13323/X-Men: The Oil Tankers

X-Men: The Oil Tankers
Date of Scene:	12 November 2022
Location:	SR-77 Blackbird
Synopsis:	The X-Men help the Dude find his wife's captors and aids him in starting a potential revolution on the 'other side' of the mysterious gateways.
Cast of Characters:	Rogue, Monet St. Croix, Kitty Pryde, Tabitha Smith, Jean Grey, Roberto da Costa, Logan Howlett

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Rogue has posed:
The rumble of a loud diesel engine, the exhaust pouring out the top of the Semi-truck. Its tires rapidly spinning on the pavement of the remote highway leading east. Inside the cab, some classic 80s music is blasting over the radio.

'Some things are worth fighting for. Some feelings never die. I'm not asking for another chance. I just wanna know why!'

Rogue's father had sent her a message over her phone, 'Found'em. Get your people out here, Pumpkin. We got a revolution to start.'

The coordinates were sent to Rogue's phone as well, since the phone she'd gotten her father had been linked to the X-Men systems. He knew they'd find him.

What people that could be scrounged up were asked to meet at the Blackbird, and the Jet was prepped and launched. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes to get to the location of Rogue's father's phone signal either, and after that short trip the Jet swoops low over the ground, over that stretch of highway...

The semi-truck is spotted up ahead, and when it is, Rogue steps out of the cockpit and walks to the back of the Jet. She looks back over her shoulder at everyone aboard. "I'm gonna go join him, see what he's doing." She says with a flat tone to her voice, loud enough to be heard over the rattling of the Jet's bulkheads in-flight.

The hatch is opened up and the Belle is out of the Blackbird with a quick motion of her dipping outside. The hatch will seal up a moment later and the Jet sweeps down over the highway, over the Semi-truck and passes overhead of the driver within.

Inside the truck the man feels the jet pass over head, as much as he can see it. The sun is up, but its behind November clouds, with a chill thick upon the land outside.

Owen's eyes look up as he feels the jet pass over. "Wicked." He mutters under his breath before the passenger door to his fastly moving Semi opens up, causing him to jump.

Rogue slips inside the cab with him and shuts the door beside her. He flashes her a grin from his grey bearded face. "Hey stranger." He tells her. "Crackerjack?" He offers over a bag of said snack food, but Rogue just shakes her head as the 80s music is so loud inside the cab its hard to even hear him. She reaches forward and turns the volume down, then raises up her X-Men comm and opens the team channel.

"What are we doing?" She asks her father, though everyone inside the jet will hear now too.

Rogue's father clears his throat as he drops the Crackerjack bag down in his lap, on top of a huge knife and a sawed-off shotgun that is laying across his lap. "Well. I found the cultist bastards loading up some trucks to head out to port out here, where they plan to offload some cargo." He says while driving, his voice broadcasting to the whole X-Men now. "People." He says, glancing off the road outside, to Rogue beside him. "And petrol. They're hitting some freighters out of this dock we're coming up on here soon."

Rogue's eyes glance at the weapons on the man's lap, then back up at him. "What's in the truck?" She asks, looking over her shoulder to the trailer behind them.

"Guns." Owen replies. "A lot of guns." He runs a hand over his beard, and then looks from the road back to his daughter. "I need your help, getting this trailer through the gateway to my friends on the other side. It's time that the rebels get a bit of a upperhand in this fight."

Up ahead, the Blackbird will sea the ocean coming in fast, along with a big industrial pier that seems a bit rundown, but not entirely derelict....

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix moves to focus, her eyes flashing as the Blackbird rockets through the air. She's moving to try and use her telepathy along to sweep ahead towards the pier. She's not going to have any luck reading minds at this distance or picking up anything useful..

But hopefully she can -locate- them. So from the distance they're at, she tries to do what she can to pick up senses of individuals. To identify places where possible allies or enemies might be. She's relaxed as she tries to do so. This is all too simple for her tastes. So the point is to be aware for whatever the backlash is going to be. M has been quiet on the way there, and she's not up to her usual back and forth of banter and snark.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde rises from her seat, wearing an almost all-black X-man uniform with only a little bit of grey on it. Lockheed is riding on her shoulder as she moves over to look out the cockpit at the sight down below. << Remember they used gas last time. So anyone who isn't somehow immune to it, make sure you have a respirator, >> she sends out over comms. The respirator is a little emergency thing, just a tube and a mouth piece and a nose plug rather than a full face mask. Enough to deal with short durations inside a gas cloud at least.

"So Jean, what's the plan?" Kitty asks as she leans on the back of Jean's chair, looking out. "Gotta be careful around the flammable stuff," she comments, a look over to Roberto and Tabitha. "That means you two Hot Stuffs," she says with a grin.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Tabby kicked back in the jet for most of the flight. X-Suit in it's full bodied synthetic leather and yellow padding style with matching boots. Glasses were red tinted oval frames all made of the same translucent material.

She'd probably had them based on Cyclops' own, just fitting her nugget. Ruby Quartz was always good for ani-glare.

"I know, flammable stuff go boom, you guys mostly aren't good with that. Humans and what not." Tabby states with a playful tone. It's just one more thing she keeps an eye out for when doing the hero thing most days. Blowing a car across a street is one thing oil and fuel tanks at truck ssize tend for more spectacular example of collateral damge she'd like to not yet yelled at about.

She's got a streak going.

Jean Grey has posed:
Prior to Rogue's departure, she shared the front of the jet with Jean. Pilot & copilot. "I'm keeping a close link with you," she tells Rogue before she departs. "I don't want this going like the last time." An echo follows: <<For your safety, and my sanity.>>

After that, it's down to just pilot in the singular, as continues on the controls, slowing the Blackbird as they close in on the truck, her hands moving with the 'borrowed' familiarity of an astronaut she once knew. Well, maybe it was borrowed back then. These days, she's gotten pretty used to it.

