18602/One Voice

One Voice
Date of Scene:	28 July 2024
Location:	Somewhere between New York City and Westchester County.
Synopsis:	After being arrested on trumped up charges nearly two months ago, Mutant rights activist Lauren Ritter was the subject of an assassination attempt by members of a mysterious, mystically armed new Purifier sect and their police-affiliated allies. An impromptu alliance of Brotherhood and X-Men manages to fend the assailants off long enough to force a retreat-- and in the process, they confront a horrific new Mutant utterly devoted to the Purifiers' cause. What is the Temple of the Burning Pentecost, and who is the Deacon who commands the zealous loyalty of Humans and Mutants alike?
Cast of Characters:	Jaxon Blain, Lorna Dane, Joshua Foley, Neena Thurman, Paris Bennet, Laura Kinney, Erik Lensherr

---

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Night falls over the winding roads leading from New York City to Westchester, the moon casting a pale glow on a deserted highway. The headlights of no less than ten dark SUVS and vans pierce the night. If there was any doubt that the rumors of Lauren not making it to her next destination alive, the amount of vehicles in the transport convoy should be enough. There's also the fact that this certainly isn't the way from the Qeensboro Correctional Facility to the Metropolitan Correctional Center - a place much closer to where Lauren's trial is supposed to start on Monday.

The Brotherhood of Mutants has been keeping an eye on the situation since Lauren's arrest with plans to pull her out of the fire on the day of her trial. Of course with her life now on the line - plans had to change. Connections, spies and tech geniuses that never leave their safe place on Asteroid M were enough to track the caravan's route and give the extraction team just enough time to find a spot to lay in wait.

Somewhere in one of those black vehicles is Lauren herself - terrified of her fate and well aware that the trip isn't what it seems to be.

But what lies in wait in the rest of the vehicles? Certainly even under these circumstances the number is overkill - unless the obvious is the case, unless they're expecting this attempt and are more than prepared for it.

This is Jaxon's element, the whole world is bathed in shadows, but this has to be a team effort so as much as he'd like to just hitch a ride on the shadow express and place himself into one of the vehicles as their headlights pierce the darkness for the first time, he doesn't. He waits.

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lauren was arrested unfairly and rammed into the back of a secure vehicle by a system designed to grind bodies and souls into dust at its very worst. It's the ugly side of Justice, the proof that she's truly blind: in the wrong hands, justice is a cudgel to be wielded against the unruly, the uncivil, the impolite.

The uncorrupted and indefatigable.

And once in a while, when the scales truly, disastrously sag to the point of scraping the ground... you get heavily armed and armored transports in the deep of night, on the eve of a trial, with dangerous rumors circulating amidst a mysterious uptick in highly advanced anti-human violence.

You get the Brotherhood of Mutants lying in wait like bandits on the road to Jericho, sinners and Samaritans in stealth garb poised to tip the scales towards something resembling--

-- if not FAIR, then RIGHT.

<< Comms are fully encrypted and shielded, >> Polaris softly states, dressed from the neck down in black and green leather studded with buckles and studs. << The convoy's approaching; senses sharp. We don't know what we're looking for, but we'll probably know it when we see it-- feel it, hear it, whatever. >>

Joshua Foley has posed:
Going in dark. It's a challenge when you're a mutant of bright gold. He hasn't yet mastered switching from gold to black without causing harm, so he improvises with the best camouflage he can find.

Clad in a sleek black body-suit, paired with matching black boots and gloves that leave his fingers free for touch, he adds a hooded coat for extra concealment. A mask covers the lower half of his face, leaving only a sliver of gold visible through an eye-slot.

He agrees to catch a ride with Jaxon, positioning himself for quick action in case Lauren or anyone on the team is harmed. Though a pistol rests in a shoulder holster, it's clear he's not planning to use it unless absolutely necessary.

Standing slightly behind and to the right of Polaris, he taps his comm.

<< Elixir here. Medical on standby. >>

His voice is calm but ready, every sense heightened for the mission ahead.

Neena Thurman has posed:
The recent train hit has reminded Domino of an easily forgotten lesson for any lone wolf: Being a part of a team of heavies means there's room to shift one's focus. Working alone is all fine and good but being caught up in the middle of the action can be a little hazardous to her health.

Times like this Lady Luck works better in a support role. From a healthy distance. With a semi-automatic .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle loaded with rounds not available on any commercial market.

Quite literally lying in wait, the albino mercenary has eyes on the road via a fancy high-tech scope and an open commlink to the rest of the team. If any of the convoy vehicles manage to slip past the magnetically inclined mutants or the troops inside try to fan out and triangulate fire on the rest, Domino's here with some proper discouragement at her fingertips.

<< Solid copy, Polaris. In position and sittin' pretty, just mind the one o'clock field of view. >>

Paris Bennet has posed:
Exodus wouldn't usually move a finger to protect a mere human. Not anymore. But this is an exception, because... politics. And if it is important enough for Polaris and Magneto, then it is important enough for him, even if he doesn't understand it right now.

The mutant with the white cloack actually glows in the dark. And there is a white cloak. He is not really made for stealth, so he is keeping some distance from the road. Telepathy keeps him in touch with the others and with the incoming convoy. <<I have them. I could check those minds and verify if they are law-enforcement or something else.>> He offers.

Laura Kinney has posed:
X-23 isn't really affiliated with the Brotherhood. She's done a little work with Domino and Lorna in the past. But then Laura has never really been that involved with the X-men either. Outside of her 'Dad' being connected to the team. Even then there are some things which side of the X-men/Brotherhood line you fall on you can agree are wrong. Like letting people get murdered while awaiting trail.

It's pretty clear cut. Even to someone with a very unusual upbringing like Laura. Murder is bad.

Well okay maybe there are some rare exceptions to the rule. People carrying out war crimes for example. But a journalist?

They'd have to be writing some real awful stuff to justify an extra-judicial killing. So unless Lauren happens to have written up a bunch of pieces about false flag operations... Well she doesn't deserve to die.

Her outfit for tonight's operation? Camouflage picked out in patterns suited to the local area. Right down to the season. Plus a ghillie suit and wrapping on her own firearm. The petite mutant former assassin has plenty of experience with ambushes and, shortly after setting up, will be practically invisible to those without enhanced senses of some sort.

She's not bringing a .50 call. But she /is/ bringing a big gun. The same oversized weapon as last time she worked with Domino & Lorna! Except maybe this time she'll need to pull the trigger.

Technically not so much a rifle as a magazine loaded direct fire grenade launcher. Loaded with rounds typically used in cannons mounted on attack helicopters....

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Inside the lead van: MUTANT SIGNATURE DECTECTED.

Outside, there's nothing the sounds of night insects, the occasional hoot of an owl and the sounds of approaching engines.

