12212/The Reavers: Initiation Interrupted

The Reavers: Initiation Interrupted
Date of Scene:	29 July 2022
Location:	Brooklyn
Synopsis:	Several heroes converge on a black market cybernetic body shop just when the Reavers inducted a new recruit by giving him his full enhancements. The fight was swift, brutal and left nothing standing. But that did not keep the heroes from making off with people and information that may shed some light on who the Reavers are and what they have been doing.
Cast of Characters:	Joshua Foley, Robert Marksman, Monet St. Croix, Helena Wayne, Negasonic
Tinyplot:	Reavers

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Joshua Foley has posed:
Sunset was a couple of hours ago, giving everyone a break from the intense glare of the summer sun. Unfortunately, it has still not cooled off much and the ever-present humidity makes skin damp and clothes stick even when sitting still. The streets in Brooklyn are lit, and in the residential areas there are still people out. Most businesses are closed, but some areas see traffic all night. Sunset Industrial Park is one of those areas. FedEx has a large warehouse in the development. Its white trucks and vans go back and forth from its compound. Jenkins Global Ventures is a couple of hours into the evening shift. Trailers of imported goods are being unloaded, de-palletized, broken up into new orders, and re-palletizing for trans-shipment.

Grid Iron Industries is housed in a three story white brick building with grimy windows. Most are covered. There are three delivery bays for accommodating semi-trucks on the front left of the building when looking at it. A sign over the double doors in the front of the building proclaims the business' name. There is a security guard sitting behind the reception desk, visible through the glass doors. It seems the front doors are closed.

During the day, visitors and trucks come and go. Grid Iron Industries (GII)'s website says it specializes in precision industrial and laboratory mechanical systems and shows off some reasonably advanced looking manipulators. The business is privately held, the website says GII is owned by Carl Bengstrom, a Swedish roboticist. The company does little press.

Tonight, there are a few vehicles left out front, which anyone who has watched the building will know is not unusual. There are definitely some staff who pull long hours. There are also some vehicles around back, three of which are unmarked black vans much like the ones seen in attempted mutant kidnappings around Bushwick, and attacks on suspected mutants in a number of cities. There are a few other vehicles as well. Teslas, a Jeep Gladiator, a few luxury SUVs. A red, new model Bronco drives up and parks. Two women in their mid-thirties get out. They are dressed in hiking shorts and boots, with practical technical shirts. Their bearing is all military though. They walk towards the back of the building and knock. A young, impressively built Iranian man in his early 20's opens the door. They talk for a moment, then he lets the women in and the door closes.

There are a few lights on here and there in the building. All of the windows to the right of the back door the women went into on the main floor are covered, but light escapes.

Robert Marksman has posed:
Robert Marksman has heard a few things about this place and decided to come check this out. He is wearing his normal attire tonight, which makes him look more like a thug than a business man, but it is what he likes to wear and hiding in the dark is easier in it. He has reluctantly left his jacket at home. Leather jackets are cool and Fonzi was the man, but it is July. He will take time and stick to alleyways as he makes his way to look the place over. He does not try his thermal vision as in this heat it is about useless but he will look over the building and specially those with their windows covered, and looks through the walls to see whats inside.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
There's not going to be any sort of attempt here at being sneaky on it. There's not going to be any sort of attempt at going around covertly. This is going to be making a point. And Monet St. Croix.. Does not like to leave these sorts of things to flit away in the mail.
    There's a large truck over out front. A Jeep Gladiator. That will serve. For breaking.
    Monet arrives from teh air with a not quite sonic boom,s mashing over in to the ground. A quick flip has her going to yank UP the car from the front lot, and over towards those women going in it's hurled over. In towards if not stopped the front entrance of the building.
    Mont St. Croix is not subtle.

Helena Wayne has posed:
The criminals in Gotham are dangerous enough with the occasional chemical accident and generalized mental illness. The last thing any of them need is cybernetics to add to the mix. So when Helena caught wind of the kidnappings and noted the possible connection between them and potential dealers at the warehouse, she decided to do what she could to nip it in the bud. Besides, it's always nice to swing into New York for a slice of good pizza.

