17847/JUST Trouble

JUST Trouble
Date of Scene:	18 May 2024
Location:	Brooklyn
Synopsis:	After a brief but vicious fight, a group of mutants manage to drive off a unit of Purifiers armed to the teeth with bizarre, high-tech weaponry seemingly tailor made to counteract them at every turn! With captives in the hands of both the X-Men and the Brotherhood, and Jaxon Blain trailing this new manifestation of his life's great shame, who will stop them before they claim more lives?
Cast of Characters:	Lorna Dane, Emma Frost, Jaxon Blain, Fred Dukes, Neena Thurman, Negasonic, Paris Bennet

---

Lorna Dane has posed:
BENEATH SCARLET RIVER MINISTRIES
NOT THAT LONG AGO

"Brothers, sisters," Pastor Dave Corning drawls, cozy and familiar as always, "before I say anything more, I just wanna thank you -- deeply, sincerely, I wanna thank you for bein' here with me, with each other, tonight. Not one'a y'all has seen battle, but all of y'all know the price paid by those who have-- and the dire importance of winnin' the war we fight against the forces of genetic filth and devilry. You've fed 'em when they were hungry; listened to 'em sob about holdin' the cooling pieces of their comrades in their arms; bandaged 'em, armed 'em, kept the supply lines runnin' smooth as silk-- that you volunteered to be here tonight, to test the new last word in metin' the vengeance of the Lord on high, that ain't you joinin' the fight, y' hear? It's steppin' into a new part of it," he insists, leaning on the lectern before him and sweeping a burning, clear-eyed gaze across a dozen armored figures standing at attention. "It's lettin' go of fear and lettin' the purity of judgement flow through you."

Nods, murmurs, and eager, but ultimately muted claps burble through the congregation, filling the brick and concrete space with echoing clangor.

"It's--

"-- it's an honor, sir--"

"And now," sweeps the meek, singular voice of the one congregant willing to speak as they stand on the edge of looking the Beast itself right in the eye aside like dust, as Corning lifts clawed hands from the lectern, "I have a question for you, brothers and sisters: when the New Man wrought by this world of sin dares to show its twisted face in the light, is it right to hate them?"

"Yes," the congregation replies, the word rippling through all twelve voices as each of them does their very best to banish the nerves. One by one, their helmeted chins lift.

"When the New Man invested with the breath of the Adversary himself dares to taste the same air as the righteous, will your hate burn pure and true?"

"Yes," the congregation replies, a chorus of hardening determination, stiffening spines, and clenching fists.

"Our hate is pure."

"And when the New Man emerges to use your children's skulls as ornaments and drink the marrow in your lovers' bones," Corning seethes, gripping the lectern once more as he leans several inches nearer, "will your hate be justified?"

"Purity justifies our Hate," intones, twelve mouths, twelve voices, twelve hearts, twelve souls speaking as one unified force.

                Joint
                    Unit
                        Synchronization
                                Topology...........
                                    INITIATED! Forced Integration Execution Resolving..................

Lorna Dane has posed:
BROOKLYN
THE TWISTED HELIX BOOKSTORE
NOT THAT LONG AGO

At this point, the efficacy of one of these protests is down to whether the officers on the scene give a shit or not. Thanks to the recent uproar caused by a mutant-involved police shooting and the riot that followed, today's officers are giving a lot of shit: the sea of screaming, scowling faces punctuated by 'GOD HATES MUTIES', 'MUTIE LOVE = PLANETDEATH', and dozens more is held back by heavy duty barricades lined along the sidewalk across from the bookstore. Why all the hate, one might wonder...?

Well, that's easy, metahuman theorist Donnell Youthers is here to read from and sign copies of his new book, 'Here Comes Tomorrow: On Free Will and Genetic Destiny', a work exploring the tensions between homo sapiens sapiens and superior over the last fifty years. There's even a Q&A portion, and while a couple weeks ago, the lieutenant on duty might've looked at the stew pot simmering outside and come up with a reason to scuttle that part - for safety, or whatever - the mandate (for now) is to treat these situations with the utmost care. Inside the store, Donnell is shaking hands and chatting with guests as they arrive and spread out to find seats.

Outside,

"T-minus ten, 'til the mutie lover starts readin'," Pastor Jim Melton hisses into his walkie, embedded somewhere amidst the sea of hate. "Twelve 'til expected ETA; copy?"

"Copy. En route."

BROOKLYN
THE TWISTED HELIX BOOKSTORE
RIGHT ABOUT NOW

"'... considered, yet. As the nexus of culture at Denisova proves, co-existence and collaboration have the potential to enrich all parties willing to engage. And unlike our ancestors, we who have learned from'"

        *KRRRRATHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*```

An explosion rips through the Twisted Helix from back to front, turning brick and mortar into razor shrapnel and knowledge into a screaming, searing cloud of embers billowing towards Donnell, the staff, and the audience. Cutting through thick plumes of smoke and debris, half a dozen figures in uniform pitch-black and blood-red armor march from storage areas onwards, pressing inexorably towards the crowd with six black rifles that each seem to drink up the light around them. Where their eyes should be are narrow, horizontal slices with ruby lenses set a couple inches deep. The one saving grace for the people who came for a peaceful author event: among the handful of posthumans scattered amongst the crowd, one was able to muster a crackling force field strong enough to buffer the audience from the most lethal effects of the ambush, leaving most of them with nothing worse than cuts, sprains, and concussions. It's even able to weather the first salvos of bullets that scream from the frontmost soldiers, its surface sizzling and sparking wildly but otherwise holding.

This, however, is where their good fortune meets a hurdle:

The armoured killers halt their advance. They spread, forming a semicircular line of steel between them and the back entrance as attendees begin fleeing towards the front...

... only to be confronted with another half a dozen figures in uniform, pitch-black and blood-red armor...