Just has the approaching headlights become more than just dots in the distance, the lead van pulls slightly ahead. The back doors of the van open even as it pulls further ahead. It shows no signs of slowing.

<<I guess the game's on.>> - over the comms from Jaxon. <<What's the plan? I don't think we want what's in that lead van to come out?>>

Closer, closer - it's speeding up, leaving the rest behind. The SUV that's next in line swerves into the opposite lane. Another van passes it by, back doors flying open.

And so it continues, SUVs and vans playing leap frog until all but one of the vans is toward the front of the line - leaving all of the SUVs between those vans and the last.

Back doors open on every single one.

It almost feels as if they're the ones staging the ambush.

<<I'm going to try for that last van, there's a reason it's dropped behind. That might be where they have her.>> Jaxon twitches with nervous, impatient energy. He's not used to asking permission once the game is afoot. He's a solo act.

Lorna Dane has posed:
ELSEWHERE

"Some how," says a tall, powerfully built and beautifully chiseled man with perfect, golden hair, "some way: our sacred Labyrinth has been breached by the Adversary. Hell's maw opened and disgorged its most faithful servants on holy ground-- interrupted our rites, OUR communion with the Spirit that shines beyond the Burning Gate and calls to the hearts of the righteous."

Every inch of his bare chest is a mess of fresh, red lash marks, raw but on their way to healing; from the waist down, he's dressed simply in loose linen breeches and sandals. Surrounding him is a small congregation of robed figures; most are in shades of deep blue, while a couple of the ones nearest to him wear bold scarlet edged with gold. Surrounding them is what's left of a chapel, razed God knows when until just a handful of bricks were left standing. Piecemeal walls form a broken ring around the group; the scarred man's lectern lies dead center.

"The righteous do not flee," he states, earning a round of murmuring agreement.

"The righteous do not falter," gets a round of bubbling affirmation.

"The righteous stares darkness in the eye and fights to their last, content to die ablaze with heavenly glory," summons a roar of zeal and a rush of raw, gold and white flame as an assortment of burning weapons is lifted into the air.

"... and the righteous are unafraid to sacrifice from the very core of their being, if they must."

Turning towards the red robed figure to his right, the scarred man - the Deacon of this assembly - extends a hand.

"Brother Gregory," reverberates from his lips, exponentially softer than the fire of just moments ago, "Step forward." A smile touches those lips, replete with sadness.

"And pray with me," he beckons, even as the man complies by edging closer and gladly placing his covered brow against the Deacon's palm.

ON THE ROAD

What's the plan?

<< Stop the-- >>

The first set of doors unleashes a peal of squealing noise, as if hauling nothing less than a dozen detuned, autonomous harps playing against rather than with one another.

<< -- nnhhh-- >>

A squalling chorus rips through the barest of spaces between the second set of doors, swelling to a melodic cacophony by the time they're flopping open on their axes. The world ripples around the convoy; astral space twists, distorts, knots, and folds--

The third doors open.

For exactly 0.7 seconds, gravity does a 90 degree turn around the Brotherhood, sucking them towards the road-- towards the oncoming vans and SUVs--

The fourth doors open as the ground meets Lauren's would-be saviors, firmly underneath them when a heartbeat ago they were crashing through empty air. Deep tones of midnight blue and purple ripple across the sky, tinting it and drawing the stars into stark, vivid relief through their veil.

ELSEWHERE

As the fifth doors open, screeching tires drive the convoy to a terribly close stop just inches from the congregation at the ruined altar.

A road that once rambled between town and city rolls endlessly into the horizon--

-- over the horizon--

-- THROUGH the horizon and back again, gnarled and twisted and branching along half a dozen angles that only grow more haphazard, the more distance is gained between where the convoy's coming from and where it's going.

WAS going: given the brakes, it's fair to say that the convoy has arrived.

And given the shuddering mass of red fabric swelling and seething at the scarred Deacon's palm, there's nothing good here.

Nothing but brimstone, death, and most of all fire: white, gold-cored fire that burns hotter than any fire has a right to, hot enough to lap through barriers and invulnerable skin to burn what lies beneath, body and soul. Fire erupting from burning swords, lion-headed shields, and golden spears as a small army of robed figures wielding burning weapons fans out around the ruins, clearly angling to meet the revealed Brotherhood and keep them hedged violently out of interrupting the Deacon.

Joshua Foley has posed:
The only thing Elixir really knows about ambushes is that NCIS taught him to take out the first and last car first in an attack. As he watches the cars playing a shell game, it catches his attention. "What are they doing?" he mutters to himself, his brow furrowing in confusion. He blinks a couple of times, trying to make sense of the erratic movements, but he knows he's not the tactician or military specialist here. Someone else will have to figure that out.

Before he can process further, everything flips, turns upside down, and he feels himself being drawn toward the van. Instinctively, Elixir tucks his arms and legs tightly to his body. He knows he'll heal if he survives the crash, but resurrection takes much longer.

Instead of colliding with the van, he's pulled into... something else. It looks a lot like a twisted version of the Crusades, truth be told. Slamming into the ground with a bone-jarring thud, he lets out a grunt of pain, nausea churning in his gut. Struggling to focus, he reaches up to tap his comm.

<< Elixir here. Anyone else? >> His voice is strained, the impact and disorientation evident. He's painfully unaware of the danger rapidly approaching them. He really should have paid more attention when Nettie was teaching him mystical detection.

Paris Bennet has posed:
Exodus frowns as his mental scan finds some oddities. <<I believe some of them are shielded, but... ah, some are Styker's followers, that false prophet again!>> Ah, of course Exodus would get extra-offended when religion is used against mutants. Because, zealotry works both ways.

And gravity usually works in one way, so the sudden turning takes him by surprise, for less than a second. Then he decides to ignore gravity, because he can. Which means he is not going to elsewhere... and he loses contact with the others.

Neena Thurman has posed:
Seeing the vans take up frontal formation and pop open their back doors in preparation sure seems like as clear of a sign as they come. << Attack formation. They must have clocked us. Either means they're confident or stupid. Watch yourselves. >>

Every van except one. Jaxon has the right idea, the van which stands out likely has their target. << Copy Tenebris, good hunting. Cover fire on the way. >>

The only question left in her mind is who gets what vehicle. There's a lot of angry powerful people out this way, it's gonna get messy real quick--

Just HOW quick and HOW messy not even she could have anticipated the odds of. Everything goes sideways, like -properly sideways- in a flash, followed by a legitimate flash as the pale sniper's grabbed and gravity-tossed back into the ground with a heart-felt "OOF!"

