15012/Brood of the Savage Land: Heart of the Swarm

Brood of the Savage Land: Heart of the Swarm
Date of Scene:	10 June 2023
Location:	Dense Jungles
Synopsis:	An elite strike team infiltirates the Brood hive. They discover fully intelligent Brood drones, and not just a Queen, but a multitude of would-be Queens, each made from genetic material stolen from heroes who have previously encountered them. Meanwhile, the Brood begin some sort of space launch and an attempt to contact what seems to be a greater swarm beyond the limits of the local cluster. Although the Hulk smashes their WHOLE MOUNTAIN, things are still going bad and so SHIELD calls in the nukes, which serve as a Phoenix-snack for another psychic assault on the Hivemind. Earth 2, Brood 0. Cue Ewok Song!
Cast of Characters:	Jean Grey, Natasha Romanoff, Logan Howlett, Bobbi Morse, Audra Meridian, Bruce Banner, Rogue

---

Jean Grey has posed:
Months Earlier, the Aerie Shalan:

The imperious, feather-crested figure oversees a sight that is simultaneously a triumph of technology and a perversion of nature. Before her, a rocky cave hosts a high-tech creche, filled with glistening chrome machinery and an incubation pod at its center. Her form flickers at the edges, blue-hued. Projected in holographic form from across the star, the rogue Shi'ar princess Cal'syee Neramani dares not risk her own flesh near this monstrosity.

"The virus is aggressive, but unstable." This explanation comes from a woman in a white lab-coat, Dr. Tanya Anderssen. She is not a hologram. "We see constant mutagenesis, creatures evolving into new forms with each infection, but not natural reproduction. And without it..."

"-no intelligence, no access to their genetic memory," Deathbird finishes the sentence. "And no value to me. A weapon, but impossible to control. It is not the ally I seek."

Hours earlier:

A wave of novel Brood-mutates swarmed over the Zarhan plain, the western half of the main valley of the Savage Land. Before them were the ancient walls of Lemuria, a city held by the descendants of Atlantis, and then many beyond. To stop them, heroes came from around the world, joined by natives of the Savage Land. Wonder Woman led the Amazons beside Lemurian knights under Queen Leanne. The Fall People came too, as did the displaced Aerians, and even the Pterons, led by an unusual ally in Sauron. Joining them was the might of the US government: attack hellicopters and even a SHIELD hellicarrier.

Together, they destroyed wave after wave of the strange creatures, and even the colossal living war-machine at the center of their advance, dubbed by some a Brood 'King.' Yet, as the defenders know, it is no King that rules the Brood. And while the telepaths in their ranks had failed at disrupting the hivemind controlling the swarm, they had felt -something- at its center.

Now:

For much of the time the Brood had been active in the Savage Land, outside response - be it by superheroic deed or government intervention - had been held back by the meddling of the incomprehensibly ancient and alien computer system that maintained the unique local biome, effectively an AI zookeeper. With the aid of a particular linguistically talented mutant, those systems had finally been turned off, allowing the massive response at the battle earlier...

...and now, a strike upon the mountain spire at the center of the valley. Called the Aerie Shalan, it was the home of a native race of birdlike humanoids who came under the influence of a nasty birdlike alien. Then it became the center of the Brood hive.

No longer blacklisted by Celestial technology, Jean Grey is at the Blackbird's controls as the plane makes for the Aerie. Not far behind them, the SHIELD hellicarrier opens fire with artillery, rockets, and other heavy weapons. These target a variety of biological defensive structures that have 'grown' around the Aerie, as well as the swarms of flying Brood mutates that act as natural defenses.

And still, it's a rough trip in. Spore-like projectiles explode in the air, releasing acidic clouds, while the tiny aerial Brood swarm the plane, gnawing at every surface, or trying to climb inside the engines. Larger ones wing through the sky, forcing the Blackbird into hairpin maneuver sequences to avoid their prehensile tail-spikes, large and strong enough to puncture the plane's hull. Ahead of them, the mountain spire rises a couple thousand feet from the jungle floor. Their destination.

"I'm going on auto. Get ready to jump." As soon as the bay doors open, some of the creatures are already trying to get inside. It's go time.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
It's never going to be easy. With the SHIELD Contingent, Natasha Romanova goes to speak to the comm <<You know your targets, agents. Disperse and coordinate. Avoid getting bogged down in a melee unless there's no other choice of action. Pick your targets and prioriize>> They've been drilled in this and briefed on the Brood. They're present to take out high priority enemy assets and go to terminate. And leaving the very, very heavy hitters that aren't busy clearcutting the Kaiju to handle the enemy.
    Natasha isn't bothering to use a parachute as she leaps on down. Instead, she's bracing one arm over in front of her as a glowing shield forms as she dives downwards. An energy field designed to burn off the friction and heat, and take most of the thermal and kinetic energies. One doesn't want to risk gliding when the air is literally being -swarmed-.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Always with the damn jumpin'," Logan mutters to himself, unbuckling from his harness in the passenger section of the Blackbird and tugging the cowl of his costume down over his face, "We're impressive enough without descendin' from the skies, Jeanie."

That said, the mutant known as Wolverine still prepares himself. He rolls his shoulders, still getting used to the strange lightness he feels since the removal of the adamantium that laced his skeleton. He hops from foot to foot, puffing out his cheeks before taking a deep breath and letting it out with a huff.

He watches the bay doors open, welcomed by the screeching maws and slavering fangs of countless alien bug-a-boos. He brings his hands up before himself, gesturing at them with both hands.

"Hey, sweethearts, didja miss the ol' Canucklehead?"

SNIKT! His claws pop and with two confident strides he leaps into the air and out into the savage world beyond!

Bobbi Morse has posed:
<<The real question is - will your hero landing still look cool using that kinetic dispersal shield Nat?>>
Over the comms comes the voice of Bobbi Morse. The brood situation got too big to ignore even for her. <<Oh and for the record. If Lance asks, I was never here>> Because this is, technically, breaking their agreement. Going in to danger without telling the other. Doing it without them. Putting their life on the line without the usual negotiations over drinks and dog pats.

Her hands crossed over her chest, she drops off backwards from the helicarrier and falls like a bullet from the sky. There's no point trying to engage the flying creatures. There's too many of them and the rail guns on the helicarrier can do a better job. Their mission is as Nat specified.

As she rushes through the air she spreads out her arms and activates the holo-display on her visor. Up comes the flight control info, power goes to the alien wings of her Mockingbird suit, and the anti-gravity kicks in slowing her to a running stop as she lands upon the spire.

Her eyes look out over the jungle below and whistles, "How I missed you yet never wanted to return to you Savage Lands... but I'm here now." The feelings of utter day to day survival for years come rushing back to her. It brings a small smirk to her lips. Adrenaline junkie - it's right there in her file.

Audra Meridian has posed:
The order to get ready to jump is made, and as quickly as it is Audra is unbuckling from her seat and making for the hatch of the plane.

And of course they already have an attempted boarding to meet them. That gets Audra to delay jumping a moment. Not out of fright, but out of dealing with the issue, as she unleashes a shockwave of pressurized air to knock some of the alien fliers out of the way. Then grins. "Well, com'n, do you want to live forever?!" she semi-quotes, before leaping out the hatch herself.

She allows herself to fall far enough to get clear of the Blackbird and it's backwash, then deploys the thrusters and stabilizes from her pack. The ionized streams flicker in her wake as she makes for the spire, firing the occasional blast of wind to keep the airborn aliens from swarming upon those who down't have some manner of flight.

Bruce Banner has posed:
Bruce had come as gentetics, and biology were fields he was sure of. Though as they had approached he had gotten suspisious that it wasn't what it seemed. He looked at the spire, and smiled as the tech, and Brood they would definetly need Bruce not hulk for once. He was almost excited to hear when they would land as a hole opened up in the back. "Wait.. we are doing what?" and then saw people jumping. As he see's Nat jump Bruce goes to the edge, "wait I don't have a.." and sighs as he looks at the ground.

Of course standing by the edge of a hole that leads to the ground is a bad idea, as Bruce is turning around he slip grabbing out to someone but not reaching anyone as he falls backwards.

Falling directly down without a parachute he just yells flailing in the air as he drops at first straight down. There is no parachute, or anything to stop him from falling directly into the ground below him as he shoots off in one direction his fall direction turning as his body catches a bit of aerodynamics going the wrong way as he now is taken away in a direction though still falling to hit the ground with full impact.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue had been the co-pilot on the trip in, and she'd had a frown on her face for most of the last part of it. "This is why we need more defenses onboard this thing." She had muttered. "'Oh but Rogue, we're the defenses, all of our super cool Mutations!' Yeah, sure, if we were all crammed inside the thing at the same time. But we're like a grab-bag on who is ever inside and who is off doing random shit around the world." She's talking to herself again. Jean would be used to it. Chalk it up to her personality absorbing side effects.

