reaching down to pick up a bent steel girder, he spun in place like a discus thrower and heaved the chunk of metal at the fireball-throwing flier. Noting the flight path of the other, he sidestepped, putting himself in the direct line of flight.
Gesturing with both hands, Cain dropped into a half-crouch. "You want a go?" he hollered, "Come on!"
The pyrokinetic flyer tried to dodge, but the girder still caught her a glancing blow, sending her spinning away. Her companion started to dive at Cain - and then stopped on a dime, his attention obviously drawn elsewhere. A short distance away, two of Mistra's security personnel were herding half a dozen youngsters in trainee gray into one of the native stone buildings. The flyer switched directions smoothly, higher imperatives kicking in.
Cain smirked, giving the finger to the retreating flyer. "That's right! Turn tail, you yellow son of a bitch, run back to..." Realization set in when he noticed where the flyer's trajectory was taking him. Years of experience with the art of destruction led to a quick calculation of inevitable outcomes - all brought to bear when the flyer torpedoed through the second story of the stone building like a meteor. Under its shadow, the trainees and their handlers froze, watching the wall begin to crumble. Tons of rock, nowhere to run.
Cain could hear Nathan's voice over the link, sounding just on the verge of panic. "Cable!" Cain shouted over the airwaves, "Gimme a sitrep, how much time you got there?"
~Cain? Cain, I can't--~ Some sort of explosion cut off Nathan's reply for a moment, but then he was back, breathing hard enough for Cain to hear over the coms as he gasped out the rest. ~Everyone else is down! I can't keep them away from the door--~
Nathan needed him.
Cain took another step, then turned to watch the stone building begin to crumble. Eight kids, two handlers. Ten lives. The first rock gave way, and Cain saw the rubble begin to fall in slow motion. There was no way there would be any survivors.
They needed him.
Time seemed to stop for one moment, and Cain could hear Charles' voice in the back of his head, as if his brother was standing right there.
There is always a choice, Cain.
"No there ain't," he breathed. "No choice at all."
Keying the earpiece as he took the first step, Cain simply whispered, "I'm sorry, Nate. I ain't gonna make it."
The world sped back up. Tons of stone and rubble fell like rain, as Cain took three lunging steps, lifted the transport truck off the ground, and hoisted it over his head, shielding the trainees from the falling rubble.
Dust filled the air, and fist-sized rocks were still tumbling. Cain heaved, his muscles straining under the weight. But he would not give. He could not give. It was not a matter of willpower, it was a simple fact.
Looking down and blinking, he saw the grey-shirted trainees on the ground, crawling for cover. As he heard the metal of the truck strain under the weight, he noticed that the oldest of them couldn't have been more than thirteen years old. Bastards, he thought, taking one slow step forward. "Get... to... wall!" he grunted, leaning forward to make an arch with his own body.
Poised for one second like Atlas with the world across his shoulders, Cain Marko heaved one more time, then felt the metal frame of the truck collapse under the stone and give way.
Dust, rubble, and silence.
~*~
Again. He had to try the Trojan Horse again. Thy songs were made for the pure and free... he thought and slammed it at the two closest operatives. Nothing. It was still like trying to run through water, and he couldn't do it, couldn't reach...
It had to be one of the conditioning telepaths. Some sort of suppressant field, but how could they know? Unless they didn't, unless they just knew something had happened, to him and Mick and Tim and now the other operatives from Canada.
~This is Cable,~ he called out desperately, willing someone to hear him. ~We need reinforcements to the training barracks, ASAP, and someone's got to account for all of Mistra's telepaths! Someone's jamming the Trojan Horse!~
More. There were more operatives running down the hall, towards the door, and Nathan cursed desperately, and waded in, the patterns of close-quarters psimitar fighting coming to him as smoothly as if he'd been doing it for years. Morgan was right beside him, only using a partial exoskeleton - there wasn't enough room in the hall for him to switch it on all the way. Openings in his armor, Nathan thought disjointedly and tried to stay a little ahead of him, so that he could fling up a shield around them both if he had to.
Not enough room. Mick dropped the operative in front of him with an elbow to the throat and cut loose with another sonic blast once he saw that none of his teammates were in front of him. The triggered operatives tumbled to the ground, some of them bleeding heavily from the nose and ears.
But it didn't stop them. He was beginning to think that nothing short of lethal force was going to stop them.
~Reinforcements to the training barracks!~ Nathan pleaded over the coms. A pyrokinetic got inside his guard and Nathan bit back a scream as the edge of the white-hot blast slipped around his hasty shield and seared through his body armor at the shoulder. ~Someone shake your team loose and get over here, please!~ he gasped, swinging his psimitar around and sending the pyrokinetic into the wall.