Oh this is wrong. This is all so very wrong. << The HELL just happened?! Shit, hard contact! We got trouble! >>

Close quarters combat with a fifty cal is ... not ideal. Not for anyone involved. But it'll make for lasting impressions even if she misses! Rounds meant to stop armored vehicles dead in their tracks are far more likely to rip people in half, or worse. She braces the massive gun and touches off the first round at whichever cultist is unlucky enough to draw her attention.

-=BWOMF!=-

Jaxon Blain has posed:

He was going for it, that rear van and then he just wasn't. This went sideways fast, really fast. So fast, in fact, that Jaxon didn't even have a moment to think about escaping into the darkness before he wound up elsewhere.

But once there? The place that isn't where he was only moments ago? He takes cover. It's not fear that drives Jaxon into the shadows where he belongs. After his upbringing, there isn't much he fears other than being delivered straight back to the hands of the man that raised him.

So it's not fear - it's common sense, it's a tactical retreat until he can better understand the situation.

His voice is probably barely audible through the comms, his whisper just a breath. It wouldn't due to give away his unique position too early - if they don't already know he's hear. <<Temple of the Burning Pentecost, I recognize their leader - weird fucks, even for Purifiers.>> The weird fucks bit likely went without saying.

One shadow to the next puts him closer to the scarred man in charge.

Erik Lensherr has posed:
It's a poor piece of political leverage to be involved in this assault. One flatscan life, incalculable culpability and doubt from the inevitable press that follows it. The prudent, judicious, politick solution would be to allow the hit to go off; to express condolences. Deepest sympathies. Promises of justice; vengeance; evolution of the systems that failed us.

But Magneto is not a politician; and the Brotherhood may be a movement, but for some it is far more ideal than tool. Innocence lost in cruel calculus is the reality of every such killing, victory earned not in the refrain of rhetoric and martyrdom, of loss and reprisal; but of simply standing up, when an oppressor oppresses, bringing truncheon and hatred to bear like a slavering maw. Victory is victory; the yoke that binds will never be wrought to common cause. The signatures within the vehicles, the weaponry possessed by this remarkably well-armed convoy, proves shielded to Magneto's probing-- fascinating.

Their chariots of flame-driven steel? Less shielded. In sharp, swift succession so abrupt as to ring out nigh-instantaneously, each vehicle shears its axles-- both its axles-- as fleeing tires join wrenching metal as the chaotic rhythm keepers of a discordant medley, bouncing, hurtling, tumbling in a dozen different directions as reality ripples and shifts, distorting in a circumference outwards as crashing vehicles join waylaid Brotherhood operatives in-- well. That remains to be seen, doesn't it?

The cavalry arrives; but the battlefield? That has dramatically shifted. For all their power, Magneto and Exodus can do little but sense that rift; witness its impact; and take faith in their comrades acumen.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Something about this whole thing smells off to X-23.

And not in the 'this smells fishy' sense. There's a scent on the breeze when those armoured vehicles pull to a stop which is out of place. Incense. A little she could understand. Maybe one of the drivers uses it to cover up the smell of a little pot they're smoking or their partner likes eating gas station burritos on the job. But every vehicle? And so much of it?

Her position, flat on the ground aiming at the vehicles with the oversized firearm, means the gravity shift doesn't exactly knock her over. But it does drag her along the ground. The ghillie suit catches in the undergrowth as she goes, fabric ripping and tearing, but thankfully it's just clothing. And any damage to her? Well it heals.

Then there's the BOOM of the .50 cal ringing out.

The party has official started.

One of the many perks of a healing factor is enhanced strength and agility. So throughout the gravity shift Laura has kept hold of her weapon. She's even kept it largely on target. << Magic I assume? >> She wonders into the comms channel. A casually as if she's asking how the weather is. Foot claws pop with that distinctive SNIKT. Burying themselves in the ground to stop any sudden gravity shifts from throwing off her aim.

She pulls the trigger. There's a second bang, quieter than the .50 cal, but a moment later it's followed by a KABOOM. As a 20mm grenade explodes.

Lorna Dane has posed:
<< You're gonna have seconds-- >> Polaris warns, not even bothering to stand before thrusting her hand into the air and summoning a crackling, green forcefield around the team. << Fan out-- cover--! >>

Heavenfire erupts against the leading edge of the barrier, providing the Brotherhood with protection whose short-lived nature is underlined by the oppressive heat that leaks through its surface. As wide as the field of effect is, the barrier is porous from the inside, facilitating fanning - or shooting - out.

Thanks to Laura and Domino, the Purifiers learn this the hard way: one robed figure just crumples along the violent trajectory of .50 cal round to the head, folded and limp on the ground; several more are scattered by concussive force and fire courtesy of a 20mm grenade. One's set fully aflame; it doesn't stop him from desperately lashing out with his whip, snapping and searing the air fruitlessly a couple times before striking the ground and summoning a round of tremors followed closely by crumbling asphalt as the ground splits open for a dozen feet along the whip's path. Fire gushes from the newly rent wound; the barrier wavers as Polaris tumbles across the ground for several feet then forces herself off of it with a quick magnetic pulse.

These Purifiers - weird fucks though they may be - possess the presence of mind to break ranks and separate when vans vehicles that SHOULD have found their way towards controlled stops are transformed into screaming, tortured battering rams careening towards their ranks courtesy of the unseen hand of Magnetism's eldest Master. One set of tires collides with a line of rubble at just the wrong angle to send the whole vehicle tipping forward: it flies for several feet before crashing on its hood, bouncing, and skidding towards the Deacon and his hulking, red-garbed sheep, still solemn--

-- still praying--

-- still shaking the air of wherever 'here' is with words and phrases wrenched from the depths of antiquity and then some. Each phrase provokes shudders or swelling--

<< Watch the red one watch the red one watch--!!! >>

-- until a final exultation sees Brother Greg explode through his robes, leaving scarlet shreds dangling from a body grown fat with raw,

        unadulturated

            cackling JOY emanating from a dozen toothsome maws.

Thick, bulbous fingers splay as the laughing mass lurches towards the vehicle and lets it crash. Metal compresses, glass shatters, but Gregory?

Is unmoved.

Blissfully unaware of the shadow slithering towards he and his Deacon, but utterly unmoved.

Pale, suppurating folds of flesh cut here or there with mirthful slashes ripple with each ground-shaking step towards the congregation-- THROUGH the congregation, the solid black pits of his eyes sweeping from mutant to mutant as he rambles through violent tides, laughing all the way. It's mad--

It's inescapable, echoing from every surface, doubling and redoubling until it fills the air--

-- and once in a while, cultists succumb to it, collapsing into bouts of frenetic, tearful laughter even as war breaks loose in their seat of power. The compulsion to join stings at the backs of conscious minds, but one doesn't become a member of the Brotherhood by being weak of will: for now, at least, it constitutes a persistent, bristling annoyance scratching at the backs of psyches and haranguing sensitive senses.

