18041/Mutants and Master Molds - Survival of the Fittest
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Mutants and Master Molds - Survival of the Fittest | |
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Date of Scene: | 03 June 2024 |
Location: | New York Harbor Docks |
Synopsis: | When the Sentinels go on the march, it's up to the Brotherhood of Mutants and tagalongs from Xavier's School, Superman, and Shazam to save the day! |
Cast of Characters: | Monet St. Croix, Clark Kent, Billy Batson, Jaxon Blain, Bishop, Martinique Wyngarde, Paige Guthrie, Mortimer Toynbee, Vanessa Carlysle, Clarice Ferguson, Erik Lensherr
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- Monet St. Croix has posed:
Several strikes over the last few weeks on the disparate Sentinel cells and data analysis which had revealed they were constructing a new Master Mold had lead to more intense tracking. Thanks to data tracking from the recovered electronics, heavy communications traffic could be monitored. The Sentinels could hardly sneak out massive construction equipment and engineering facilities in small groups without losing most of them.
A large container ship had been chartered through several thousand shell companies, purchased from a company that had gone bankrupt and abandoned it was the perfect way to get large amounts of eqiupment out. So members of the X-Men and Brotherhood (and other locals that were in the mutant loop) had gone to coordinate to pursue it. It was late night, and the harbor was at low traffic. Various bars along the route and clubs catering to the 'hey ho sailor' style on this night.
And the attack had immediately gone to the Pit. As the group had gone to board, flyby, or infiltrate the container ship, it had suddenly sprouted dozens upon dozens of weapons turrets around it which had started blasting about, and was in the midst of launching dozens and dozens of Sentinels of various sizes and types! As the infamous tactician had declared 'IT'S A TRAP!'
- Clark Kent has posed:
Superman is speeding towards the area, ready to do what has to be done. He is in his "uniform" of course, and has a look of grim determination on his face. Using his vision powers, he spots the Sentinels and the weapons terminals. This was looking to be a long day of combat ahead of them.
Positioning himself to be the most visible in the air above the contaner ship, Superman readies himself to be the big, red, target. "Just another day of Truth, Justice and the American Way. Let's Go!"
- Billy Batson has posed:
Shazam has a dear sister, Mary, when she isn't being a pain in his butt as Thunderbolt. Her partner is Marie-Ange. To say they are close insults the bond they formed through jamming and talk. Billy calls her sis. She is the Mutant known as Tarot. She made him aware of the injustices committed against Earth's other Children. He doesn't like it.
Shazam doesn't have the suite of sense powers a Kryptonian has. But it is hard to miss the trap being sprung, or the iconic flash or red and blue. Wow maybe he can actually speak to Superman sometime!
He decides to follow Superman's lead and falls in beside him.
"You can try the red, or the blue. Hello, sir." He tries not to drift too much. Hovering is hard.
- Jaxon Blain has posed:
He's not a coward, but Tenebris isn't a fool with a death wish either. When the trap was sprung, he was /gone/. No, he didn't run away. But he did slip into the shadows, at least briefly, so that he could gain a better understanding of the situation. Hella Sentinels wasn't quite enough information to be helpful. He's not a gun guy, he doesn't have super strength, he isn't capable of accelerated healing.
But he /can/ sneak.
He weighs his options - boy doesn't stand a chance in 'face to face' with those Sentinels. If push came to shove, he'd stay and fight in that arena. He'd probably die either an incredibly painful - or incredibly quick - death but he'd do it.
Rather than throw himself on the sword immediately, he takes a different strategy.
<<I'm going in for the turrets.>> Without reappearing to the masses, he uses the shadows to travel from point A to point - 'I still might die, but at least I tried'.
He takes it slow though, watching from the darkness he's so comfortable in while trying to figure out what it might entail to take at least that threat out our the equation.
- Bishop has posed:
This isn't exactly as coordinated as he would have liked it to have been. For one a full squad of the X-Men would have been more preferred then a rag-tag assembly of whoever happened to be around. Also, certainly, given recent meetings and questions about murder-earthquakes and in the Nicaraguan jungles being a topic of discussion....well needless to say the veerrrrrryy suspicious Brotherhood also being involved isn't ideal.
But you can't have it your way all the time as Bishop is well aware and so as he pulls up on a large motorcycle only to see the Sentinels start pouring out of the ship and turrets get to firing...he simply grunts out lowly.
"Hn. It figures."
He then hops off his bike and pulls forth a massive X.S.E. blaster rifle and begins racing in towards the conflagarion, opening fire on the bots as they soar overhead and then ducking behind cover when return fire explodes around him.
"X-Men emergency!" he shouts after tapping his comm badge but also triggering it so that the broadcast goes out over any airwave that could be listening in. Including The Brotherood of course, "We need reinforcements, stat! These wild Sentinels are pouring out of the docks like angry wasps form a hive that just got kicked over!! I'm on site with---uh.."
He seess Superman go soaring overhead in a blur of red, yellow and blue.
"....Superman?! Okay. Superman is here."
Well that'll help.
- Martinique Wyngarde has posed:
Martinique Wyngarde was meant to be shooting, safely, from a distance. Not being the one getting ambushed. Fortunately she's dressed for combat: Body armor jumpsuit, boots, packing more than a few guns in her duffel bag.
So when the shooting starts, she starts shooting BACK! Diving behind the nearest cover, behind the mast of a crane, she drops her bag, unzips it, and pulls out the first two handguns she can grab. And just empties them, one after the other, with one hand while the other searches for a decent rifle.
The handguns aren't going to hit the turrets, but they should hold back the sentinels the turrets are backing up. She hopes.
- Paige Guthrie has posed:
As one of the more junior X-Men, Paige was naturally coming along, even if her allegiances were a bit dubious. Dressed in her standard blue and yellow uniform, she lets out a little yelp when the sentinels suddenly appear and she nosescrunches.
"I knew this smelled fishy."
SCHLURP! RIP! SCHLRAP!
Skin is shed as she begins pulling patchwork pieces of skin upon her body. The skin from her arms reveals a diamond tipped drill-bit looking like this, hopefully able to pierce through any Sentinel armor. The rest of her body sheds into moly steel, giving her a shiny quality, and the increased strength and durability that comes with it.
"And Superman's here?!? Think I can ask him to autograph one of my Super Daddy shirts?"
- Mortimer Toynbee has posed:
"This is hun'red percent a trap."
He says it under his breath during the planning phase of this joint venture into the security of mutant kind. A pair of goggles rests on his forehead, hands in his pockets as he rocks heel to toe in ratty old converse allstars with the boots unlaced. Greasy hair hung around his face, from beneath his hood, as the bigger brains worked out who was going to do what when they got to the place with the things.
