14817/Operation WATCHFUL: NERD PROM

Operation WATCHFUL: NERD PROM
Date of Scene:	07 May 2023
Location:	Medical Ward: Triskelion
Synopsis:	SHIELD takes Sauron to see Queen Tanya and it goes expectedly horribl, provoking the Brood Queen's full emergence. While she fights the group, Rogue combines her draining powers with Sauron's, and his hypnosis is able to help free Tanya's part of her psyche and push back the Queen intelligence. At the same time, it provokes a release of all the Queen's knowledge. This is overwhelming to most, but Cinque's power allows him to usefully process the information. It includes glimpses of the entirety of Brood civilization, spanning eons and parts of the universe unknown to humanity. There is good news and bad. The good: they know where the bioweapons are being stored. The bad? The Brood in some of those furthest reaches may still exist, free of the Phoenix's wrath - and potentially aware of this single wayward Queen. Also, a very gentlemanly Sauron requests an unorthodox team-up.
Cast of Characters:	Darcy Lewis, Rogue, Mary Jane Watson, Richard Stadler, Cinque Evers

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Darcy Lewis has posed:
Previously

Dr. Tanya Anderssen, patient zero and woman who would be (Brood) Queen, is 'awake' despite efforts to contain her. Or at least, her mind is. After monitors picked up increased brain activity, she was quickly identified as being psychically active, part of the Brood's hivemind physiology. SHIELD brought in mutant telepath Emma Frost to consult even as the degree of psychic output quickly increased, beginning to overwhelm the dampening fields around her containment ward.

Emma was able to make contact with Tanya's mind inside the Brood transformation. While cooperative, she feared the Queen would soon subsume her and 'connect' the Hive regardless of distance. Even her death wouldn't make a difference: the Brood biology would generate a new Queen in another host, one not in SHIELD's control. Thus, they had a small window of opportunity: at that point of apotheosis, where she might be able to exercise her connection while still in control of her own faculties. But she needed help.

Enter Dr. Karl Lykos, aka Sauron, Tanya's research partner... and more.

Now

It isn't difficult for SHIELD to arrange the transfer. The Doctor, in human form, is as cooperative as ever, and eager to help his life-long love. They have a full security retinue to transfer him to the Triskelion medical ward, while wearing a sort of reverse-hazmat suit to keep from contact. That's how his 'energy vampire' ability works, supposedly, triggering the Sauron transformation if he drains other metahumans. So, far, so good. Except...

"I... don't know what I can do, what she expects me to do," the man laments, viewing the containment pod containing Tanya's body, still from the far side of the observation room window. "With time, I might help in researching countermeasures to the altered retrovirus, but that won't be fast enough to save her. Did she... explain, why it is, she thought I could help?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue, from the X-Men, is here. She'd been on the team that brought Lykos in to SHIELD.

She stands off to the side of it all, wearing a tight fitting bodysuit with what looks like black synthetic leather going up her middle in the front and back, and a deep forest green mesh-like material going up the outsides of her torso and legs. Her arms are left bare, save for gloves of black she's wearing on her hands, and some kind of smart watch wrapped around her left wrist. Her hair is tied up in to a nice bun on the crown of her head, save for her snow-white bangs that frame her facial features.

Her green eyes have been roaming the room quite regularly as people within it move around, but they always return to Lykos, or 'Sauron' as she first met him back at Ryker's Island's prison break...

It's well known that she doesn't like him since then, and it only got worse every subsequent interaction. Lykos though? She's not attacking him, so that's something.

The southern woman just folds her arms across her stomach, just over the black leather utility belt that is placed around her waistline, a black metal 'X' buckle sitting at the belt's connection over her pelvis.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane Watson hasn't been involved much with Sauron (she did see Stegron during the whole 'turn the city into dinosaurs' era). She's here more in the purview of.. Well, someone who's socially outgoing, the ranks of which SHIELD is not exactly fleshed out with. So she's wearing something more casual, glancing to the rest of those present before turning to Rogue. "Might Woman, right? Really big fan." She would glance back over at Lykos..