She's gone low-tech for the investigation, at least as far as most bat-related folks go. The sort of people who deal in cybernetics are usually well-prepared for electronic assaults. Good old-fashioned cat burglary, on the other hand, can usually sneak by. A block and a half away, she cuts the engine on her motorcycle to roll it into a shadowed spot. From there, she sticks to the shadows until she reaches a nearby building, using a drainpipe to climb her way up to the roof.

Negasonic has posed:
    Ellie does not arrive via the air, she does have an earpiece with mic in though so she can chat with Monet during the mission. <<I sense a theme in how you open doors on these M.>> mildly teasing.

    The absolute smol teenage young woman is walking across the parking lot now that her compatriot has hurked up an entire vehicle.

    Despite the heat of the summer night she is wearing her civvies, which is a punky goth look, leather jacket, hoodie, mesh. The scarf wasn't brought at least. Stompy boots though and faux leather leggings. Maybe her mutant power is not sweating.

    She glances sidelong and around waiting for M's unique way of knocking to get some sort of attention.

Joshua Foley has posed:
Robert scans the back of the building, looking through the wall. He sees the two women going into the building, the Iranian at the door. Two other big men just inside the hallway, leaning against the wall. To the left, the dark section of the main floor, it all looks like machine tools, industrial equipment, and the like. To the right, things are different. There is a reception or waiting room with a half dozen people in it, some talking, some on their phones. There are a few offices, change rooms, supply rooms. Past that to the right through a pair of double doors is a hall. There are four rooms that are very obviously operating theatres. There is a procedure going in one with three people around the bed, two more assistants and the patient. In another theatre, a larger one, there is a veritable crowd. Eight people are standing to one side of a bed. A young man is sitting up and flexing his arm, another young man is standing close to him, talking. There is a medical team on the other side of the bed and a man in a suit talking to them.

There are a couple more people outside the crowded operating theatre. Down the hall are private rooms. Three seem to have beds that are occupied, one has a visitor. There are a few other people in another room down the hall, it looks like some strange mix between a pharmacy and cybernetics shop.

Helena seems to move unnoticed until she reaches the building next to GII, to the right if looking at GII from the back. It is a meat processing plant and evening shift is in full swing. There is a high slatted fence that separates the plant from GII, so nobody can see into GII's parking lot. But from Helena's vantage point on the roof of the plant she see easily into GII's back lot while staying in the shadows. From the roof it's about a ten foot jump to the old metal fire escape stairs that run up the side of GII.

Then all hell breaks loose. Monet throws the Jeep Gladiator and it tumbles through the air. The Iranian man closing the door sees it coming. He does not even open his mouth, but suddenly he, and as Robert sees, the two men in the hall behind him, are all moving. They all crouch, brace and cover their heads. One of the two women starts to turn, noticing something is wrong. Richard sees two women in the waiting room start running towards the operating theatres before the Jeep impacts the building.

When the Jeep hits there is a huge bang. The building shudders and a ten foot section of around the door gives way. The Gladiator is wedged into the wall and bricks fall on top of it. Absurdly, in the weak light it looks like the vehicle is growing out of the side of the building. There is a second pause and then the wrecked jeep goes skidding straight out of the hole in the wall across the ground towards Negasonic. The Iranian man and a white guy about the same age with a crew cut are recovering from kicking it. Their clothes are torn in places from flying debris. The skin is cut up on the Iranian man's arms and face, exposing an almost Terminator-like metal structure underneath. The other man that was in the hallway rolls out of the building while the wrecked Jeep is skidding along and raises an arm. His hand is gone, his wrist is now the opening of some kind of weapon. He points his arm at Monet and fires a red energy pulse towards her.

Inside the hallway, the two women in hiking clothes are on the ground. One seems unconscious, the other is starting to pick herself up. Vehicle and wall debris are strewn down the hall.