Just as the crowd jolts back and begins boiling against itself as panic sets in, a growling whine begins to sound from behind them. One of the six behind aims a shoulder-mounted launcher towards the audience and fires, launching a scintillating spike of electromagnetic energy that burrows clean through the field and sears ts creator's arm right off, sending them to the ground screaming, flailing, crying--

The field lingers, but it's visibly degrading; on either side, faceless killers level terrible weapons, ready for the moment when the slaughter may commence.

As one, they intone, "Purity justifies our Hate."

Emma Frost has posed:
It's been a rather long day for Emma Frost. Meeting upon meeting, business, logistics, keeping track of grades of students at the Mansion going for graduation and readying herself for the latest round of horrors that will come from the talent show.. It's the type where upon finishing her business, Emma will normally return to her penthouse, act like the functional alcoholic she is, and then get to bed to repeat it the next day. Time stops for no one, no matter how powerful goes the aphorism.
    When the explosiong oes off, as do the cries, Emma Frost curses as flame erupts from everywhere. She's exposed within the blast radius of it as debris falls. She can only barely shift into her diamond form in time to survive it when she's buried and not crushed. Now, pinned underneath debris Emma would be swearing mightily in her normal state of mind. But she can't telepathically scan to see waht's going on without turnin back to flesh, which would mutilate her instantly. And it will take her time to dig herslef out. So she just goes to force herself to rise up enough to get leverage, then goes to start shifting the rubble off.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Not completely dark, but the sun is setting and the shadows getting longer, deeper. It's in one of those shadows that Jaxon has been hiding - laying in wait - for a while now. "Shit," he mumbles from his hiding place once his ears settle their ringing from the explosion and his heart stops feeling as if it's going to pound from his chest. Unfortunately, he's positioned himself across the street, behind the protestors out front.

One shadow hop brings him closer to where the devastation is about to multiply - on to the next shadow and that much closer.

But he's one man and, currently, he's not even certain where to begin. When it doubt, let the shadows come out?

With a slight wave of his hand in a circle, the little pockets of darkness behind the book store begin to swirl and dance, they begin to expand and widen, growing deeper and darker. Darker, wider, deeper - darker, wider, deeper. It continues until the entire back facing ally - street - whatever is covered in inky black.

Fred Dukes has posed:
Why the hell is Fred Dukes at a book signing?

"Listen." Fred mutters, as he gets a large book signed. "I know the author's a little problematic on Lextext but what author doesn't go bugfuck insane." He tells the poor clerk as he gets his purchase scanned. "Writing, I think, destroys the brain in essential ways we do not understand. Homer ate people."

"The Odyssey?" The clerk asks, making a major mistake by engaging with a chatty customer.

"Nah I drive a custom. Need support." Fred pats his gut as if in explanation. "Can we just like wrap it in paper or something? I need my little angel detective stories but I also need to not get a lecture on mutant dignity from Toad, like I ain't seen his browser history."

The clerk pauses. "I can wrap your children's book sir."

"Young adult novellea, buddy." Fred says in a warning tone, and then people start shooting. The wall explodes and a young man's arm is ripped off. None of this bothers the Blob in the slightest, the rubble and small arms sliding off of him. Fred's book is ruined by a stray shot. Or maybe it was an aimed one, you never know with Purifiers.

"Oh no." Blob says, looking at the ruins of his evening's entertainment. "Now only one person knows my terrible secret." Fred looks at the shivering, shuddering clerk.

And rips the hefty cash register out of its fake wood desk. It was wielded on. Blob turns at one of the strange men in black and red, pulls the sparking hunk of steel, plastic and sharp metal up above his head and swings.

Neena Thurman has posed:
It's business as usual in the Bronx for some people. Domino's got some gigs in the works, an open road, an open tab awaiting at her bar of choice, and enough firepower in the trunk to survive a trip through New Jersey. The blacked out BMW hides well within the city traffic which is moving along at a decent clip. There's good music on the radio and she has a lead on a new burger joint to hit up sometime soon and--

Explosions. Panic. Disorder.

Book signing..?

Hey, she's all for people voicing their opinions but when things start detonating and -- yeah that is /definitely/ body armor and firearms -- then it becomes another matter.

Dom pauses. She looks around the fancy interior of her (totally not stolen) car. Pale half-gloved fingers drum across the wheel once. She makes a slight face then reaches over to fish a burner phone and extra sidearm out of the glovebox. "Welp, yippie-kai-yay."

She shifts into a lower gear and floors it, the sports coupe ramping up over the curb and barreling toward the bookstore.

"Hope you lot are up for some speed reading" she thinks aloud prior to smashing through one of the walls, plowing through shelves and tables on her way to completely flatten at least one of those armed and armored jerks.

Insurance will cover the damages. ...Y'know. Probably.

Not like it's her building....
...or her car...
...but this situation /is/ now part of her problem.

Negasonic has posed:
Who still did book tours?

Or read books?

Lots of people, actually, Ellie was just one of those people who was perpetually caught on her phone. And how she still went to places like this? The nectar of life. She needed to buy it still.

And so she was sitting in the little coffee shop attached to the bookstore, hearing the general vibe coming from the talk and half listening to it as she scrolls through her phone.

Yeah, she knew it was Summer. Which is why she left her coat behind. She was in a tight dark top, tucked into leather pants, her hair allowed to get a little long on top, but the sides were shaved down.

And the whole explosion thing?

She rises to a stand beside her coffee table, her lips pursing down on her lip piercing. Obvious mutant is obvious. Who else would these people be attacking?

Ellie glances up towards Fred. Luckily, the coffee shop was nearish the register. "They're probably after that guy," she says up towards Fred. Did she know him? Not really, but maybe there was talk within the circles and all.

"Or you. Or me. Whatever," she says. "You gonna be good?" she asks of him, already ducking low behind an overturned table.