Anyway. She had huffed when the door opened up and Jean abandoned the controls. Rogue gave one last affectionate stroke to the jet's dashboard and muttered. "Stay safe, I love you." to the plane before she stood up too, and grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair.

Joining the others at the back, Rogue was pulling her jacket on over her green and gold form-fitting bodysuit, and when the wind rushed inside, Rogue rushed out. On her way she punched one bug, and kicked another like a soccer ball!

She was right there with Banner too, only her flight power was keeping her safe from hitting the ground, and if he failed to go green before the ground came up, she'd save him too and set him down comfortably.

Unless she got intercepted by giant poison bugs between then and now of course.

Jean Grey has posed:
Months Earlier, the Aerie Shalan:

Dr. Anderssen emerges from that central pod, with a hiss of air and cloud of mist spilling out around her. Her body has yet to show signs of the infection, yet the process is well underway. Groggily, she looks around, and then makes her way to one of the computer terminals, checking through readouts. "The embryo growth is still in it's early stages. Why did you wake me?"

Deathbird's hologram appears. "To see how you are doing. The two of us, we have a deal, after all, a partnership. To form this vile genetic soup into something productive, the hive needs its Queen, and the Queen its host." The flickering vision smiles. "And with the research you've been doing, into controlling your man's condition... well, perhaps something of you will remain when it is done. And then we shall be friends, and I will repay you."

Now:

"Oh come on. Tell me you don't love it," Jean echoes back at Logan. "Besides, that attack force wasn't close to all of them. The jungles below are still absolutely seething with the critters. This is the best way in."

Set to be the last one out, Jean rises from the console and makes her way back as the Blackbird begins its programmed maneuvers - which will mostly just bring it clear after they jump. Along the way, she double checks systems, and finally hits a button above the ramp to start it closing. Then she makes a brief sweeping gesture as a telekinetic blast buffets away a handful of the smaller fliers that have already swarmed in after the others, before leaping out herself.

--

It's a long way down.

Well, that's relative. The Blackbird comes in about as close as it can to the spire, and the distance they have to traverse is a great deal less than the full distance down to the jungles below. Their target (which will pop up in the displays of anyone with that kind of tech) is one of the particular domed balconies that surround the spire, one of many pieces of Aerian architecture (that looks somewhat distantly Greek - or perhaps, like everything here, Atlantean?) that cover its surface. The X-Men have been here before, and the Aerians themselves have given them plenty of maps and layouts to study.

Still, the way down isn't easy. Creatures fly at them in the air, swooping and diving, the smaller ones generally trying to simply swarm over and eat you, while the big ones will make more directed passes with those nasty tail spikes. Anyone who's freefall isn't well-controlled can get an telekinetic assist here or there, although Jean's concentration is going in a million directions at once. Spefically...

<<"I can sense it. What Martian Manhunter and the others got a taste of before. Tanya, what do you make of this?">>

Oh right.

On the SHIELD Hellicarrier, Science Lab:

Barely recognizable from her former human appearance, the woman would might have been Queen, stands in the middle of her containment unit, supported not on her still-humanoid legs but on a pair of bladed insectoid appendages. Outside the containment, several SHIELD agents are monitoring her and other samples they have aboard. Nerd stuff.

<<"Yes. I can feel it. They found a replacement. We knew that would happen: that the Hive's genetic imperative would be to generate another Queen.">>

Jean has to wonder. <<"Who volunteers for that job?">>

Regardless of any of this, the 'ground' (or rather, that balcony) is fast approaching. Those who make it down first are probably not surprised to find resistance. What MIGHT surprise them is the form of it: several Brood drones, quite 'traditional' in shape in appearance. And they have... guns. "THE MAMMALS ARE HEEERE!" "DEFEND THE HIVE!" They TALK? They talk.

And shoot.

Logan Howlett has posed:
This isn't the first time Logan has fallen out of a plane. Not even the first time he's leapt out of one on purpose. As he tumbles through the air, he reaches out to wrap his arms around one and slow his descent a little. It lets out a screech, hissing and spitting:

"Unhand, mammal!"

Wolverine's eyes widen slightly behind the mask, peering at the creature's malicious little eyes as they both plummet (albeit slower) through the air.

"Hey, you can talk?"

Before the creature can speak again, Logan plunges a trio of bone claws into its head. It immediately goes limp, plummeting as the light disappears from its eyes.

"Yeah, prefer it this way."

Then he's leaping once again, finding another bug-like alien to slow his descent towards the tower. Platforming with style.

Audra Meridian has posed:
Well damn, when did they gain the ability to talk?

"Kind of wish they'd stayed silent!" Audra quips as she pulls up and reverse thrusts a bit. Since she can fly she leaves the balcony open for those who need the landing space, instead hovering near it. Which is still more than enough for her to do something about these gun wielding drones yelling at them as filthy mammals. Oh well, might as well roll with it.

"That's right, we're here. Which means it's time for you to go." She points at one drone and releases a bolt of lightning, intending for it to chain after hitting one and catch a few more, shocking them before they have a chance to open fire on the people not posessing controlled flight.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Short of firing a Kryptonian in the spire, they have no real way of taking it down - not that they might want to risk it either with how much they didn't know about the Savage Land. It was likely their contingency plan. But not one that anyone wanted to resort to. And Natasha goes to land. Even as the group goes to head towards several of the Brood. <<Warning, they appear to have achieved baseline status>> They knew this was coming and they expected it.

That just makes it harder. What's worse than near endless numbers of Brood that can unleash a multiple hundred meter tall kaiju?

Smart Brood that can absorb the abilities of anything they come into contact with, adapt to powers, and then pass them along to the rest of the Swarm.

Natasha goes to land, moving to fire along her grapple gun as her kinetic shield goes to dissipate along at her landing. She goes to speak <<Logan, point>> NOt that he might necessarily listen to her - but if anyone can get an idea as to where the priority sections of the Hive are, it would be him.

As she goes to land, going not into the superhero landing (to Yelena's great disappointment and nagging) she goes to immediately flip out a half dozen small capsulses. As Brood that look like giant cockroaches go tos urround her, each small capsule lands over on a head dome, where it goes to detonate in a mound of gore. Natasha rolls up to -then- a sort of superhero sommersault rather than full blown. The Brood are already regenerating, detonated heads and everything.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
<<"...They talk">> is all Bobbi can say before she's diving behind cover. Hand out, her pistol leaps from its holster to it and she starts returning fire <<"And they're shooting guns!">>. What she expected was giant bug creatures ala Starship Troopers. Not.. this.

Replying back to Jean she suggests, <<"Kerrigan?">> A random Starcraft reference. But there's a slight strain in her voice as she rushes from cover to cover. An ICER grenade is lobbed over in to the crowd and a small number of them are caught up in its explosion.

"I knew I should have brought one of the big guns with me.." she mutters to herself ... "And stolen Phil's shield." Because that thing is just awesome. Still, there are falling boxes not too far behind her. Not too far behind Nat.

As they land with a thump, they open up and antenna extend. With a flash of blue they generate force walls between them creating an artificial barrier. <<"Mockingbird to HC-01 - drop a big gun down here will you. There's a lot of them.">> Of course, dropping in a Hulk helps too.

Bruce Banner has posed:
Banner is kicking in the air, as the beeping starts from his watch, as Rouge watches she might realise he will be the hulk a bit before he hits, but is interupted landing as one of the smaller drones grabs onto Bruces leg. The changing man doesn't even seem to notice the teeth unable to sink in. The flying drone gets about a foot closer to the tower carrying him before it starts dropping height the weight being too much though it never makes it as the swelling size makes the locked jaw crack apart as it expands to be hulk sized, and is dropped the little distance in a rolling pile of muscle.

In moments Hulk is up again, and he Roars as loud as he can the sound being more like a wild beast then any teamate. Hulk looks around wildly looking for more of the bugs that harmed him jumping up into the air he grabs two, one with each hand, and just makes fists till the bones he is holding turns to powder in the still living drones.

After landing he starts to stomp towards the large tower as even the Hulk can feel that is the place behind all of this. These bugs had bothered the Hulk, and he was going to smash anything, or one that got in his way of trying to smash that tower. So as he approached he pushed himself through with leaps with enough force to smash the Drones that might run into him like bugs against a windshield. Coming down with two fist the ground would shake by the walled people as he lands bringing his fist on the ground smashing the ones that tried to run from him.