-- oh, and absolutely shredding solid matter intermittently: now and then, a mouth yawning across Greg's belly, or down his arm, or over his back howls ESPECIALLY loud and the sound's intense enough to turn solids into powder and flesh into jelly along coruscating lines of sonic distortion.

Neena Thurman has posed:
Lorna's shields provide the first wave of defense in the first frantic moments of a rapidly changing battlefield. Dom would pay for the first round of drinks if they didn't come free on the asteroid.

Adding unexpected insult to unexpected injury: Now it's raining wrecked vehicles! From where Domino's still pulling herself up off of the ground there's a heavy *Crunch!* as one of the convoy vehicles drops down beside her and roooolls onto its roof, providing much needed cover at just the right moment to keep her butt from getting seared. The whip still manages to rip a gash through the ground and keep her stumbling instead of diving for cover. Good thing the cover came to her, instead.

Pale blue eyes go wide behind her portable cannon as one of the cultists takes aim at her, saved at the last possible second by another vehicle crash-landing to the ground. If the guy's REAL lucky it won't have landed squarely on top of him or rolled over him after touching down. She can't tell from where she's kneeling, but why leave anything up to chance?

She takes aim at the crash-landing vehicle and blasts a fist-sized hole clean through the undercarriage, giving that one cultist a lesson on the differences between cover and concealment.

There's still more vans to go. Appearing out of thin air to cartwheel across the area, these twisted hulks seem to have a knack of landing in the most ideal of places to provide the mutant team with cover while they last. With the Joyful now entering the fray they may not last for much longer...

The horrible evil cackling laughter pulls at Domino's psyche but it's going to take more than its maniacal laughter to deter what's already a semi-restrained madwoman from falling over the edge. With such a big gun in her hands she can find plenty of her own reasons to cackle! And so she does. Dump the mag, Thurman! Eight more rounds into the big ugly, dump and drop!

She can get the various burns treated later.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Everything has a weak spot. Even the toughest of beings has a weak spot. Chop off the head of the snake, it was always part of his training. If you can chop that head off, the rest of the body /should/ be easier to deal with. So far, from the shadows, the laughter of that hideous mount of flesh and mouths is barely a niggle. However, once he drops down from a patch of blackness above and behind the Deacon himself, Jaxon hesitates for his a moment when the niggle becomes more of a tickle. It's just a moment, just a beat, it might be long enough for him to be noticed.

It's not the neck he goes for with the thin, pointed blade - more an ice pick than anything - forged from shadow turned solid as steal. He doesn't go for the neck, his signature move. Jaxon goes for the eye. He wraps one arm around the man's neck and attempts to plunge that steeled shadow through the Deacon's eye and - if he's lucky enough to manage that - he might be lucky enough to hit brain. And, maybe, lucky enough to escape back into the shadows.

That's an awful lot of luck for one man.

Laura Kinney has posed:
Okay maybe Laura was a little quick to judge the incense smells. Because people exploding into /things/ never smells nice. Especially not when there's also the smell of burning flesh thrown into the mix. It's a good thing she's used to unpleasant aromas. Nothing like a chase in Gotham's sewers to really leave a lasting impression....

Still there'll be time to fondly recall sewers when debris isn't raining from the sky like confetti. X-23's reactions are fast, inhumanly so, and rather than try shelter from the storm she flows through it. Ducking, weaving, and dodging. Her claws whirling to slice clean through those incoming bits of car. It's a lot like cutting bullets from the air except. More.

The same goes for more Human shaped threats. Those swords burning with holy/infernal fire might be dangerous but the hands wielding them are only /Human/. Compared to X-23 they might as well be moving in slow motion. Bend, twist, leap. Slice. Slash. Cut.

No sense risking a parry or block. Not when she can dodge and simply remove the offending limb entirely.

Her gun still has four more of those thunderous rounds. Saved for priority targets. But she can't fire when allies are close. Still there are threats /everywhere/ right now. So whenever she spots a cluster of foes?

BANG. BOOM.

Barely breaking stride. Each shot incorporated into her brutal adamantium bladed ballet.

Lorna Dane has posed:
It's an awful lot of luck for anyone, to successfully assassinate a cult leader and get away scot-free in a single smooth series of movements.

Especially someone experiencing momentary hesitation on the cusp of striking.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice you...?" whispers through the terrible transition from hesitation to action, punctuated by a pivot-turned-wrist crushing snatch. With steeled shadow trembling inches from his eye, the Deacon runs crystal blue eyes down, then up Tenebris' shadowy form, brimming with a mixture of disgust and pity. "That I wouldn't feel the abomination of you tainting my air?

"That the Reverend would ever forge a weapon capable of harming one of his most faithful...?" comes with bone-crushing pressure and eyes ticking closer to Tenebris'.

He SHOULDN'T be this strong. NO Purifier should be-- not without some manner of tech. And yet:

"I name you 'Anathema', and I cast you out."

He hurls the man made of living shadow right back the way he came at terrible speeds, muscles surging with unnatural strength.

Two shield-bearing Purifiers near the back of their ranks drag the butts of their armaments along the ground, cutting grooves into the asphalt as they catch Polaris between intersecting firing lines. One shield, then the other roar with columns of white and gold Heavenfire, and while the force field suffices to keep her from being flashfried, it snaps under the pressure and the backlash sends her flying a dozen yards down the road until she slams into an SUV's grill.

<< We-- fuck-- find Lauren-- GET her and-- we can be extracted, but not without her'--! >> she groans through the comms, amidst metal and glass.

Laura, at least, sees a bit more luck: beset on all sides by oppressive, divine heat wielded by zealots, she takes full advantage of black science and mutant agility to stay several steps ahead of mystical armaments while she reduces cultists into pieces of themselves. Some simply lose limbs to Adamantium claws; others are consumed in munitions fire or flung aside by concussive force. Narrowing the field eventually brings Laura face to face with a bloodied Purifier, hood askew and blonde hair jutting out wildly. With her flaming sword clutched in both hands, she edges back a step, sets her feet--

-- raises her weapon--

-- and meets Laura with a veritable forest of burning, translucent echoes of her sword wielded by golden, translucent echoes of her arms blooming forth from her body to parry, slash, and thrust at the clone assassin.