Paris Bennet has posed:
Contrarily to popular belief Bennet du Paris does not hide in the deeps of Genosha's royal palace or in his cabin in the mountains all the time. Actually, he likes to travel. He just keeps low profile and tends to avoid interacting with humans.

He is actually a decent person when dealing with mutants. If prone to talk too much about the evils of humankind. But look, he was a in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade, he knows all about the evils of humankind. Ask him about the Siege of Acre if you enjoy the worst horror stories.

And he reads. Slowly, but throughoutly. Mostly theology and philosophy, but he is branching to sociology recently, which is why he was mildly interested in this Donnell Youthers writer and his book about metahumans. Dressed in black and wearing dark glasses, he can almost pass by a normal human. Which he does, since he got tired of having to punish or execute insolent humans all the time. See? He can be reasonable.

Which proves to be a mistake when someone attempts to bomb the building. His reaction to the explosion is stumbling against a wall and then grunting in disapproval while reinforcing that forcefield created by some mutant with fine reflexes. Mental note to try to recruit him (or her) for Genosha. But later. First, some retaliation is due.

Pulling off his glasses, he turns to the Purifiers, nodding at Fred as he attacks them with a cash register. Someone else insert a pun here, please.

Exodus attacks with a forceblast that is only slightly less powerful than your typical tac nuke. Restraint? Not much.

Lorna Dane has posed:
*KA-CHNNNG!!!*

Bills fly into the air and coins go flying. Wielded by a hand like Blob's, the cash register lands an absolutely devastating blow upside his armored target's head, wrenching it around on his neck until it's precariously perched on the edge of snapping into an awkward angle while he crumples to the ground in a gurgling heap.

"Purity justifies our Hate."

Twelve voices speak in unison, one mangled by a broken jaw and partially severed tongue. That one? He pushes himself up to his feet, slowly; head lolling off to one side until it rolls helplessly forward, leaving it bowed so low his chin's tucked against his chest.

And the others...?

Four of them are looking at Blob, now; five, if you want to count the one gripping his head in both hands and *K R R R A K K I N G !* his head into some some semblance of upright stability. Two of them open fire, sinking dozens of hollowpoints into the folds of Fred Dukes' voluminous body in a matter of seconds. Another launches three frag grenades from the launcher that has revolved its way into existence beneath the barrel of his rifle, lodging them into his bulk one after the other so that they'll explode at roughly the same time. The fourth, she unleashes a gout of fire from her weapon, fanning out to take a position around the gargantuan mutant and keep him pinned down-- at least, for a few precious seconds.

Unmoved by the inefficacy of his comrades' violence - and the increasing risk of being anywhere near it - the fifth one slowly raises his sleek, black handgun (-- wasn't it a rifle a moment ago--?) and levels it dead center at Fred's face. When he pulls the trigger, a throbbing, off-pink mass of protoplasm hurtles from the barrel, growing with every moment spent racing towards the Blob until it's big enough -- dense enough -- to threaten coating his entire head in thick, self-replicating, wholly nonporous goo, to cut off his oxygen supply.

With the darkness creeping through the alley and beginning to encroach upon the gaping back wall of the store itself, another member of the rear guard turns, stares-- and advances towards the alley, baleful red light glowering from her central visor at steadily increasing magnitudes until it's slicing through the shroud. A couple controlled bursts - the first regular, the second scintillating with tracers - of ammo from her rifle seek to catch any lurkers unawares-- or, failing that, drive them out of cover and into her line of sight.

A bit farther forward, where Emma's struggling to free herself, another armored killer strides up until he's standing directly over her, staring down implacably as she struggles.

Aiming the barrel of his gun directly between her eyes, letting it hover a few inches free of making actual contact with her organic diamond body.

A sheen passes across his visor; it is echoed in every other visor.

His rifle begins to unfurl, the barrel opening like a flower in bloom to reveal the crackling pylon hidden within. Nevermind that the more the gun opens, the clearer it becomes that there's no Earthly way for all the technology that was revealed to have fit inside of an automatic rifle: what matters is that, jittering at the heart of that pylon, there is a single bullet with a sparkling, spiral-grooved tip spinning up to impossible speeds locked and loaded and glowing white hot.

"Purity justifies our Hate," they all say, as one fires a burning drill intended to bore a hole clean through Emma's head-- or into it, at least.

Lorna Dane has posed:
The system takes a little time to adapt, to adjust to the posthuman trats it's faced with, after all.

Thanks to Domino and Exodus, the Helix sees substantially more carnage packed into a very short span of time: like a violent two-step, her car crashes through the store's walls while Paris' vaguely focused, phenomenally potent blast sweeps three of the Purifiers advancing through the front entrance right into her path. One winds up splayed across the hood; another bounces off and crashes through shelves; the last--...

Let's just say that the next time,

"Purity justifies our Hate," rings through the bookstore,

there are only eleven voices. Notably: the Purifier isn't so much crushed, flattened beneath Domino's car as they are, just-- incapacitated. The armor sparks, but holds; the person inside... the jury is out.

Back in the coffee shop, the heavy tread of stormtrooper boots on tile is hardly audible amidst the chaos everywhere else in the Helix, and the roaring gouts of flame in the shop. Ellie is not the only one who took to hiding under or behind tables-- and the Purifier sweeping the cafe is entirely unperturbed by it, sweeping bursts of blue fire ahead of him as he seeks to do his part to purge every last iota of wickedness from the shop.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost is arrogant. Extremely so. But it's also best not to be when one is literally staring down the barrel of a gun. She's struggling in the ground, barely having any of the debris off her and she has no real room to try and duck her head out of the way - and the man has too much leverage for her to simply smash it out of the way. And with the way the weapon is extending itself shows that the technology is definitely not terrestrial. As likely is the armor. Which means she can't just punch him and expect it to hurt beyond knocking him back a few inches if even that.