Richard can see the two women from the waiting room who started running still moving, Olympic sprinter fast. People up and down the building freeze at the impact. Some react faster than others.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
There they are. Monet St. Croix goes to quickly identify the targets, giving an alert over to Negasonic <<Can you deal with them or do you require me to keep available on backup?>> They were supposed to, as far as she was concerned, get what useful information they could and then level the place. Even as a man is going to pick up and point his arm over at her, Monet St. Croix only goes to care so much as a blur. The -existence- of these things enrages her.
    So she goes to cut loose on them. There -might- be something human left in them which is the onlyr eason why her intent isn't to put her fist clean -through- the chest of it.
    The one that's aiming a weapon over at her she goes to fly to the side enough to hopefully throw off it's aim while it has to retarget her even as the burst of energy goes at her. Then she's going in fro the side of the arm that had shot at her, wide.. Going to blast in if she could to try and get ot a position where she could get a solid latch over on the arm.. At the wrist. Presuming she can, she would just try and fully tear the arm off over at the elbow no matter where the metal ended and the meat began!

Robert Marksman has posed:
Robert Marksman frowns at what he sees, wishing there was some way to record it to help prove it to other people, and then there is the ruckus starting, His look is towards the lady causeing it for a moment, but then he is back towards the operating theaters. He looks around for a broom closet, and will concentrate and opens a black disk in space and steps through it into said broom closet.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Flying cars, giant crashes, and the sort of people who can //throw// cars make for excellent cover.

Helena's brows flick upward beneath her mask for a beat before she adjusts her plan. Sure, she was //going// to try to make the jump unassisted, but right now everyong in that building definitely has bigger problems than her to worry about. Instead, she fires a grappling line to the GII building and swings across.

From the roof, she takes stock of the chaos below, but pre-mission research gave her some clues about where records might be kept here. Assuming the people inside will either flee or head directly toward the fight, Huntress heads purposefully for an office, using the chaos as her cover.

Negasonic has posed:
    "Hey now." says the smol teenager as the jeep gladiator comes skidding right at her. She doesn't sound as alarmed as she should be about it though. <I can probably handle the two in the lobby.... you do you M>

    A crackling nimbus of energy starts to form around her and right before the vehicle impacts her and her aura she launches forward with a crack boom, likely cutting the jeep in half and flying with explosive energy right the white dude who rolled out of the doorway ignoring the Iranian man with the arm canon that M is dealing with.

    If they are in her path when she finishes the explosion forward he is going to be very sad jeep kicking cyborg-bro. But then she is unexpectedly fast when she does this trick.

Joshua Foley has posed:
The red energy pulse sails well wide of Monet and into the air like a strange, almost holographic flare. The shooter is unreasonably fast for his size. He tries to track Monet, and seems to have a keen sense of where she is going to be. But he is just not fast enough. By the time he realizes what she is doing he cannot check his movement and avoid the grab. The first thing Monet notes is that he really is heavy for his size. The majority of him must be metal. He plants his feet and starts to counter with a punch from his free arm. Then Monet wrenches. The arm takes a huge amount of pressure before it finally bends, breaks and comes off, trailing wires and some fluid that is definitely not biological. Any normal, feeling being would have been stopped dead by pain and shock. The only thing the cyborg seems to notice is the impact and momentum acting on his body. He keeps his feet even manages to leverage a bit of the suddenly released force when his arm snaps off to put his body into the counter-punch.

"Gonna kill you for that, mutie!" he snarls at Monet.

Robert hears the sizzle of the energy pulse discharge, the screeching of metal, the words of the shooter... then the sounds and smells are suddenly different. Muted yelling, orders being barked, panicked voices, confused voices. The sharp smells of medical grade cleaners, nitrile gloves, and that ever-pervasive but nondescript cleaner used on scrubs and gowns in hospital laundries. Robert finds himself in supply closet in between the two occupied operating theatres. People are running in the hall now. Some people from the waiting room are spilling into the hall, one in a tight cluster of four with handguns drawn, moving in a diamond formation right down the middle of the hall.

One of the two sprinting women rockets past the closet and into the second operating room. Robert can see through the wall that barely even slows when she grabs two of the people standing at the operating table by the shoulder. She propels them toward the back of the operating room, lowers a shoulder, and charges past them towards the back wall. The other woman shoves her way through the crowd in the larger operating room and starts doing the same with three of the medical staff there. A couple of the people standing around that operating table run over to the man in the suit protectively. The others all start moving toward the hallway. They do not seem to speak, except for one who looks over his shoulder and barks something at the two young men at the operating table.