There's no reason for him to think it's a trap, of course. Just a feeling. Hidden bases in Africa. The fact that they were sentient machines capable of higher level intellectual processing on par with creating a self regulated construction algorithm capable of mass production of extremely advanced mutant hunting robots? Transporting the necessary components to construct their self sustained MASTER MOLD without any escort?
"This is a trap." He murmurs, the flat side of his massive tongue runs across his fat lips. Which proves true, but he's not the type to say so... at least not out loud. Peering side to side when the laser beams start flying in every direction that even 'slightly' appears to be 'at them'. He's kneeling against the side of a truck, leaning his head forward to peer, forehead wrinkled. Nobody around him. So he says it to himself. "Heh, trap. Good eye there, mate.. oh pssh possh, bruv, I'm just lookin' out's all."
Toad puts his hand on the hood and side flips over the front of the vehicle. Rolling out of a spring board, cartwheeling towards the loading ramps.
Just as Superman appears in the sky, "Oh hey, the big guns are here... we can all pack't up and head home." His tongue whips out with a jerk of his neck, catching the extended length of a light pole to swing him out over the water towards the side of the ship. Only he never makes it to the ship.
One of the smaller sentinels catches him midflight in a massive spear, rocketing them back backwards. Now, Toad aint going quietly, smashing his fists, axe handle style, into the machines shoulders. "Lemme loose of me, wanker! I'm not a footie!"
- Vanessa Carlysle has posed:
It had just been one of those days.
After a week and a half of watching the tracking of her package get sent to one wrong post office after another, Vanessa Carlysle had finally hopped on the subway and headed over to a post office at the docks. The site of its latest misrouted layover of her shipment containing a DVD of the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Unfortunately, showing the postal worker at the counter her ID containing the address the package was addressed to wasn't enough to free it from the Escher-esque pathways of the US Postal Service's routing.
So she did what anyone would in this situation. She left. And stopped in the bar next door and had a few beers.
And a few more beers.
And now the young brunette woman is stepping outside of the bar, finding it's already dark. Vanessa is wearing jeans, boots, and a tank top that leaves her midriff bare. And she's handling the booze like someone with a lot of experience in the subject. "Hoo was this a waste of a day," she mumbles to herself, checking her purse to make sure she's still got her MTA card for the subway in there.
That's when she hears the weapons fire breaking out. Not just the pop-pop-pop of handguns that the denizen of the slums of New Lots is used to hearing. Bursts of heavy fire that sound like something from a Memorial Day movie.
She lets out a scream and dives to the ground over against the brick wall of the bar. Covering her head at first, before peaking up. Seeing Superman hovering in the air with his cape flapping about him, her eyes widen in surprise and Vanessa murmurs to herself very softly, "Kal-El."
- Clarice Ferguson has posed:
An elf's work is never done. Be it cookies, toys, or dealing with the unyielding, unending hatred of a species afraid of its inevitable extinction and replacement by homo superior.
Not that Clarice isn't willing to let that whole co-existence happy days are here again Charles Xavier's dream thing come to pass. She's just skeptical.
Because of the killer robots. Cyborgs? Whatever they count as, Blink's ready to take them on. At least insofar as when the call goes out she hasn't got any social plans to interrupt.
And you'd think a teleporter'd show up first, and... via teleporting, but no no. Clarice Ferguson's blazing down past New York's finest dock side dive bars, heralding her arrival with the bone-rattling roar of a souped up hog of a motorbike of indeterminate make and model.
(She did not ask the owner, and she couldn't hear what he was yelling when she borrowed it. Probably not manufacturer details.)
When the cargo ship erupts into gunfire and robot-disgorging mayhem, Blink's only too happy to add her own part to the fireworks, leaping up to stand on the seat of the bike as it begins to wobble out of control, just in time to leap off into a graceful backflip and launch a pair of her javelins, one into the dock in front of her, another angled to open up its twin over the harbor and send several hundred pounds of roaring metal and rubber (and gasoline) into one of the knots of ascending Sentinels. Which sends them scattering like bowling pins.
Bowling pins she's sure are now going to lock onto that mutant energy signature.
Okay, step one of her plan is complete.
Just gotta come up with step _two_.
- Erik Lensherr has posed:
~~ THEN: "They claim it is survival of the fittest, that they fight for the endurance of the human race-- but we know the truth, brothers, sisters, MUTANTS! It is the future of our species, our world, our potential greatness that these hateful monstrosities battle /against/." The Brotherhood briefing is simple: Sentinel equipment is being 'moved' out of New York City. Even before the energy signatures, generators, and allows within were actually detected-- it was safe to assume a trap.
"This is no prize to be plucked, but an adversary to be /vanquished/. They seek to spread this war to their own city streets, along their own channels of commerce, to paint -us- as the mad; but we are the inheritors of this planet, my brethren-- and we shall excise this cancer regardless where it spreads, with precision and might beyond even the nightmares of the backwards, the ignorant, the cowardly, and the /malignant/!"
~~ NOW: Brotherhood agents converge on the arsenal of hate unleashed on the New York dockline, and in the sky far ahead, Superman is not the only glimmer of blue. This one sparks white hot, crackles with energy, and as the vessel unveils its armament... its very construction begins to turn against it. Shielded against electromagnetism is a very relative thing. Sure, Magneto finds he cannot simply cause the massive generators powering these robots to detonate in a controlled, if perhaps nuclear yield...
...but there's not a lot they can do when their own containers begin forcibly making holes in the hull, slamming through ascending sentinels, and rapidly oscillating between forms and vectors to better intercept their targets. Jaxon may have a front row seat for the show-- but it proves to provide better cover than direct hazard, as if the Master of Magnetism knows exactly where he is; perhaps, where they all are.
- Monet St. Croix has posed:
There was always a danger. There was always a trick. But a trap was also a possibility. And sometimes a trap meant adapting - and also sometimes the best way to stop one was to trigger it. It was time for the merry mutant mayhemmers and friends to show off what they could do! If they could last that long.
Superman is instantly the priority target as several of the turrets go to blast up at him, energy bursts lancing through the air, along with bullets, tasers, and cannons. It's the type of thing that he's used to and can handle pretty easily, no doubt. As Shazam goes to fly alongside him, from the top of the cargo ship, one of the large, loaded containers moves to slowly unlatch itself and open,r evealing a massive barrel.
Atleast for now the cargo ship is staying in place, even as the loading process has stopped. It's not in a race to flee - or to smash intot he pier either.