Another roar, as Hulk looks around his eyes are starting to turn red, as no-matter how many he smashed there were more. "Smash!" he yelled in anger as he swipped at the new bugs now replacing the ones he had already killed. He was a bit distracted as there were so many things that he could freely just smash, and didn't give up so that is what he would be busy doing.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue doesn't use guns, she doesn't have long range powers. She's... well she's basically the Hulk Light here.

Swooping out of the sky, Rogue spins around to confront the horde that had been tailing her. She leans back to let them fly past her, then reaches her hands out to grab a handful of bug soldiers. They snap and claw at her, but she just crushes them with her gloved hands before she dives out of the way of one of the larger spikey thrusting ones.

Being that the Belle DOES have a 'spidey sense' that tells her of personal danger, she's able to dodge most attacks relatively reliably.. most of the time.

Once the spike snaps in to the ground where she'd been, Rogue shoulders it with all her might until she snaps the appendage off of the bug.

Sweeping up in to the air, the southern girl spins the spike around, and jabs it right in to the bug she just tore it off of!

Pushing down on the spike, her teeth clenched, Rogue just spears it through until the bug drops dead on the ground...

She quickly flies off then toward the others on her team to help draw some more of the nastiest creatures away from her companions.

Jean Grey has posed:
Days Earlier, the Triskelion:

Several agents unload the prize from a recent mission, a rather politically risky raid on the Russian-Kazakh border. Deathbird's operatives had been working with various criminal organizations on Earth, attempting to use the novel Brood virus as a kind of bioweapon. Fortunately, SHIELD stopped them at every turn. But what they found there wasn't just more aerosolized virus. It was a whole living... thing, shoved into the satellite pod at the top of a ballistic missile.

"The sample is giving off energy signatures, similar to the psychic frequencies observed when Dr. Anderssen breached the dampening fields. Except they're lower frequency and the output seems significantly attentuated, so there's not any immediate risk."

A particular bespectacled agent who shall go nameless for legal reasons wonders: "Uh, it KIND of sounds like you're describing a long-range psychic radio. Does that sound REALLY bad to anyone? It sounds really bad to me. Lemme take a look- wait, what are these underlying patterns...."

Now:

The more 'traditional' Brood drones, though not quite as physically fearsome as mutated tyranosaurs or the hyper-lethal 'raptorbrood', are altogether a more well-rounded and cunning threat. Highly coordinated, they fight with purpose rather than simple overwhelming swarm tactics...

...while still benefiting from of an overwhelming swarm NUMBERS. And the fact that they can add ranged suppressive fire with energy weapons is definitely a unique spin. (Rogue might recognize some of the weapons as the Atlantean-made ones the Aerians used before. However, some show variation. Which means they're taking whatever 'lost' tech exists here, and modifying it to their own purpose.)

They still have the tail spines and sharp teeth, too.

Altogether, most of the heroes make a forceful entrance through the balcony landing, pushing inside. There was clearly a wave of defenders mobilized to the balcony, but they thin out somewhat inside, using the cave tunnels for cover and engaging with their blasters.

And while the Hulk may not exactly be on 'objective' with all his random smashing, he is separately drawing a fairly significant defensive deployment of the creatures, drawing attention away as his teammates make their infiltration.

--

Inside, the place is a winding mass of natural cave tunnels embellished with more of the Aerian-Atlantean architecture and the occasional bit of obvious tech, fancy swooshing sci-fi doors closing off some of the rooms. Past the initial defensive barrier, the Brood presence isn't quite as thick, although they fight from defensible positions, taking cover or launching ambushes from the doorways and tunnel intersections.

<<"Lab is a left at that next intersection,">> Jean communicates, moving with the squad. For the moment, her combative help is limited by her psychic effort to hack or disrupt the Hivemind around them, and find the Queen. <<"Simple demolition should be fine in there. The mental signal... I feel it strongest near the center of the place. Large cavern interior.">>

Logan Howlett has posed:
It's a roundabout way down, leaping from flying bug-monster to flying bug-monster, but that's the sort of thing Logan does. He's been scratched and bitten, his uniform torn in several places even though the wounds have stitched themselves together. He moves with the rest of the group, saving the strategic planning for the Brains. His communicator isn't even on. Click. There. Whoops.

What their super-strong allies achieve as a swinging wrecking ball, Logan achieves like a surgeon's scalpel. He's swift, moving from threat to threat and forcing as many bugs as he can into a perimeter around the proceeding group. Claws slice through the air, the Wolverine's teeth bared.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And they're heading towards the lab complex. Or at least what intelligence has pinpointed as it. And things are never as simple as it should be. But they have to try. With the first round of the bend, Natasha is going to hurl a round of 'shriekers'! They'd done enough research on the Brood to figure out decibel levels that disrupted their means of communication - designed for the feral ones, even more effective against the intelligent ones which stayed connected to one another.

So those sonic 'shriekers' would land in the corridor ahead, meeting up with the Brood round the bend to stun them like someone had thrown a gas grenade into the area! Natasha goes to speak <<Place the charges. Will provide cover>> And she's going to pull out two small pistols - loaded with acid carts in them. The darts having barbed breakaway tips on them. In theory a bullet would be fired, the barb would impact their hard exoskeleton to anchor itself, then spray the acid down into their head.

Audra Meridian has posed:
Audra Meridian pauses for a moment as she listens to Jean's relay. By this point she's gotten use to the whole psychics being the central comm for a group and just goes with it. It's convenient so why not.

<<"Lab, got it. That's my cue.">> Audra uses the hover-dashing ability of her Zephyr Boots to reach the indicated intersection and turn to the left.

As she does she keeps her arms aimed ahead of her, her gauntlets active. If there is one edge she has over some weather manipulators is that she isn't really hurt much by being indoors since her ability draws from her own tech. Case in point, as she turns the corner she unleashes what could be considered a minature snowstorm down the corridor, a swirl of cold wind and white flakes aimed to blind and confuse whatever Brood swarms get in their way, making their ability to aim and fire with their guns a bit more tricky. At least long enough for her to just dash and punch her way through them before they recover.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi tosses out one of the special grenades as their numbers swell to the balcony. "Grenade!," she warns as the thing hits the ground, pops back up in to the air and then lets out a blast parallel to the ground slicing through the brood drones.

Another crate drops down near by and as it opens up, it reveals a large mini-gun. Bobbi smiles, "Thaaank you HC-01." She gives a small salute skyward, noticing how thick the flyers are up there blotting out the sun in places. She flexes, picking up the big mini-gun and then turns it toward the breach Nat just made. Finger to trigger, the energy weapon starts to blast death where-ever she points it. This is the closest she's ever felt to being a colonial marine.

"Go go go - keep to the right of my fire vector." The big weapon definitely requires that super soldier strength. Hulk would probably find it an amusing toy and completely unnecessary. <<"Roger, Mockingbird heading to the lab.">>

And so she walks - because not even Steve Rogers could run carrying this big thing. But she doesn't need to run. It dices and minces anything that steps in to the semi-autonomous targeting range of the weapon. And for the rest? Bobbi's heads up display is giving her attack vectors so she can stay slightly ahead of the enemy.

At the labs, she puts down the big big gun and opens up a pouch on her jacket and starts taking out small explosive charges that carry a bigger than normal bang. Her eyes glance around the place and she calls out, "Let's set charges .. there, there.. here.. and here. And over there."

Bruce Banner has posed:
Swinging, kicking, and biting he kills one, and another tail hits him from behind, not to mention the attacks from afar which he couldn't even get to. It all just angered him, as he swung his fist would hit one, but then go through the tree that was next to him knocking it down. He would take a step forward, and the ground would start cracking under him. All of this doesn't matter as he is swarmed in the litteral of sense considering he is one person, he doesn't cry out for help, but he keeps fighting taking the hits, feeling when the lucky ones bit off skin, or the impact from the long rang shots. It hurts, and this just makes him want to fight more the circle of violence just making Hulk madder, and madder while the piles of dead Brood around him started pilling up more which are dead, and which are alive getting mixed up as they just tried to bury him im bodies.

Finally out of the pile with a roar two large arms goe up, and the top of hulk burst out of the pile. "Hulk Smash!" he yells, and with a couch jumps. He lands closer to the spire he looks at the group with steam coming out of his mouth he doesn't shout, but say in a serious tone, the anger seething through. "Hulk... Smash." and he points to the tower.