Once they have the radio link below, they get a proper briefing on the situation, and from this, she formulates their plan of action, insofar as those kind of things ever last for long. Contact with the enemy, and all that. "Well, you heard Owen. This is a delivery job, so that's the overall priority: clear a path, protect the goods, get the payload where it needs to be. Kitty can scout out their position, Logan's lead on disabling the defenders once we have a sense of the place. M's air support, Roberto and Tabby at range, and I'm general support and coordination, and final line of defense on the truck - if it comes to it, I've got shields."

She glances back. "We ready?" Then, with a last few taps, she puts the Blackbird into its remote & standby mode, programming a trajectory toward their objective (or just pursuing the truck), and then to some kind of holding pattern thereafter. Technology!

And with that, she's up, and moving back.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa smiles easily from a seat in the back where's he's typing out an email, he doesn't look up, "I mean fire burns the gas too, right? Let me get close and I can suck it up. Also, no breathing check." He puts away the phone and shrugs. "Guess it's time to get charged up." He follows Rogue's path exiting the plane is his human guise wearing bumblebees he falls with a crazy sort of grin before rocketing upwards in the normal vanta black mode as Sunspot.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"I fucking hate cultists."

Logan's growl is easily heard, he doesn't exactly hide it. He wears the classic yellow and blue suit. The black one got torn to pieces during a recent mission. "And they got gas." He rolls his eyes. He clenches his fist and his claws come out, the Adamantium shines in the light from the Blackbird's interior. He looks at Owen then, taking am easure of the man. "Then it's time to help the underdogs."

He grins toothily.

"About damn time." He points at the two heat mutants. "You two keep the heat to a minimum, we're not bringing matches into a firework shop, got it? Keep it minimum, don't feel like blowin' up today." He turns to Jean. "I like that plan."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue knows there's a mental link, but she still holds that phone up for her father just incase he's not included in it. His words are captured by the device as the Belle just moves her eyes from the front window of the semi-truck, then back over to her newly returned father... gone for 16 years, he made a reappearance within the past month, having been an integral part in keeping Rogue from being taken by these body snatching cultists that they're going after here and now.

"Guns?" Rogue asks. "They don't have any weapons in there? The, uh, rebels?" She asks Owen, who shakes his head. "Nah. IT's a pocket reality, kiddo. This 'Cold' fella has kept his own world on lockdown, it's why they're always having to come back to reality to get supplies. Like the gas."
" A second later and Owen dips his head to look forward. "There we are. Hold on..."

Up ahead the fence to the industrial piers is closed, but the peddal is summarily applied to the metal, and the fully loaded 18 wheeler just goes even faster, right through the fence!

Rogue sighs. "I could've taken care of that for you." She tells her dad who just looks over at her and flashes a smile. "Sure, but I've always wanted to do that." He says with the giddiness of a much younger version of himself shining through.

Now the Semi is headed down the piers, rushing past docks, and port buildings that are dark and seemingly empty of any people.

"Hey, so, what I do need help with..." Owen starts to say, his voice still piped through to everyone. "We're gonna need a lift."

Because the tankers are already gone to sea, having left their docks.

Rogue catches on and she exhales. "Fine, okay." She says, popping the door open as her father chimes in with a happy 'Love ya, Dumplin'.

"Jean, everyone else." Rogue says. "I'm goin under the semi... I think I can lift it no big deal." She relays to the team.

Up ahead, out at sea, it becomes quickly evident that there are 3 tanker ships and they're moving in a wide convoy, the telepaths will be able to sense the ships loaded with minds... but before much else can be sensed, the darkening skies of early evening are pierced by the sudden shining purple-white light of 'gateways' that rip through the fabric of reality, and appear in front of the tankers. They cause all sound to go quiet, all reverberations are eaten by the portals themselves, as they burst open in front of the sea vessels, and those gathered on the decks are all in awe of the display before them.

The swirling gateways shine brightly on the horizon, their bright white edges twirling, swirling, and sending ocean water flying up as they smash against the sea that they yawn open just above...

"Anna, dear, I'm running outta road here." Owen says back at the piers. "Gonna need.... Oh, wait. Wait. Ah ha!" Owen shouts loudly with glee as the whole Semi-truck he's driving lifts up off the dock before its sudden end out at the water's edge. The massive 18 wheeler now flying through the sky...

On the tankers? Armed men are pushing people with bags over their heads toward the gateways that are growling loudly in front of the bows of the massive oil tankers.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix's focus is broken as she goes to listen to the orders of Jean <<Understood>> She goes to work over at establishing a mental link, but this time relying over on the mental 'tether' of Jean. The far more powerful, far more skilled teleapth can if she deems it necessary keep up the link and share information far more effectively after all. That would let M as far as she's concerned focus on hitting things. Someone had to do it without Piotr or Proudstar along after all. They couldn't let Rogue have all the fun.

As they would approach and M would see the sheer size of the ships arriving over in the tankers and the scene -shifting- as reality would break apart she would almost stare. Almost. Her mind goes to calculate the geometry and physics, comparing it over to the previous incident and looking for fractal patterns of familiarity..

The Cultists are moving to go to start to take along captives.. M goes to rapidly reassess positioning, numbers, and the patterns of portals.