"Be nice if for once things canbe resolved just by kissing the girl." Not that it's ever that simple. But.. They just have to see what Tanya's hopes are and run with them. And hope that it doesn't turn into a whole beat down.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Richard stands in front of the airlock to the containment cell, dressed in the same sort of hazmat suit he had worn when they had... discussed things with Doctor Anderssen the last time they were there. Things had generally... not improved. Drugging was certainly running the knife's edge of what they could do to keep her physic manfestiations in check without outright killing her, and they were rapidly reaching the threshold point with that decision. And at this point, it wasn't as if it could be made worse by trying crazy things.

Worse comes to worse, they'd have a few corpses on their hands; it'd be hardly noticeable in what would be the war should they fail.

To Lykos, he gives a stoic glare. "To be honest, I'm not sure what you're expected to do, either. She mentioned you could 'help her control it' until she could help us 'find it'. I don't know what that means, but I hazard a guess to indicate your powers might be able to take the pressure they're putting on her off so she can attempt a mental counter offensive."

He shakes his head. "I won't understate the risks for you here. If something goes wrong, I know contingiences are in place to ensure this facility isn't lost. That is... not the optimal outcome."

Rogue is given a quick look. Standard 'superhero' costume, from the looks of it, but she did seem last time that she knew what she was doing, and he'd hope that would continue. To Mary Jane, someone he had just met for a sparring session, he comments. "Wouldn't that be cinematic? Real life sadly doesn't work that way. At least as far as I've seen."

Cinque Evers has posed:
The SHIELD academy academic instructors quickly learned that Cinque doesn't need a lot of study time between their combat oriented training, so he gets to be the "lucky" recruit assigned to these extra duties. Eyes squint slightly due to his deep concentration of all the data, he is trying to review on the Brood. Cinque bites the bottom of his lip as he beginning to miss dealing with drug dealers, power brokers...you know nemesis that don't bury themselves inside your head.

Cinque furrows his brow slightly as he realizes how much information that he still has to go through. Cinque starts to tap his right foot on the ground as he begins to try to put the various pieces together.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
As usual, Darcy is coordinating across departments, more than being an expert herself. "She was clearly fighting with the emerging Queen-intelligence to even 'talk' to us at all," she tacks on to Richard's recap.

Lykos' expression is somewhat bleak, but he doesn't seem surprised. Arrangements had been made to supply access to their database of Brood research. He is, after all, a genius geneticist. "The Brood genome is extremely dense, encoding a considerable information at the genetic level. 'Species memory' if you will. That is what allows the new mind within the host to function with such intelligence and intent. The Queen is making every effort to erradicate her. Indeed..." And his tone turns grim. "It may already have done so. This could all be a trick."

Still, the little information Richard has for him is what he has to work from, and he will do so the best he can. "You know where the hive is already, and she knows as much. So if she's to help us find something.. perhaps the still-missing bioweapons? Or others they've already infected, lurking in secret amongst the population?" Lovely thought.

And while MJ has a more off-the-cuff way of putting it, she is ultimately suggesting the same thing. "Sauron might be able to overpower the Queen physiology, and his hypnosis is more brute force than Miss Frost's methods. He may well be able to control her, or help her access blocked memory. The question, then, is whether you can control him."

It's this that has him looking back at Rogue for a moment, and then Stadler again. "I'll risk anything for her, if I must. With permission, then, I will enter the chamber and begin removing the suit. Engage whatever security precautions you deem necessary. Obviously, I will cease being quite so... cooperative, at the point that we make contact."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue had greeted Darcy and Richard upon arrival here, choosing to stand not too far from where Darcy was now. Her eyes went to each person as they spoke, but currently reside solely upon Lykos now.

"Ya better not do anything unsavory in there, Mistah." She quietly says to him. "Ya claim to care about this woman, yet look what you let happen to her." She adds, glancing in Tanya's direction before looking back at him.