Hulk was going to try to destroy the whole tower, by punching through it, and the pushing it over by jumping into it. Of course he would be being attacked the whole time, and it was a highly tech facility, so even if he could do it it would take some time. But somehow hulk got into his mind this is the tower that was causing him pain, and so started puching the litteral wall full force with the impact that could cause the tree's to fall just starting with the 'plan' if you could call it that.

The drones didn't give up though, only left behind for a moment as Hulk can move rather quickly when he did. It would be very clear what he is trying to do, so without trying to be Hulk is more then likely to become an even bigger target, as the few wounds on his body already healing from before as the large man just keeps punching over, and over as he knew he will get through eventually.

Rogue has posed:
The Hulk was a curious thing to Rogue. She'd run in to him back in Manhattan a week or so ago, and now they'd had him on their mission here. He was like watching a living earthquake, and it intimidated even her. She watched him burst out of the pile of dead bugs, her own pile a very impressive-- if still smaller --mirror of dead creatures. But soon she was flying over to where the others from the X-Men were, joining them to follow them in to the tower. She spared a look to the Hulk as he indicated he wanted to smash the place down.

"By all means, but ya might wanna wait until we're not inside it." She replies to him as she drops out of the sky on to her booted feet and ends up behind Logan.

Leaning forward, Rogue flicks a bug leg off of Logan's shoulder, then brushes it off with the back of her gloved hand. "Gotcha covered." She tells the Wolverine before she just continues on with the leader of this unit, in the form of the Phoenix'y one.

Jean Grey has posed:
The tunnels are deadly in their own way, even if the Brood are less concentrated. They curve and twist, often presenting multiple angles of attack while simultaneously providing cover for the defenders. Every blind turn in a potential ambush. Against heavy weaponry, the Brood fall back around hard rock faces, forcing the engagements to occur at close range, or circling around to try and strike from another angle.

Add to this, that given the winged physiology of the place's original inhabitants, the architecture sometimes operates accordingly, with tunnels leading up and down, as well as side to side. Brood drones ALSO have wings, of course. And thus, some of this hit-and-run, ambush and maneuver warfare is carried out in all 3 dimensions at once!

Yet, the heroes are nothing if not prepared.

It's almost impossible to ambush Wolverine, for instance, and the first Brood to drop down from the ceiling and attempt a friendly tail-jab is probably the first to learn this lessons.

The group progressing toward the Lab finds it soon enough, with its ancient Celestial technology long since co-opted by Shi'ar and now Brood modifications. The X-Men were there once, but the place has changed since. Where there was once one incubating pod, there are now a half-dozen arranged in a circle at the center. Several are growing odd nodules of flesh, similar to what SHIELD recovered on the Russian border.

Some are currently empty.

Maybe these details are irrelevant, as quickly as the place is destined to be blown up!

--

The others push inward, toward the center of the spire, clearing further resistance. Although they know the layout, they find it altered: what was once numerous individual caverns, internal structures, arching bridges, and the grand central plaza, has now been hollowed out completely into a single interior space. And growing, seething to fill it is all manner of strange, fleshy, nearly cancerous growth. Tentacles seem to climb the walls, creating their own kind of structure, with an vaguely translucent green pod of rather large size suspended in the very center.

---

Outside, well, the Hulk is trying to push the whole thing over. Obviously, this isn't easy. But, theoretically, it isn't impossible. Inside, they may feel some of the reverberations as he strains against the rock.

But then the tower - or the vast growth of the hive around it - decides to fight back. Several massive tentacles extrude outward from caves near the ground or burst up from the soil, and flail against the Green Giant!

Logan Howlett has posed:
Wolverine knows his purpose here. He can be destructive, certainly, but the scale needed here is better left to the powerhouses they brought along. His job is to get them in and (hopefully) out in one piece, making sure this veritable hive doesn't close in and swallow them whole.

He glances at Rogue when she pulls the severed leg from his shoulder, watching it go. Before he can speak, he's slicing a potential ambush bug into multiple pieces like a piece of cartoon salami in a popular GIF.

"Whatever we're doin', let's do it fast, Jeanie," he calls out, giving Rogue a wink as he does, "We just lit the whole damn hornets' nest on fire."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And once the group is in and braced, Natasha goes to cover mode. If there's anything useful in here to recover, she trusts that Bobbi can retrieve it. She also trusts the biologist ot know where the best bits go to explode. She goes to slide to cover and moves to fire quickly in bursts of three acid pellets apiece. The Brood come at them from every direction, and they only have so long before they can be overwhelmed with numbers or the Brood are able to flank them. So now it's time for cheating yet again.

When she's run out of acid pellet rounds and she doesn't have the time to reload them, and her normal bullets are of minimal use.. Now she goes to take out three pellets. They're launched into the nearest cluster of Brood and detonate. Instead of it being a gas or a bioweapon that the Brood can adapt to, it's a web of.. Webbing? No..

Glue. SHIELD had reverse engineered things seized from Paste Pot Pete. While it was far from being as good as Pete's original gunk.. What they had was enough glue spewed everywhere to make a massive Broodpile that they couldn't stabb, skewer, or tear their way out of as it was turning into a giant sticky boulder-ball of spines rolling around to get stuck up on the ceiling roly poly style!

Audra Meridian has posed:
Audra Meridian is fortunately capable of flight, and can give Mockingbird a hand up as needed in the vertical portions while making their way to the lab.

Once in the lab, it's clear that the place needs to be dealt with, and soon as possible. "Yeah, that's good for generally making sure the place goes up and comes down." As much as the techie side of her would like the poke around, there isn't enough time, or safe space, to do so. This lab needs to be shut down, and they move on. "While you're doing that, I'm going to make sure this equipment definitely put out of commission. Nothing the enemy can salvage left."

She moves a bit closer to the center of the lab to give Bobbi time to work on her demo charges. There is a subtle shift in the room's tempurature, though with the general humid jungle state of the Savage Land it isn't extremely noticable. What is noticable is how she uses it to create a minature storm cell around herself, which results in a rising cyclonic force at Audra's position as she whips winds into a whirlwind of frenzy to rip various pieces of lab equipment apart like a trailer court in the path of a tornado. She's going to make sure that even if someone came along to dig the lab out after it's buried by an explosion there won't be anything left in usuable condition to find.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi knows first hand the horrors of bioscience gone mad. She had to put down Man Thing after all. Coincidence, yes, tragic too, that that was also in the Savage Lands. The Savage Lands seems to be where bad genetics goes to die. She nods to Audra and while she has her own wings she was also carrying that big big gun. "Thanks."

Her eyes skim over the lab. There's a lot to be learnt here - but they'd be all the wrong lessons. Like a terrible idea, the genetics of the brood can only lead to one thing - more brood. She moves about the place putting in her charges.

A timer is set - remote detonation is a bad idea when you're in the midst of the enemy. Who knows what kind of technobrood might be out there capable of blocking signals. "We're on a timer people. Let's find this Queen and get out."

With a twirl of her hand to indicate 'wrap it up', she walks back to the door and picks up the big big gun and points it back out at the brood drones. The sticky mess that Natasha has made makes her shake her head, "What will R&D think of next. Anyone got a beat on Phoenix?" She's SHIELD - using codenames and protecting identities is drilled in to her.

Bruce Banner has posed:
Rogue and her encounters learns something else today, as Hulk is quite litteral, and maybe a little bit stubbern... go figure. As she says go ahead Hulk nods to her as he smashes against the side. Wether he heard her condition or not he doesn't seem to mind or stop as he keeps punching. That is until the tentacle's come.

The Hulk, fueled by his boundless rage and immense strength, finds himself in a relentless battle against a massive Brood tentacle. As he fiercely fights off the tentacle attacking him from the front, another one sneaks up from behind, adding to the challenge. The tentacles, with their slimy and writhing forms, thrash and coil, attempting to ensnare the green behemoth. Undeterred, the Hulk unleashes his wrath upon both assailants, striking with thunderous force and sending shockwaves through the air. With every bone-crushing blow, he smashes and tears through the monstrous appendages, refusing to be overpowered. The ground trembles beneath the weight of their clashes, and the air is filled with the sounds of their violent collision. The Hulk's indomitable spirit and raw power drive him forward, as he fights to protect himself and emerge victorious against this dual onslaught. In a spectacular display of strength and resilience, the Hulk battles on, determined to overcome these formidable foes and prove his unbeatable might.