And maybe see if there was a way to disrupt them and break their focusing arrays. By sheer power or simply analysis. One just needed to find one breech after all that they could exploit. She would fly along a trajectory, playin ghte part of air support.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa comes screaming down out of the sun, using the bright glowing orb to hide his descent. <<Do you want me to back up Rogue on the trailer or disable the tankers?>> He uses gravity to accelerate and focuses on pushing himself faster. Closing with the event horizon

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean gives Logan's point a reinforcing nod as he makes it. "We've got hostages here, maybe other civillians, AND plenty of volatile materials. So verify your targets, keep it clean and precise, and to minimum necessary force, especially with the explosions." Does Tabby get singled out for a look? Tabby definitely gets singled out for a look.

However, as they reach the perimeter, it quickly becomes clear that the addage about plans and enemy contact has come true a bit faster than normal, with the facility already cleared and things already headed out to sea. Welp!

"Ok, slight change, but the core idea still holds. We'll drop onto the center ship. That's Logan and Kitty. Kitty, try and get through to the prisoners if you can, phase them out. Or if you can find electronics to disable the ship, that works too. Logan, you just do your thing. Rogue, we're gonna aim the truck right down the middle portal. M, Sunspot, you're the most mobile AND damaging - try and disable the other two ships. Tabbitha can backup at range from the middle. And I'll juggle as needs be."

She's already at the back, as the bay doors come down, the rush of air beyond. "Or, you know, we'll just make it up as we go." She's not Scott, and you can only hyper-plan so far. At a point? You just gotta...

...jump! Which she does, leaping from the Blackbird as it soars in over the lead ship, disgorging the variety of X-men down over their opponents.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty and Lockheed move aside to let Jean head for the plane's exit door. "Even if I get the prisoners freed, still on the ship. So unless someone has a way to get them back to shore, will focus on stopping the ship," she replies with a nod to Jean.

"Iceman would have been handy here. A couple of icebergs in their way," she comments as she reaches up to grasp Lockheed. Kitty gives Logan a wave good bye and then drops through the floor of the plane.

She and Lockheed freefall down towards the ship, disappearing through the deck into the innards of the ship.

Logan Howlett has posed:
Logan cracks his neck as it's time to drop. "I'll take care of the thugs." He starts to walk towards the bay doors, giving Jean a nod. "I'm on it." He looks at Kitty. "If you see blood, don't get skittish." Kitty is very capable, so he's not worried about it, just giving her a playful poke. Then, his claws come out with that 'SNIKT'.

"Going in."

He jumps off of the Blackbirdf! Some people might be flying. But Logan? Gravity feels more natural. He descends and lands in a superhero landing! The bones are reinforced by that unbreakable metal that prevents him from shattering his legs on landing, though some muscles tear, but immediately heal faster than the injury was made.

He growls. "Alright bubs..." He immediately begins moving through the ship. He puts old training to proper use, becoming one with the shadows.

If he comes across guards? They are going to be aggressively attacked. No flashy stuff here.

Fists go for throats, claws slash across chests. The fastest, most efficent ways to take out a person? Logan is indulging in.

<Red, Rogue, we connected?> Logan asks in his mind, testing to see if a telepathic link for the team was established.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
When it's Go time. Tabby might not be a flier like some of her friends but she does have a few tricks. <<Drop me between the truck and the path everyone's going?>> she asks and makes the jump along with the fliers. What she does do is something totally Boom-Boom.

Horizontally blasts herself forwards in her best Cannonball impersonation, enough that her arc to the ground isn't so far but it does get hher ahead of people and maybe in the middle of trouble.

"Oh Hai!" she states in greeting when she rolls onto her back and looks up at anyone stabnding over her.

Then come the flashbangs. <<Eyes and ears folks!>> she beams into the mind link with plenty of warning.

BOOM!

Bright and loud! Right in the cultists faces.

She's gonnabe sore in the morning.

Rogue has posed:
"Roberto." Rogue says over the team-link. "I could use your help with the back end of this thing." She tells him, with the back of the trailer sagging down quite a bit, the sound of items falling around inside is quite audible to the Belle beneath the beast of a truck, her focus on keeping the front end up the most, since it has her dad inside it.

Within the cab, Owen watches the Blackbird moving in on the portals. The bright swirling ateways illuminating the ocean waters quite brightly. Owen just shakes his head at the sight of it, and wipes some crackerjacks off of his denim jacket. He reaches forward to the radio then. "Okay, time to get serious." He says, turning up the volume as Rush's 'Tom Sawyer' starts to play over the cab's speakers.

Outside at the tankers, the X-men are mixing up their aproaches with head-on strikes, and stealth, but its the head-on types that set off the alarms. Tabi gets those flashy-bangs going off which cause alarms to literally start across the ship decks. Armed men in black start to rush across the tankers as they shout orders at each other, some motioning to the prisoners, others to the giant racks of supplies that the fork lifts on the deck were preparing to haul through the portals.

Each of the 3 tankers push right up to those violet-white gateways, until the nose of the vessels are pushing through. Large flakes of white ash blow through the portals, coming out from the 'other side' and spreading across the deck of the three tankers as people are pushed by armed men toward the gate mouths.

Logan does indeed come across armed men, and though he gets the jump on the first two, the next three see him, level their weapons and open fire!

This causes more of the cultist gunmen to turn toward the aft of the ships to look back just in time to see the Semi-Truck floating through the air...

"We got company!" One of the Cult Commanders shouts as Rogue flies that Semi-truck in over the center ship... "Open fire!"

With Rush blasting in the cab of said truck, Rogue is beneath it using her full body to try and guide it as bullets start to rain upward from below!

"Come on, get these people through!" One large man shouts from the center ship, right up close to the portal, this man holding a strange metal staff in his right hand, with a glowing pink-white crystal set at the end of the otherwise flat metal staff. "Bring them through! We're out of time!" The Cult Leader shouts.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Disable the tankers? Yes, yes she can do that. THe most immediate way is to disable their means of maneuvering. MOnet is not strong enough to slow the ship or inflict damage on it in the slightest.. But she can hit over where they're vulnerable. And wherea re the very, very, very big tankers that mass hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes vulnerable?