The luckiest of them all finds herself face to face... ... es... with a tower of quivering joy and learns that eight rounds are not enough to stop a good time. Enough to slow it - briefly, with every couple shots arresting it momentarily - but not stop it; not on their own. Each bullet tears through flesh, shatters teeth, and rips chunks from the Joyful's body; he does not stop coming. Blood only gushes from the wounds for mere seconds before staunching, leaving gaping horror framed on all sides by laughter; he reaches for Domino's skull with every intention of crushing it in his grasp--

A gout of Heavenfire splashing across his back, having burned through Domino's object lesson on concealment courtesy of a dying spasm of destructive will, is the first thing that spurs a moment's pause in the beast, causing a sudden, rippling halt and wrenching pivot towards the source of the interruption. Far from angry, there's pure, earnest mirth rolling from a dozen sets of lips, no matter how ragged some of them are thanks to those .50 cal rounds: even though his back's a horrific mess of burned flesh now, bathing in sacred fire is a blessing.

When he eventually whips back towards Domino, it's with a celebratory spinning backfist meant to swipe her head from her neck, eager as he is to share his glee with the albino mutant.

Neena Thurman has posed:
This is not good this is not good this is now an empty weapon FUCK. Continuing with Domino's own laughter isn't so easy when she -isn't- causing the world to explode and what damage she could do has only, somehow, made a nightmarish situation that much worse. This Joyful dude is creepy as hell! He doesn't care about taking her hits! As he's reaching out to crush her head like a ripe grape...

...Luck strikes. Briefly. Blessedly. It's enough. Enough to pull herself together. Enough that when the Joyful swings back around to try and take off her head she's got a near forty pound chunk of steel rifle up to block the attack. The poor cannon served its purpose well but now it lies in ruin, having taken one final hit to save the life of its operator.

Broken pieces fly one way. The albino flies another way, again hitting the ground but now left to frantically scramble backward on hands and feet before she's able to turn and make an attempt to bolt upright and flee. Not doin' it! She can't do this! That insane laughter, the heat and fire, the twisted reality around them all, it's starting to mess with her -real- bad.

"Somebody Drop This Chucklefuck!"

Please..?

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Jaxon may have made a mistake in hesitating, but his wasn't the only mistake made. Had his adversary really aimed to cast Tenebris out, he would have done so into the light, not the darkness. In the shadows, he has a moment to regroup, in the shadows he's virtually untouchable. He doesn't simply stand in the shadows, he becomes one with them. As such, he moves through them like no other.

Is Jaxon hurt? Absolutely - he can't use his left hand, he's struggling to regain the ability to breathe. But, he's safe to do so.

Still unable to use his right hand and cradling it gently against his body, Jaxon sets out to do exactly what Lorna asked - find Lauren. Stepping from one to the other, leaping from one to the other without ever needing to step from them - he may be hobbled, but he's still up. Recon, finding the right room, finding the right person, finding the way to all of it - that's what Jaxon does best. So he'll keep stepping, hopping and leaping from one patch of darkness to the next until he finds the woman they've come to save.

Joshua Foley has posed:
"Are you alright... fuck." Domino runs past Elixir, and the golden skinned mutant realizes that instead of being in the back, he's now on the front line. Which is not his favored place to be. But with the situation as it is, healing is going to have to wait. There's a draw of breath and he lets it out. There's noone between him and the Joyful. "I guess I..." And then the laughter hits.

Clutching the sides of his head, he tries to shake it off, his healing in overdrive. "...they're dead. My parents are dead, they are /not/ here!" he reminds himself as he finds that the mass before him is the illusion of his parents, beckoning him forward for an embrace.

But it's too much, and he's overwhelmed as he runs forward towards the mass of collagen, fat, skin, and just leftover parts of people as his footfalls carry him to the Joyful. "Mom! Dad!" he cries out in jubilation - and falls straight into the putrid mass, his golden skin enveloped and devoured within.

Laura Kinney has posed:
The woman facing Laura pulls up her magical swords and whirls them around in such an impressive display. A veritable wall of magic swords. Challenging X-23 with ferocity, skill, and even honour.

It's thanks to the Outsiders movie nights that X-23 knows exactly what to do when faced with such an opponent. Gun beats sword. As demonstrated by the venerable Doctor Jones himself. It's a little big for close in work. And the rounds do rather /explode/ a lot. But she heals and she strongly suspects her opponent does not.

Practically leaping back to dodge out of a close sword stroke the barrel comes up slightly. She gives an apologetic little shrug.

And pulls the trigger.

The shot is aimed behind her enemy. Giving herself as much distance between her lightly armoured self and the blast radius.

It's not going to be enough though. The blastwave sending her cartwheeling back. Gun lost in the tumble. Hair scorched, shrapnel ripping through flesh, and the camouflage ghillie suit ripped & ragged.

Groggily she rises to her feet, pushing a protruding bone back in place, even as her healing factor starts to knit her seemingly mortal wounds back together.

The petite mutant makes a low snarling noise. Blood running from the corners of her mouth. And raises her claws back into her fighting stance.

Lorna Dane has posed:
Through the vehicular chaos of Magneto's parting gift to the zealots who abducted his fellow mutants across space, one van managed a smooth and unmolested stop near the far side of the ruined structure from the battle exploding between mutants and their most zealous haters. Distance keeps it - relatively - safe from the oppressive heat of supernatural fire and the more conventional destruction meted out by Laura's heavy weaponry.

In the murderous wastes of this twisted, labyrinthian road, it may as well be an oasis with a steel-framed pond.

Domino chooses the better part of valor and is rewarded with asphalt buckling underfoot, sinking into the depths of wherever this is at the heart of an everbowing crater of malleable ground threatening to rebound at any second upon hitting its tensile limit--

She's rewarded with red, raw nails raking across her psyche, squealing through flesh and bone--

She's rewarded with looming figures cast in shadow, united in raucous mockery of the little spot that thought herself something more--

-- and if she manages to run far ENOUGH, she'll even be rewarded with a moment's peace from the psychoactive battery the creature's very attention subjects her to as malleable earth hardens, screeching nails subside, and towering overseers recede into the strangely hued skies.

Which is more than can be said for Josh.

Whose ears fill with warm, rich, familiar, booming, incessant, thorny, acidic, utterly and unmistakably familial laughter.

The warmth, the richness, the hollow echo of paternal comfort sink into a golden mind like hooks, drawing the healer into the waiting embrace of four loving arms sketched around the bulbous and mawed mass of the Joyful; it's only as Josh draws within inches of sinking into the monster's clutches that love becomes loudness-- becomes loathing every bit as familiar, as resonant as it was when it was reserved for everyone but their perfect son, cut with the rancid bile of seeing him dipped in gold like some sort of self-styled god.

It's only when the Joyful's arms begin cinching around Joshua's body that utmost joy threatens to reduce the healer to jelly, assailing his body with violent hypersonics forceful enough to bruise-- for starters-- as the lumbering beast turns towards Domino and resumes trundling after her.