Beside him, Tim stumbled suddenly. "Nate..." The call of his name was breathy, barely audible. Nathan grabbed at him to steady him, but the support didn't seem to be enough. Tim kept crumpling, and Nathan opened his mouth to shout at him to get back on his feet, to...
Tim fell face-down on the floor, and Nathan stared blankly for a precious split-second at the smoking hole in the back of his armor.
No.
A flicker of confused thoughts, of pain, from the man lying on the ground.
And then nothing.
Something hit him from behind and Nathan staggered as an arm came around his throat and started to squeeze. He focused desperately on the bones in the arm, shattering them, and managed to throw the operative off him and into another who was charging him head-on.
~Reinforcements to the barracks!~ he rasped out, unaware of the fact that he was repeating it telepathically, screaming it out at the top of his lungs. ~Get your asses over here, damn it!~
Anika vanished under the sheer weight of bodies, and Mick tried to blast his way through to her, calling her name. A young woman barely out of her teens was there in his path suddenly, her empty eyes fixed on him, and as Mick ramped up the sonics to knock her out of the way, she lunged forward, claws of energy extending from her hands, and slipped under his guard.
They went right through his body armor, and Mick staggered. The shock hit first, well before the pain. He managed to knock her away with an unfocused sonic blast, but his knees gave out and he was falling, reeling back against the wall. He heard Ani shriek, a sound of pure rage that turned suddenly into a cry of pain.
Nathan saw Mick go down, couldn't see Ani at all, and for the first time in years in the middle of combat, felt himself on the verge of outright panic. He started to call out again, but then Cain's voice was on the coms, asking for a sitrep. Asking how much time he had. Time?
~Cain? Cain, I can't--~
And the world blew up in his face. The explosion - one of the energy-projectors, had to be - flung him back down the hall and against his own shield, hard. He fought for breath to answer, not registering Mick dragging himself doggedly over bodies, crawling towards the door. ~Everyone else is down!~ he wheezed, hauling himself back to his feet. ~I can't keep them away from the door--~
But he charged them anyway. Hurled himself forward, knowing that it was futile, that there were too many and he was injured already, wearing down more and more by the moment.
It didn't matter. He didn't have a choice. And even if he'd had one, even if he could have walked away, he wouldn't have. There were fifty children behind that door, and every moment he kept the operatives away from the door was one more moment for reinforcements to arrive, one more moment for Kylun and his team to get the kids out through the emergency access.
No surrender, no retreat. He'd always known that it would come down to this in the end.
~*~
Footsteps - loud, echoing foosteps - and a seven-foot tall steel woman burst into the room, shrugging off the bullets as the other two government soldiers opened fire. She spotted Nash and headed right for him.
The floor disappeared from underneath her, vaporized instantly, the closeness of the laser fire likely giving the medic a heart attack. Light simultaneously slammed into the woman's face, both to blind and to unbalance. "Get out of her way! Now!" The medic was refusing to move though, staring at the new arrival but sticking close to her patient nonetheless.
A blurred form came through the door and slammed hard into the running second-gen. The shape resolved into a slender Asian woman, who took one look at Nash, blanched, and then threw herself at the much larger steel woman. Matsuda blurred in and out, somehow managing to elude the other operative's strikes and land solid hits, steel hide or no steel hide, until the bigger woman was reeling.
Matsuda being there was both good in that it gave the time to the medic and his companions to tend to Nash and work on getting him further away from the two women fighting, somehow. And bad because clearly Caffrey was now solely focusing on Matsuda. Alison took aim again, carefully, until Matsuda took that one moment to pause - and lasered right through both of Caffrey's knees, aiming for the tendons.
Motion from the corner of her eyes caught her attention at that moment, just in time for her to notice the man heading for Matsuda with single-minded intent.
Caffrey fell, her metal skin rippling as the shock snapped her back to human form, but even as she hit the ground she reached out for Matsuda, trying to grab at her, yank her down as well. Matsuda blurred and dodged - and dodged again, desperately, as she saw Alvarez coming at her.
One of the government soldiers grabbed another sedative-loaded syringe from the medic's kit and tried to do his almighty best to pounce on the fallen Caffrey, who was still moving, trying to get back up even with both knees not working.
"Stay clear!" Alison snapped at Matsuda, even as she shielded up and lunged for Alvarez - getting him down was imperative, the neurotoxins nothing any of the people in this room other than herself would be able to deal safely. Alvarez was still entirely focused on trying to get to the first gen still left standing in the room, and it was without a second thought that Alison, using the impulse she still had from trying to get to him before he reached the other woman, simply diverted the arm away from Matsuda and then pulled it along with her in an arc, holding on to his wrist tightly. Either he followed, the rest of his body likely flipping over or, as she suspected, it would break. But either way kept him away from Matsuda and focusing on her.