Where they use to maneuver. Monet goes to skim along hte water, going to update the others on what her plan of attack is. She goes to take a breath.. Flying along at high speed..

Then she goes to dive hard underneath the water. Beign in the water with multiple passing tankers, the oil, the deritus, the smell of unshaven nerd..

She splashes down hard, and then goes along to fly/swim upwards towards the rudder of the ship she's on. She goes to move to then fly upright, grab at it, brace herself.. And then start to CRUNCH at it hard. Her intent is to simply WRECK it all the way off, twisting it about to snap the metal..

Then she's flying up with the long, long heavy metal shaft and flying up towards the nearest propellor, going to jam the multiple-dozen meter long reinforced metal pole, paddles and all up and over into the propellor shaft of the ship to let it sheer in hard.. And cripple it.

That would leave the ship floating forwards on nothing more than if it worked inertia..

But any real way for it to pick up speed, maneuver, or do any sort of actual controlled approach towards the portal or anything else impossible.

Dragging it away? That was a Superman problem.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty ends up in a passage through the ship. She runs along, sticking her head through walls to try to get her bearings. While that helps, what helps the most is a helpful sign that gives which direction various parts of the ship are.

"Right, engine room," she says aloud as she spots that arrow that is pointing down a set of metal stairs. She hurries down them, then follows another arrow to double back the direction she came from, on the lower level, heading towards the rear of the ship.

Kitty reaches the engine room, only to find five men in there. "Intruder!" one of them shouts, grabbing a metal wrench that is the length of a baseball bat. It's so noisy in there that only 2 of the other men hear him and turn to help.

Sprinting forward, Kitty slides on the deck under his swing, grabbing his legs and tripping him up. Lockheed swoops down, grabbing the wrench and then flapping forward and releasing it like a glide bomber. The wrench sails right into a second man's face, while Kitty flips to her feet and knocks out her attacker with a boot to the head.

The other two men catch sight of what is happening, and the three of them close in on her.

Logan Howlett has posed:
Headhunting time!

Logan moves as if he were a devil. He gets the jump on the first two, claws piercing through the back of one and a hard kick to another plugs his throat in, causing him to pass out from asphyxiation. But three suddenly open fire on him, and bullets rip through his body! One even ricochets off of the metal on his forehead. He stumbles backwards as they empty the clip into his body.

Only for the holes to heal. Only for the bullets to land back onto the ground with a loud 'clinking' noise.

He growls, like some rabid beast. There's screams as his claws slice and mangle, a hard throw from one of the guards across the room until his back hits the wall of the ship, rendering him strongly unconscious.

He starts sprinting now, waiting for a hallway of armed guards for him to cut through.

"RRRRAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!"

the warcry of the Wolverine is impossible to miss.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
So, Tabby uses the flashbangs to distract and get up and while no one is shooting at her, the blonde takes a few free shots in and knocks the immediate crowd around her out and down before she starts looking for cover so those bullets and stuff don't put holes when some of that ammo is bigger than what her X-Suit can handle.

Of course the goal is to make sure she's between anyone and the portals so that's her destination, throwing and directing plenty of psionically guided explosions around, using her own psi sweeping to track anyone else that could be targeted behind cover.

"Everybody stays on this side!" she warns in a yell at the cultists. The constant hefty concussive blasts goving in their faces peobably helping to keep things clear.

Jean Grey has posed:
There are no special effects for Jean in the air (which is good, not on fire yet!) as she guides her movement with her mind, hanging aloft as the Blackbird quickly peels away from the action, leaving them alone with the three ships.

Well, and the flying truck.

<<Of course,>> she echoes back at Logan, fulfilling the most classic of her 'command & control' duties. And here, it is more than communication. With three whole ships and a half-dozen individual skirmishes, there are so many details, so many things that could go wrong. Is anyone in danger? Will they need to readjust, moving people between the ships? And so from each X-man, she takes what they see and tries to build a picture in her mind, the war of many little battles.

Which isn't to say she doesn't help with the mundane ass-kicking in the meantime. As the others land and come under immediate assault, guns are ripped from the hands of many a cultist, thrown casually into the water. It's almost the smallest amount of telekinetic force she can apply... and yet highly effetive, because it's really hard for them to shoot people with no guns! Of course, those that start directing their fire up at the truck become her prime targets, and here and there, she switches it up, sometimes tossing the cultists around themselves (though not off the ships!), or finding those with the weakest minds and simply putting them to sleep. In fact, she's going through all of their heads like this, a dozen at a time, testing the resistance. Some (but not all!) of the cultists proved difficult to mind control the last time they ran into them, and who knows how many of them are here, so she looks for weak links.

Elsewhere, she confirms M attacking the back of the ship. One slowing down, hopefully. She doesn't know if they can STOP the huge things, but one step at a time.

<<M, Sunspot's diverting to Rogue, wanna handle the one on the other side? I'm trying to see if there's any better way, but I don't know if we can get control of these things, try and steer off course.>> Her attention snaps then, toward the front of the ship. <<Logan, guy with the staff, big boss I'm thinking? Let's converge on him. But,>> and here she grimmaces at the necessary sacrifice implied, <<Don't take him out before Owen gets through. War, not the battle, guns could free hundreds, maybe thousands on the other side, even if it means they take a few more today.>>

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa comes in over the tankers taking a quick pass and striking with the sort of pinpoint accuracy Scott drill into students. He targets the propeker of his ship. Slagging the hunk of metal before shearing it off completely then hits the forklifts, specifically the propane tanks which propel them. Hitting as many as he can on the flyby. The surgical strikes resulting in a whompf as the tank explodes but leaves the majority of the forklift untouched. Mischief managed he moves under the back half of the trailler helping Rogue to shoulder the weight.