"We're here to help her get better, if possible. If ya try'n undermine that, this will be the last time ya ever lay eyes on her, let alone anythin' else..."

Is that the kind of way SHIELD personnel would talk to Lykos? Probably not, but that's the risk of inviting outsiders in on SHIELD parties.

Rogue keeps that soft smile, or smirk, on her lips as she shifts her weight from one deep treaded booted foot to the other, her arms staying crossed over her stomach.

Rogue's green eyes slip off Lykos over to Mary-Jane then, the woman's recognition of her 'street name' gets a more prominent positive expression befalling her facial features. "Well ain't that a pleasure to hear. Nice to meet you too, Sugah. Though in this setting, I'm going by a different name. Mighty Woman is more of a public moniker for the media an' kids." She leans over toward Mary and whispers. "I'll tell ya more about it later." She says in good humor.

Richard Stadler has posed:
Richard grimaces, giving a nod to Lykos's assessment. I'm not a geneticist by trade, but that makes sense on how we're seeing such a mental shift in a short of time. But there's a strong question on, even if she can fight it off, if recovery is possible." He's not a medical doctor, after all; he doesn't need much of a bedside manner. "If this is a trick, though, to get you in their and use you, well." He says, tapping the pistol at his hip. "As I said. There are risks to this operation, but it's the best of a baad option we have, and we simply have to try."

He... doesn't look pleased on the options. "A stockpile, I'm certain we could handle. To be honest, I'm hoping it's something like a C3I node; something nerve point we can hit to scatter their operations. If it's... infected amoung the population... that becomes worse. Much worse. Seal the bridges and deploy the national guard type worse."

Which is why he's looking over Rogue. "I agree. If he tries anything, or if 'Sauron' tries anything, we'll be ready with a forceful response. But I want to make sure we're clear about objectives here. You may be here to help her get better, and I want that too. But our primary objective is to stop generation of brood forces and defeat any that have been created. And I have to say that her safety, as well as yours, Dr. Lykos, and mine, is secondary to that objective. Are we clear?"

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane Watson would nod to Darcy, "Putting Sauron on her is likely a last ditch ption.. It's dangerous for her and for you, Doctor." To Lykos. Sauron's something they have no guarantees of controlling, and also puts Tanya at risk if something messes up.

She would nod to Cinque, "Looks like we're going to be playing date night here. See how we can help them and see if we can try and.." Try and get Tanya free of the parasite? No, they can't get that lucky. Slow the transformation and let her keep her sanity? Hopefully.

She would give a soft nod over to Rogue, "You're doing a lot of good things out there, Mighty Gal." SHe would quip over to the Southern Belle. "Sort of figured. Still fits you very well. And yeah.. I'll hear about it later." She would give a wink over at Rogue while looking bcak to Lykos.

Humming under her breath 'Under the Sea' while tapping over on her arm, looking relaxed. So they have to be onhand to try and give Lykos advise, monitor.. And hope that things don't escalate.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Mary Jane's comment about the situation illicits a slight smirk, as he stops tapping his foot against the floor. "You might be right." Cinque tilts his head from side to side, "My apologizes, but this is a lot of weird date, so it is a bit difficult for me to grasp some of these concepts." Cinque grinds his teeth for a few moments as he begins to explain his thinking, "So can we remove the memories, and place them in someone else without the other stuff?"

Cinque shakes his hand as if he is shifting imaginary sand in hand, "If we can weaken the process, so that are we are dealing with are the memories, I am almost positive that I can store all of their species memories in my head. If we can separate the other stuff, and just leave the memories. I can take those. It is not going to overwhelm me."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us," Lykos answers Richard. Apparently, when he's not a giant lizard, he favors Gandalf over Sauron.

Given that this is SHIELD, permission was decided well ahead of time. This is well above Darcy's pay grade, and it's already gone up through the ranks - to Brand at SWORD, and to Deputy Director Hill. Maybe it even got to Fury's desk. They're a 'destroy the world' threat, after all. Darcy's just the mouthpiece. "You're cleared to enter and make contact. Then attempt to help her gain control or access any information."