When the building shook, everyone froze in the operating room, including Josh. Then the Reavers started moving in that eerily silent, coordinated fashion they had.

"Stay here, get ready to bug out," Mike barks at Josh and Anthony.

"Shit, Tony, can you stand up yet? They said not to, but I think we're under attack," Josh says nervously.

"I'm so ready, I could crush a mutie's skull with my bare hand, man! I'm a fucking Reaver now!" Anthony exclaims with a wicked grin. He pushes to his feet, but lands heavily, unsteadily. Josh puts a hand on his shoulder looking concerned.

"Ah, yeah man, I can feel those drugs they gave me kicking in. It's like, I can feel my body healing," Anthony exults.

Helena times her swing well. One of the people in the back lot causes some kind of energy explosion just as Helena's grapple lands on the fire escape. She is a shadow and a whisper when she swings across to the second floor fire escape of GII. She lands, cat quiet, and has little trouble with the door. There is little point in worrying about alarms now, if any were active they were probably set off by the impact against the building. Inside, the hallway is dark. Grey patterned commercial carpet stretches half the length of the building ahead with offices lining the hall. One office opens and a woman in her 50's rushes out, stuffing a laptop into a backpack. She heads for the main stair, not even looking back in Helena's direction. It's doubtful she would have been able to pick her out of the shadows anyway.

Joshua Foley has posed:
The office door to the immediate left is propped open with a door stop. The whir of fans and glow of ethernet and power indicators is unmistakable. It's a server room. Through the crack in the door, Helena can see a man with short, tussled brown hair, in shorts and a t-shirt, tapping away furiously on his cellphone. He looks stressed and uncertain.

Jeep tennis is not a sport, but maybe it should be. Negasonic's blast rips the van apart and sends it flying right back in the direction of the building, faster this time. Both cyborgs who kicked it brace, but this time there is no wall to absorb part of the impact. They are fairly run over by the wreck and swept along through interior walls. One gets driven into an enormous piece of industrial equipment. The other is pushed straight down the hallway. The conscious hiker rolls out of the way just in time, pulls a gun from her shorts and fires down the hall towards Negasonic from her back. The streak of blood down the center of the hallway in the direction the cyborg was swept off by the chunk of Jeep bodes ill for the other hiker.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
There's a slow smile over from Monet St. Croix, "Mutie? Forgive me, /human/.." In anohter situation she would very well justifiably use 'flatscan'. She's shoved back by the man over in the exchange, her being surprised over by how quickly he had reacted to her and how strong he was. She didn't have the time to grapple with him. She would go to quickly check in with Negasonic along hte comm <<It sounds like there are substantially more inside>> This would be passed along the comm. Normally M might try and psi scan to confirm, but they were in the midst of a melee and she didn't want to spread herself too thin.
    "I'm presuming in that no doubt hardened chassis that they've taken the time to add on some bolting to your brainpan. So you'll get through this." Going to pick up the man, Monet goes to track along where she's hearing the voices from and then goes to pick up the man..
    Calculating by noise where the other ones were coming from, giving a quick signal to Negasonic <<When we've cleared out these ones, we can hit thier main operating area>> Attempting to give an approximate location as best she could verbally.
    Always aware of the necessity in dealing with fanatics of making a good first impression, the man that Monet had just ripped off would be picke dup and LAUNCHED through the air from whence he had came, hitting the ground and skidding along his armored body, skipping several times to slam right back over in to it. In the face of this many enhanced enemies, panic served them well.

Helena Wayne has posed:
There's always something eerie about being close to a fight without being in it. Especially when Helena's disconnected herself from oversight or support - the lack of intel is definitely an unfamiliar feeling. Then again...that's what she's here to rectify.

Years of practice make even bootsteps on industrial carpet quiet as she steals into the server room, creeping up behind the man with the cellphone. Whoever he is, he's not running. And if he keeps all of this running, he's bound to have a little more intel than most.

Once she's within range, she swiftly closes the distance to him, lashing out to try to grab the hand with the phone to twist his arm behind him, already moving to step in close and use his own weight to trip him to the floor.