Meanwhile, Laura demonstrates a well-worn truism by firing a grenade through the wall of swords presented to her, ending what could have been a bloody toe-to-toe confrontation in a thundering flash-- and costing her the gun in the process. At least the sword-wielder is also down--

-- though, whether this proves cold comfort or not when a heavy, incense-gushing censer skips off of asphalt in a bid to catch her unawares will depend on how quickly she's able to transition from 'fighting stance' to 'actually fighting'.

"Who are you," the man on the other end of the chain howls, "to stand in the way of divine judgement?!"

En route to Laura's skull, the censer frezes for a split-second-- and then it, well. It splits: it opens horizontally, unfolding into hemispheres connected by a gold and brass filigree grill-- maybe four feet around in all, erupting with enough rapidly intensifying Heavenfire to threaten X-23 with the birth of a white-gold star dangerously within her periphery.

The shadows remain an evershifting terrain thanks to the preponderance of unusually bright, flame-based weapons on the field; copious debris provides plenty of opportunities to traverse with minimal interruptions, however, necessitating little more than the occasional dodge or parry from the odd remaining zealot who happens to be near enough to a patch of shadow to notice Tenebris disturbing it. It's only a matter of time before the shadow-manipulator finds Lauren, because it's simple process of elimination:

She's relatively safe and hopefully sound in the back of that still, undisturbed oasis of a van.

Lorna Dane has posed:
In the heart of the ruins, shield-bearing Purifiers have begun drawing back from the fight in favor of gathering around the Deacon, lion-headed barricades facing outwards in a protective - flaming - ring.

Neena Thurman has posed:
Oh, to have next to nothing for psychic defense. All Domino has to her name is the void, a dark empty space where memories and feelings go to be buried. But it's not a finality. They're simply buried so deep as to be forgotten by herself. Minds stronger than hers can still dredge those memories back to the surface.

Whether the ground is actually solid or malleable doesn't matter, to her it's all gone awful. Sinking into the depths, throwing her head back and her arms out with an anguished howl as psychic claws tear straight into her. The laughter consuming her like the gleeful cackling of the Project director himself as the spot marking her as their property goes not across her back like the subjects before her but across the side of her face.

All she can do is try to run, as she's always done. From location to location, job to job, never able to settle down or take root or truly -relax.- Just run. Run from her past, run from her problems, from her horrible nightmares, from all of the people she was unable to save, from all of her problems she's ended with a bullet.

Just. Fucking. Ru--

*WHUD!*

So lost within the Joyful's psychic torment she never saw the wrecked van she has now sprinted straight into, flipping up over the crumpled bodywork to cartwheel clear over to the other side. It's but a momentary reprieve, wide teary eyes filled with panic and uncertainty as she tries to reconnect with reality, or what currently serves as such.

The battle's still on. She's not yet free. That horrible walking terror is going after Elixir but it hasn't lost its taste for her.

She's not going back to that place. She WON'T. An incendiary grenade comes free of her harness, the pin pulled, but she keeps it clutched tight in her hand. If she falls under the Joyful's torment again it would only be for a few seconds longer before her entire world goes up in synthetic hellfire.

But for now, just. Frickin. RUN.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Even with only one good hand, dancing and dodging is easy through those spaces between dark and light. He'd likely be a dead man if it wasn't for the shadows. It's not the first time he's owed them his life.

It doesn't take Jaxon long figure out that something isn't right.

One relatively unscathed van amid all this chaos - it stands out.

<<I think I found her, Polaris. Let you know in a second.>>

Stealing himself with a blade made of shadow in his good hand, Jaxon takes one last leap - out of the frying pan and right into the fire.

Once he hits the inside of that van, the blade he was holding just vanishes. Luckily he's prepared for that, he's always prepared for that - but fraction of a second it takes him to stoop and pull a mundane match for the hardened shadow might be a too little too late.

Of course he does have the element of surprise on his side. It gives him a beat to put himself between the guards in the van and Lauren. <<Yeah, got eyes on her, but I may be in trouble here.>> His update over the comms comes even as he's in motion. A hard, well placed kick to the back door of the van sends it flying open. There might even be an edge of something like fear in his voice when he says <<I can't use my powers.>>

"Go! Run and hide!"

Joshua Foley has posed:
So much warmth. So much familiarity. These 'parents' are nothing like his real ones. The ones who despised him for being a mutant, who died in an explosion when the Reavers bombed his home. As he's pulled in, Elixir feels that familiar warmth-then the pain. The sonics slam into him, and even with his power, it hurts. His golden skin is battered and vibrates with bone-breaking, organ-liquefying force. Pain rips through his young frame, tearing at him from the inside out. He's just a tasty snack for the Joyful, a golden fleck to be added to the mass.

As he's absorbed, it seems he's doomed to be part of this horrific, putrid collective. With his last gasp for air, he reaches out, golden hands grabbing at flesh. Healing the pile isn't the plan.

The bruising on his skin grows darker and darker as gold skin is replaced with black. With his uniform shredded by the beast, more and more skin is exposed as he transitions from healing to causing harm. Deep inside the Joyful, the deadly Elixir takes root. He attempts to melt away flesh, rip muscles and bone, bring about decay, disfigurement, any number of diseases. He becomes stage-four cancer within the Joyful.

Laura Kinney has posed:
There is training someone to fight and then there is the training X-23 received. Beaten up and broken down. Suffocated, dunked in acid, set on fire. If you can imagine it she's probably experienced it. And every time her healing factor has pulled her back together. Her mental resolve sharpened until it's keener than her claws.

If she can move she can fight.

Forcing herself into motion she cartwheels away from the flail. Even as it starts to open up, swelling into an immense fireball, she's snatching up sharps of jagged metal % glass then throwing them like shuriken.

Her acrobatics taking her close to one of the wrecked trucks that've rained down after Magneto cut loose. And she throws herself low to roll underneath. Aiming as many of those improvised throwing weapons at the mans legs and feet. In the hope that Heavenfire censer is not really suited for blocking.
The longer she dodges and dances away the faster she moves. As fractures seal. Blood clots. Cuts knit back together. It's near impossible to tell under the layer of gore but her body is rapidly repairing itself. The process neither glamorous or fun. Laura looks like she's been pulled straight out of a low budget gore slashes movie.

Of course. If she's hit by a fireball that's almost as wide as she is tall... Well it'll be bad. Even for her healing powers. Fire isn't fun at the best of times and /magic/ fire? Seems /bad news/.

Even as she's rolling out the other side a claw swipe SNIKTs through the gas line. So any attempts to batter through to chase her will ignite a rapidly expanding pool of gasoline....

Lorna Dane has posed:
There are two guards, two guns, and one woman in a heavy, blinking harness in the back of that undisturbed van.