Rogue has posed:
Monet's efforts beneath the waves of the ocean waters result in the desired results, though they're not as pretty as the young Frenchwoman may have envisioned. The hull of the ship starts to show signs of damage as she rips and pulls, bends and tears. The hull of the ship was welded plates, not riveted, and thus it is more pliant to being torn apart, and suffer the consequences of Monet's raw strength, if she's not careful she'll break the whole ship open to the sea!

Kitty finds herself bombarded with attacks when she explores the underbelly of the ship where Cultists were gathering oil drums out of the reserve storage cargo holds, and with limited lighting, yellow alarm lights spinning, it can be a bit hard to get her bearings for the fight she's facing now! Gunshots ring out in the dark, with bullets bouncing off of the metal floors and bulkheads!

"Thanks, Rob!" Rogue shouts as she's turning her head to the side, more bullets flying past her, or slamming in to the underside of the truck she's holding up beneath the trailer and rear of the Semi. "Almost there!" She announces, the 18 wheeler descending down now toward the deck of the central ship while the gunmen, and screaming captives all start to scatter, pulled aside from their lines toward the portals to give way for the 'landing semi-truck'.

Of course, Jean's ability to shut down the people on the deck is working almost like a dominos arrangement. Men in black are just dropping, crumbling, and their guns are being tossed to the sides out to sea. The man in the black at the forefront of it all, the one clutching that metal staff with the glowing tip just swings the staff out of the way and turns to look at the group of invaders, at the sight of the giant truck coming to land on the deck. It's one of their trucks. The man with the staff narrows his eyes and turns back to the portal. He raises his staff up and starts to chant something, swinging the metal pole around, causing a pinkish-white energy to start to form around the tip of said conjurer's tool! The power starts to grow, intensify.... the caster starting to cast his spell?

Logan gets greeted with a vision that may remind him of many of his past events. A hallway filled with men armed to the teeth, they're all drawing their weapons on him as he screams with a gutteral ferocity. Guns go off, shotguns, automatic weaponfire, the hallway even fills up with a blast from a smoke detonator that goes off right in the Wolverine's face!

Rogue sweeps out from under the trailer of the truck, floating up about 20 feet off of the deck of the ship. She flies up to the driver's seat as she see's her dad getting the vehicle started up again. "Dad!" Rogue shouts through the window. Owen pushes the door open and points forward. "That guy, he's gonna close the portals up!" He says, indicating the Caster with that strange metal staff. "We gotta go!" He shouts, just as the truck roars to life again, another blast of exhaust pouring out of the top of it. He pushes the stick and jams the gas down, sending the truck roaring across the deck toward that giant middle portal gateway!

Tabitha is effectively achieving her goals, with the people doing what she says, though the fighting Cultists aren't quite done yet as one leaps out from behind one of the oil drums and strikes at Tabitha with a large crowbar!

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Splashing along through the water, Monet takes a moment to not openly gag up the vile things that had gone down her throat. She takes a moment to assess an danalyse <<That would require seizing the bridge, Ms. Grey. Even then it would require being able to control it and know how to pilot it, and tending to a large array of stations.>> M goes to consider even as she move sto go through her eidetic memory.

She flashes through the various petrochemical corporations her family invests in. Designs. Shipping. A few moment's later she is pulling blueprints from her mind to pass them along to the rest of the team. <<You could theoretically pull the skills from their brains if need be>> From whomever is controlling it up on the bridge.. The Algerian mutant calmly goes to feed the data along, speaking as if puppeting men and women to pull such highly techincal details from thier minds was the simplest thing.

Then she's blasting along at high speed to the next ship that was her target. Going along to back up Roberto.

Logan Howlett has posed:
<Good.> Is all Logan replies to Jean's message. Just in time to see the long hallway of guns pointed in his direction. "Come on!" He roars as a smoke detonator goes off right in his face! All while automatic fire from a variety of weapons tear through his body.

If only that were enough to stop him.

He lunges out of the smoke, his claws slicing through limbs and his feet kicking with enough force to put people /into/ the wall. Guns are sliced through and scattered to the floor, even as the blood moon is staked to rise. During the carnage, he hears Jean's command in his mind.

'Converge on the staff-wielder'.

<Copy.> He doesn't like the method. He'd rather win the fight /and/ the war. But they can't all be winners. <On my way to you, Red.> and Logan starts to /move/. Violence no longer his priority, he throws a man across the hallway, where he jumps to grab one of the ceiling ledges, kicking tow more in the face as he does so.

"Get outta the way!"

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Two men in the engine room are down. The other three draw guns. Kitty looks anxious at the sight of those guns. She darts over with the doorway as a backdrop, holding up her hands and pleading, "No, Please don't shoot!"

A cacophony of gunfire results, the cultists blasting away at the young woman in the superhero costume. Shot after shot flies towards her, until finally their guns each are clicking, their clips empty.

Kitty lets out a sigh of relief. Having been worried more about the prospect of them hitting any of the computers that control the engines, or anything on the engines themselves that might stop them from running. Kitty looks up at Lockheed and says, "Nothing that will hurt them seriously." The little purple dragon dives down, fire streaming towards the three gunmen.


A minute later the middle ship shudders. Landlubbers might wonder if the ship hit something, though the actual seamen will recognize the ship's engines winding down and being thrown into reverse, resulting in heavy cavitation as the ship's forward progress begins to halt.

Within the bridge, the cultist in charge of the ship looks up, seeing the computer display showing the engines are in reverse. He throws the throttle back and forward again, but the computer display still reads reverse. He grabs a telephone. "Engine room! What's going on down there! We're in reverse, my controls aren't responding!?"