She looks sidelong at Rogue. It's not exactly random chance, that she's who the X-Men sent. "One of your prior reports says you've been able to sort of... stalemate this guy? You're outside SHIELD command, but if you're up for playing chaperone, you've been given dispensation to enter.You'll be under contamination risk, especially if you need to touch him. It's up to you." She looks back to her control panel. "Regardless, backup plan number one is that we'll pump the chamber with an anaesthetizing agent to try and subdue him."

She doesn't detail backup plan #2. Safe to say, it's less humane.

However, Cinque's suggestion seems to broach an idea she hadn't quite consided. "Can... we actually do that? Work up some kind of memory transfer, using you two?" She looks back and forth between him and Rogue. "We've been thinking of just getting her memories out, but maybe we could just dump the whole thing?"

Lykos soon makes his way into the airlock, along with whatever escort. And then, finally, into the inner chamber. There, he removes his helmet, then his gloves, before approaching the pod. When he does, the lid opens, hissing lightly. For a few moments, the man just stands there, looking over Tanya's slumbering form. And then...

Well, MJ called it.

Hunched over, he leans down to give her a light touch of a kiss. It's a little bit Sleeping Beauty, if it'd had a horror director. Moments later, the back of his suit ruptures as huge, dark green wings burst open from within.

Sauron isn't the only one that wakes up, though. In the midst of his transformation, he's thrown backward across the chamber. From inside the pod, then, they can see a number of extra, insectoid limbs outstretched. These then grip the sides of the pod, and lift Tanya out from inside.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue uncrossed her arms when the subject of what she could do to keep Sauron at-bay comes up. She looks to this Cinque fellow, who's an unknown to her, then back over to Darcy. "I dunno about him, but when I take memories from someone, that same someone falls inta a coma, potentially for a long damn time..." She says with a touch of somberness to her tone. She sees Lykos going inside the chamber though, and starts toward him...

Her hands start to pull off the black gloves that were upon them as she goes, her fingers wiggling inside them until she pops each one off her hands, leaving them bared and exposed...

She joins Lykos within the chamber, and observes from afar. Naturally it doesn't take long for her to get a bad feeling about this, though, and as she sees the Doctor kiss the girl, she sees the wings start to pop out the back of his garments.

Rogue steps back as Lykos is shot backward, then she's moving toward him when he crumples upon the floor. In a ready-stance, Rogue moves to put a foot down on his chest to try to keep him where he is. "stay down!" She commands him, while the situation with Tanya eludes her as it is taking place behind her now...

Richard Stadler has posed:
"Memory transffer is... I imagine a possible threat. YOu might be certain it isn't going to overwhelm you, but these are... memories of an alien species, one that deals in psionics. How do we know what you'll take with it? What you'll think after?" He didn't know Cinque's skillset, of course. But something this big had him consider all the angles of what might go wrong. That didn't mean they weren't going to do it anyway, however. Like he had said, they were only down to bad options and worse options. He looks to Rogue, and grimaces. "Honestly... that maybe exactly what we're calling for here. Recovery would be challenging, I'm assuming, but something that leaves her sedate, alive, and with what information she has avalible in our hands is preferable. Though I'd rather leave today without any casualities..." He trails off. He didn't need to say it.

He also didn't need to mention that the operative word was 'trying' to subdue them. He knew as well as anyone that they were running the red line on what they were adminsitering, and anethsia was one of those fields where it was often 'not enough' or 'cardiac arrest.' "We do have some back up plans." Or he did. He wasn't ready for it, however, not yet. There were pleanty of people to spook here, and it wouldn't have been needed. Most likely.