Shaking the large things loose he tries to hit the tower for just another to wrap around his arm, and be dragged with a punch. They were definetly slowing him down, but he was fighting through. Hulk would not be stopped, he was the strongest there is! Or at least that is what is in his min as the rest join in, and just to reach the wall he has to punch through Drone while being restrained, so it was difficult even for him. Hulk didn't seem to mind though his mind wouldn't let him think about a lot of stuff at once, and he had a goal burning through his mind. His rage hitting a level where steam is coming off his whole body as he just eminates anger and power. They pushed, and pushed him further, and further, and now they would have to pay for it as Hulk hits even harder then before, and all the damage while harder to do heals even faster as the heat seems to eminate most from those injured locations.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue's green eyes wander the interior of the tower, it doesn't take her long to remember things and notice the other things that have changed. She died the last time they were here afterall, the place where you die kind of sticks in your head in some ways. "They've been remodelin." Rogue had muttered to Jean and Logan, her stare scanning over the vines, a shiver running up her spine from it.

"With the big guns outside, an' whatever changes the've been doin' in here... it's clear that either this is a trap, or they got some serious plans in the works."

That's when the Hulk makes the whole place tremble, and tentacles come to life.

"See. Told ya it was a tra--" She's cut off when she has to doge out of the way of one, following it with her hands she grabs hold and digs her fingers in to it until she can rip it in halves!

Squish.

Rogue floats up off the ground again then and shouts out in her southern accented voice. "Let's just bail the hell out and let the big guy rip the place apart!" Is she getting scared? Does she ever get scared? Maybe she's worried of dying: the sequel.

Jean Grey has posed:
A week earlier, SHIELD Basecamp:

A hellicopter lands, bearing an X-Men & SHIELD team that had gone into the jungle, hunting down leads on how to shut down the Celestial 'zookeeper' tech. It had gone a bit roughly, and they had injuries. Natasha Romanoff was one such casualty.

"Oh yes, you're definitely infected. Well, not just infected. Look. You see there on the scan? That's an emybro forming. Remarkable isn't it?" The slightly too-cheery voice belongs to one Dr. Karl Lykos. Sauron. A kinder, more cooperative Sauron, out on leave from The Vault after helping break Tanya's tie to the hive.

Now he's playing doctor. Labcoat and everythig. But he's rather good at it, even as a Dino-man.

"It's really fascinating how the Shi'ar Brood virus has worked. My metagentic retroviral 'platform,' their... beautifully dense genetic sequence, encoding a billion years of stolen genetic memory. Their intelligence is in here. It will use you to rebuild itself, and you'll be one of them."

He pushes an injection into her arm.

"Or you would have. All better now!" His beak-like face can't exactly smirk, but one can hear the expression. "Still... I suppose a part of you will be with them forever. You're part of that genetic memory now, relayed psychically throughout the meta-organism. /Fascinating./"

Now:

The lab, curiously, isn't especially defended. Whatever those things are (possibly Brood hivemind psychic relay satellite pods, if the one they have on the Carrier and the related briefings are to be believed), they've clearly been making a lot of them. But the ones in the room are quicky torn apart as Audra sets to it, along with some of the more fragile machinery.

The rest the charges will take care of.

With that done, they can make their way back toward the main group soon enough, while the whole spire increasingly begins to shudder and shake, from the ongoing battle at its base. It does raise the question: why not just let Hulk knock the thing over?

As if to answer, a crack splinters its way up through the upper part of the spire, the light that comes in highlighting its shape. There's a shudder, and then it falls away, crashing into the jungle beyond. Then another piece, this time speeded by one of the tentacles thrashing and shifting within. As they watch, piece by piece the mountain starts to come apart around them, opening like a 'shell' around the gooey, fleshy center, to eventually leave only a lattice-spire of flesh behind.

"I... well, I think this is it," Jean answers Logan, although the uncertainty of her voice reveals she's not really sure of the situation herself. "The hive signal, its coming from here, but beyond that it's... indistinct, it almost feels like it's everywhere. It's stronger in those-" And she points to one of the greenish 'sacs' growing along the tentacle 'vines.' But there are many. "Logan, you wanna take a look in the nearest one?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And the mountain is starting tos hake, rattle, and quake. Natasha Romanova goes to speak <<Satellite, request update on Hulk positioning and pathing>> The mountain shaking could really only be from one thing after all. Now it's time to deal with the next rough patch. To Bobbi, she goes <<How do we take out their organic hive the most effectively?>> Presuming that just collapsing the mountain on top of them wouldn't do more than slow them. The thing with insects and tunnels was that they were -really- good diggers. And it would just disperse the hive and let them regenerate elsewhere. They had to be cleared out at the source.

Now as the explosives are being laid and detonators readied, she goes to brace for the enx tpart of thier operation and reloads her pistols with the acid pellets, and then goes to switch out another rounds of something extra nasty that had been prepared over for a backup.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Wouldn't be the first building that's come down on my head," Logan admits with a shrug, taking a few steps forward, "Probably the grossest, though. Ugh."

That's right, even the rugged Canadian wild man can be grossed out by some things and apparently brood goop counts towards that end.

Logan takes a step forward, his hand whistling through the air as it slices open one of the sacs. From it pours a near-complete Brood Queen, identical to the one now aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier. The Canuck wrinkles his nose, drawing back with a snarl.

His claws slash open another, and yet again an incomplete Brood Queen tumbles onto the ground. This one causes a greater surprise as he recognize the face immediately.

"Widow," he murmurs into his speaker, "Looks like you've got some admirers."

His eyes fixate on the Natasha look-alike Brood Queen on the floor. He continues to slice open the sacs as more and more pour forth.

"Uh, Jeanie?" Logan calls out, voice echoing unsettlingly, "I'm startin' to sense a theme here."

Audra Meridian has posed:
Audra Meridian lets one final pulse of wind flow around her, then dismisses it and the chunks of machinery and pods clatter about the lab. That made sure the Important Stuff was properly broken, the bombs will do the rest. "Yeah, let's catch up with the other group," she agrees with Bobbi once the charges are set. And then we're off on a merry rush through twists and turns once more.

Even as the place is starting to shake and shudder and break apart. They did bring a Hulk after all... but this seems like something more than the Big Green Smashfest.

And it's another pretty weird sight to find when they do catch up with Rogue, Wolverine and Jean. "Ooookay. This looks like someone ripped open a fanboy's stash of figures and dumped them all over the floor."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi hefts the weapon at Nat's question. "Nukes of course. You know how Thor's teleportation beam.. rainbow bridge.. thing.. it just cuts through everything? some high energy physicists at AIM got inspired by readings stolen from SHIELD a couple of years back."

"When we raided their operation we stowed it all away and forgot about." She takes out a deep pulse range finder from her pocket. "That is until we started to get a picture of just how deep the brood go - we didn't have the kind of energy necessary to use AIMs weapon."

She waggles an eyebrow, "So Fury sent me off world with a team from SWORD and we borrowed a one-use battery from some very angry smurfs." She gives the range finder a wiggle, "We find the heart, activate this and the Helicarrier uses the AIM weapon and alien battery to shoots a hole in this mountain. Then, the Helicarrier drops a nuke right down the hole. Hopefully after we've gotten out."

She looks at the others with them and asks, "Sound like a plan? Good." She wasn't really opening it up for debate as the ground shook once more. "And I figure where-ever Phoenix and co went is going to be where the heart of this..." she braces herself as the place shakes again, "...is." She begins a quicker walk because time is clearly of the Hulkessence.

Bruce Banner has posed:
Finally knocking down the tower the Hulk jumps again landing on the crumbled parts of the mountain. Sure there was another part left standing, but Hulk had smashed the puny tower so he beats his chest and roars at the rest of the Brood around him. He is victorous so shows his domination over these bugs! Though he is curious, and looks up at the big thing that was uncovered. He walks to it ignoring the pesky bugs now nothing more then a small incovience, ripping away any tentacle to just toss to the side as he smells the new thing.

Hulk seems confused, as he had smashed to building, and shown Hulk strongest there is then there as this thing. With a poke some of the slime comes off on his fingers.

With a curious snif hulk puts it in his mouth, but then spits it back up as it tasted horrible to him. Does he smash it again? Does he just leave it now? He isn't sure what to do as he swats away vaporizing some brood drone with a simple backhanded swat. The small break gives him a moment to look over the mess he created, and remembered there were other people. He peers around, "ooops!" and realises he might of just brought down the building on people. He looks around around him for anyone coming out of the rubble the heat that was pouring off of him slowling down to a low trickle, as the thoughs and consideration of what to do has calmed him down a bit.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is slapping one end of that torn tentacle against the other as it writhes around on the floor. Finally, when it stops, she looks up again and huffs out a heavy exhale. She drops the piece of tentacle on the ground that she was beating the other piece with, then raises her clean gloved hand up to flip her two-toned hair back over her head and out of her face. "God, I might actually like space more than this place." The southerner surmizes of the situation before she steadies herself as the whole damn place shakes.