Robert Marksman has posed:
Robert Marksman having x-ray vision can be useful, when your being a bit stealthy. He sees the ones heading towards the wall, and right before they would hit it black portals open up, A series of them in both operating room. They will be sending the folks to a few different locations. He spreads them out in different directions, smaller towns, and wooded areas. He hopes they will be able to gather some of them after this. But for now getting them apart works, and their mental trauma from feeling all the bad things they did done to them may slow them down. He then coats his body in black energy and steps out into the hallway.

Negasonic has posed:
    Ellie isn't engulfed in that nimbus of energy when she finishes the forward booming momentum for a moment. <<Sure thing>> she notes back to M about moving onto the operating rooms.

    The downed but armed hiker means she does get shot at and winged in the arm. "Fuck" because unlike M she isn't bulletproof when she isn't charging energy. She flattens to the wall and snaps an explosion down at the hiker with the gun.

    It was only a split second charge but it hits with the force of nearly 0.1 tons, like a hellfire missile. She is incapable of doing subtle. All explosion no chill.

    Just in case the hiker is as enhanced as the one M is fighting she charges another blast for about half a second and lobs it after the first. "Eat that!"

    No chill. Also she is going to have to deal with being lectured for leaving her back exposed and being shot.

Joshua Foley has posed:
Monet has a great angle and even better aim. The cyborg looks confused by her comment. Perhaps his brain is not that enhanced after all. Regardless, it is enhanced enough to register shock and surprise when he suddenly finds himself sailing through the air into the hallway. He hits the ground, bounces over the hiker shooting at Negasonic, and slams through the interior wall into the waiting room. There are yells and the few people left in that room, a group of four Asian men covered in tattoos, and a lone woman with severe features, a tightly drawn black ponytail, start moving for the hall to the operating rooms.

<attacked? what do I> ... is as far as the man gets into the text message he is typing. He yells in surprise and pain, caught completely unaware by Helena, and goes down hard. He gasps and groans for a moment, the wind obviously knocked out of him. "Don't... fuck.... fuck... get off me!" he gasps and writhes a bit. The man is trim, well kept, but not particularly active. He is hopeless outmatched by Helena.

The two sprinting women drop their shoulders nearly synchronously, pick up speed... And vanish into black holes instead of smashing through the back walls of the operating rooms. The medical staff close on their heels do not even seem to notice the wrong kind of hole has opened up and run in after them. The darkness swallows them and the portals are gone.

In the MacGuires' horse barn upstate, a shadowy hole appears in the wall. The horses startle and whiny. An extremely athletic looking woman in some kind of black military uniform stumbles out of the blackness, sinks to her knees and stares blankly into the distance. Her glowing blue eyes flicker. A man in operating scrubs crawls out behind her on his hands and knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Two women, also in operating scrubs, walk out next. They look around, stunned. The one turns to the other.

"I'm so sorry, Jess, I..."

She is cut off when Jess hauls off and punches her in the face. Jess walks out of the barn, tears in her eyes.

Joshua Foley has posed:
It is very, very dark in Patriot's Wood. But lighter than where the woman in military clothes and two doctors were. The woman drags the two men dressed in operating scrubs through the portal into the wood. One of the doctors doubles over and starts wretching. The walks to a tree, leans against it, and sits heavily down to the ground. He puts his face in his hands. The woman up for a moment, then down at her hands. She feels around at the back of her neck. There is a slight crunch sound. Her eyes flash blue. Her body jolts and her eyes glow and spark blue. Just before her body goes limp, she mouths "I'm sorry".

The shooting stops with the first blast Negasonic sends down the hallway. The second goes off. When Negasonic looks, there is a directional crater where the blast hit and the woman had been. Redirected by the floor, the energy of the blasts drove clean through an interior wall into the darkness of the left side of the building. Something is sparking and starting to burn a few holes through walls further along. There is no sign of the shooting hiker at all.