Instead, Emma Frost goes to snap out with the hand as the man goes to chant like the proper extremist he is.. But not towards the barrel of the gun that's charging up to blast her in the face. Not towards the man's hand, which is too far out of range for her to grasp. Not to his wrist. Not to grab at a piece of debris to try and fling it at him or free herself.

Instead her hand snaps over to the man's armored boot. More specifically, his ankle. Her intent would be to grab it, use her enhanced strength to latch on, and twist it as brutally as she could.

Even if the armor made him effectively invulnerable, there still had to be a man inside there. So hopefully even if she couldn't punch through the armor, she could at least twist it. And hopefully even the maniac underneath it would still have the capacity of feeling pain.

So, hopefully her hand snaking out, grasping onto said ankle, and then twisting it around a full hundred and eighty degrees like one was uncorking a bottle of wine and then snapping it hard to the side with the strength to punch through the center of the tank would have some effect.

It was that, or likely have her head shot off.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Those shadows Jaxon is growing continue to do so, they seep under cracks in the door, beneath door frames. More room for him to hide, more room for him to work. He's not a 'frontal attack' kinda guy. But he's all about slinking through the shadows in a very literal sense.

Jaxon becomes one with them - the shadows that is, not the murderous bigots.

And now he's moving from one to the next even as he spreads them out in front of himself.

Her efforts are valiant - in that evil kind of way - but Jaxon only needs the smallest sliver of shadow to operate. If he even manages to take down /one/ of these sons-a-bitches, his death will be worth it.

As the shadows left creep behind the armored woman, so does Jax. Before he's there, a large round stone is created from the inky blackness of his own shadow form. His aim is a quick chokehold that like won't choke, but just might allow him the leverage to smash that black rock - now nearly as hard as Emma's diamonded body - right into that face mask. Should it shatter, his form will solidify just long enough to dig fingers deep into tender eyes, gouging until they actually make a popping sound. When he attempts to make his quick retreat back into the darkness, here's to hoping it's with the woman's weapon. Not that he has a damned clue how to use it.

Neena Thurman has posed:
Over the years Domino's seen a lot of different things go flying over the windshield of various vehicles. Hardcover literature may be a first! She briefly catches a copy of 'Gone with the Wind' slapping across the cracked surface before it, and the /three/ armored goons suddenly ending up in front of her grill, go somewhere else in a big damn hurry.

Now, driving over people? Not so new to her. Though the sounds are all ear-gratingly off when full metal armor comes into play, leading to all sorts of unhealthy shrieking and jarring noises while the BMW grinds to an unnatural halt, about as illegally parked as one can get in this town.

Slightly dazed and with a deployed airbag to fend off, the vehicle's lone occupant looks around and spies, of all people, Fred Dukes. She elbows out the crumbling remains of the driver's side window and says in a perfectly conversational tone "I've been looking for you--"

(Maybe later, Dom.)

No fancy combat-rolls out of the crunched Beemer, she's just glad to be able to remain upright after giving the building a new service entrance. The guy /under/ the car...probably doesn't need a kill confirmation, so she looks for another target.

Maybe it's that one of the baddies had been lining up for an execution of someone clearly down on the floor? Maybe it's the shiny diamondform catching the opportunistic money-loving mercenary's attention. Whatever the reason, Dom's lining up handgun sights on the Purifier about to blast Emma in the head and attempts to return the favor in kind.

That she happens to go for the headshot at the same moment Jaxon is attempting a fancy maneuver on the same target may or may not involve luck, though it does make for a timely double-tap. And Emma's ankle-twist before everything else? As timely of a distraction as this mercenary could have asked for.

Fred Dukes has posed:
"Huh." Blob says, as the little man survives. Sort of. "Pretty hard for a flatscan. You doing nano or something, preacher? Hey Exodus, you know these guys from Bible Camp? Haw haw haw!" Blob laughs, not feeling the terror of the Purifiers in the way some of his colleagues do.

Here's why: The bullets literally sink into Blob's skin, his internal gravity field absorbing most of their force and his super absorbent flesh sucking up the rest. The bullet casings fall to the floor for lack of anywhere else to go. Grenades do even less; the explosions don't even rattle Blob, and the shrapnel can't build up enough force to cut him. He lazily moves a hand to keep the hunks of metal away from his face, and then the flamethrower.

"A little warm." Blob says, reaching for the helmeted fanatic, one massive hand able to cup her face, helmet and all. "I don't like bring broiled, filly." His hand starts to squeeze. "But I've been uncomfortable before. Let's compare."

And then the great weakness of Blob's power. He doesn't even think to dodge a pistol until it's too late, and the wrap is around his face. Blinded and unable to breathe, Fred lets go of the flamethrower Purifier and waves his arms around dangerously, his scream muffled as he stumbles back a dangerous step.

Negasonic has posed:
Well, shit.

Negasonic keeps behind the table as Blob focuses in on what he's doing, and the brotherhood start the fight against the others. Ellie wasn't exactly a live by the book Xavier's dream purist and well... it was starting to smell vaguely Sentinel in here.

Sorta.

Peeking around the table, she sees two things. Flamethrower and the anti-blob blob that was utilized against Blob.

"...huh," she says eloquently.

Ellie didn't have the subtlest of powers, either, so her first order of business? Duck, weave, and try to avoid the flailing Fred long enough to bring her hand up to his face, focus, and try a small explosion there. Just at her hand, you know, enough to try to knock that stuff away.

Maybe it works, for a second, and Ellie notes it regrowing, ducking another another flailing arm.

Maybe she had a solution to both problems at once. Clutching her teeth, she starts to 'catch' the swirling energies around her, a corona lighting around her... she squints, and calculates a moment.

Ellie hoped to explode in such a way that it might super melt the regenerating facewrap that Fred had acquired... and explode Fred in the general direction of the flamethrower guy.