The airlock hisses shut, and Stadler posts himself at the door of the chamber; his mask and hood were already pulled up, leaving him with thaat inhuman apperance that even a mask like the M50, with it's broad visor instead of lens, failed to solve. He watched Lykos move over to the pod itself, to give her.. a kiss. It was... reflexive to be concerned about any sort of contact like that, but wasn't that the point? Exchange energy so they could-

Okay. First, large wings on his back. And second limbs, tentacles, and whatever that /thing/ that Tanya was for the moment. And Rick knew that he may have underestimated the threat. Rogue has the Doctor handled, and it left her open enough... which meant Stadler's gloved hand quickly draws the pistol at his thigh, and fires three rounds toward's the creature's center mass. Kinetic gel, of course, wasn't an Icer; It was much more forceful, expending the kinetic energy of the shots into the maximum about of blunt force trauma. It was like being hit with a sledge hammer, but it wouldn't pierce the skin. And that wasn't going to be enough.

"Lewis!" He yells. "Black case next to the airlock! Slide it through!"

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane Watson isn't in the room at the moment, being externally as security over as she would watch the transformation manifest itself along with the feeling that they might have been played a bit here. she goes to look about, moving to quickly grab at a set of very, very large vibro-hammers, quickly going to grab htem up to full power and ready to rush on in if they needed her. She would quickly get over by the entrance and move to get positioned for a 'breach' as backup. Readying the two very, very large bludgeons in case she needed to go for a fast takedown.

And she and Sonja go to work in sync. Sonja's heart beats with mercy for the woman transformed agaisnt her will trying to hold herself together. Mary Jane is horrified. Sonja takes guidance as seh evaluates where they could hit Tanya if need be to try and slow her without risking crippling her. And as Rick goes to yell about the Slick, she moves quickly to be backup - or put herself in place if containment was breached and Darcy was charged at!

Cinque Evers has posed:
"Psionics is a form of energy." Cinque continues to scan through the data on the Brood, "If someone can absorb the energy, I have the memories inside my mind." Cinque nods his head, "The memories will not get out, and the psionic link will be broke." Cinque frowns slightly, "The coma thing doesn't make me feel good about this, but it could be an adding blessing to shift through all of the species memory." Cinque nods his head slightly, "I think we just need to figure out quickly to have the Brood to leave her, and come to me.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"Fool!" Sauron hisses up at Rogue as she immediately does the very Roguish thing of assuming the worst and pinning him there on the floor. "For once, I am on your sssside! We must fight HER!" That said, he doesn't really have the patience to wait on her better sense of 'team spirit' to kick in, and instead grabs her ankle with both hands and hurls her into a wall!

Fortunately Rogue's a toughie.

With her thrown free, Sauron lunges at the Queen, who now has taken a more commanding and dangerous position at the center of the room. Each of those extra limbs extending from her back is tipped with a rather nasty spike, and she can fight off multiple foes at once with them. Sauron makes a flying lunge, but she responds with impecable reflexes, catching him with two of the spikes, one in each shoulder, arresting his charge. Richard fires, impacting on the carapace that's grown over her otherwise still feminine humanoid form. She clearly feels the force of them, swaying on her spindly supports. In reply, she thrusts one of those limbs back at the man responsible. The other one?

It goes right into the window in front of Darcy.

It doesn't break, but they can see the spider-web of fractures spreading in the aftermath. "Fuck."

The console is lit up with just about every alarm imaginable at this point, but she still resists the urge to start hitting the 'backup' buttons. Instead, she scrambles to get the case that Richard asks for. Opening it on the nearer side, she slides the case right across, up to the second door, then hits the control. Her side closes, the other side opens, and in theory, she'll close it as soon as Richard gets it...

...instead, another one of those limbs stabs into the chamber, maybe trying to catch the case, or maybe just force it open.

"I don't think we've got the choice to play safe!" she shouts over the comm. "We just need to get the three of you on the Queen!" And yes, that includes Sauron. "You can kick his ass later, Miss Rogue! For now... I don't know, trust in the power of love?"

Rogue has posed:
Sauron has been a formidable opponent for the X-Men's Southern Belle.