Near Vanessa, as she goes to scream, some of the offloaded metal cannisters start to unfold, separated bins popping out! They have four limbs and large rotary cannons atop themselves as a half dozen of them go to split apart, racing about the area to start and shoot up civilians. Air raid sirens go out, cell phone jammers kick in, and every single car alarm and smoke alarm in several blocks blares out to add to the chaos.
Towards Blink up in the air come a trio of flying Sentinels. They have the standard humanoid configuration, but a more streamlined form and had fins and.. Wings built into them. Each about a meter in 'length'. Like someone had thrown jet parts onto a robot and somehow it could fly like one. They would try to bracket her over as they would burst out with energy cannons to try and pin her even as she would tleeport their brethren into onea nother!
Jaxno is able to sneak along through the shadows - at least until the flashinglights and sirens go off. Of course, he's moving to remain hidden and covert, so he would quite possibly be able to stay concealed in his position. And the ship had plenty of shadows even as it kept continuously launching robots..
At least right up until Magneto goes to start working through casually crushing the container ship, bins smashing inwards, the ship starting to crush in upon itself, starting to flatten and creak.. And from the huge opening container on top of it, that large barrel of acannon goes to start to glow up, charging with energy and swiveling to face Magneto..
Bishop is getting in the fun as in the midst of the crowds as he goes todeploy along with Paige several of the 'people' that had been wearing heavy overshirts and masks would hold thier hands up as (predictably) said masks would peel off to reveal the robots in (admittedly poor) disguise! But instead of blasting energy at Paige and Bishop, they would go to launch at the pair with heavy, reinforced grappling hooks. Edged with barbed spikes designed to punch through concrete!
Martinique has an excellent position to poke up and take potshots at things and has no one shooting at her. This is probably a good thing. But her powers likely are of little to no use on purely robotic enemies.
- Clark Kent has posed:
Smiling at Shazam, Superman says, "Hello. It is an honour to fight beside you! Let's get the job done...together." Superman's eyes then turn to the upcoming battle. "It is going to be a tough one!"
His eyes scan the horizon. Jaxon. Bishop. Martinique. Paige. Even Mortimer. Vanessa. Clarice. Then. Magneto. His expression gets a touch cooler, but at least Superman knew he would be there to protect his kind. And defeat the Sentinels.
"Okay everyone. Great to meet you. Let's get the job done."
Superman moves forward, the tip of the spear, and takes a deep breath. "Once more unto..."
As the turrets take him on, Superman winces, but makes sure he protects everyone else using his invulnerability and super speed. he takes the big hits so the others can do their jobs. His job...be the target.
- Billy Batson has posed:
Shazam was going to follow wherever Superman led. Then he saw the Sentinels swarming the dock. He hesitates just a moment. Protect, contain, control, destroy if needed. That was how he was laying this out but the major weapons are here and the Brotherhood seemed to be dealing with them. He flashes up to the huge cannon as containers flip and twist around him. He intends to land on the barrel, bringing it down to discharge into the bowels of the ship.
"Zeus, this is like fighting the Chrysalids on that freighter in X-Com!!!"
- Vanessa Carlysle has posed:
Vanessa Carlysle stays on the ground but continues to peer out and see what is going on. Even with all that weapons fire going on, she can't help but take a worried look about. Eyes seeking an archer with a green hood about his head. She lets out a little sigh of relief at not spotting him.
The relief is short-lived at best though as those robotic forms unfold from the cannisters. The door to the bar opens and a man peers out, before being pushed out of the doorway by the one behind him who wants to see what's going on.
It's bad timing, as one of those robots turns a rotary gun on them. Brick chips fall on Vanessa as the bullets strafe across the bar and hit the two men, taking them down. It continues on past, targeting a taxi that is fleeing the area.
Vanessa lets out another little scream, but digs into her purse frantically. Pulling out a revolver. Though rather than fire it, she crawls over to the doorway, pushing the downed men back inside the bar as best she can.
- Bishop has posed:
"For God's sake Paige. No! And remind me to have a talk with you about the connotations of your shirt titles before someone throws you into the Atlantic!" shouts Bishop, chagrinned just enough to respond to Paige but still focused on the task at hand.
"...Magneto's here. Great."
The arrival of the Master of Magnetism when on their side like this is only a net positive ..but Bishop can't say that his presence doesn't bring with it some concern for what may lay ahead.
It's only half a thought, however, as he quickly adjusts his movements in the wake of the Sentinels targeting him and Paige. Even as their hands come up, a trained eye and careful study of their past behaviors has already prepared him for the obvious and he goes on the defensive, lunging into a high speed dodge that sends one of the grappling hooks cutting just past him and missing him by inches. Another comes in closer then that, but scores lightly across flesh reinforced by what kinetic energy reserves he's already taken in. His power grants him no direct protection against such attacks but it doesn't mean he can't come in somewhat toughened to make them harder to hurt him.
"You wouldn't happen to have some adamantium or vibranium skin at the ready, would you?" he calls out towards Paige, trusting her own training to kick in as he whirls his X.S.E. blaster around in a volley of high powered kinetic energy shots for the Sentinels on them.
"If anyone can hear me and can see me, target me directly with any directed energy that you have for as long as you can. Anybody. I'm going to try and take as many of them down in one shot but I need to fuel up first." His deep voice rumbles out over the comm links and through any telepathic links that may have been established. It's a long shot but it's worth a try.
I
- Mortimer Toynbee has posed:
SMASH SMASH
Toad brings his fists down, over and over, across the Sentinel carrying him around like an AMERICAN Football. "It's not a real sport!" He says for no reason, put out about the reference, but supremely glad he's not getting kicked like a PROPER Football. It's only once his knee comes up, with a surprisingly firm crack of metal against the reenforced knee pads he's wearing.. He might not be old, but hopping around isn't going to do his joints any favors if he doesn't protect them... It's only once he KNEES THE SHIT out of the Sentinel's FACE that their tragectory, which was largely -that wayish- becomes -alloverthefuckingplaceish-
Smoke, probably lubricant of some kind, hydrolics... and slobber are flinging in every direction as the pair of machine and mutant corkscrew, twirl, and spell out This is not what I signed up for in the sky like a prop plane. Not really, but how dope would that be, huh?
The grip around the small guy loosens. It's not completely, but it's enough scamper out, onto the Sentinel's back. Onto its back where he can jam his hands into the crack created by his repeated knee smashing of its face. He hops up onto his feet, grips the sides of the open gash in the armor plating, and uses it to stablize (That word is used loosely) the flight pattern. Now it's headed in a back the way they cameish direction, using the sentinel itself to keep himself from getting shot at... at least at first right? They have to have some kind of learning software don't they?