"Maybe the Jolly Green Giant out there is gonna have this place down quicker than expected..." She's saying up toward the ceiling when she hears Logan's reaction to the sacks he's cutting open.

Swoosh, Rogue flies over to the results, and just hovers there staring down with a dumbfounded expression on her face that turns to disgust. "That's... fucked /up!/" She declares as her eyes go from one body to the other. She recognizes them, of course, and ends up near to the Jean one as she stares at it, then over at the real deal. Finally, her eyes go to Logan and she nudges him.

"Check their pulse. See if they're alive?"

Jean Grey has posed:
Logan does what Logan does best, he slices and tears. The nearest sacs split open, revealing their messy contents. One by one, it's not hard to catch on to the quickly-forming pattern: each one bears the face of someone familiar, albeit twisted through various degrees of transformation, adorned with chitin rigids, red bug eyes, or other unpleasant features. It isn't just Tanya and Natasha who end up represented, but many others. Some the group will recognize, other heroines who have have their own brushes with the Brood. Others may not be familiar, at least in the moment.

How many did the giant battle they just left add to the roster?

Of course there's another problem here, aside from the whole copy-cat thing. They were looking for -a- Queen, and Logan has just cut out a half-dozen. And even as he does, some of the other pods growing above them start to pulsate, and then finally burst, revealing several more nascent Queens.

One of them promptly grins at the group and then hurls a GIANT BALL OF PLASMA at them, while skittering down one of the tentacles. "TICK TOCK!" she hisses, gleefully.

...Boom.

Soon, several more of them leap down on the group, some attacking with their extra bladed limbs, while others call upon stolen powers. One with a particularly buff (you could almost call it Amazonian?) physique wings at Rogue! And in the midst of all of it, Jean, who should be... probably disintegrating them all, or something? Instead falls to her knees.

"Hnnnnngh! The- the Hive, it's getting louder. Not just talking to each other, but... calling out."

At the center, where that extra-large green fleshbag is growing, it begins to pulse more rapidly, while the tentacles around it start lifting it upward. With the mountain breaking away, the whole thing approximates a flower blooming... if the whole thing was gross and made out of meat.

Kneeling, Jean's aura starts to burn, and she looks back at Bobbi amidst the Queen Melee. "I don't think there's time to wait."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
The explosions go to chaos as Logan goes to show what they're up against. If the Brood are making copies of all of them.. The Queen Boom-Boom shockwave sends Natasha flying over and away, even as she's stunned for jus ta tenth of a second over by what she sees. Clones of herself. . A reminder of painful, painful times and traumas. If anyone's paying attention to her she loses her cool for just a moment, even as she fires a bullet into the forehead of one of 'herself' spilling out of a sac, the head erupting over in brains and goo..

And for nothing as she sees the group that includes an Amazon going to ready out to rampage. That snaps her back to reality as rage is buried over as she goes to Hunter-Killer mode. The only thing that matters is the mission. <<Hellicarrier, position for bombardment. IF team cannot make extraction point, authorization given>> Their survival is kind of not very important right about now.

She goes to snap out several small screechers, hurling the capsules into the mass even as Brood Boom-Boom lays down the kaboom. It's joined by the howling screeches as the trio of things land over in the midst of the oncoming melee. It's time to withdraw.

And they have no capability whatsoever of maintaining a rear guard.

Logan Howlett has posed:
"Had this dream before," Logan mutters under his breath, claws held at his sides in a defensive posture, "No knife-hands, though."

A glance down at his own hands.

"Well, some knife hands."

He doesn't wait for the go-ahead, instead assuming that a gang of leering Brood Queens is a bad thing. Claws sing through the air, going in for the kill in the most efficient and savage way possible. Bone claws pierce throats, slash through tendrils, vivisect torsos.

For the most part he positions himself near to Jean in the midst of it all, attempting to keep the Queens away from her while she deals with whatever telepathic craziness is humming through the air on a frequency he hasn't heard about.

"Stay with us, Jeanie. Put that buff brain to use!"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
As the lab explodes along with the whole outer shell of the building, Bobbi stares in horror at the pods opening up and revealing copies, weird messed up copies, of heroes faces she knows well. "Oh shit.." This is beyond worst case scenario.

She immediately realises what this is doing to Natasha. "OOooh shiit..." Time is of the essence. She gives Jean a quick nod, "This'll have to do then." The range finder is stabbed in to the meaty ground and she turns it on. <<"Mission Actual, this is Mockingbird. Show signal green">>

A moment later a voice crackles back over the radio in to their ears, <<"Mission Actual, Helicarrier ready to engage Bore Weapon. Nuclear authorisation confirmed, warheads are hot. Evac area immediately">>

She puts her finger to the trigger and begins to blast at the pods before too many of their spawn can make it out to engage them. At the same time, her wings activate and the anti-gravity starts to drift her up and back. Commander voice activate.

<<"EVERYONE it's TIME to GO! Fall back! We have warheads incoming ASAP">> She yells out to Natasha, "This isn't the kobayashi maru." She points to Jean, "Someone carry her out if she can't walk." The X-Men would never forgive them if SHIELD let Jean Grey of all people died on a mission like this.

Audra Meridian has posed:
"Aw man," Audra mutters as the other pods start bursting open to disgorge their contents already in a state of frevor. "And here I thought these alien bug things couldn't get any -more- weird... watch out, one of them may be shark-like!"

There's an audible thrum as she powers up her gear for the brawl being dumped upon them. The first Queen-to-be to lunge at her gets a blast of frost in the face, and then a blast of harder hailstones to the midsection, which has an effect no unlike shotgun fire at close range. Enough kick to dig icy chunks into chitin and knock the target back.

"Is it just me," she notes amongst the chaotic fighting, "or does it feel like this whole place is alive to a degree from the infestation?"

She sticks to wind and frost, using it to try and suppress the numbers from swarming all at once, and give the more lethal members of the party a chance to cut some of those numbers down. "Then get moving! I can at least keep slowing them down before us."

Bruce Banner has posed:
Hulk looks at the new thing, he had smelled it, and he had tasted it so he hits it. Still the whole time the buzzing, and the impacts have gotten him a bit more upset again. He didn't care about retreating, and they were still coming at him despite him actually showing them hulk was stronger. This just angered hulk, as instead he turned to face the Brood. With a roar he got to work, instead of breaking the thing down again, he went after the brood that was outside.

The Hulk, fueled by an uncontrollable rage, finds himself surrounded by an uncountable swarm of Brood drones and writhing tentacles. They converge upon him from all directions, their sheer numbers seeming insurmountable. But the Hulk, an embodiment of raw power and indomitable strength, meets the challenge head-on. With each thunderous step, he smashes through the ranks of the drones, sending them flying in all directions. The tentacles lash out, attempting to ensnare him, but the Hulk evades their grasp with astonishing agility. His fists collide with the drones, delivering devastating blows that send shockwaves through the battlefield. The ground shakes under the relentless assault, and the air is filled with the sound of his roars of fury. The Hulk fights with unyielding determination, unleashing a whirlwind of destruction upon his enemies. As the drones and tentacles continue to surge, the Hulk's unstoppable strength and ferocity seem to intensify. He becomes a force of nature, a relentless storm of green fury, smashing and pummeling his way through the seemingly endless horde. With each defeated foe, his rage only grows stronger, fueling his resolve to overcome any obstacle in his path. The battle becomes a testament to the Hulk's unmatched power and his ability to face overwhelming odds with unrelenting force.

As long as they sent Brood Hulk would keep fighting. It didn't matter if it was a Queen, or whatever type of drone. Hulk would smash.. Hulk would win! Of course this does mean he doesn't listen to the others yelling especially about running before the bombs fell.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue was on her way to Jean's side with Logan when the sight of the Wonder Woman Brood Queen (Princess?) caused her to stop in her tracks. "What the f--" She's cut off as a voice eeriely familiar, and yet completely different, causes her to turn to her right...

She stares face to face with herself. A chitinous Rogue stares right back at her original version. "Look at what we've found." The Chitin Rogue says to the Southern Belle who has to gather her wits. In the mean time she's suddenly grabbed from behind by the Wonder Woman Rogue who locks the Belle's arms in place.

Chitin Rogue smiles, her green and yellow eyes locked on to the Belle's natural greens. She steps right up to her 'donor' and speaks in a wicked tone, sensual, but laced with lecherous intentions. "I wonder what would happen if..."