Paris Bennet has posed:
Exodus seems surprised and annoyed the Purifiers survived him blast. "That is remarkable armor, murderers. But you are no knights, just deluded zealots of a false prophet." He steps ahead, concentrating his telekinetic power in just one of the armored killers, and seeing if the armor is tough enough he can't crush it with the man inside.

"What is a Bible Camp?" He asks to Blob, giving the man a brief glance. Just as the head of the enormous man is engulfed. "Ah, for the love of God, Dukes. Learn to fight some day soon."

He switches the target of his telekinesis, which maybe saves one nearly crushed Purifier, to try to pull the goo off Fred's head instead.

Lorna Dane has posed:
*S N A A P!*

One of the many advanced features of the armor is its articulation, allowing its wearer full mobility without sacrificing coverage. Emma finds a way to take advantage of this freedom of movement by wrenching her would-be killer's ankle all the way around with a sickening, distant crack and--

Little else.

No screams.

No gasps.

And hardly any hesitation: there's a terrible moment where he freezes in place, as if the sudden trauma's broken something deeper inside of him; another where he staggers back from the fallen billionaire. But rather than simply crumple, he drops heavily to his knees, only just managing to brace himself with his free hand while the flowering tip of his weapon scrapes against the ground. A careful eye might notice that-- while the impact against the ground sent visible tremors through the energies coursing within the revealed innards of that weapon, they're still coursing. And each time two tendrils flicker towards the center and brush against one another, they leave a little more screaming hot, whirling metal in their place; the first round's still searing and spinning its way through the Earth, thanks to the accidental discharge triggered by Emma's vicious assault.

It'll be a moment before it's ready, though, and that's a moment too long to suffer a Mutant to live without judgement. Thus, he tries to seize a twinkling handful of Emma's hair so he can wrench her head up, then SLAM the back of it into the ground, the armor's internal systems enhancing his strength many times over until it's on par with the force she just exerted against him. The gun and its spawning bullet are abandoned, while they reload; for now, the Purifier means to rely on its own two gauntlets and the terrible strength building behind them to pummel Emma into submission before she can free herself, heedless of the poor leverage that doing this from his knees with just one good ankle entails.

This is, of course, impeded by slugs upside his head. Neither penetrates the armor, but the angle of Domino's shots-- the placement of them relative to the helmet's construction is such that the first shoves his head over to the opposite shoulder from the impact point, while the second swiftly follows up by throwing him completely off balance, turning him into an awkward crumpled heap of limbs. Scrambling back to some semblance of function is - thanks to his ruined ankle - going to take a few seconds.

Staying just ahead of the sweeping red light, Jaxon slithers around his would-be assailant and smashes solid shadowstone into her face. She reels backwards, staggering on her feet. A single crack starts spreading from the upper left of the visor.

Her head just-- freezes at the far end of its backwards trajectory, then.

"Purity justifies our Hate," she says -- they say -- before leveling her rifle on Jaxon. Searing white light begins leaking from the barrel as some hidden mechanism unleashes a high-pitched note like the squeal of a tortured angel--

-- only for Jaxon to turn a crack into a full-blown opportunity. Flowing through that meager opening, Jaxon buries his fingers into her eyes, and -- to whatever extent he feels, like this -- the sensation of warm jelly sluicing over the substance of him is palpable, paired with the woman undergoing a full-bodied spasm before collapsing to her knees. Hardly a second later, though-- her head wrenches back as if struck once more, angling to fix her gaze - such as it is, now - directly on Jaxon. Raw, red light explodes from the visor's depths, not so much a beam, or even an explosion as a broad emanation of solid, scintillating scarlet consuming the back of the book store for several seconds before fading.

Outside of the bookstore - surrounded by what's left of the police who were supposed to keep things contained - there's a Purifier who has yet to enter the store, thanks to Exodus being on hand to shore up the initial barrier before they could all slip through its failing borders. They stare at it, unmoving;

Lorna Dane has posed:
Ellie's quick, explosive thinking eventually gains enough ground to outpace the aggressive protoplasm doing its best to choke Mutantkind's biggest Brother and weaponizes the giant to boot: flailing and panicking, the Blob becomes a wrecking ball barreling through one of the flamethrower-wielding Purifiers, the two of them careening all the way through the store until they finally slam into a bathroom wall. The Purifier remains wedged in the resultant crater; the Blob, however...

... has just a little bit more motion to go.

Okay, a lot more. A LOT more: Paris is not a subtle man, and all that latent psychokinetic energy that had been intended to rip the goo from Fred's face has to go somewhere. Wrenched and twisted by the bizarre gravity that is at the heart of the Blob's true power, it becomes additional fuel for his flight through the store, hurling him out of the bathrooms and into another Purifier, leaving her sprawled behind the coffee counter...

... and another still, leaving him partially trapped in Fred's bulk when the excess energy finally dies off and he stops pinballing madly.

"Purity justifies our Hate."

One of the two men who'd initially turned their useless hollowpoints on the Blob is still standing. Guided by the evershifting stream of data flowing through his system, he whips his attention towards Paris, the thundering font of psionic energy who's only just getting started. For a beat, he's still.

The next, his head cants, slowly, as he lifts his rifle.

On the next, he pulls the trigger. There's no sound; there's no flash. No projectile. No beam.

There isn't even a rifle: the Purifier's clutching air in the vague shape of a weapon, pulling nothing with utmost resolve.

And yet:

Something happens.

Something opens its hateful eyes and peers into the supernova of power exploding between Exodus' ears.

Something gazes into the depths lying beyond that power and hunts for Paris Bennet, the man beneath the mantle.

In the deepest, most primitive reaches of Exodus' consciousness, instincts long abandoned-- dire and desperate and forgotten even in the age when Paris himself was young thrashes as It looks inside of him, to the man-- the human-- the boy who once was--

Lorna Dane has posed:
A cacophony of cruel laughter fills Exodus' skull as It measures him against Itself and finds him... wanting.