"Oy Bruv! Huge fan of how you get shot at and it doesn't bloody hurt you.." He passes by Superman, whipping and whirling that big flying purple kill bot, until they're within danger zone distance of one of the turrets. "Alright, you have fun you big purple fucker!"
He releases his grip, shoves with both feet into a leap, and the most majestic god damned aerial flip a tiny slimy, Insane Clown Posse loviny, mutant can achieve. He doesn't even care that the turrets explodify his ride. Nope, he lands in a roll, then a cartwheel. Then a run. "Shoot me, ya pricks ya." Making it extremely god damn difficult to shot him. Where they might miss and shoot the other turrets. Because Toad is headed for the controls room. By the quickest, parkourist, route possible.
- Jaxon Blain has posed:
<Magneto, incoming you're way if I don't...>> A loud bang of a sound is followed by... <<Shut this thing down.>> Who really knows how he managed it? Likely beating on something with one of his shadow constructs. Maybe he started a fire? Maybe he stuck gum in the barrel and it 'backfired' into itself. Maybe he hit the self destruct button? Do those things have those buttons? Whatever he did, luck was on his side.
But not even a beat after that warning that glowing cannon aimed at Erik just explodes before it can ever fire at its mark.
At least Tenebris was smart enough to duck back into the darkness before the big finale.
- Martinique Wyngarde has posed:
Martinique Wyngarde finally finds the rifle, and pulls it out. She keeps low, doing her best to do so. Though Superman taking on the turrets helps. It gives her enough confidence to poke up enough to get her heavy rifle in position and start shooting.
It also helps that Magneto is here. Hearing him is confidence all its own.
Her hands move without thinking, her face cool, everything going through the motions she's practiced since she was small. Powerful, armor-piercing rounds loading into the rifle, and those rounds being propelled at the nearest Sentinels. She assumes 'energy' doesn't include 'lead propelled at high speed'.
She has one small part in this project, and she's just going to keep shooting until she's out of ammo.
- Paige Guthrie has posed:
If she wasn't moly steel, then the barbed wire grappling hooks would hurt a lot more. The hook grasps onto her diamond arm and she winces as it pulls her forward. "I'm already moly steel! I don't understand the chemical structure of adamantium enough to shift there." So it seems she has to have some chemical knowledge to truly 'husk' into one of those forms.
Her training has indeed made her husks instinctive at this point. She shifts and winces for a few moments. The hooks continue to grasp around her, pulling her closer and closer towards the sentinels themselves. But in this case, she's using that forward momentum to her advantage.
Pointing that diamond tipped arm towards the robotic menace, she lets out a yargh as she's pulled closer. Sure, she's Paigelossus right now, but she can also go Paigerine (or is it Paige Queen?) on the robot in question.
"Bishop! Stay behind me though on anything physical! I can take these hits... I think."
- Clarice Ferguson has posed:
It's times like 'three weird-ass cyborg Sentinels squaring off against her' that Blink's actually thankful she's not really got an active social life these days. She'd feel pressured to come up with some kind of real good one-liner. Fortunately Wild Sentinels, horrifying posthuman techno-horrors that they are, aren't usually big on banter. Of course, neither are their big daddies. 'HALT. MUTANT.' isn't exactly real inspiring for banter.
Spider-Man doesn't have to deal with trying to riff off that shit.
And as her own personal cadre of weird plane-robot-people begins their maneuvering, Blink... lets them surround her. Her eyes actually close for a solid second and a half as she inhales slowly, and they open again on her exhalation, and once more she's hurling those signature pink bolts of energy, before she's breaking into a sprint towards a nearby maze of cargo containers. She knows she's not going to outrun the sentinels. But they'll do their dogged pursuit thing. And every javelin she throws rends atoms and strips away a bit more armor, a little more mass.
All part of step two of her plan! Step two: Strip away enough armor to make them vulnerable to energy cannon blasts. Has Blink got an energy cannon? No, spritely green dress shows off her legs, but it does not have pockets.
But her new friends have energy cannons. And she'll get at least one chance to direct their shots through some portals.
Yep. This is a great plan.
- Erik Lensherr has posed:
"My." Magneto chortles as his sixth-- or perhaps even seventh senses tingle with the charging main cannon. "That -is- a big one."
See Bishop? No, Magneto has not the eyes of a hawk. Hear Bishop, over the X-channeled comms? Oh yes, that he can provide. Sense Bishop, where he and Paige square off against a war crime-- using civilian populations as a cover for military operations, if one is curious-- Very, very much yes.
Lucas is an interesting specimen, full of remarkable and unique energy even without the remnants of displacement through time. Bishop asks, and a bubble of magnetic energy shimmers into being around both the time refugee and his charge.
In the flash of an eye, both would ascend skyward, but spared the majority of gravity's impact with the acceleration; truly uncanny, as with so much Homo Superior. Paige's crackling bubble goes one way, and Bishop's? Well, Magneto shoves Bishop right into the path of that beam cannon, giving the X-Man all the supercharge he could desire without expending his own precious reserves.
"I believe I shall be returning their artillery -to- them." Magnus muses over the Brotherhood channel. Then, a polite nod to Paige, then Bishop. "Paint your targets of preference." Magnus urges, lifting an armored hand as power dances down his fingertips, the alacrity translating to the hovering balls of X-Man.
- Monet St. Croix has posed:
Shazam goes to slam through the heart of the container ship, even as it's being torn apart. He smashes through from one end to the other while he teams up with Superman. However, he then has a trio of Sentinels going to form up along him. Each is about a meter long, and they have large.. That looks like some sort of strange Tesla Coil atop each. Glowing rods that would start to try and take charges of any energy he would throw at them to try and start to siphon it! And they had repulsorfields in the literal sense - sensing his 'state' and matching each movement to keep distance from him no matter how he evaded! Superman takes the heavy energy blasts, even as each weapon is taken out inq uick blasts!
As Vanessa goes to scramble to get to cover, the sound of hovering can be heard. A trio of drones pop around her. Standard commercial looking ones - popping up with small weapons turrets and with antennae atop them. Jammers. Each would chime that most feared sentence <<MUTANT SIGNATURE DETECTED>> as they would go to start firing bullets towards her!
Bishop's fought Sentinels. He's also studied how these ones fight. From records, videos, and long life combat experience. Their tricks might be new but they still stuck to the same combat patterns. That meant in a tight way they were predictable. Bishop's shots would go to burst two of the ones attacking him apart. Two others would advance, and their hands would.. Retract, and what looked like sledgehammer drills would pop out. They weren't blasting at him - they were trying to engage him in melee where he couldn't use his guns or have something to grab energy from.