The guards are just as surprised to see Tenebris as Tenebris is to be rendered suddenly weaponless. Their moment of inaction gives him time to boot the door open; his, on the other hand--

... on the UP side, at least Lauren's afforded a narrow opening to dive out of the van while the guards converge on Tenebris. One of them flips his gun around for use as a club; the other discards hers entirely in favor of a shock baton, which she tries to jam into Jaxon's ribs while her partner aims to cave his skull in. The close confines are a blessing and a curse: two of them, both with a level of training outstripping the zealous but inexperienced cultists outside relying on sheer force of arms more than anything else; one of Jaxon, injured and forced to fall back to mundane arms against kevlar and reinforced metal.

Nothing about any of what follows is liable to be pretty for anyone involved.

As if compelled by psychic imperative, Lauren just. Frickin. -- hobbles, after bouncing and tumbling along the ground, then slowly picking herself back up again. These are not the kinds of landings and activist trains for: adrenaline is the only thing keeping her on her feet, and it's of limited value given that her overwhelming instinct is to flee directly away from her prison-- which takes her towards the battle zone.

The same battle zone where thrumming, sacred fire grazes within a handful of feet of leaking gas, igniting it via sheer proximity and setting off an explosion that sends the flail flying straight upwards. Its wielder's already staggered, bleeding and screaming and studded with razor sharp shards of glass: his desperate hold on the flail breaks under pressure and the blindingly radiant ball of fire soars skywards. The air temperature spikes violently: beyond the ambient heat shed by supernatural fire burning above the battle, on top of the flames belched intermittently from the jagged, whip-scored gash in the earth, there's the matter of rapidly spreading flames snaking across the road, threatening to burn anyone who isn't quick enough on their feet to compensate.

All of this does, at least, buy Laura more time to recover: only a couple of the remaining Purifiers are caught unawares by the gasoline fire, but all of them compensate for it one way or another, even if it just means running the hell away.

Even if it means collapsing towards the church, where lion-headed shields fill burning air with a building chorus of tremorous purrs and vibration.

Lauren flees into the arms of chaos-- flees into the heat of carnage-- flees towards quivering, hulking folds of suppurating flash alight with laughter and screams as purplish-black growths erupt all across its body, swelling to excess and bursting only to be replaced by more masses, more pustules, more wretched tumors--

"MUTANT SIGNATURE DETECTED!"

-- flees until the harness locked around her body glares, red and angry with suppressive light--

-- flees until murderous darkness washes out of Elixir's flesh, and smile-slashed Joy melts all around him leaving a heavy-set, deathly pale man in his 40s barely holding his arms around Joshua's body as his own convulses and spasms--

-- and flees until she can safely tumble behind the safety of a wrecked, nearly shattered van.

She almost barrels into Domino in the process; luckily, the poor woman winds up sprawled on the ground just inches shy of doing so.

Back in the other van -- once pristine and undisturbed, now spattered with blood --

-- the shadows once again call to Tenebris, just as a guard with a swollen eye and broken jaw rears back to slam the butt of his rifle into the mutant's face.

Neena Thurman has posed:
The unfamiliar company comes as such an unexpected surprise that Domino barks out in shock as Lauren seems to pop out of nowhere. It's only by years of training she doesn't immediately drop the grenade! Though as panicked eyes dart to the other woman there's a sudden pang of recognitin in the harness she wears. Of the angry red lights which are attached to it. The look of desperation present in the other mutant's face.

Oh shit. Oh shit!

<< H--here! Polaris! Got eyes on -- on --! HERE! >>

What was the name of their target? Dom doesn't remember! If it hadn't been for seeing another tattered reminder of her own past she might not have made the connection at all. Trying to provide any sort of emotional support, stability, or reassurance to Lauren is quite out of the question for the terrified albino but she's still capable of tagging an objective when it's all but dropped straight into her lap.

This also means hesitating. Not running. Not fleeing. Another dart of wild blue eyes sees a blackened Elixir and ...something else? Something pale and overweight and looking...like...

It's a one-handed quick draw. A frantic shot loosed out into the world. The single bullet snaps right past the Joyful's head. Past Elixir's head. Complete misses on both, though the telltale sound of a piece of jacketed metal banging and whizzing across the battlefield is proof that the lone projectile is still in play for the sub-second it's still in the air.

Lady Luck take the bullet. Or, she might if Dom didn't happen to be within range of Lauren's activated mutant suppression harness.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
With the shadows he's lethal, without them he's as well trained as the best of them - but so are the guards in the van. And there's two of them. The hit from the shock baton winds up being more of a graze when he ducks to the left to keep his skull intact. Defensive moves is about all he has. He's still one hand down.

But if he's going down, he's going down keeping them from trying to follow Lauren out that door. It's a back and forth, a pull and push - he manages to make his adversaries feel a few, but Jaxon is feeling a whole lot more of them.

And then the shadows call.

A millisecond before he would have found himself unconscious or worse - Jaxon is just /gone/.

Again, it's a moment of reprieve, a little relief. It gives him time to clear his head, assess the damage and report in. <<Don't get too close to her. I think she's the reason my powers failed. Or at least something they've put on her.>>

Joshua Foley has posed:
As the Joyful melts away around him, the cancerous growths bubbling and popping like puss-filled blood blisters, Elixir has no choice but to ride out the storm. He holds onto the man, refusing to let him go until there is no longer a grip on him. His blonde hair is plastered with various human liquids that is best not described here, and he spits out a glob of blood. "Be glad I'm merciful, you sick fuck." he manages to say as he gets to his feet.

His hand closes on the man's chest. And he concentrates.

Deep within the tangled labyrinth of arteries and veins, something sinister began to take shape. It started as a whisper, a quiet bulge in the wall of a blood vessel nestled in the intricate forest of the brain. The blood, that vital river of life, flowed with relentless force, pressing against the weakened spot. It was almost imperceptible at first, a minuscule swelling that went unnoticed amid the bustling, electrical chatter of neurons and synapses.

But the bulge grew. Second by second, it expanded, a malevolent balloon filling with every heartbeat. The vessel wall stretched thinner, more fragile, a ticking time bomb hidden within the sanctuary of the skull. It pulsed rhythmically, sinisterly, with the same unyielding rhythm as the victim's heartbeat.

The brain, a delicate masterpiece of creation, worked obliviously around this burgeoning threat. Thoughts were thunk, memories recalled, emotions felt-all while the aneurysm expanded, fed by the life-giving flow that would soon turn traitorous.

Then the fragile wall could no longer withstand the pressure. It burst with a sickening, silent pop, like a balloon pricked by an unseen needle. Blood erupted into the brain's pristine environment, a crimson tide flooding the control center of life itself. Neurons screamed in protest, firing off random signals as they drowned in the viscous liquid.

The aneurysm had done its work. In its wake, it left a trail of destruction-a life forever altered or ended by the silent assassin that had lurked within the shadows of the brain. The once bustling neural pathways fell silent, drowned in the aftermath of the aneurysm's deadly rupture.