Chitin Rogue's right hand snaps up, covered in strange sickly color patterns, it grabs the Belle's face, squishing her cheeks inward and causing the real Rogue's lips to duck-face out like she's taking a selfie for the internet as a 14 year old. The Belle just stares as the Chitinous Clone stares back at her.

A pair of seconds tick by. Nothing happens.

"I guess that answers tha---"

The Real Rogue quickly snaps forward, casting the Chitin Wonder Woman over her shoulder and launching her directly in to her own Brood Clone! The two women go flying backward in to the cavern wall, and when Rogue leans back up, she huffs out an exhale. "Ya'll smell like an old sponge I found under the sink. Keep your damn mits off me..."

Rogue looks over to the SHIELD commander making shouts, but she turns to jog toward Logan and Jean to check on them before she's going to go anywhere.

Jean Grey has posed:
Behind them, they hear the explosions in the lab. While this may seem a little redundant with the incoming nuke, there's no such thing as being too sure. Of greater concern, is the whole army of lookalike Brood Queens....

Individually, any one of them is pretty dangerous, especially when armed with the genetic inheritance of any number of heroes. For instance, first blast from Queen Boom-Boom doesn't just send people diving for cover, it throws shattered rock in every direction. And even if Nat can stun that one...

Well, that was 'individually.' But the Hive is no individual, nor does it seem to honor any kind of uniqueness. Perhaps eventually, one of these nascent Queens will dominate the others, achieve a genetic superiority and rule the hive. But right now?

"Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock!" It echoes all around them, like a taunting rhyme. And then, well, a SHOWER of explosions.

The Hulk's exterior battle eventually becomes one with the inside one, as there's less and less mountain left to separate them. Fighting them by the thousand, he can leap from tentacle to tentacle, and smash through a whole batch of young Queens. But even that isn't what matters now.

At the top of the spire, the pod 'hatches.' Not into a creature, but into a larger version of one of those things they found in Russia, or that they just destroyed in the lab. And with a great wet SQUELCH, the meaty supports underneath it launch it upwards.

This time, ALL of them can feel the strange psychic wave that washes over them. A billion voices screaming into the stars.

... and a trillion more answering them.

Jean takes Logan's arm, and staggers upward. There's an energy around her, lightly burning, stopping the plasma bombs that rain on them, but somehow, not hurting him.

"No time," she repeats.

If they HAD a teleporter, then maybe, yeah, there would be some conceivable idea of an evac. But now? There really isn't.

She touches a hand to her temple, and her thoughts reach...

...the Hulk, out of all of them. With her telepathic power pressing into his mind to find whatever part of the raging monster can still -understand-. <<"The thing on top. Break it it. It will heal, but keep breaking it.">>

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
For Natasha? Consumate professional? They might fight thier way through a group of the Brood. All ofthem? In all the countless horrors that they could unleash upon the Earth? It's not a possibility. The professional in her knows this. THe only reason she holds back.. Is that there are those here that didn't sign up for this or come into it. And that their being caught up in things could only make the situation worse.

She would be willing to sign her own warrant. Most of the other SHIELD assets deployed probably would take a breath, evaluate, and calculate the odds and do the same. But with the X-Men?

WIth teh Hulk?

No one wants to risk something that would upset the balance of power even more than it already is out here in this mutated wasteland.

<<Hellicarrier, confirmed>> Her own secondary authorization given in case they do flicker off.

But risk only went so far. At the choice of the Brood depopulating Earth.. That would be a gamble that had to be made if it came to that. And hopefully the Phoenix would not decide to do the task they stopped the Brood from doing.

Logan Howlett has posed:
For all the instinct Logan has to fight the Queens, he's not leaving Jean's side. He winces at the sudden psychic cry, something he's still not used to even after years of living with the X-Men. He tenses up, drawing the psionic mutant close as the world around them shakes and shudders.

"There's always time," he shouts over the rumbling clamour of destruction, claws withdrawing into his gloved hands and the wounds sealing up behind them, "Even if it's not for us, we can buy it for everyone else out there."

He cranes his neck to look around at the exposions. The many leering Queens in various states of dismemberment. The confirmation for the Helicarrier to drop death from above. Enhanced senses hear it all.

"What a time to be without a metal skeleton, huh?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi hates the taunting from the drones as she wheels the big big gun about. The barrel keeps spinning as the battery finally drains and she drops it. She prepared for Savage Lands before she left. This is a place she knows well and knows that there's a twist at every turn.

The stun batons do not come out - but her knives. She grits her teeth as she knows it's too late now. This is it, the end. Nuclear warhead incoming. A searing light cuts through the ceiling of the meaty chamber they're in. The sun is blocked outside regardless but that is the incision for the explosive.

On her HUD Bobbi sees 'Nuclear Launch Detected' and she looks over at Natasha. A moment of 'so this is how it ends'. A message comes in to their comms <<"Payload away">>. Taking off her yellow tactical glasses she taps on to her comms. <<"Please let Hunter know he was in my heart until the very end. Also I hid his sniper rifle in the tree by the boat house. And I'm sorry I broke our promise, of me not being there when you die...">>

The queens aren't stopping their assault and as one comes at her Bobbi dances back and cuts at her with the knife. The queen goes all bendy and weird and Bobbi isn't quite sure what to do about it - so she kicks the thing in the face.

Audra Meridian has posed:
'No Time' contrasts oddly with the chants of 'tick tock' like some manner of timer going off. Plus explosions. Both ones they set, and from the to-be Queens attacking with various powers.

"I'm not going to be able to watch an alien invasion movie for months after this," Audra snarks, as she tends to do when the situation gets more and more intense. It's a personal stress relief, even if it contrasts a bit with her usual precise nature. Even as she releases another shockwave of electricity to force the pseudoclones back. "You don't step into the hero business without anticipating a day like this can come." She may be trying to reassure herself as much as anyone else. "But you know, greater good and all that." Another lightning blast, even as she's forced back closer to the others, while trying to deal with all the mixed signals in her head. Even if the moderate amount of experience she's had with psionics now, that was still disortienting.

Bruce Banner has posed:
Hulk is smashing and smashing non-stop now, just an area of destruction, and chaos in his place. He was happy to just fight for however long it took, days, weeks, trillions was a lot, but to the Hulk he just solved that by not being able to count that high. Then the mental screem hits him, which Hulk just takes as a challenge Roaring back at in as a wild beast. Hulk would not lose, as hulk was strongest their was. This would of gone on till one of them gave up or lost, bu instead like a whisper he heard Jeans voice. He seems to stop for a moment and says.. "ooooh Fire-Lady" and nods almost absently as he looks up at the crystal.

He looks at it with so much hate if looks could kill it would of had to start regenerating. With a leap throwing off the Brood that was trying to hold on Hulk Jumps straight up towards the Crystal. He climbs the side using his hands and legs looking like an animal just running as he digs into the side not slowing down. Once at the top he jumps to grab the thing that was launching up. He just needs to get a hand on it, and he would just start punching. Pulling himself up, while pulling it down he would punch with his fists, and use his legs to rake against it like a cat the whole time just trying to pull it out of the sky to the ground below which hulk didn't mind falling from this little distance.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue isn't able to make it to Jean and Logan's sides, as another Brood Queen lands on her back from out of nowhere. this one is as limber as a spider-monkey, and wraps both arms and legs around Rogue from behind. "What in the he---" Rogue says before she's flying upward to try and swing the Chitinous woman off of her back. "You're like glue!" Rogue shouts, doing a full pirouette in the middle of the air, with the limber Queen somehow staying attached to the Belle from behind!

"Fine, we'll play rough!" Rogue shouts with a grunt as the Queen tries to bite her on her neck!

Flying backwards now, Rogue slams right back in to the rock wall, once hard ends up with the Queen on her back just releasing the bite, and shouting out in pain! But she stays locked on to the X-Woman who grunts again!

Two more slams in to the wall finally get the Queen's arms and legs loose, allowing her to drop down to the ground below Rogue who leans forward then and starts to fly back toward her teammates, sparing only a glance over her shouldr to see the pony-tailed Brood Queen slumped over in a heap on her side on the floor. "These things are freaks..." Rogue grumbles as she moves at a quick rate within this crumbling cavern. "I think we gotta get the Hell outta here, folks!"

Jean Grey has posed:
The Hulk leaps into a sky to assault that strange object. At the same time, around the hive, several smaller spires 'fire' in similar way, launching objects similar to the smaller 'satellites' they saw in the lab, on similar trajectories. With every blow upon the 'main' object, they can feel the psychic wave that engulfs them falter, and then attempt to restart, and then falter again. There's a sense of the two sides reaching out, and just *barely* not quite touching, stopped each time by one of those jolly green blows. Still, the strange projectile seems to accelerate by the moment, rocketing into the sky via some strange biological engine.