The ship is breaking apart around Toad as he goes on in, darting througha s it woudl be crushed by Magneto, smashed through by Shazam, and having numerous other damages inflicted upon it. He sees several emptied tubes of what had been filled with launched Sentinels. Internal catapults designed to throw them into battle faster, like an aircraft carrier might. As he goes to race, there's the sound of rapid spinning eveh as the ship is breaking apart. Racing after him are three spherical Sentinels - with blades around them, rolling like death marbles. Blades anchoring them even as the ship itself was being crushed about! But he had a free run to the control room as the turrets did an excellent job of taking one another out.
As Jaxom goes to race in, moving towards the barrel of the superheavy gun moving to align itself over with Magneto, and he sees heavy mortar shells like something of a World War 2 Battleship might load.. The gun starts to seize up. The barrel starts to flash as the explosion kicks in. And it lights up along with the fuel in the area, the munitions.. As the already crushed upper deck goes to detonate as fuel and ammunition and damage make it fully split in half!
Martinique's position is noticed, and a larger, bulkier Sentinel that looked like someone took the Mark 1 Iron Man armor, automated it, and put enough armor on it to make it qualify as a tank would stomp to the ground several dozen yards from her, starting to advance as it would slowly work it's way towards her!
Paige puts herself over in front of Bishop to protect him, taking several bits of the hammering and bludgeoning at him, the sledgehammer drills just breaking over on her nigh invulnerable skin. Her strikes back at them likewise shatter bits. Until the pair are lifted up into the air by Magneto and Bishop is supercharged as a result, all needing to be a giant glowing gun about him to drive the point home!
Blink is very, very good at liberation. Namely, liberating the guns used by the Sentinels to herself. The guns she's taken are rapidly put to use against thier former owners as Blink has fun playing with portals. Somewhere out there in silicon valhalla, GLAD0S is grinning in triumph and mocking things. And perhpas Clarice realizes why Cable's generation wields such massively oversized things as Sentinels would erupt in devastation about her.
- Clark Kent has posed:
Taking the heavy blasts, Superman grits his teeth, making sure he is the big taregt for the rest of the team. His speed and strength takes out some of the Sentinel, and his body absorbs the big hits from the cannons, and he knws what his job was. To make sure everyone else had the time to do what they had to do.
"Getting singed here everyone. How goes the battle?"
- Jaxon Blain has posed:
The thing about explosions? All that fire - orange, white, red - it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for shadows and the small amounts of darkness that are left, don't allow much in the way of protection.
While it's better than if he hadn't been shrouded in those shadows, Tenebris still takes some of the concussive force of the blast.
It's enough that he's shoved out of the darkness and tossed around like a ragdoll as the upper deck begins to cave in. He lands hard somewhere between the lower levels of the ship and where he was just standing. Just like that - he's out. His last conscious act is to /crawl/ his way toward one corner not touched by the light and vanish into comfort of the dark.
Any mental connection with him is severed - there's nothing but the sounds of the explosion and then silence on the comms from his end.
- Mortimer Toynbee has posed:
"Now that's a propah fotbal, innit." Toad says of the spherical sentinels chasing him with blades jutting out of their frickin' sides. "Not so keen on the knifes, though." He's a quick son of a bitch and agile like a fox. Is there a space too small for him to fit through? Not yet. So he's running up the side of torn metal rebar ripping from the guts of the ship around him. Sprinting, swinging around, and staying just a few steps ahead of his pursuit as the ship literally rends around him.
He has a job to do, dammit.
"Come to Metropolis, they says." Twirl, twisting his body in mid leap to sail between two sections of ship crashing together as it folds in half under Magneto's control. "See the beau'e'ful sights, they says." As he lands, grumbling to himself as he breaks up the stairs, swings around the top, then under, the railing to double kick one of the sentinels back away from him when it gets too close. "Stay away from me!" That's not going to work, of course, but he'd be pretty embarassed if he didn't try and it did.
Right up into the cockpit? Do these things have cockpits?
"Al'righ al'righ, where's the manifest... where was we headin' eh?" CQC bay-beeee.. they may have knives, but try fighting a squirrelly Toad in a confined inclossure. He ducks backwards as a blade swings over his head, rolls backwards onto his palms, and springs up into a pop pop side kick that sends the Sentinel bashing into one of the other trio that's chasing him. "Fuck off." Pointing at them. So viciously.
Right back to the control computer, trying to trace back where this ship was heading. It might have been a trap, but they were expecting to get where they were going in the long run right? Well he's going to find it! <<"Please don't kill me, I'm workin' up here, yea?">> He even hocks the big ass horn.
HOOOONK HOOOONK
- Vanessa Carlysle has posed:
The two men are heavy, but Vanessa finishes shoving them through the doorway. Only to have the bartender pull the door shut and bolt it before she can get inside too.
"Hey, you asshole!" she says, pounding on the door as she crouches there. The ominous sounding mechanical voices behind her cause Vanessa's eyes to go wide as saucers and she slowly turns to find the drones there in front of her.
She looks behind her as if to see who they are talking to. "I'm not... I'm not a mutant," she protests, only to see them rotating to bring those weapons barrels to bear on her!
Vanessa spins and runs, pointing the revolver their direction blindly and firing, her attention on a big metal pole supporting a light fixture way above the docks.
The shot misses by a mile, while the gunfire from the drones is at least better. Bullets ricochet off the pavement at her feet so close they almost hit her heel. The twenty-something year old slides behind the metal pole to take cover, the gunfire pinging off it and ricocheting away. She sits hunched there, legs drawn up to not expose any of herself, panting for breath, eyes wide with fear.
- Billy Batson has posed:
Shazam drats. Tesla coils. They could turn him back to Billy. He begins ripping up machinery and flinging them at the Sentinel. Sometimes the simple solutions are the best. Tesla coils are far from durable. He becomes a blur of red and white as cargo and automated assemblers are hurled willy nilly.
- Bishop has posed:
So they want melee eh? He's got something for them as well...
Bishop is an expert hand to hand combatant and not lacking in physical strength nor skill with weapons, even if said weapon might be simply using his X.S.E. blaster as a club and trying to get Forge or Beast to fix it later. What little energy he absorbs just through daily kinetic energy occurences can be used to enhance his physique as well. He can bring a speeding car to a stop with a punch. Given energy and he's a bonafied super soldier.