And in response, the primeval dread that once drove ancient Man to tame fire, huddle in groups, and always, always fear the bleak unknown lying in the infinite darkness beyond civilization is uncaged from Exodus' ancestral memory, faced as it is with a taste of that which Man must fear.

Outside--

Inside--

From fewer mouths than before, but a worrying number in all, given the severe violence dished out:

"Purity justifies our Hate."

Outside, the Purifier staring daggers at Domino finally aims a handgun in her direction, clutched in both hands.

Inside, a gas main explodes just inches away from Neena.

Inside, the ultrahard, ultrahot drill-tipped bullet that was meant to kill Emma Frost misfires before it hits full rotation, carving and ricocheting through the floor, a wall, and some shelves before finally screaming towards Domino's body.

Inside, sharp debris from the cafe's racing towards Domino's head.

Inside, the threads of probability she so effortlessly dances between seem to be fraying in protest of her years of abuse, boiling around her in an ever-expanding ring of destructive happenstance.

Fred Dukes has posed:
Blob doesn't care about anything but his inability to breathe. Reality stops mattering. His life is threatened and what he has to decide is how much is it going to hurt to break this stuff.

Then it's burnt off. Turns out: a little! "Thank." Blob breathes. "Thank you." Not even an insult. He's about to answer Domino when.

Exodus. "Woah!" Blob says, as their powers mesh totally poorly. "Woah look out! Paris you crepe eating polecat calm down!"

WHAM! The Blob is moved, gravity and telekinesis combining violently as Blob is swung around what is left of the building like the world's most dangerous pinball. He groans, fighting the nausea as he finally lands in a bathroom, covered in spraying water (it was cleaned before the signing, don't worry folks!) and laving trapped a Purifier in his body.

Blob looks at the obviously mind controlled fanatic. You don't get in THAT much unison without a little help. Oh hey, here's a way to get past the embarrassment. "Sure sure, purity." Blob says at the trapped Purifier, almost gently putting his hand on their neck. "Hey can I call you 'huckleberry'?"

Blob's fingers squeeze together. Just like killing chickens back when he was a boy.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
He expected it. Jaxon knew the light would shine bright eventually. He just didn't expect it to be that bright or that intense. He should have, with all his training, he should have.

He doesn't scream - never let them hear you scream, but he does stagger back. His hands fly up to cover his eyes. The sound that he does make is more a guttural growl - pained but also angry.

In the moments that follow, even after the light fades back and shadows fall back into place with the growing night, Jaxon is as blinded as the woman he just, well, blinded - or worse.

He's also solid, vulnerable, during the burst of light. That only lasts as long as the brightness though. Still blinded or not, once the shadows return, Jaxon is gone but not far. It's a strategic retreat. Once his vision returns, he'll be back.

Emma Frost has posed:
Close quarters combat is not something Emma Frost particularly enjoys. Nor is something she is very good at. She has her experience of brawls, some training from Xavier's and occasionally at the Club. But she has little practical experiencew ith it - telepaths tend to stay far away from fights. Play to your strengths, after all. But you can't expect that all the time you'll get to do it.

The armor is unbreakable. The man inside less so. But he's also likely crazed enough that the pain's not going to stop him, and there's likely somethingi n the suit which will stabilize his ankle. And then there's the weapon. A nasty thing the likes of which Emma hasn't even seen the Shi'Ar use. Where might it be from? A twisted designer on Earth? Something far off the planet? Something exotic but local, like the Atlanteans? Those mysterious -things- which run the Savage Land? Whatever it's from, it's origins don't matter.

Form over function. IT can hurt her. It can kill her. And the blasts they make will very likely hurt anyone rather badly.

The man goes to grab at her head and start pounding her into the ground by it. Good thing she can't get concussions. What she does notice is that his armor goes to respond with an equivalent amount of force. How -very- interesting. Are there limits to how strong it could go? But, it can definitely match most things thrown at it. She makes a mental note to try and take something of it intact to have Forge look at later.

Domino's shots save her long enough to give her some leverage as she has time to brace herself. She doesn't bother to give NEena an appreciated look for the backup. She doesn't feel emotion, Neena doesn't care about appreciation.

Neena will care for the nice, fat bonus deposited into her Swiss bank account after this fracas is over.

Emma snaps up, going to try and grab the man over by the head if she can get the full leverage and go to try and reverse the maneuver. Leaving the helm on, she's moving to try and get behind him. The suit gives him super strength and invulnerability, and it can match her to an unknown degree.

So she goes to try and rely on leverage, putting if she can her foot on his back to hold him down, one hand going to grab him by the wrists to hold them up in the air where even enhanced strength hopefully won't allow him to do anything iwthout leverage..

Then, presuming she an maintain this quickly her head will go down to grab the man by the helmet, try and lift his head up slightly.. And then slam it down again and again. The man's helmet will no doubt save him from most of the blows and most of the damage.

However, Emma is counting on the cushioning wihtin said helmet to be far, far less up to the task of safeguarding the man's consciousness from the bouncing.

So, hopefully with several concussions and blunt force trauma like a football player getting twenty years of head bashing in a few seconds will render him down.

Emma's making a point of if she can -trying- to keep the man alive. Dead men tell no tales after all.

Neena Thurman has posed:
Yeah, definitely later. Blob's a little (lot) busy aaand now he's nowhere in sight. /Almost/ a window of opportunity, Domino. Better luck next time.

Bullets 0, Fancy Armor 1, Kinetic Energy...0.5? The Purifier she fires at does get affected but it's clearly not going to be enough. Well, she tried.

She'd probably try again but there's a /very/ unsettling feeling running through her spine and dancing through her shoulders... The dance of tiny unseen 'mice feet' she feels when her luck is Doing Things suddenly disappears, like a plug had been pulled or the 'mouse' had been killed. Where she normally feels so energized and alive in a fight there's suddenly a vague empty numbness and a peculiar feeling of the world shifting around her but only so that it can then /close in on her./

The gas main goes first, prompting an unrestrained yell as she's immediately hit with the heat.