Down below, Bobbi makes the call.

Every person (with a few immortal exceptions...) must grapple with their mortality. But for heroes like them, there is always an understanding, that they may one day face a situation like this. Where the end is a choice, made for the greater good.

And what greater good is there than this? If that thing is trying to 'phone home.' Who cares where home is. The Brood in the local cluster may all be dead, but space is big. So it really doesn't matter. As a race, they're like a virus on the universal scale. A living threat to all other life.

It's not much of a decision.

The Hellicarrier fires.

The Hive raises defenses, lifts those fleshy tentacles up all at once almost like a shield around itself, but that 'hole punch' delivery system goes through them like swiss cheese.

The missile inbound, Jean looks to the man bemoaning his puny mortal bones, gives him a little smile, and squeezes the hand that helps her up. Rogue she can't physically be with, but there's a brief little telepathic brush that conveys the same message she speaks aloud: "We'll be OK."

Eight Years Ago, Deep Space:

A figure streaks through the inky blackness of the endless void, immeasurably small against the vastness that surrounds her. Before her, a blazing field fills her view and far beyond, as massive as she is small, and as bright as any thing can be. The woman, clad in red, marked in gold, plunges into its surface, dives into a sea of burning plasma. Dives, and swims deeper, into a heart like a million hydrogen bombs.

The star begins to shrink, collapses inward, until it is nearly a singularity. The cosmic cycle has two halves. Big crunch, big bang. In this case, it's accelerated.

The fireball around her cracks, like an egg, and a pair of wings emerge. In their wake, a shockwave rushes outwards, not just flame and debris, but psychic energy.

... and on Sleazeworld, and on a hundred other worlds like it, the Brood die by the billions.

Now, the Center of the Hive Shalan:

The nuclear munition rips through layers of fleshy defenses and rock all the same. And then it detonates.

...

Generally, no one at point blank of a nuclear blast gets the opportunity to really appreciate it. Man's replication of the power of the cosmos occurs on the scale of nanoseconds, or even smaller. The mind wouldn't have time to process input, when the input would already be in the process of disintegrating you. And yet here...

At the center of the cavern, the would-be explosion is held, suspended, in a circular field, like a star held captive. The energies roil within, a storm in a teakettle of churning particles and secondary fusion reactions. Yet none of the searing heat reaches those looking on, nor the eye-melting light (though it is a bit bright to stare at)

At the center of the turbelence, Jean hovers, her armored X-Men uniform replaced with the familiar costume, in red and gold. Not /good/ colors, not reassuring, for those who know her. But in the moment, it is a necessary look.

The sphere burns for a moment, and then contracts inward, before exploding outward in another unfurling of fiery wings.

The psychic chorus shrieks in fear -- and then goes silent.

And in the Hulk's meaty grip, the large satellite finally shatters in a satisfying squish-crack of flesh and crystal alike.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
What worth is one life against many? A debate of philosophers throughout the ages that has never been fully satisfied, quite simplistic as the math would seem. One life is a tragedy. A million lives lost are a statistic. But for tha tone life, perhaps, there is that satisfaction that it was only a tragedy. And not a statistic.

Natasha has no final words, nor cares. NO final messages. Many things left undone. Many things left unfinished. There is no wistfulness. Many regrets. Many, many regrets. But she's come to accept this as her fate in some form or another since she was a young child. War, violence.. She was raised in it. She would die it.

No final messages. No pleas. No mournings. She won't be mourned. She has no particular attachments. Emotions are things that can be twisted. Natasha has lived too long. She understands that on one level.. While one cares for people, one can be consumed by them.

So when the blast comes down and demoelcularization sets in, she's merely reloading her weapon.. Then..

Everything just stops. There's a flash. There's light. If one believed in such things she'd be met over by the cloven man at the end of things welcoming the one that had sent so many souls to his domain. So when instead it's a flaming woman of dark and fire..

Natasha takes almost a half second to process it. An eternity for her. There's time for a heart to beat. Eyes to blink.

Then her mind switches gears over to what she's read of the Phoenix. This overrides all else.

If the Phoenix is annoyed with them for attempting to incinerate it's host.. Well, then they're going to just -wish- it was the Brood.

Her hand rests over on her pistol, her other hand going up to automatically finish the reloading.

It never ends.

Bruce Banner has posed:
As Hulk lands the sounds of nukes going off in the back ground the big green man smashes into the ground. It was re-entry from near-orbit so with no real danger he falls asleep right there. Hulk is out for a while before he wakes realising that he was still Hulk, and had not turned back into Banner. Stuck in the wildlands he started to explore, and came across a number of wonderious things, and creatures. He liked it here, and for some reason the area was keeping him as Hulk considered himself.

Hulk actually smiled, and it was big, and goofy looking but as far as he knew he was free of Bruce. Here in these wild lands Hulk could do what he wanted free of restraints of those puny humans. As he sharpened a giant spear he would look around a bit, and perhaps see what the people of these lands could do for him. Yes he had great plans, as without the anger blinding him the thoughts seem to come easier, and deeper then they were before. Inside a quiet Banner sat in a black room sleeping completely out for now as Hulk had full control over the body.

Audra Meridian has posed:
Audra Meridian was fully ready to live up to that 'for the good of many' aspect... but instead ends up just staring in awe as a phenomenal level of power unlike what she has ever seen takes that nuke and redirects it away from vaporizing the small lot of them. It's like watching a star die, be reborn, and then go nova all over again.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is unable to reach her teammates in time before Jean transitions in to her Phoenix persona. Rogue wasn't with the team back in the day, back when all of this began for Jean, but in the past 5 years she's gotten a crash course in quite a bit of it. She was worried for the woman too, for a number of reasons.

The display that takes place in the sky is unbelievably worrisome too, but it's entirely beyond Rogue to do anything about it, except shout "JEAN!" which seems to accomplish so much.

She drops down to her knees on the ground beneath her, and just falls over on to her right hip in a defeated seated position. Her eyes remain up on the sky though, the wind sending her white bangs across her face as she just looks past the strands of hair toward the after effects of ... whatever it was that was happening up there, the precursor to their inevitable doom? The solution to being utterly vaporized?

She didn't know, she didn't get good grades in Science classes.

She was just worried about Jean.

Jean Grey has posed:
No one burns, no one is vaporized. The Phoenix's wings remain extended briefly, and then slowly fold and draw back inward, as the figure framed between them floats down toward her friends.

The majority of the destruction occurs via psychic backlash, as it did once before. Blowing up one planet couldn't kill the Brood. It was attacking the Hivemind that did it. While this is the same, a simple fact remains: impressive a weapon as it is, a tactical nuke is not a star. Mankind still has far to go, to harness such power.

Thus, not every Brood dies, in the Savage Land or elsewhere.

But it is enough to shatter the local hivemind, to annihilate the connection that somehow binds them all together, from the smallest virus to the intelligent drones and new-made Queens, to the largest brood-dino-kaiju. The clone-like Queens, seem like dolls with their strings cut, collapsing to the pyschic severence. And the rest? Perhaps they scurry off and hide.

As for Jean, when she touches back down on the ground, landing near Rogue, the burning wings draw inward and fade. But the costume remains. "It's alright. I've broken them. I think - it should be enough. But we should contact SWORD and the Shi'ar," the friendly ones, not the Deathbird ones, "about those launches. I tried to destroy them all, but it wasn't enough energy."

After finding Rogue, she takes her hand, and then leads her toward the others. "I think we've all earned the right to celebrate a bit, after this." There's no... worry in her voice, no sign of concern. Just satisfaction, in their victory. "C'mon, let's find Logan and get out of here. Hopefully the Blackbird autopiloted to safety. It's real expensive."

And just like that, it's over. Or nearly so.

In the immediate aftermath, they will hear reports via SHIELD from the massed defenders back near Lemuria, about the swarms dissolving or turning upon themselves. Without direction, the infected mutates are less than feral, barely even alive, and merely attacking whatever is nearest - which is most often other Brood. With that chaos also falls the anti-air defenses, and so the Blackbird is easily able to retrieve them and land back on the Hellicarrier, which then carries out a thorough bombardment of the general hive area, scorching away whatever remains.

And after that? All across the Savage Land, the people celebrate their victory. From the bonfire dances of the Fall People to Lemurian victory feasts, the whole of the secret Antarctic refuge honors its heroes, and their glorious victory over the alien Brood.