Buuuut...that 'enough energy' may not be right now at the moment so he steels himself to use what he does have access to and is ready to meet the charging Sentinels head on.
Until Magneto intervenes, that is. Bishop feels the pulse of electromagnetic energy before the crackling blue sphere of currents even fully manifests. He's surprised but not completely thrown off. Even being enveloped in the elctromagnetic field begins fueling him immediately, causing a surge of blue white fire to begin crackling from his eyes.
"Alright..tha--whooaaaa!"
He's yanked, along with Paige, straight into the air and towards the Master of Magnetism. He's barely any time to truly process that and he's seeing the massive energy cannon trained on the three of them There's no time for any words as the blast lances forth and erupts into him - his body drinking in the fury of the assault, effectively tanking the blast to fully protect Magneto and Paige as the energy discharge is drawn into him and his entire body blazes with a sudden bonfire of surging power.
"Yearrrrgghhh!!!"
It's not a cry of pain as much as it is a cry of energized rage as Bishop turns the energy ack outward, amplifying it with even greater force and begins to scythe an enormous blast of power across the battle field in a torrent of power. The wheeling sentinels zooming in on Magneto are the first up in the wide beam assault caused by the X.S.E. officer but the turrets and any other wildly flying Sentinels are quickly honed in on as well.
- Erik Lensherr has posed:
As Toad tricks, slams, and squirrels his way through the miniaturized units arrayed against him, his onslaught is suddenly redoubled as each Sentinel, adapted to the Toad, is forcibly slammed not so much into one another a second time, as -through- one another, the chunks hitting each wall hard enough to create a new porthole.
When Toynbee begins data mining-- and the Brotherhood has devices and cyberpaths standing by just for that purpose, especially at times like these-- another spherical barrier shimmers to silently crackling, subtly shimmering luminescence around the Toad... and then the fallen form of Tenebrous, before he shares this vessel's imminent fate.
From somewhere in the far beyond, a hail of densely power-forged ferrous shrapnel falls in a whirring cloud. Nay-- not falls, soars, surges, /strikes/. The seemingly endless rising killbots are met by similarly ceaseless barrage of roughly insect-sized shards of impossibly resilient metal. Even where barriers are raised, where armor adapts or ablates beneath the storm, they find joints; eyes; mouths; sockets.
They burrow inward, they twist and spin their cruel-edged little spans, they whirl in a dark cloud over the battlefield even as the Master of Magnetism closes a circuit around Bishop's remarkable energy blast. The beam surges with electricity, discharges insulation-shearing EMP, but perhaps more notably: It closes the loop right back on Bishop himself. Wordless, focused, the Master of Magnetism's hewn features are set in a stern, intense frown, his jaw tightly clenched, his eyes pools of wild, white-cored blue fire.
- Clarice Ferguson has posed:
Much like a runaway train, everything in Blink's plan is going... 'Good enough'. Right up until the wheels come off. Metaphorically.
Clarice is gasping for breath, and those darts are coming less and less swiftly, taking more and more concentration to summon up the next. But the sentinels are showing plenty of gaps in armor by the time they manage to coordinate enough to trap her in a dead end alley of shipping containers.
It's a Mexican standoff, only one of the sides hasn't got a gun, and the other side's three angry robots with energy weapons that unload in unison, a flare of light erupting between the gaps in the cargo containers.
Which is right about the time one of the wheels on this plan falls off. Blink opens a series of portals to intercept onrushing energy blasts and have them strike weak points in the Sentinels.
And it works great! Except that the Sentinel hovering above Blink didn't go for an energy blast, which she realizes when a searing jolt of pain stabs into her shoulder.
Oh, wait, no, that's a jagged metal blade stabbing into her shoulder and /causing/ searing pain.
Which is right about the time that Toad gets a surprise onboard the ship, a pink-framed portal opens at ceiling level and partly carves through the metal above due to its hastily angled summoning.
What might be more surprising is Blink leaping 'up' from her perspective, only to 'dive' down out of the ceiling to land in a bleeding, growling heap with the remnants of a blade and the hand of cyborg errantly twitching atop her shoulder.
Green eyes roll to lock onto Toad as she hisses out, "Hey handsome, need a lift?"
She's only /barely/ able to muster some dry sarcasm in the tone of 'handsome'.
- Martinique Wyngarde has posed:
Martinique Wyngarde grunts "Shit shit shit." She tries to take some shots at the enemies approaching her. This is not good. "Go down, dammit. Should have brought the bazooka." She reloads and refires as long as she can, until she has to THROW the weapon at them and take off, where she rapidly becomes trapped between a robot and a steep drop into the ocean.
It's at this moment she'll throw out a telegraphic distress signal, but can it possibly be in time?
- Paige Guthrie has posed:
Snap!
Her diamond arm is able to get through the armor of some of the sentinels. Considering she doesn't typically morph into such materials, they probably weren't expecting it as one of her capabilities.
When she's hoisted up by her petard by the master of magnetism, Paige lets out a yelp and then looks at the two. Thinking for a few moments, she oohs. There's a reason why she was intently studying physics the past couple of weeks. There was another transformation that she had wanted to try all this time.
"Magneto! You wanna play Zeus?!?" she calls out. With that, she rips all of her current form as moly steel and diamond fall to the ground. Yes, her 'skin' is the real thing, so collect that diamond! It's probably almost a million dollars worth.
Underneath that shed form is a snapping, a crackling, and a popping. Her voice takes on a different quality as she's turned into a living, breathing, being of energy. Enter the newform: Paigening (a better name will be given soon).
- Monet St. Croix has posed:
Superman now has three of the Sentinels lining up wtih him that have glowing chests. Their chests cycle now to red as they go to try and blast him with varying frequencies of solar radiation. Discharging in attempts to see if they could find a specific spectrum that might phase him or disorient him! They're playing keepaway, trying to stay at angles where he couldn't immediately grab and blast them. Of course, given his much greater speed and powers this probably wouldn't last long. But the massive cargo ship is blowing up along wtih everything in it which presents it's own issues..
Toad, with the enthusiasm of a proper Australian (was he one or not) would be able to quickly bring up the shipping manifest. United Arab Emirates, Gammorrah, Kandahar, Madripoor.. It seemed like it had cycled through nearly every single lawless location on the planet by just a quick skim. Which would explain a great deal on how the SEntinels got so many weapons. Even as his kicks have knocked the drones away from him, where they're caught up in fireballs and explode!