About ten seconds pass before the reply can be heard over the bridge loudspeaker. A girl's voice doing her best Montgomery Scott accent. "I'm sorry Cap'n. We're givin' 'er all she's got! But she kinna take much more o' this!"

Kitty leans back in the chair before the computer console. "They -really- should have better security on these systems," she tells Lockheed.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Tabitha's powers do offer a lot of blunt force trauma protection, as does the X-Suit. But there are limits and it would not be a pretty picture of an X-Ray to look at what's under her skin. the skin itself is often a mass of bruises, let alone any number of micro fractures.

This is what happens when Triage or any of the other healerts at the school are too busy and Tabby is too stubborn to bother if she's still walking.

That said, when a man with a crowbar does something incredible like almost get the jump on a telepath. Tabby blocks the hit with a very unhappy yell and then returns the pain with a nutshot and then a kick in his backaside when he drops to his knees and tabby circles around.

"WHAT DID I JUST SAY!" she yells and moves onto another covered spot to try and keep people at least on the ship she's on unportaled. <<Can I just sink these damn things? One or two really big holes oughta do it!>> she asks and sounds pouty over the mind link. It might be all that soreness piling up. Or maybe an actual bone break.

Jean Grey has posed:
<<Sounds like you've got a plan then,>> Jean echoes back at M, with just a touch of humor. <<Oh, you need some -help?->> Perhaps this is a bit of motivational psychology, aimed at the notoriously perfectionist mutant. From the nearer minds, she sweeps her mind toward those on the third ship, eyes closed in a moment of concentration. <<Bridge is just a skeleton crew. And I doubt most of them know all of that stuff either. Their plan only went as far as 'drive it straight into the holes.'>>

As the truck comes in for a landing, Jean swoops toward the deck, toward the center of the action. The time for the lighter stuff has passed! With one red mane streaming behind her, hand on her temple and another outheld, she unleashes a more overt barrage of her powers, throwing several of the nearest cultists back and leaving a shimmering bubble in the empty space. It's nearly invisible, but crackles to life each time one of them shoots, the bullets impacting upon the telekinetic barrier, energy dissapating out into the field.

"We clear?" she shouts toward the two of them as Owen sends the truck barreling toward the portal. One, two...

Jean turns, looking for the man with the staff. "Wait, he's closing it, not keeping it open?" she asks, visibly confused. If Rogue hates space, well, she really hates magic. What are the rules?! "Ok fine. Then we trash him."

Jean's willing to give it a try, at least until Logan can join them. She tries both her tricks at once, hands outheld: she expects his mind to be closed, but maybe she can take that staff away from him? At worst, its a distraction for a certain fella who's the very best...

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa floats up beside, Rogue and unleashes a volley of dark plasma at the staff wielder who is now having a very bad day.

Rogue has posed:
Unfortunately the man with the Magic Staff has enough time to cause a bit more chaos in the sea this evening! His summoning spell of pulling energy around causes the two outer gateways in front of the first and third vessel cause those portals to be swept in toward the middle portal now! This causes both of those massive freighters to get pushed aside, awkwardly, causing their whole hulking forms to get rocked around, people and items aboard the deck now being dangerously thrown around!

The two outer portals converge on the middle gateway and it suddenly grows larger, as this seems to be the process of closing the triple gates... as seen in the last event where the X-Men battled this cult at the train depot.

Owen's rig roars. The tires squealing on the middle freighter's deck as he pushes the throttle forward... inside the cab, a classic bit of Meat Loaf blares on the radio speakers.

'I'm gonna hit the highway like a battering ram, on a black silver phantom bike! When the metal is hot, and the engine is hungry, and we're all about to see the light!'

The Caster continues to chant his spell, as he feels something invading his mind. He looks over his shoulder, directly eyeing Jean as he keeps his free hand up, and the staff up as well, controlling the pull of energy to compell the closure of the portal. He's speaking a strange language, one unknown to anyone here, and as he focuses on this, Owen's 18 wheeler comes roaring right toward him, causing the Caster to have to leap out of the way of the massive truck!

Before it can hit the portal though, Rogue rips open the door, flying alongside it. She rips the driver's door open just as her father jumps out, right in to her arms!

The truck goes barreling through the middle portal, as the giant glowing gateway grows larger!

The semi-truck and trailer disappear in to the portal, passing through to the other side...

This leaves the three ships, the first and third badly damaged by their bows being smashed by those energy fields, their courses bringing them right back toward the middle freighter now, no control after having their thrust systems ripped apart from below...

Monet St. Croix has posed:
Monet St. Croix is going to swim around over and through the water, going to skim the thoughts <<Maneuvering them would be of minimal use regardless. They have too much mass maneuvering forwards>> She will, however, leave the not quite as broken one over to Kitty. The two large ships that would be going around to quite possibly bounce off the prow of the middle one..

Well.. THese tankers were built quadruple hulled for a reason. They could take some bumping. She would go to send to teh otehrs her calculations. Mass, inertia, volume.. Adding to her calculations her observations from the water currents from having swum through them, matching velocity.. Calculating strength of hull and storage containers, making adjustments for crew, anything onboard that mightj ostle further or untether..

This sort of geometry and physics was rather difficult.

If you weren't Monet St. Croix. For whom it was trivial. Swimming artound now to rendezous with the team playing squish the bug.

Logan Howlett has posed:
<Hold on a little longer, Red, I'm almost to you!>

There's sounds of heavy combat being heard as two guards suddenly go sailing out off the deck of the ship! He's sprinting like some kind of demon, one that doesn't get tired under normal conditions. Then, just as Rogue saves her father's life, the Wolverine rolls into a sudden stop, claws out and teeth bared at the caster.