Something tugs at her leg, there and gone with such speed and intensity her nerves haven't yet begun to catch up.

Shrapnel pelts her face, the partial mask of black on white quickly taking on thin lines of bright red.

Then the nerves catch up, screaming with countless unexpected alarms. Burned, sliced, shot by some insanely powerful weapon. The damage is done as swiftly as a snap of one's fingers but the resulting anguished howl and her collapsing to the rubble-strewn floor takes just a little bit longer to manifest.

But at least she'll have some extra coin to cover the incoming medical bills. (Thanks, Emma.)

Negasonic has posed:
Be that as it may - after she saves the day, sorta...

Ellie was surprisingly not bullet-resistant. So she scootles from where she had exploded Fred, going low and kinda dashing behind the tables to get behind the counter. You know the one with the terrified clerk behind it.

She sets her back against the counter, and upnods to the cowering people. "'sup?"

They had some robot shit going on out there. She draws her phone out, turning on the bluetooth and checking for errant signals. Does she think she can hack the system? No. But she knew smarter people back at the mansion that might be interested in knowing if this whole thing is bluetooth powered should the Purifiers try these shenangians again. She saw the zombie one.

Of course, if there's Demon Inside, this whole enterprise is just a timewaster, but that was another of Ellie's specialities.

Paris Bennet has posed:
Exodus fear no guns, trusting his superlative telekinetics to stop any projectile. Anything, except maybe fear itself. He notices, a fraction of second too late, it is not a physical thing. He reinforces his psychic defences, but he is a telepath and this is sheer emotion, not thought.

Suddenly he is five years old, cold and feverish in his little cot as his father screams and hits his mother in the room outside in what feels was the darkest night of winter.

Suddenly Bennet is eight year old and drowning in the dirty pond the Parisian children went to play when their parents were careless.

Suddenly he is twenty seven, and dying of thirst and exhaustion in the sands of the Sinai badlands. It is getting dark, the stars blotted by the sandstorm about to fall on him.

Memories blocked for centuries by Apocalypse's machines burst open at the worst possible moment, making the former crusader fall on his knees, clenching his one head with his hands. What kept him alive back then? Not his will, not his power, as he had no power. It was faith.

"sed et si ambulavero in valle mortis, non timebo malum; quoniam tu mecum es," he mutters. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. And again. It is his litany against fear.

He straightens. Glaring at the Purifier. "What... is that... thing?" No counter-attack yet, he is so shaken he can barely stand up.

Lorna Dane has posed:
ELSEWHERE
RIGHT NOW

"Three down..." Pastor Dave growls at the console he's hunched over. Biosignatures fill the screens before him, a dozen tiles of data updated in realtime. Besides the three showing little more than static, several more show severe injuries that only somewhat impact combat readiness, to varying degrees; only a couple are all the way green, in total.

"Goddamned fuckin' freaks--" he growls. "--oop, forgive me--"

Tired blue eyes flick up to the transport's roof for a pregnant beat, then it's back to the screen. Drawing a slender microphone towards himself, he leans in. "Interrupt code Golf Lima Oscar Romeo Yankee," he briskly rattles off. "The data's great-- ain't the turkey shoot we were hopin' for, but in a way... 's better you all get a taste of real action, ain't it?"

He takes a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as he squints at the writhing mass of shadows blasphemously formed into the shape of a man. The woman beneath 05's blind now, but 05 isn't: through its eyes, he stares a hole the face amidst the darkness and the light, framed in staggering relief by clashing forces for a brief spell before Jaxon flows out of sight once more.

He scowls, deeply, and resolves to put a pin in tracking that one down; just because the Reverend's off doing missionary work in Argentina doesn't mean he wouldn't be pleased to have a lost sheep like Jaxon accounted for once more-- even if it's as a head stuffed and mounted above the altar.

"Still: the teleport filter's showin' 11-- someone's trying REAL hard to get in here, I swear. An' the psychic fella, well-- if these readings are even a little bit correct, y'all are about to be in awful deep when he gets over whatever whammy y'all just put on 'im. Not to mention the big one, the albino one, the diamond one-- hell, you stick around to stomp 'em ALL out, you're gonna find yourselves with more trouble than you know what to do with on your hands. So: much as it pains me to take this away from y'all...

"... retreat. Get the hell on outta there-- now! Cloakin's comin' online in twenty..."

THE RUINS OF THE TWISTED HELIX
RIGHT NOW

"Purity-- justifies--"

Much as he might want to, one of them is having a hell of a time sying what, exactly, it is that his Purity justifies because he has two massive fingers pinched around his neck. The amount of force it takes just to crumple that armor a bit and close off his airway is significant, and the armor seems to be fighting back against it with resistant pressure straining against Fred's fingers for a handful of seconds, now and then, only to be overcome as Blob ramps his efforts up.

It's possible that that the soldier's limit outstrips Fred in this department, but one thing he can't do, no matter how protected his neck might be, is move.

Because the Blob is firmly seated atop him, and nothing moves the Blob.

With Jaxon on the retreat, the woman he just blinded staggers to her feet, twists in place for a few moments, then picks a direction to stalk in search of him, each step as stiff and awkward as a marionette hanging from amateurish hands. A few lances of ruby red light snap from the barrel of her gun, penetrating the brewing darkness fruitlessly; another comes from elsewhere in the store, just as futile because if she can't see him, then none of them can see him. It's the thought that counts, though-- even if none of them are all that high on thinking, right now.