She's tossed aside in to the wall, impacting against it with a loud thud of her body slamming in to immovable structure. She isn't really stunned very long though as she drops down to one knee, then bounces back up to both of her booted feet.

By this time, Sauron has engaged with the Queen, and the Queen's arms were in wild motion.

Rogue leapt up in the air, her right knee raising up as she flies at high speed toward the Queen's midsection, to deliver a powerful knee to her side!

"Ya'll got a way with the ladies! Sometimes ya just gotta get rough!" She shouts as she moves to put her bare arms around the Queen's throat.

Rogue is going to try and choke the Queen out, with her strength, and obviously her dangerously bare arms and hands...

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
And Red Sonja goes to leap past over into the airlock. She has those two huge power hammers that she's grabbed that she's holding as if they weigh nothing over in each hand. And is going to simply leap in at the Queen. The first extended arm intercepts her, and she goes to smash over at it. There are sounds of cracking, of carapace breaking like twisting ankles. But even then another one is striking towards her. Rogue is no doubt by far the greater threat..

So they're just being sent at her to slow her down so she can't itnerfere. And yet Sonja is hacking away at them. Or less hacking and more hammering, attempting to crush an strike at the limbs spiking at her as quickly as she could! But over the span of seconds that the melee in the breached airlock goes..

Richard Stadler has posed:
Richard is beginning to think that this was, perhaps, not as 'least bad' as other options, as that alien creature and the lizard leap at each other in combat, and rogue Rogue goes flying to the wall. She at least recovered quickly... which he couldn't say for himself if the same thing happened. Good thing, too, because it was all hands on deck for this one. His own rounds were somewhat effective, but any success was short lived, as the limb... tentacle... whatever it was leaps out toward him. It'd rip through the suit as he dodge, to the left, slamming aganist the opening airlock as it clears the way... and the creature seems to try to get out.

Bad. This was bad. He moves quickly inside the held open door, dashing for the case and doing all he could to wrench it free of the limbs attempting to grab at it, draging it to the side and popping it open.

One of the benefits with working for SHIELD was the sort of ordance they could source. the SPAS-15 had been out of production for some time, but it just took a request and the right paperwork to have one in the case itself, packed with a set of clips tapped in different colors. Two Blue, one yellow, and one red. The weapon is removed, the folding stock flicked out in a practiced motion, the yellow tapped clip grabbed and shoved into the magazine well, before the charginging handle was pulled. He only had a brief time to aim, but hopefully what he was sending down wouldn't hit Rogue.

The taser rounds had a capacitor, connected to two progs; 50 thousand volts did something to a nervous system, and it didn't usually matter if that nervous system was human or alien. He hoped.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Cinque sneaks in behind Red Sonja, and stays out of the way of Richard using trying to use a taser on the creature. "At the very least, this is going to provide more time for everyone to come up with a solution. Cinque bites his lips as he runs in behind Red Sonja and concentrates on opening his mind to the Brood, instead of using his psionic shield to block psionic attacks he is trying to lure the Brood to attack him. "Hey, you don't want a cramp one room apartment in the city, I have a huge seven story mansion with an infinity pool.

Cinque says, "The host normally dies when they transfer, but I am hoping that since that she is not fully transform a medical team can save. Cinque taps his right foot on the ground, "Someone or someones needs to force her to want to infect me, and hopefully my powers can do the rest.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"I CAN HEAR THEM!" the Queen cries in utter elation, still in Tanya's voice. It's not fully clear just how bad that is, but combined with the image of the the woman standing at the center of the room, her many limbs fighting off all comers? Yeah, it feels pretty bad.

And yet, while the Queen seems to be menacing them in all directions at once with her bladed limbs, they do have a limit. It's actually quite straightforward - with two of them acting as 'legs' (her human legs are held well above the ground), she has six 'arms' left. Two are still holding Sauron. Another pair are harassing Richard and Darcy (and the case). That leaves two! Math!