"What'd I miss? Gimme a sitrep!"

Since he doesn't want to fuck up this mission for everyone. He clenches his fist tight.

"I fucking hate magic."

Jean Grey has posed:
That proverb about plans and enemies KEEPS coming back, doesn't it...

<<Yeah, I didn't really expect that to happen,>> Jean admits, noting the altered courses of the three ships as the portals shift. <<Kitty? Max power to the reverse. Doesn't matter if you have to burn out the engines, strip the proppellers to do it.>> It is the one ship they didn't damage too badly YET, so... no time like the present! And the others are still going forward, so while it might not be fast enough for a total miss, but anything she can do to minimize the impacts. <<Worst case, the other two should hit each other at an angle, as long as we're not the meat in the sandwich... these things are built tough, right?>>

<<Everyone else, if you're not here dealing with Mr Staff, do everyything you can to slow the other two. Anchors. Non-total hull damage to add some water resistance. Anything short of sinking them.>> Was that thought specifically at Tabi?!

She gives her people what guidance she can. But she's here! With Logan, Rogue, and Owen at least. Sitrep? "Him. Get him."

Jean figures Logan can work out the rest. On her part, she begins attacking the caster more directly, the telekinetic interactions in the air around her hands starting to make it snap and pop, crackling with destructive energy. Then? She sends two of those blasts right for him. Maybe he can deflect it with his fancy magic, but he can only fight so many of them at once!

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty sends back to Jean her thoughts, <<Already full reverse, don't know that I can do anything more there. Going to guard the engine room, I can hear people coming down the stairs now!>>

She hops up from the computer, just typing in a few last commands to kill power to the bridge to make sure they can't get back into the computer while she is dealing with the cultists who are charging down the stairs!

She slams the door closed and locks it, the cultists reaching it and pounding on it. She gives them just a second or two to realize pounding on it won't get them in. And phases through, that big wrench in hand and starting to deliver some pain.

Logan would be proud.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Tabby isn't exactly the ideal choice for stopping one ship, let alone three. There's way too much going on on the one she's on. Mostly trying to make sure when hostages are ready to be evacuated there's no major resistance.

She does however maybe get an idea. Did someone plant it, did she come up with it on her own, did she swipe it in her own telepathic scans of everything.

What happens next probably will scare her teammates and family.

A very large and powerful bomb forms and starts floating up and down over the prow of the boat. The glow in Boom-Booms eyes hinting she's putting all of her A-game energy into it.

Things that are awesome about plasma: It can work underwater.

The bomb, about twice her height with arms wide sinks beneath the waves and under the water, glowing bright and hot, steam rising briefly where it made contact and flashboiled sea water.

Luckily it doesn't blow up till it gets deep enough and far enough between ships and big portal that Tabby can finallyu let it go.

BOOM!

Like a massive depthcharge going off the expolosion is forcing a huge wave to form. Tabitha's destroyed whole evil alien labs with this much power. More than a few earthen ones and at least one class 100-sh strength level clone of an ex-boyfriend.

Og course these ships are way heavier, and fighting an ocean might not help but she does put all she can into it. The blast leaving her spent and unable to blast any more for along time. And maybe in trouble from anyone still trying to kill her cause of all that.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa zips around and under ship C. Moving through the water he uses the dark plasma to rip through the first two levels of the quadruple hulls on the outer surface of the tanker. The drag starting to pull the ship away from the others. He then lands or the prow ripping the first ten ton anchor from its housing letting it drop on the same side, waiting for that anchor to catch and pull the ship in the same direction before dropping the second anchor to hold the ship fast. He's in the air again moving towards the ship Tabs is own.

Rogue has posed:
The crew of the tankers, the captives brought aboard, all inter-mixed together now, and all letting out screams of fear, and frustration at all of this madness. Tabitha is surrounded by it on the northern-most of the three ships, while the southern-most is no better with people rushing to the best choice cover to try and hide from what was to come. But what does come is a massive explosion from Tabitha's strange powers! It shocks, it awes, and it sends waves across the starboard side of one ship, and the port side of another! The waves crash up, and crash over, splashing across the decks of all ships, including a converging of waves on the sides of the middle tanker ship! This creates a duel of waves that rush over, and across the ship, drenching everyone aboard, and outside of cover...

Including Rogue and her Father who have landed on the deck just in time for the crashing of the waves. With the attacks to the Caster from Roberto, Jean, and now a third... Owen steps forward, levels his sawed-off shotgun and pulls the trigger, firing one blast of buckshot right at the man with the magical staff!

Owen keeps walking, walking toward the Caster, glaring at him, he pulls the trigger again, and fires off a second blast too!

What was a difficult challenge of summoning the energy to stop even one of these attacks, now becomes an impossible ask of the man not trained for this kind of onslaught!

The attacks break through, and strike across the Caster's body. He goves flying backward toward the massive Middle Gateway, that is shaking and shimmering, with more snow-white ash falling through its opening from whatever twisted world lies on the other side...

The Caster's staff clatters to the ground and slides over to the feet of the Wolverine, where it falls dormant, the glowing pink crystal at its peak suddenly going dark.

With a wave of energy that washes over the middle ship, sending people, and objects alike, flying backward, the middle Gateway suddenly snaps closed, leaving a bright white scarred gash across the bow of the ship...

... followed by the peaceful sounds of the ocean, mixed in with the madness of confused cries from all of the innocent bystanders that clog the decks of all three ships.

The Blackbird hovers up in the sky to the aft of the middle ship, and silently observes with its computer systems. From the grey skies above, snow flakes, real snow flakes-- and not weird ash --starts to fall from above, and a cold wind throws itself across the sea, and all here in the aftermath of the chaos.