The four Asian men and the lone woman are thrown through the doors into the operating room hallway by the concussion of Negasonic's blast. The doors are ripped off their hinges and go flying inwards, exposing the hallway. The group of four moving in tactical formation down the hall break into a full sprint at the explosing, making for the far side of the hallway. They are all dressed in jeans, ballcaps and t-shirts, two men, two women. Three men in black military uniforms have taken up positions on the sides of the hallway facing hole where the doors to the waiting room were. Six more people in the same, unmarked black uniforms rush out of the big operating room into the hall. All of them have assault rifles and point them toward the waiting room. They form out without speaking a work and move up in two lines along the walls. The lead on each side start shooting controlled bursts, laying down covering fire as they advance. Bullets whip through the waiting room out into the hallway.

Two more men in black uniforms rush out of the big operating room with an older man in a suit sandwiched between them. They turn the opposite way and start moving quickly down the hall away from the explosion. They nearly walk into Robert, who steps out, clothed in shadow.

"Shit, shit, we gotta get out of here," Josh says. He runs a hand through his hair. "They're shooting!"

"You're a fucking pussy," Anthony sneers. "Come on." Anthony grabs Josh by the shoulder and drags him towards the door. Anthony pokes his head out and looks down the hall toward the waiting room. "Fuck yeah, this is the shit!" he whispers.

Robert Marksman has posed:
Robert Marksman will just shake his head a bit at the men. His eyes flare for a moment, just long enough for he can tell if the three man are normal or cybernetic, Seeing the two guards are very cybered he will punch one and then the other with much more force than he would a normal person, looking to put them down quick and for a while. He then looks to the man and says "Who are the Reavers, and where are the people you have taken." He does not punch the older man, trying to get his answer from intimidation of the punchs to the guards

Monet St. Croix has posed:
There's a quick evaluation by Monet as the soldiers go to assemble in close quarters, where they have covering fire and their armor can block off attacks. Too many for her to just try and ram right through, not without being chewed to pieces by the fire. But fortunately..
    <<I'm going to insert us and give you some cover. As soon as you can, blast them>> Because that many assault rifles will definitely not do well on her outfit.
    Monet gives Ellie a few seconds to acknowledge, hold her breath, and brace.. And then Monet is doing a quick bolt around, grabbing her teammate over in a tight gripl to minimize snapping about of body posture.. Repositioning herself over by a QUICK zoom and dash in flight even as she goes to insert herself a couple dozen meters away in the corridor where the densely packed men and women are up and over with firearms and cyborgs and other killing machines.. It's time to thin the herd. Monet goes to brace herself, hoping the two ro three seconds it takes the men to coordinate, acknowledge that she's the target, for their leader to call out for them to target.. Or even better to threaten her with pomousness about human supremacy. Not that she needed teh extra time..
    But she did enjoy theatrics. And the man lecturing right before Negasonic blizted through them would be -hilarious-.

Helena Wayne has posed:
"With all due respect," which is to say, none, "No." Helena keeps a grip on the man's arm, the more easily to control where he goes, and leans down to pick up the phone. She gives it a cursory glance, but doesn't spend much time on it.

"First question. What in the absolute hell is going on in this place?" She slips the phone into a pouch on her belt then uses his arm as a handle to pull him up to his feet and direct him toward the servers, seeking out an access point. "Second question...Actually, you know what, you can disregard the first one. You don't strike me as the most trustworthy person. That or you've got shit taste in employers."

Her head tilts toward the hallway at the sound of gunfire elsewhere in the building, a grimace twisting her lips. "Frankly, it sounds like you got the better end of the deal with me." Reaching a terminal, she withdraws a protected drive from another pocket and plugs it in, tapping out a few commands on the keyboard. Security tapes - those'll be helpful for tracking who's been in and out, not to mention figuring out who's causing all the destruction down there. Financial records. Medical records?

Helena is judicious, copying over anything that could be of use while scanning the files for any hidden traps or tracking software. "Anything useful you want to tell me that might not end with you in a much less comfortable position than this?" she offers, dry.

Negasonic has posed:
    In a previous life Ellie was used to literally drill mines like some lame tech billionairs large boring machines. She is considering showing them about that as they fill the hallway and start advancing.