Lorna Dane has posed:
As she engages in brutal, barbaric combat, Emma might note that jerking on the helmet doesn't dislodge it, even a little. It does however serve to wrench the wearer's head up so he can be subjected to the same crushing, brain-scrambling treatment he'd intended for her just seconds ago, his body jerking and spasming beneath her every bit as forcefully after the tenth blow as the first. Across the store, the Purifier Ellie slammed into the bathroom (by way of Fred) has stumbled free and is now lining up a shot on the billionaire, the barrel of his rifle unfurling like a flower to reveal a sparking pylon within--

Ellie herself, meanwhile, learns that there's no service here. No bluetooth; no wifi. No cellular.

(No radio either, but who listens to radio anymore?)

Whatever's driving this unit of murderers is, at least, more advanced than standard communication tech-- an important point of data indeed. Especially given the synchrony of their movements: they spread to pick out targets; they cover for one another when downed; they swap weapon configurations and ammo loadouts on the fly, with several of them sharing the same exact strange traits. And of course, there's their inhuman resistance to punishment-- or, at least, to the consequences of punishment: hurt one badly enough, and it'll... well.

Probably keep on going, like some kind of racist zombie.

Which might be a metaphor for something, except metaphors are for people who AREN'T currently in the middle of a horrific live fire exercise.

Near the front of the store, Exodus struggles to pull himself back together from suffering a taste of something that thrived in the Dark when humanity was handful of tribes killing each other over roots and berries. He glares at a Purifier, a burning question on his lips; the Purifier glares right back, lifting his barrel.

"Purity justifies--"

Mid-sentence, he freezes.

They all freeze.

A heartbeat later, he does a sharp turn and runs--
He does a sharp turn and runs--
He does a sharp turn and runs--
He does a sharp turn and runs, leaving Exodus to contend with another question: which one of the four fiends fleeing in four separate directions is the real one?

Similarly, the Purifier hunting for Jaxon begins bleeding red light from her body, surrounding herself in an obfuscating flare as she, too, begins to retreat.

The one lining up a shot on Emma? His gun snaps shut as the surface of his armor ripples, then begins to reflect his surroundings, letting him blend into them just enough to make him difficult to track readily.

The one who had such eyes for Domino, who'd trudged beyond the field as Exodus suffered his bout of fear-- he pulls back from aiming between her eyes as smoke plumes around him, blending with the clouds already filling the store to cover his egress.

All of them - the ones still ambulatory, anyway - abruptly cut and run, their armor producing all manner of distractions to give themselves some cover as they disengage.

Fred Dukes has posed:
Blob considers his options, taking half a look outside and seeing the Purifiers cutting and running, and the one he's sitting on just plain old not die.

Weird.

Blob keeps sitting, sure that he can take the credit for a capture without moving at all. "Bet this'll screw up someone's day. Har har!"

Neena Thurman has posed:
Staring down the business end of a gun is another experience which is far from new for Domino. The main difference now is that her confidence in said weapon failing to fire or instead blowing up in the other person's hand is /gone./ For perhaps the first time, she's staring down her own actual death.

But it never happens. The Purifier turns to disengage and she can't even count THAT as having anything to do with her goddamn luck.

"GET BACK HERE YOU--" she starts yelling obscenities, emptying rounds in the direction of the human-shaped armored monster which just had her dead to rights then /walked away./

OH is she PISSED.

She's so livid that after running her sidearm empty and effectively doing zero good she reloads and dumps a few more rounds into whatever remains of the head of the one she ran over with her car. No more chances being taken here, she's confirming her damn kill!

Her car's totaled. She can barely walk. Having a stranger in the form of Exodus who can offer teleportation services away from here... That just might be good fortune creeping back in.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
He clings to the shadows as if his life depends upon it. Little does Jaxon know just how true that old cliche is in this moment. He's only momentarily blinded by O5's exit flash and once his eyes have cleared again, he's off. Traveling through the shadows, hopping from one to the next and then to the next - he'll keep track of whatever one of them he can hone in on for as long as he can keep going.

Maybe there are tales to be told after all, even if they're told from the shadows.

The tale might be a short one, but Jaxon does manage to keep tabs long enough. Once he's tracked them to a waiting vehicle, he /almost/ makes a move. That white hot rage that always seems to overcome his fear and his rational thought when dealing with Purifiers in particular /almost/ winds up being the end of him. It would have been too, if he hadn't hesitated just long enough for the transport they all filed into to vanish - stealth mode activated.

"Damnit," he growls, to no one because he's - once again - alone.

Lorna Dane has posed:
At once, the Purifiers vanish from sight.

... mostly.

It's active camo, a step up from what Emma's would-be sniper employed: light bending around their bodies to hide them from view, rendering them little more than vague shimmers distorting the air to the especially sharp-eyed. Locked in as he is on tailing after 05, Jaxon's able to follow footfalls in alleys and garbage knocked from overflowing bins in passing, even if he can't SEE his quarry.

And, indeed: one by one, they pile into a black armored transport which--

-- well. Let's just say that the fact that it raises as little suspicion as it does is indicative of the prevalence of state-enforced violence. The Purifiers are all too happy to abuse the norms that come with militarized policing, even as they heartlessly rip through its agents.

The death toll inside is nowhere near what it would've been if not for the Brotherhood, the X-Men, the shadow who rose to support them, or the mercenary who had the good fortune of being just where she was needed, but the Twisted Helix is slicked with blood. Burnt flesh permeates the air; the guest of honor's quivering in a store room, a broom clutched in his hands for dear life like a spear. Outside, the officers who did the best job they could to keep a lid on the pressure cooker they expected lie in ruined heaps of humanity, thanks to the explosion they never could've seen coming.

And across the street, cordoned off by barricades, a tangled mass of excitement and fright erupts from the blood-thirsty audience that bore witness to all of it as they disperse.

Ambulances are en route, as are a fresh wave of officers armed to the teeth for the threat that's already passed; cleaning up the mess and questioning who they can is all that's left for them.

Presumably, they will not find at least some of the Helix's protectors, thanks to Exodus.