Vanessa is met with bursts of gunfire as the three jammer drones go after her, moving to flank as her bullets would zing past them. They would chant, as if mocking her <<All mutants are to be terminated>> It echos along towards the docks as they would move to try and herd her along! It's definitely within the hearing range of Martinique, likewise being threatened by a robot as bullets would fly along as the people in nearby clubs would be fleeing out whatever way they could!
Billy seizes upon the simplest solution. Grab and smash. One didn't have to always get fancy. Schemes of Odysseus sometimes were much more simplified by gonig the route of Herakles - smashing everything in sight like a proper berserker!
And then Bishop goes to unleash a massive blast down towards the ship.
Magneto'smassive blast of power and energy erupting, the high powered blast of Bishop.. They go to shut down everything on the ship that was still going on. Every Sentinel that is powered up in the area of the ship is blasted from the air! Even if not by EMP then over by the sheer elecromagnetic disruption hammering over them all. That's the ship going down in three... Two...
And there inside with the collapsed form of Jaxom and Toad over in the control room is a pink skinned Christmas Elf, popping in to grab them both to save the day!
BOOM as it erupts in a massive fireball that sends flame, fuel, munitions, and debris everywhere, but contained thanks to the magnetic field.
Martinique has the large Sentinel landing by her, advancing even as she goes to send out her telepathic distress cry! Will the brotherhood telepaths up on Asteroid M be able to receive it and get it back to her quickly? The ground shakes, the windows crack, as it advances on the two relentlessly.
Paige is meanwhile getting ready to go for a different kind of fastball special. She's making herself into a highly ferrous material.. And with Magneto's powers, the two are setup to treat her like a living railgun projectile!
- Vanessa Carlysle has posed:
The ping of bullets hitting the metal post sheltering Vanessa come to an end as the drones find themselves other targets who are actually fighting back more than a rogue shot from an unaimed revolver.
The young woman leans over just enough one eye can see past the pole. Then leaning a little further as she sees the drones skimming through the air away from her above the docks. Peeking out she looks around, eyes wide at the combat that is going on before her and overhead.
Vanessa's staring comes to an end as something gigantic clangs to the ground behind her, hard enough the ground heaves beneath her! She turns to find a full-sized Sentinel gazing down at her. It reaches out a gigantic metal hand, crunching and sweeping the thick metal light pole aside to leave Vanessa no hiding place.
<<MUTANT DETECTED. COMMENCE TERMINATION.>> the three story-tall Sentinel's robotic voice announces.
Vanessa backs away, the revolver rising to fire a few times, bullets just sparking as they bounce off the robot's heavy armor. She drops the revolver and holds up her hands as if to convince the Sentinel she isn't a threat now.
The Sentinel leans its head forward, and thick red energy beams lance out from its eyes, hitting the ground at Vanessa's feet. The concrete explodes in a plume of debris and dust leaving a large crater. The young woman's body is sent hurtling like a ragdoll. Vanessa crashes back to the pavement, body crumpled in a heap and not moving. Blood starts to soak her carbon-scored clothing and exposed skin in numerous places.
<<TERMINATE.>> the Sentinel repeats, and then begins to move forward, raising a gigantic foot to crush the unconscious woman.
- Billy Batson has posed:
"Oh great father Zeus!" Shazam feels the energies gathering. that much electrical power could cause difficulties. At the very least tanking it would require his full attention, leaving him open to the Tesla bots. He tears through the bulkheads of the ship like the steel it's tissue paper, trying to get some distance, As he flies clear and some exploding thing or other hits him with little effect, the huge Sentinel catches his eye immediately.
Speed of Mercury, he again blurs and becomes a red bolt of lightning launched at the behemoth.
Power of Zeus, lightning is summoned, it empowers him further.
Strength of Hercules! The red bolt rams the behemoth in its chest. Shazam will continue through the Sentinel if he can.
- Martinique Wyngarde has posed:
Martinique Wyngarde isn't completely helpless in a CQC situation. She knows how to take a posture, and get ready to defend herself. But as the enemy closes in around her, she knows it won't work against THEM. And with the ship unstable enough as it is, she's backed riiight to the edge. She tries to hold them off, getting one arm CRACKED in the process.
And with a yell, she falls off the edge, tumbling toward the water, grimacing and making one more psychic distress signal, hoping it's before she slams into the water.
With her equipment, and all that METAL, she'd just sink.
- Erik Lensherr has posed:
Normally, Magneto 'flies' or floats objects via high-powered, diametrically opposed magnetic fields; hence the spherical visualization. As he manipulates the airborne Bishop's flight, however, that field contracts around the future-mutant like a second skin, exerting all that energy directly into Lucas' own field. All across the battlefield, they teeter on the ragged edge of victory or death. Magnus' flaring eyes close for a moment, a pulse tangible outwards and inwards from his position to those attuned to such things as he takes swift, intuitive measure of the situation.
That stern set to his jaw unmoved, a gesture of one hand sets Bishop towards one concentration of surviving enemies-- and Vanessa, conveniently enough... while a grim smile comes to his features and the Master of Magnetism nods to Paige; instants before her electrified form is supercharged by a whirling conduit of magnetic power surrounding her, and /launched/ like an evolved bolt from beyond through the opposition along the opposite flank. Right -through- Martinique's attackers, as Ms. Wyngarde finds herself suddenly floating upwards, rather than falling downwards, all that metal gear trembling a quiet note.
As Clarice and Toad move to vacate ground zero, the shield that had guarded the latter expands nigh-instantaneously outwards, reinforcing a growing bubble around the entire freighter; and then some. The explosions are contained, the shrapnel bound into tight, localized clusters, and the damage to the NYC dockline? Well, its liable to be remarkably light, given... all of this. Humanity can never say Magneto has done nothing for them.
- Clark Kent has posed:
Superman does what he does. Using his heat vision, super strength, speed and other abilities, he made short work of any Sentinels that came his way. There was a lot of "raining Sentinels" going on, as pieces and parts fell to the ground. Parts that were once very expensive robots.
- Mortimer Toynbee has posed:
"Abracadabra, boom shock'a day, I'm Violent J an' I'm back like a vertibre..." Toad sings to himself, fingers moving over the keys. He starts to begin his next onslaught defense, but then the sentinels begin smashing through one another. A grin curls his fat lips and gives a thumbs up out the window to Magneto. Maybe he sees it. Maybe he doesn't. It certainly isn't important.
Toad goes back to mining data from the computer using a host of Brotherhood approved gadgetry given to him for the very specific purpose of finding targets... or whatever. He didn't ask a lot of details. They give him things to do and he does it, but the laundry list of places this ship has been and is bound for is... robust.
To say the least.