Elixir stumbled away, puking a few steps away as he dropped to his knees, "FUCK."

Laura Kinney has posed:
They run. It's not quite the murderous clarify of the Trigger Scent. But cause enough pain and those deeply buried killer instincts will resurface. And what does a predator do when it sees prey run?

It chases.

A breakneck sprint over uneven ground. Inhaling the smells. Blood, fire, and death. Laura barely needs to look where she's going. Following the fear and uncertainty. Thankfully this takes her /away/ from Lauren. Although who knows how good an idea getting close to those shields and the church is.

Probably not very.

But those Purifiers that are falling back have to get there first....

Running also makes it much harder to effectively use those mystical weapons. And without them? They're almost defenceless. Even the most casual sweep of her claws parts flesh and bone like air.

X-23 may have given up her life as an assassin. But tonight? Tonight she's a blood drenched killer once more...

Lorna Dane has posed:
The slowest Purifiers running from rapidly spreading fire and the rapidly hunting predator are deeply, direly out of luck:

Right after these stragglers - three in all - make it to the perimeter of the ruined walls, the one furthest in front slams facefirst into the radiant, white-gold wall of fire racing around the broken church, ensconcing those within behind a protective dome. If there's any silver lining at all, it's that the flames are heatless: the Purifier rebounds from the burning dome's surface, reels towards his compatriots, and staggers back a step before spying cold-eyed death.

To his credit - to ALL their credit - they greet the revelation left the firewall's wake with their jaws clenched and weapons raised, for all that tremors pulse through their limbs in the moment before they hurl themselves at Laura Kinney.

Their bravery doesn't do them much good - nor is it likely to make them particularly more memorable to a woman with murder bred into the core of her very being - but it's something.

As the burning dome brightens to the point of obscuring its contents-- as the same cacophonous, world-rending performance that heralded their arrival begins bleeding through the air in reverse-- as all those stranded on the other side of the dome find their bearings twisted ninety degrees once more, back the way they came--

-- it's something, to have an opportunity to spend their last moments back in the liminal stretch between Westchester and New York rather than under strange skies and a broken horizon.

<< --Fuck--! >> is the extent of Polaris' response to any of this: the news of Lauren's recovery, of the harness, the shift-- all of it is summed up in that singular, weakly voiced exclamation.

It's possible that she's gotten a glimpse of what's left of the Joyful, of course, which wouldn't help: what falls away from Elixir's touch is a man in torn robes wearing an expression of pure, primal terror laced with agony. Gaping segments of him are missing; what's left is bloated, pallid, marred with black veins and burst growths, the inevitable consequences of suffering Elixir's deadly touch combined with losing the vastly enhanced stamina afforded by his -- Mutant? -- gift? in full bloom.

Laughter may linger in ears, minds, and hearts for a little while yet, but not a sound further will be coming from the Joyful's lips.

"Put the pin in put the pin in PLEASE put the pin in--" is all Lauren can get out once she clocks that Domino's holding a grenade-- a feat aided considerably by having to put her head down fearfully lest the bullet ricocheting between broken husks, bricks, and - eventually - the very boundaries of spacetime blow it off. Of course, by the time they're back in New York proper, she doesn't say anything at all-- or DO anything at all.

Because she is in no way acclimated to being shunted to and fro through like this, and has accordingly passed out in a fetal heap.

<< ... nobody's dead, right? >>

Beat.

<< None of YOU are dead-- right? >>

Neena Thurman has posed:
There's a worried chant which isn't coming from Domino. Something about putting a pin in something. It's all rather lost to her as so much incomprehensible noise as reality again shifts and throws her, Lauren, and everyone who should be back in New York State -back- in New York State.

This time when she collapses onto the ground she just stays there, staring up at the sky. Breathless. Numbed thoughts. Fist locked rigid around the thermal device. The grenade without a pin. It had dropped somewhere on the other side of the portal.

Um.

<< ...Hey. Uh. Polaris..? Could...could I maybe get a hand over here? I, uh. I need a thing. >>

Joshua Foley has posed:
Now that he's done evacuating his stomach, Elixir... is mostly okay. He's burned out a lot, but not to the point where he feels the need to go comatose. Forcing himself to shift his arms back to gold as the black ichor retreates, the mutant healer (and sometimes killer) is looking around, checking biosigns on those in range. "If you need a heal, call out!"

And he'll start with Jaxon, wiping off his hands as best he can before laying them on him to heal him back up and knit his wounds."

Laura Kinney has posed:
From the moment X-23 set of sprinting there hasn't been even the slightest hint of noise from the petite mutant. And while the Purifiers may have died weapons in hand... Well it would be hard to call them good deaths. They tire. And Laura? Despite all the damage she's taken she's somehow moving faster.

No hesitation or mercy. Cuts so quick and precise her enemies don't even know they're dead until they literally fall to pieces.

By the time she returns to the group that killing frenzy has subsided. Idly picking her way through the fallen. Claws sinking into any Purifiers still clinging to life. May as well spare anyone else the task...

She flutters lashes coated in drying blood at Domino. An attempt to wink perhaps? "There's plenty of hands going spare over that way..."

Lorna Dane has posed:
<< Listen, I appreciate the energy if this' you flirting, but I ACTUALLY have a headache right now, and-- >>

Polaris is scuffed, bruised, and battered with dust, having spent the entirety of the engagement drawing fire that her shields could only barely stand while her perceptions were assaulted by unearthly metallurgy. Her hair's everywhere; her right hand's cupping most of her face and the other's loosely wound around her ribs. Her features twist into bemused frustration.

"... oh, for fuck's sake--" she hisses once she she gets close enough to Domino's hiding place for one headache to be replaced by another-- for too much input to collapse and spatter into simmering, searing discomfort fulminating just below the surface.

"Is that a suppression rig--"

Groaning, Polaris edges back from Domino and Lauren until she can flip through comm channels with a thought:

<< We have... ... ugh, SEVERAL for pick up, and I need an engineer-- someone who can handle a goddamn suppression harness... >>

There's a beat as the last few moments catch up with Lorna, provoking a double-take towards the blood-coated, quipping clone before she slowly turns away and resumes calling for support.

Joshua Foley has posed:
"Do you need a heal as well, Polaris?" Elixir asks as he notices the injuries and does a subtle bioscan. "I'm good for a few more heals." he promises her as he looks around. Everyone else seems okay. Or dead.

Lorna Dane has posed:
<< No, I'm-- I just need space from these guys, >> Polaris sends back, massaging her forehead and frowning in the harness' general direction. << Whatever their weapons are made from, it's so not normal it fucks with my senses-- just worry about everyone else. ... And yourself-- I didn't think you had anything like that in you. >>