    <<Insert us?>> she asks over the gunfire and well it takes her a moment to realize what M is planning, which is when she is scooped and Zipped right into the middle of the shit storm that is further down the hallway. "OW..." her arm is ..well she was shot.

    Still she starts charging as soon as she is hefted and by the time M gets them into position she lets the blast go off pretty much all around them now in all directions. She leans in against M so the blast doesn't hit her teammate though. Because those two or three seconds was a lot of charge too. It is sent in all directions so it isn't as bad as it could have been, but it is a lot.

    Lets just say the hallway is probably a lot more clear as the explosion rips down and out in all directions.

Shehe kind of hopes the kid pops his dumb head back in before he gets hit with the blast, he is only a bit in the hallway after all.

    Finally though the building integrity is shot to hell. There is easily a ticking clock now on how soon the whole place is going to collapse. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Down comes the clock soon.

    The ... very explosive mutant is already charging again, all the better to slag bullets fired at her after that outburst.

    Of course... the blast will have to go somewhere though soon

Joshua Foley has posed:
Robert hits, hard. Even so, these guys are heavy. They seem to be distracted though or not quite understanding what they are looking at so they do not get their guards up or shots off in time. The lead cyborg crashes sideways through the wall back into the operating room and slides to a stop. The second one takes a blow to the head and it knocks him off his feet. His head slams into the floor and his legs twitch spasmodically.

The older man watches impassively. He straightens his suit and looks at where he presumes the shadow man's eyes are. "Get me out of here, and I will answer your questions," he says calmly. The man's eyes go distant for a just a second, then focus again.

"I just..." the man starts to answer Helena and then shuts up when she tells him to disregard the first one. He squirms ineffectually again. He licks his lips nervously when Helena not only gets to work, but gets to work expertly. He seems to do some quick mental math when Helena gives him a chance and he hears the gunfire.

"It's all on Q, the network drive. Everything you're looking for," he says in a rush. "I don't know where the keys are, some are in memory, everything's encrypted at rest, in flight, always. That's what I know, I keep the servers up, I don't ask questions about why there are doctors downstairs. It's just a job."

Robert sees the two women suddenly appear in the hallway. The one woman is surrounded by a huge, visible charge of energy. It is only too obvious to him what is coming, but he has time to react.

Joshua Foley has posed:
Then the building rocks. It shook before. This time it quakes. There is a stomach churning lean to the floor as the second floor slab that Helena is on tilts 25 degrees towards the main entrance.

In the wall, it is utter destruction. The blastwave originates right in the middle of the lines of advancing cyborgs, and nearly on top of the four Asian men and the lone woman on the ground. The four cyborgs along the outer wall, and 50 feet of the outer wall, blast outwards at ballistic speeds. They are launched across the back lot and pepper the vehicles, rip through the fences and land off in the dark. The cyborgs on the inside wall disappear into the building along with concrete support pillars. A hole is ripped into the ceiling and through the floor above. The people that were lying on the floor are tossed like ragdolls. A hundred feet into the building, mangled bodies, concrete, wood and equipment come to rest. The second story shudders, drops three feet near Negasonic and Monet. The air is filled with the sound of the building groaning and cracking as the remaining support pillars, many damaged, begin to fail to take the extra load.

Josh is being dragged by Anthony. There is gunfire. Then he is flying. It gets dark. There is nothing. It is dark again. Warm. Warm right down to his soul.

Josh gasps and coughs. He tries to sit up but cannot and starts to panic. He tries to move but he is pinned. Dust fills his lungs. His leg starts to hurt unbearably. Then gets warm. Then starts to hurt unbearably. Then gets warm. His right hand is clenched around something. It moves.

Rubble goes flying. Anthony pushes up through fallen concrete, coughing and hacking. He is... leaking.. Not bleeding... from the nose. "What the... Josh?" Anthony calls out. He finally notices someone has hold of his arm. He starts hurling hundred pound chunks of debris aside without noticing until he uncovers his friend pinned beneath. Josh's eyes are wild and scared.

"Holy fuck, not a scratch on you! You're a lucky little shit," Anthony says. "Let's go"

Anthony helps Josh to his feet and they start scrambling over the debris away from the blast. Josh looks over his shoulder and sees two women standing together a hundred feet away, one surrounded by a glowing nimbus of energy. Then he turns and runs.