THE LONDONER FFS... He's from London. Australia. The hell does he look like, a criminal? Jeez. Rude.
The Londoner transfers the entirety of this manifest onto a drive, which he tucks into a pocket and makes for the 'fucking outta here' direction. He's leaping out the side window crashed open by a whirling sentinel sent flying by one Master o the Magnetic arts. Onto the grating with a clang, over the railing with a huff. His feet land on said railing, pushing him into a massive leap with his arms spread like a majestic freakin' bird!
"An' I come with a hat full of tricks: Trunk full'uh Faygo, car full'a fat chic-" SPLASH, right into the bay.
- Paige Guthrie has posed:
Paigening has never been an adrenaline rush, but being in this almost intangible electrical form is a thrill. Add to the fact that she's more than likely being hurled at supersonic speeds causes her to whee even as she zip zooms and crashes into Martinique's attackers, boring a hole straight through them from her electrical might.
With that vibratory tone in her voice as she appears on the other side, she fistpumps in the air, "Yes! That was fun! Magneto, I am your lightning bolt. Show them just how close we mutants are to gods!" Bwahahaha. Maybe that MLF brainwashing is really starting to take effect.
- Bishop has posed:
Contrails of energy follow Bishop's movements as he twists about upon hearing the tell-tale sound of the massive Sentinel and its signature directive. He opens his mouth , preparing to speak to Magneto but the leader of The Brotherhood is - as expected - several steps ahead of the game, reacting before even the likes of Superman or Shazam have an opportunity to. The Future Cop is sent hurtling away from Erik, thundering towards the Sentinel like an incoming meteor for all the contrails of energy that follow behind him as he races in towards Vanessa's vulnerable position. .
His arms outstretch mid flight and a sudden blasting torrent of kinetic force explodes out from his large fists to burst into, possibly through, and likewise push the Sentinel away from it's quarry and hoefully send it tumbling away as a result of the wild assault.
Hisnd if the blast isn't enough to do it, the impact of Bishop's body will certainly help as with the energy given to him by the cannon and by Magneto he's more then reinforced and enhanced and the force of his impact would do Spiderman proud with or without the added bonus of the torrent of energy that heralded his arrival to her position.
A bonafide 'Superhero Landing' occurs next as he rebounds from the impact and goes for the landing near the vulnerable mutant.
And look at that, an exploding cargo ship behind him to frame him for a perfect photo finish.
- Billy Batson has posed:
Shazam implodes the front of the huge robot's torso. Its foot does not descend. Its reactor core is torn out and flung over the Harbor, towards deep water. The wreck fall to the docks. He drops down to Vanessa.
"I'm sorry I didn't see you sooner miss. Hey you guys got a Mutant down here? Hello?"
- Clarice Ferguson has posed:
As things continue to deteriorate, and the /ship/ deteriorates in a far more alarmingly literal and explodey way, Blink groans and reaches up to give her new robot friend a handshake. In a way. She really just grips that hand and rips it and the attached blade off her shoulder. Out? Out of her shoulder.
Fortunately, as chaos reigns, Clarice is able to focus enough to recall where she felt Jaxon through the telepathic link the Brotherhood had established. Of course, when you teleport things via javelin... well, hey, who hasn't wanted to hurl themselves off an exploding cargo ship to get underneath and teleport a chunk of it with their comrade's... unconscious body? Corpse? Well, that's for someone else to figure out.
Which is why a significant section of the exploding ship doesn't explode. Jaxon's body and a sizable chunk of the bottom fo the ship's hull, along with a now barely conscious Blink appear on the docks.
And Blink does her very best to think loudly that she needs some antiseptic for her stab wound. And that someone should check on Jaxon. She's going to be unconscious now.
- Monet St. Croix has posed:
It's a chaotic melee about the harbor. But it's ending as the mutants and heroes have taken control. Mecha and monstrous machines are being beaten on down. The Paige-O-Rod is finishing off everything and the injured are being retrieved. The ship's detonation is being controlled by the Master of Magnetism and they've gotten what will be some useful info on the Sentinels for later. They've shut down the materials pipeline, they're driving them out of the city.. Next time it will be the heroes battering down the walls to their fortress.
Bishop has saved Vanessa, Clarice has saved her fellow Brotherhood members that were in the ship.. And the X-Men have been here and a part of things.
In a possible irony out of it is that it it has made the Brotherhood the heroes. They've saved the day, the harbor, and foguth off the Sentinels.
- Martinique Wyngarde has posed:
Martinique Wyngarde may have super powers, but super pain toleance is not one of them. The combat injury, plus the jostling of Magneto's nice save, throw her into a semi-conscious state, as her brain tries to deal with the pain.
By the time she wakes up she's going to be up on the Asteroid, in a medical bed. And her loyalty to the team will only have grown.
- Erik Lensherr has posed:
Exploded, nearly fully scuttled, the superfreighter is a horrible environmental catastrophe waiting to happen. Who knows what rare metals and radioactive materials are involved in these Sentinels, on top of that.
So it is that rather than sinking, not unlike the Brotherhood's wounded and drained and... dunked in the surf... the massive container ship-- or rather what's left of it-- lurches clear of the surf. Water rushes off its shorn hull in waves as the entire mass, and all its sundered cargo along with myriad bits of Sentinel littering the sea and shoreline ascend, shimmering...
...into the sky with the Master of Magnetism.
- Vanessa Carlysle has posed:
Vanessa Carlysle is remarkably unsquished, thanks to Bishop's timely intervention. Though she's unconscious and looks to be in bad shape. The exploding concrete sliced into her in a number of places, some of it still stuck in her like shrapnel. She's bleeding though not so rapidly she's going to bleed out in the immediate future, especially with some first aid applied.
- Mortimer Toynbee has posed:
Toad surfaces with his head flung back to slap long, grossly still greasy despite being soaked, hair against his shoulders. A hand slaps across his face, spitting out Metropolis bay water as he swims towards the dock. Where he can climb the ladder and pull himself over the last three with a jerk of his arms. Landing in a crouch.
He pats his breast pocket, then flips his wet hood up. PLAP.. It's sticking to his face.
Far enough down the dock that he does a little spinning heel click, then ducks down an alleyway. Information exchange be damned. If Maggie wants to pass on what he pulled out of the computer, that's all well and good, but that aint Toad's job.
He does stick around, at least long enough to see the Ship turn into a metallic rendition of a paper ball.. Grins a big ol fat lipped grin.. then skips down the alleyway whistling Hokus Pokus where he slips into the back seat of a car waiting for him and pours himself some champagne, turning the USB drive over in his fingers laid atop his thigh.