Monet St. Croix has posed:
M is still looping around as things go to detonate along and the ships rock from the ramming, the exploding, and the sorts of 90's action blast panels that Michael Bay might use for whenever his next movie got off the ground. M is flying right along over as the energy would zap out, an da flashing array of light would blind her..

"Ugh!"

She slows herself to a halt, body hovering in midair wiht a silent screech as if she had suddenly kikced on the brakes as the carrier would vanish. And leave just the ships, the hostages, and all the cargo behind.

She would look agonized for just a few moments <<Ms. Pryde, what is the current going rate for oil being sold on the world market? I believe that any sort of solvency issues for the Institute can be resolved for the short term future. I presume, Mister Da Costa, that you have no issues with laundering the funds?>>

Logan Howlett has posed:
Him?

Easiest shit that's been said today.

"Alright bub, let's dance."

Wolverine literally /leaps/ at the Caster! Claws at the ready! "RRAAAA-OOF!" the wave of energy that washes over the ship sends him flying backwards until his back slams against a wall and he falls to the ground, landing face first on metal floor.

"....fuck."

He gets back up to a knee, looking around. "Where'd that fucker go?" Logan questions any of his teammates, looking around. <Sitrep! Everyone still alive?>

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa lands on the deck of the northern-most ship. Dropping in the scrum with a gentle touch he raises the temperature of the cultists closest to him only to pull that energy out of them just as quickly dropping their temperature causing intense agony in those closest to Tabs. He drops the anchors and offers to pick Tabby up gently, cradling her injured arm if she consents. <<Dad will want his cut but money laundering is a service we offer.>> No, Berto isn't happy about it but he knows what he works for and if the darkness in his company can aid the light.

Jean Grey has posed:
As the great wave crashes over the deck, Jean's instinct turns back to defense - for Owen's sake most of all - turning in its direction and holding up both her hands. The wave crashes, heavy, over top of them... but then passes around them, broken and diverted, until the white surf and darker water outlines a perfect spherical bubble. For all her prior efforts, it may be surprising that THIS one seems to strain her the most, with the women clenching her teeth momentarily, gritting through it until the wave fully splashes over them.

It turns out water is heavy, and there's a lot of it. Much bigger deal than a few hundred rounds of ammunition!

"Everyone OK?" she wonders when it's finally passed, double checking, first visually between Owen and Rogue nearby her on the deck (Logan's always fin). Then her check expands to the mental realm, to account for everyone on the team spread amongst the ships. Indeed, that sweep soon expands outward, skimming the water nearby. It's inevitable people have gone overboard in all of this, prisoners and cultists alike. And they're the good guys, so they've got a responsibility to render aid. <<I'm locating survivors. I'll ping them for pickup.>>

Then, a moment later, there's a quiet ahem. <<And I'll be getting in touch with the authorities in regards to the facility, see if we can't get the Coast Guard out here to deal with all the ships and people.>> It's a simple fact that the X-Men don't have the resources on hand to deal with this scale of things. The survivors will need medical care, help contacting families. The cultists will need to go to jail. It's going to be a whole production.

At last, she turns and walks toward where the caster stood, wnear Logan and the fallen staff. "Looks like you scared him off," she offers, smiling, before lifting the staff into the air - very purposefully without touching it. "We're going to need to have someone look at this, I think. But for now... I think we've earned ourselves a warm flight home and a drink, yeah?"

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Soaked and drenched and maybe contributing to a lot of the rainfall, if not the rest of the actual wet weather after that big an explosion. Tabitha finds herself some cover to kep out of the way of fighting.

<<Buy laundromats. Drop money there. Launder sheets and cash!>> she suggests over the mind link while she tries and catches some breath.

She's gonna need some help getting back on the plain but for now at least she doesn't mind joking over a mind link she's not manageing. <<So did we also just become like pirates?>> she asks.

At least the portals are closed and she can't see if Owen got guns over the line and into the other realm. <<So you know we're like probably gonna eventually have to go over ourselves right? Gonna need extra carb loading for that!>> she adds and chuckles.

Rogue has posed:
A pair of scuffed cowboy boots stop at the metal staff that lays on the ground. A second later and Owen is reaching down to retrieve it. He raises it up in both his hands, and spins it around once before the wet metal staff is held still, so his eyes can scan it over from stem to tip. That dormant pink crystal can be seen through a latice-work of metal wires encasing it. Owen lets out a short little huff of a laugh.

Rogue, beside Jean, looks around at the other team members, and the others who are gathered around. Her hair wet now around the sides of her face, Rogue nods her head once to Jean. "I'll go pluck people outta the drink." She tells the redhead with a soft smile. "Let me know where they are." She adds, passing by Logan. "Good job, growly." She tells the Wolverine.

The Belle takes to the sky and starts a downward swoop around the base of the middle oil tanker, looking for people who may have been washed overboard.

The snow continues to fall down from the grey skies above as Owen walks back toward Jean, and the others within ear shot.

"Yeah. We're gonna have to go in there and help the people out. Those guns, if they got in to the hands of my friends, should start a level of change that hasn't ever been seen before there on the 'other side' though. So thank you, all of you." He says, looking to Logan, Roberto, and then out to the other ships. "You guys got quite an operation here."

He then raises the staff up and sets it down on its end upon the hard deck of the ship. "This... by the by, is gonna help us get to the 'other side'. We're just going to have to figure out the magic words." He says with a self satsified smile.

Some of the cultists left behind here on the ships are starting to wake up now, whatever 'mind' power was controlling them causing them to wake up, and in time they're going to start to remember their true selves more, speak of a lot of confusion about how they ended up here, and who... what, and why.