Behind her the other soldier had joined his companion in trying to keep Caffrey down, long enough for the needle to go in - perhaps a bit hard, but the metal soon faded entirely from sight, and the medic stared for a moment at the woman's legs before nodding sharply. "Cauterized. No massive bleeding. Here, use these." A packet was flung from her pack to the man who'd pounced on Caffrey first and while one put on restraints on both wrists and ankles, the other saw to her knees. The medic kept working on Nash, ignoring the fight only a few meters away with supreme disregard.
Alvarez's arm snapped, but he didn't appear to register the pain. He lunged at Alison, seemingly heedless of her shield. Matsuda, not willing to stand back - she didn't know for sure that the neurotoxin couldn't penetrate Blaire's shield, it certainly had gone through Morgan's exoskeleton that one time in training - blurred back towards them and launched a quick kick at the younger operative's head, hoping to take him out fast and put an end to this.
Without hesitation, Alison incorporated Alvarez's sudden forward shift of balance in her next move, Matsuda's kick having sent his upper body in a sharp, sudden motion which was encouraged along forcefully. A smooth leg sweep took his own from underneath him and then her arm which had finished it's previous arc regardless of the breaking sound earlier, hit his chest solidly, helping Alvarez in his downward fall fast, face first towards the ground. The air left his lungs in a sharp exhalation, even as he was blinded by a bright burst of light.
Matsuda backed off, watched Alvarez struggle and fail to draw air back into his lungs. "Here," the medic said sharply, extending another syringe to her. She blurred over to take it and then back, while Alison still had Alvarez safely down, and injected him quickly.
"There aren't enough," Matsuda said hoarsely, looking up at Blaire and trying to ignore the fact that Nash was lying there on the floor, obviously badly hurt. She had to stay focused on the here and now, on the fight. "Not enough of us, too many of them, and most of the government troops are finding it next to impossible to get close enough to the second-gens to take them down in any kind of non-lethal way."
"They can't balance things out in the condition the second gens are now," Alison replied flatly, before turning to look at the medic, still working over Nash. "It worked before, but not now, with whatever mental switch was flipped..."
One of the men standing over Caffrey sighed miserably. "It's not their fault. This is wrong." He had another dose of the sedative ready, she noticed, willing to take the risk of Caffrey waking up rather than killing her outright just to be on the safe side - his partner seemed less thrilled with the notion, but the flat look the medic gave him stilled any protest he may have had.
"Matsuda - stay here. Stay out of sight. Right now you're a liability to us if you're seen." Alison stepped away from Alvarez, and soon he was restrained, just as Caffrey was. "Keep this room secure, and help them keep Nash safe. We ha-"
A voice filtered through the comm, slicing over the low level chatter which had been going on non-stop.
~I need help at the training barracks!~ Nathan shouted. Not identifying himself, and the lack of proper communications discipline from him, of all people, told everyone listening just how serious his situation was. Even if the panic in his voice hadn't been perfectly audible as well. ~We can't hold them off, they're swarming the fucking door!~
She only looked at Matsuda long enough to ensure the woman would stay as asked, before turning on her heel, exiting the room at a dead run, light bleeding into being around her. ~Incoming.~ She ran out of the building housing the generators, right into chaos, and never stopped. Cain's voice echoed over the comm, and for a moment she hoped. A second gen trying to club someone with a rifle was blinded as she raced by, long enough to give those facing him a chance to regroup, another hurtling towards her simply dodged and she kept heading for the training barracks. And then Cain spoke again, a deathly quiet tone to his voice.
Alison ran faster, light blurring around her as she focused on only one thing.
Reaching the barracks in time.
~*~
Moira had been rearranging the medical supplies for the third time in an hour when her world turned upside down. The link between Nathan and herself suddenly blazed to life, going from the dim, yet still present feeling in the back of her mind when it was closed down to an anguished roar.
A startled gasp escaped of her and she grabbed her head, wincing at the sudden noise. Nathan obviously was not doing this on purpose. The concentration he'd been using to shield the link had to be needed elsewhere. Whimpering, Moira forced herself to focus but when the sudden onslaught of images and sounds assaulted her brain, that was the end of that.
Tim.
Mick.
Ani.
Where'd Mick go? Where'd he...oh no, no no no, those wounds, he couldn't possibly survive those wounds. Anika, she'd just been there, a second ago, fighting. Now under a swarm of bodies.
And Tim. Oh no, Tim, please...
Moira suddenly found herself retching onto the floor, one hand bracing, the other one clutching her stomach as the images didn't stop. Nathan, why was Nathan on the ground? Why wasn't he, oh God, no no no, Cain promised he promised and now...
Something wrapped around her mind like a firm blanket, warmed by the fire, and the images were gone, replaced by a familiar voice in her mind. As Moira lay sobbing on the floor, struggling to regain control and composure, Charles did his best to soothe her from his study, the sound of Amanda's running footfalls echoing in the hall outside.
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