As MJ charges forward, it'ss these limbs that engage her, 'dueling' with her hammers. The arachnoid limbs are thin but strong, and deadly with their razor-sharp tips. With thrusts and swipes, they force her to dodge and weave, and then strike back.

And then, with a mighty blow of those hammers, one cracks. It's a good choice of weaponry, really. Like a mallet for a nice crab supper...

Darcy takes Sonja's entrance as her own chance to fall backward. The whole lab is effectively contaminated now, so there's no worrying about the airlock now. The outer door has already locked them all in. The 'backup plans' are still there waiting, and, if this all fails, well... someone has to push the button.

Richard gets out his gun, gets it up, and just before the limb harassing him moves to run him through, he fires. She's a big enough target and he hits dead on. And she definitely feels it. For a moment, all of the limbs go wild, whirling and slashing, but largely at random.

At the end of all this, there's Rogue and Cinque. The former is given a clear path by her allies, and as she reaches Tanya, she finds that the humanoid-shaped body is not human strenght. One of her hands is caught at the wrist, the Queen demonstrating great strength. But her knee hits, and a moment later, she gets her hand in place.

The energy transfer begins immediately, although even in the instant, Rogue will understand that it's... different. There's just so much there, not just the sum of this one body, but somehow, she can feel the whole of the hive beyond, as if they were a single organism, connected across space. It's terrifying.

Nonetheless. Tanya's own lifeforce isn't quite so vast. She'll weaken, slowly, and the process speeds up as Sauron fights his way forward, breaking off another one of those limbs and yanking out the other (leaving one end in his shoulder) before closing in with Rogue. He pushes in close, right up to her face, and as the two of them start draining, makes eye contact.

"Pleeease, my love. Let us help you!" Aw?

It's not clear what happens next, exactly, but there's a terrible kind of psychic backlash throughout the room. He's unlocked something, maybe, or unlocked EVERYTHING in the haste to find whatever information they can, to let Tanya find some way to speak through. But it's rapidly overwhelming, especially to both Rogue and Sauron, who are more tightly connected. Cinque feels it, like all of them do, but for him? That vastness is far more digestible. It turns him into kind of a power sink, overflow tank, taking in what would be too much for either of the others.

And... there's a lot.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue's gotten a little arrogant with her absorbtion power, even if she doesn't use it a whole hell of a lot, she has Jean... she has the Professor... she has Emma.... she has Betsy.... all to fall back on for help sorting through whatever mental burdens she takes in to her own mind. That crew has collectively been cleaning out Rogue's 'attic' for the past 5 years of the Southern Belle being a staple at Xavier's School.

She's been terrified a lot throughout those five years too. The X-Men go up against a lot of wild foes, after all...

Still though, this one is dealing with something Rogue hates.

Space. She hates space.

With a fierce expression though, she maintains and tries hard to just keep her body connected to the Queen's. It is reminiscent of when she drained Carol Danvers, in fact... something she wouldn't really like to talk about around all these SHIELD-types either.

Rogue's angry eyes do look toward Sauron though, and she growls out at him.

"Do somethin'! Whatever it is you do! Do it now!" She commands of the winged man who claimed he was here to 'help' with this situation.

Cinque is a stranger though, and she has no knowledge on how to help him with his own mind sapping powers. She just clings to Tanya like a spider-monkey!

Richard Stadler has posed:
This would be important information, no doubt; electricity seemed to work toward stunning them. Granted, it worked on stunning a lot of things, and 4 highly trained professionals were struggling to contain one, so it may not be indicative of typical results. And Rick would one day find that corner of his head that made observations like this at such times and question exactly what the hell it thought it was doing.

The rest of him was busy bringing up the SPAS itself to block the random slashing of one of those limbs streching out toward him, struggling toward his feet after fumbling and grabbing for one of the blue tapped clips. The almost-full magazine of taser rounds clatters to the floor, the one already in the chamber popping out and smacking aganist a portion of shattered chamber glass as the new clip was loaded and the charging handle clacking forward. But he held off firing. The last round and the rest were enough to shove the alien queen down, suck her energy up, if the way she looked was any indication. Which was good, because he wasn't keen on knowing who or what she could hear.