Robert Marksman has posed:
Robert Marksman sees the energy coming and he winces at the brightness. He takes the older man by the shoulder, and a portal opens under them and the two fall through it, to the roof of a building in Mutant town. It will be a bit hard to talk to the doctor and question him for a bit but maybe the trip will help him be more cooperative. He does plan on making a call back to the building shortly

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix goes to quickly sweep around to look for anything else that might be of use in the area. There's not going to be much of any sort of immediate use given the very effective urban renewal project that Ellie just inflicted. Sirens will be here shortly.
    There are however a large number of rather badly messed up Reavers that are in no state to run or hide from the authorities, massive amounts of illegal weaponry and tech, and a broken up chop shop.
    The operation is busted and no one is going to be in any state to get away before the authorities arrive. And while Monet might call that an empty gesture.. Well.. The dozen or so men with highly illegal weapons and self made cybernetic tech will get a lot of attention no matter how much they pay someone off down the line now.
    "Good job, we're getting out of here." She would affirm to Negasonic, "There's not going to be anything left here and our point is made." Someone up the line is -definitely- going to yell at her. To which point Monet will go along smugly that given the circumstances they inflicted a significant amount of damage to the enemy operation -and- broke morale.
    And she's going to withdraw Negasonic in tow back towards their ride in.
    ... After picking up the shorn off arm on the way out and some other bits of cybernetics that had been broken off. They might be useful for someone to analyse.
    ... But mostly for trophies.

Helena Wayne has posed:
Helena curses as the explosion rocks through the building, snatching the drive out of the terminal. There's a split second then where she has to make a choice - drop the man, or risk a fall. When it comes down to it though, she can't //quite// let him fall - if only because she still doesn't know what in the hell is going on here or who's really responsible for it.

In the time it takes her to secure the drive at her belt again, she and her hostage have slid a good fifteen feet down the incline. "Move!" she urges, shifting her grip on his arm from a control meant to keep him still to a grab meant to drag him along as she makes a dash for the door, the hall, and the glint of streetlights outside the collapse.

As she runs, she slaps a cuff on his wrist, looped to a grapple. When she reaches the break in the wall, she fires the line to the fencing around the building and gives him a shove. He's probably not going to enjoy the ride, but it's less likely to kill him than staying the building is. For her part, she somersaults out of the building, tumbling and leaping along the sliding concrete on sheer instinct. She's liekly to feel that in the morning too.

As soon as her feet hit the ground, she takes off through the dust and the shadows, making her getaway - the details can be reviewed later.

Robert Marksman has posed:
Robert Marksman will reach into the man's pockets pulling out his phone and looks for a number that will either ring in the building or if he finds a listing for what might be one of the goons. He hopes to have the phone ring in the weckage, and if he gets one of the ladies who were causing the damage, he will tell them where to look for those he portaled away.

Negasonic has posed:
    Ellie is easily scruffed... ur... hauled out by M. Though she is still glowing and crackling but she was leaned against her teammate so it was crackling around them both.

    Once they get clear, well she has to let the blast and field gosomewhere so she just hurls it back towards the listing building they just excited post haste.

    Whistle.........BOOM

    It isn't her fault, throwing that into the sky would have probably had some federal agency panic and she might have hit a plane coming into JFK or something.

    "I got winged by the lady with the gun, going to need the medkit."

Joshua Foley has posed:
Robert dials the third from last number that was used on the older man's phone. It rings.

By some sheer, bizarre, cosmically improbable luck a cellphone in the remains of the large operating room, shielded by one of the few remaining bits of wall, starts to ring. The sound of it just reaches Negasonic's ears when she lets go of her blast.

Explosion is enormous. It rips through the building and vents out windows, the already existing holes, new holes created by the blast wave. Dust and debris fly outwards. The building shudders, groans and then collapses in on itself. A huge column of smoke and dust goes up into the air.

People at the meat packing plant are evacuating away from GII. In the distance, sirens start up in several directions. Down below in the wrecakge of the building, nothing seems to be moving.