Not that he might have a choice in the matter, as the mental energy feels oppressive, even with his untuned mind. Again things were building to a head, and they didn't have IV's in her this time. He pressed forward, aiming the weapon at the queen's restrained midsection carpace, finger on the trigger. "Get it done!" He yells to Lykos, before turning his head. "Lewis! Finger on the goddamn button! Slam it in sixty!"

Cinque Evers has posed:
He is not sapping the energy, he just allowing the psychic backlash of the Brood being expelled to find a more suitable home. Cinque grinds his teeth and clenches his hands tightly as his allows the alien memories to enter his mind, "I can remember the aroma, taste, the color, and the texture of every food I have ever tasted, I can remember every sound, no matter how beautiful that I ever heard, the beauty of every individual raindrop in every bit of rain, and every individual snowflake! I already have lifetimes of information inside me!

The combination of all of his multitasking, super-processing, and panmensia begins to process the horrific history of the Brood's hive mind. Cinque relaxes his hands a bit and takes a deep breathe, "I am getting the memories, and I am 95 percent accurate that I can handle the information that is being released."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
It's questionable if either Rogue or Sauron would have been able to overwhelm her on their own, but together? The duo of power-drainers is formiddable! A new and iconic team-up for the ages. Would Rogue ever have imagined such a thing?

Still, in the end, it is Sauron's battle.

There is the obvious matter of his hypnotic gaze, the battle of wills he carries out, once unwinnable, but now at increasing advatange. Bt there are other differences. Though he and Rogue share similar gifts, they are not identical. She always takes everything of a person, while Sauron is far more choosy, taking their strength, but not their mind and soul to such an extent. Sometimes, this is an advantage for Rogue, but more often, it is a curse, and never is that more obvious than now. With that direct conduit, she takes on the psychic flood ten times as fast.

In mere instants, she witnesses the million-year evolution of a race that spans the distant reaches of the universe, lodged within that genetic memory. She sees their conquests, the conversion of whole worlds and the enslavement of the Acanti (big space whales, for the uninitiated). Likewise, she experiences their utter terror as they face fiery annihilation at the hands of one of her closest friends.

But there is more than that, not only memories of the past, but knowledge of the present, visions of the future...

It's just too much. She has to let it go.

... but Cinque doesn't. Beyond the cosmic odyssey of the Brood past, he sees some of what is to come. The Queen is connected to all of them, from the giant biomass present in the Savage Land, to much more minute quantities residing much closer. She can feel every cell, including the ones in those weaponized cannisters, and well, now he can too. And she can feel something else, a presence that is incomprehensibly distant, and uncountably vast. The Queen is reaching out to it...

Then, all at once, it stops.

At last, Sauron has done it. His will break's the Queens, gains dominion, and thrusts her back. He cannot defeat the infection, but the intelligence it breeds? That he drives and batters, back into the smallest corner of the woman's mind. Until...

"...Karl? Is that you?" Tanya's voice is quiet, confused, and very unlike the one previously ready to decalre her victory. The damaged spider limbs weaken and then go slack, and Sauron has to catch the slim body they were holding up.

In the control room, at Richard's urging, Darcy has pulled herself up to the console, disengaged whatever safeties, and her hand now hovers over the button while she watches seconds tick off the clock. But this isn't a movie, and it doesn't make it to 00:00:01. "Uh, did that- does that mean he won?" She glances amongst the monitors, some of them flickering offline, but finds one still working. "I'm... seeing her brain pattern back to it's prior reading."

Gently, Sauron lays her back in the pod, before looking around at the rest of them. There is a moment of cunning consideration, as if he weighs whether now is the moment of his own escape... and decides against it. "We are all weakened, and so I propose a truce. If you have seen what I have just seen, you know many terrible things are coming-"

"-and I think you will need my help."